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Category: Opinion

  • New Cold War Conflict over Ukraine

    Potential hotspots between Russia and Ukraine, 2021. Panther Media GmbH / Alamy Stock Vector

    There is an adage that the first casualty in a war is the truth. The US and NATO allege that Putin’s Russia is a malevolent aggressor against neighboring Ukraine.  They assert that the US and NATO are simply defending the rights of an oppressed nation. Meanwhile, what the sycophantic legacy news media convey to the public is a gross distortion of the reality in this current Ukraine crisis. Some relevant facts which Western government spokespersons and the media almost invariably falsify or omit altogether.

    1. NATO. In exchange for needed Soviet consent to the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, the US and NATO promised that NATO would not expand into former Warsaw Pact countries in central Europe. Said promise proved worthless as every US President, beginning with Bill Clinton in 1999, has violated that commitment even to the point that NATO now includes three former Soviet Republics and has plans to bring in two more (Ukraine and Georgia). Background:

    1. NATO was formed (in 1949) at the behest of the US and Britain as an anti-Soviet military alliance to fight Communism in postwar Europe, both: to prevent its spread to capitalist countries where Communist Parties were winning some elections, and (it was hoped) to undermine and rollback Communism in countries where Communist Parties held state power.  Assertions that NATO was a defensive alliance against the threat of a Soviet invasion of western Europe is pure fantasy; the USSR had been devastated by the War and very much wanted peaceful coexistence with the capitalist West.  In fact, Stalin and his successors always prioritized Soviet security over the spread of Communism.  With the disintegration of the USSR (in 1991) and the embrace of capitalism by Russia and all other former Warsaw-Pact member countries, NATO’s principal raison d’être ceased.
    1. With crony-capitalist President Boris Yeltsin in control of the dysfunctional corruption-ridden Russian state following the collapse of the USSR, both Yeltsin and the US wanted to align Russia with the capitalist West.  However, the US could not resist the temptation to expand the military component of its Western Empire so as to increase US hegemony over Europe as well as create new profit opportunities for US and west European transnational capital (including military contractors)  In so doing, the West disrespected and alienated Russia.
    1. As an increasingly antagonized Russia refused to comply with US and NATO dictates, the US placed intermediate-range missile batteries (planned from 2008, deployed in 2018) in new-NATO-member countries (Poland and Romania). Thus, the US increased the threat to Russian national security, apparently hoping to intimidate a weakened Russia into being more submissive. Said deployment also violated the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces [INF] Treaty.
    1. More recently, the US and NATO have conducted offensive military exercises in new-NATO-member states along Russia’s border, simulating preparations for an attack on Russia. Russian military exercises and deployments, as well as its diplomatic demands, are very much in response to threatening NATO actions.

    The US, NATO, and the legacy news media portray NATO as an instrument for maintaining peace and democracy in Europe. However, while NATO seeks to expand to the very borders of Russia, Russia is explicitly excluded from admission to membership. In fact, NATO is (as always) a key military force for Western imperialism; and that now includes actions to confine Russia so as to prevent it from having influence anywhere beyond its own borders.

    2. New NATO members. Most countries in central and eastern Europe have historically been antagonistic toward Russia. During much of the interwar period; Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states were ruled by usually-autocratic right-wing regimes which permitted their territories to serve as bases for infiltration (by France, Britain, and other anti-Soviet states) of assassins, saboteurs, spies, and other covert wrecking operatives into the Soviet Union. Moreover, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Baltic-state governments joined Nazi Germany in the War against the USSR. Further, former Warsaw-Pact countries are poor by comparison with western Europe. By joining the EU and NATO while claiming a need for protection against a purported Russian threat, they have been able to obtain considerable economic aid and benefits. As for the alleged Russian threat, it should be noted that the USSR consistently respected the postwar independence and territorial integrity of bordering capitalist Finland (which remained neutral in the Cold War). Moreover, despite the post-Soviet Baltic states often mistreating their ethnic Russian minorities, Russia has consistently respected their independence and territorial integrity.

    3. Russia. Most US and NATO-ally political leaders (including nearly every member of Congress from both parties) “justify” their hostility toward Putin’s Russia by claiming that it is an autocratic regime seeking to recreate the Russian Empire. In fact, the Russian government, like its US and other NATO counterparts, is a multi-party electoral regime. Is there repression?  There is; but there is also repression and political prisoners in the US (Leonard Peltier, Ricardo Palmera, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Edward Poindexter, Veronza Bowers, and several others). Is there some election rigging? There is; but that is true also of the US (electoral college, partisan gerrymanders, felon disfranchisement and other voter suppression practices directed especially at racial minority voters). Is the Putin regime semi-autocratic?  It is; but so are NATO allies Poland and Hungary, while NATO ally Turkey is much worse. Moreover, however deficient Russia is as a liberal democracy, Ukraine is far worse. Further, the US has no hesitation in supporting absolutely autocratic regimes such as Saudi Arabia. Do capitalist oligarchs exploit workers and national resources in Russia? They do, but that is so also in the US and its NATO allies. Self-righteous US and NATO disparagement of Russia as an “anti-democratic” outlier is the height of hypocrisy. Does Russia seek to maintain a sphere of influence (in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and a few other allies)? It does; but Russia’s foreign policy is primarily defensive, and its imperialism pales to insignificance in comparison with that of the US-led West. We do not have to approve of the Putin regime in Russia; but those who brand Russia as the aggressor, based upon nothing more than its commonplace deficiencies as a liberal “democracy”, are making a pretext to “justify” their stance as apologists for Western imperialism.

    4. Ukraine’s government. The US (thru NED and CIA) has funded (since the 1990s) pro-Western anti-Russian groups in Ukraine (and also in Belarus) in hopes of bringing it into the EU and NATO. This has emboldened chauvinistic ethnic-Ukrainian nationalists and fueled intense ethnic and partisan conflict within the ethnically diverse Ukrainian populace. Further, the US incited and supported the illegal 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych (in response to his decision to reject an EU economic proposal which would have aligned Ukraine with the West rather than maintain a more beneficial neutrality between Russia and the West). In fact, US State Department Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland and other US government leaders (including Senator John McCain) attended anti-Yanukovych rallies in Kyiv and urged them to overthrow their elected government.  Ukrainian factions which spearheaded the violence in this coup d’etat consisted of anti-Russia neo-Nazi factions including the Right Sector paramilitary organization and the Svoboda Party .  Moreover, while the current regime outlaws the Communist Party and even criminalizes the use of Communist symbols, it embraces and erects monuments to wartime Nazi collaborators including Stepan Bandera whose OUN [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists] participated in the mass murder of Ukrainian Jews. The coup regime subsequently incorporated neo-Nazi paramilitaries into its national armed forces (Azov Battalion) for use against rebel forces in the Donbas. The US and NATO now have a repressive racist client regime in Kyiv which is a pawn in their new cold war against Russia.

    • Note regarding the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).  NED was created by Congress in 1983 and receives virtually all of its funding from the US government.  While NED’s purported mission is the promotion of “democracy”, this is construed to mean: (1) support for opposition groups (media and civil society organizations) in countries with governments (including popularly elected governments) which oppose US foreign policy and the abuses perpetrated by transnational capital, and (2) provision of its funding and other assistance only to organizations which are pro-Western and supportive of private-enterprise capitalism.  NED, which like the CIA operates throughout the world, has funded partisan media and “civil society” organizations in scores of countries (Ukraine, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Syria among them).  It does not engage in democratic advocacy in autocratic US allies (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar).  Meanwhile, the US government offers no more than lip-service concern for the victims of repression by Western-backed client regimes.

    5. New cold war. With the need for a unified international response to: impending climate catastrophe, the Covid-19 pandemic, the new nuclear arms race, and other existential issues; one would hope that the US would work cooperatively with other countries (including: Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, DPRK, and so forth) to deal effectively with these threats. Why then this US determination to treat these other countries as enemies rather than as partners?  Said new cold war (along with another against China) provides “justification” for hugely excessive US military expenditures (providing huge profits to capitalist military contractors as well as to fossil fuel companies which provide huge amounts of product for US military operations). Moreover, any country which refuses to comply with Western imperial dictates sets an unpalatable example which undermines US world-domination and the neoliberal world order (which enables transnational capital to reap most of its profits). New cold wars (and false-pretense regime-change wars against vulnerable countries [e.g. Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011] which refuse to submit to Western imperial dictates) also provide opportunities for careerist foreign policy officials (in the State and Defense Departments, CIA, NSA, et cetera) and for major-party politicians (funded by capitalist interest groups) to bolster their credentials as hawkish champions of purported US “national security interests” (which are defined to include preserving the US position as the dominant superpower).

    6. Strife within Ukraine. Upon seizing state power, the US-backed coup regime in Ukraine acted to suppress language rights for the 29% of the population for whom Russian was their native language. The ousted President Yanukovych had been a proponent of making Russian the second state language of Ukraine (as it had been prior to the breakup of the USSR). Immediately after the coup, the new regime acted to repeal a 2012 Yanukovych-era law which gave language rights to all locally-sizable minorities (not only Russian-speakers) in regions with such minority populations. That repeal action provoked popular protests in southern and eastern Ukraine. The US-backed regime has subsequently enacted new legislation: substantially reducing the language rights of minorities, and also suppressing the use of Russian in education and the media. In 2016, the regime even imposed restrictions on the importation of Russian-language books (which, until then, had constituted 60% of such imports). Consequences of the anti-Russian and anti-minority policies: the 2014 secession of the (officially autonomist) Crimea region which soon after sought and obtained reintegration into Russia, and the current Ukrainian civil war between the central government and the breakaway Donbas regions. The US fuels this civil conflict: by denouncing Russia and the Donbas rebels, and by arming the central government as it seeks to crush said Donbas rebellion thru brute force.  The US portrays the Donbas rebels as separatist pawns of Russia; but, in fact, although the hostility of the anti-Russian regime in Kyiv has undoubtedly produced much separatist sentiment in the Donbas breakaway regions; their longstanding demand, consistently endorsed by Russia (until losing patience in 2022), was for autonomy within a unified Ukraine. Moreover, the Kyiv regime agreed to such autonomy in the 2014 and 2015 Minsk accords (which the US supported in a unanimous UN Security Council vote in 2015); but, yielding to pressure from anti-Russian chauvinists, Kyiv (with US acquiescence) has persistently refused to implement it.

    7. Crimea. The US and NATO use a double standard to justify their hostility toward Russia by branding the secession of Crimea from Ukraine and its subsequent re-unification with Russia, in defiance of the will of the US-supported client-regime, as a Russian aggression in violation of international law. However, the US exhibited a complete disregard for such purported international law when it intervened (1999) in Serbia with armed force to separate Kosovo (with the approval of its ethnic Albanian majority) from Serbia in defiance of the will of the Serbian government. Hence, a hypocritical double standard.  The West also evades the relevant fact that Crimea had a long history as part of Russia. In fact, sovereignty over Crimea had been transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 by a decision (of disputed legality) by Soviet leader Khrushchev without the consent, and contrary to the wishes, of Crimea’s predominantly ethnic Russian population; and most of the Crimean population welcomed their 2014 reunification with Russia.

    Ω.  Conclusion.  If the US and NATO had really cared about what was best for the people of Ukraine, they would have urged its government to make peace with Russia, Crimea, and the Donbas rebels: by accepting the secessionist will of the Crimeans, by implementing the promised autonomy for the breakaway Donbas regions, by committing to respect the language and other human rights of its minorities, by suppressing its neo-Nazi and allied hate groups, and by rejecting NATO membership and other anti-Russian policies.  In fact, the Western powers have cynically used Ukraine as a pawn in their new cold war against Russia.  In their arrogance they have pushed nuclear-armed Russia to the point that it has concluded that it must respond with military force.  The West’s new cold wars may be a boon for powerful sectors of transnational capital (especially military contractors and fossil fuel producers); but it is detrimental for the peoples of Ukraine, Russia, and much of the EU.

    The post New Cold War Conflict over Ukraine first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Picking NATO over Russia, or vice versa, is a fool’s game. Choose people, not power.

    Less than 48 hours into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and so much remains unclear. Will Russia occupy? Will NATO respond militarily? What are the risks of nuclear escalation? But one thing should be very apparent. Looking to either NATO or Russia in search of a good guy in all of this is deeply naïve.

    On the one side we have the Russian regime. Viciously illiberal and oligarchic, it’s a model of authoritarian capitalism. Determined to reclaim its lost imperial status, it’s as willing to bomb Ukrainian cities as it is to batter its own courageous anti-war protestors off the streets of Moscow.

    In NATO, we have an organisation which today functions as a beard for US imperial ambitions. It comes with a bleak history of supporting fascists in Europe and of the kind of brinkmanship which has brought us to where we are today. It’s also played a direct part in the disastrous wars in – to name just two recent examples – Libya and Afghanistan.

    Putin’s regime is no more anti-fascist than NATO is the FBPE movement with guns. They both just like to claim otherwise because it suits them.

    How about… no.

    There is little to admire or endorse in either party, even if both make claims which contain an atom of the truth. Has NATO aggressively pushed into the buffer zone Russia wanted after the end of the USSR? Have NATO countries helped arm and train actual, real-life fascists in Ukraine? Absolutely. Is the Russian regime grotesquely corrupt? Does it oppress LGBTQI+ people? Has it just invaded a sovereign nation? Yes, yes, and yes.

    Then why the clamour to side with one over the other? Of course, part of it is effective propaganda. NATO, for example, is held up by many as a liberal institution which sustains peace. This is a line echoed by mainstream British politicians of all stripes. It’s a position which even notionally left-wing MPs invoke uncritically. Even the last Corbyn manifesto promised to fund NATO. I myself, however, have a NATO medal from the war in Afghanistan which tells a different story. A story of occupation, injustice and, ultimately, hubristic failure.

    For some on the Russia-supporting side there is a nostalgia for an ‘anti-fascist’ and ‘anti-imperialist’ Russia which, if it ever did exist in this pure, unblemished form, it certainly does not today. The point being this nostalgia makes Putin’s claims of his invasion being about clearing out Nazis from Ukraine seem appealing and genuine. At least for some people. The Russia of 2022 is many things, but it’s certainly not the Russia which inhabits the mind of today’s Stalinists – even if that is your bag. From a purely humanist viewpoint, it definitely isn’t mine.

    Software update

    We need to move past the Cold and World War framings which are being applied to Ukraine. New Hitler’s, New Stalin’s, ‘appeasement’, and so on – this is a crass brand of politics, and it only benefits the powerful. We need to look at the world as it is, and support the people who are suffering in this war.

    While Ukraine was being invaded, people across the political spectrum here in the UK were churning out any number of hot takes on Twitter. And that’s what Twitter is good for – pretending you have all the answers – something which should absolutely be avoided. The real questions we should be asking are where can practical forms of solidarity be given? And where is the resistance from below coming from?

    We can’t make sense of the world running on Windows 1945, or Windows 1954. It’s long past time for some of us to update our software on Russia/NATO antagonism. And that doesn’t involve backing one over the other.

    If not them, who?

    While their crowdfunders and posts haven’t gained the same mass traction as some others, there are Ukrainians and Russians who are resisting both fascism and Russian militarism. The website CrimethInc has published the positions of some of these groups. Its article includes both Russian and Ukrainian perspectives.

    Russian anarchists released a statement on the invasion which CrimethInc published:

    Palaces, yachts, and prison sentences and torture for dissenting Russians are not enough for Putin’s imperial gang, they should be given war and the seizure of new territories. And so, “defenders of the fatherland” invade Ukraine, bombing residential areas. Huge sums are being invested in murder weapons while the people are impoverished more and more.

    The Anarchist Black Cross Dresden group have also established a fundraiser to help those caught up between these two forces. It said:

    You can help people to bring their relatives and friends in safety, support people who need to leave the country and establish a place to live, organize resistance to protect their neighborhoods, get needed goods and medical supply to survive. There are also a lot of people from other countries in the region like Belarus and Russia who seek in the last years refugee in Ukraine. With a Russian invasion they are threatened in Ukraine and are not safe anymore.

    Neither NATO nor Putin

    Partly, what we have seen in the last days are two sets of nostalgists relitigating old conflicts while Ukraine burns. This does nothing to help a population caught between two rapacious powers. There is a suggestion at times that because Ukraine – like Russia and, indeed, Britain – has fascists in it, the whole population is fascist and thus undeserving of solidarity. On the other side, there is considerable apologia for the bosses club that is NATO, and myth-peddling about its commitment to some liberal, ‘rules-based order.’

    These are positions which cannot stand. They are no use to thinking people, because they are factually wrong and fundamentally immoral. On the left, we are meant to be engaged in the project of reason. We are meant to back people, not power. And the time to do so is now.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/ Russian defence ministry, cropped to 770 x 440, licenced under CY BB 4.0.

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Facing up to anti-mandate protesters at Parliament – the brutal reality

    National Māori Authority chair Matthew Tukaki has seen plenty of protests and received his fair share of abuse, but what’s been happening in Wellington this week is like nothing he has encountered before. Justin Latif reports for Local Democracy Reporting.

    If there’s one thing Matthew Tukaki thought he and the protesters at Parliament might agree on, it’s the right to free speech. But after starting a campaign to end the occupation, he discovered that wasn’t quite the case.

    “I started a campaign on Sunday, which kind of went viral, called #endtheprotest, via social media,” the Wellington-based chair of the National Māori Authority said.

    The hashtag is now one of the top trending topics for New Zealand Twitter users and has been shared by close to 60,0000 people on Facebook, hitting a reach of 2.3 million accounts.

    Local Democracy Reporting
    LOCAL DEMOCRACY REPORTING

    Tutaki said the backlash, which had included physical threats and racial abuse, was initially just online but it quickly escalated once protesters realised he was behind the campaign.

    “I came out of a hotel on Sunday and someone recognised me, they grabbed me by the arm, and the force was so great, they ripped the sleeve off my anorak and left a bruise,” he said.

    Never one to let a single incident perturb him, Tukaki passed the protests on his way to lunch a few days later.

    “I was down there on my way to get some sushi and a group of about eight of them piled in, shouting verbal abuse and trying to physically intimidate me. One of them was about to lunge and if it wasn’t for the police, it could have turned into something much more brutal.”

    No self-respect
    He said the protesters seemed to have no self-respect, either for their own space or the environment they were occupying, given the amount of human waste that was swirling around Parliament grounds.

    “It’s like someone has turned up at your house, put a tent in your lounge, and then shat in your sink. It’s another level of disrespect out there and these people have no respect for the whenua.”

    National Māori Authority chair Matthew Tukaki
    National Māori Authority chair Matthew Tukaki … accosted twice this week by abusive protesters in Wellington. Image: Justin Latif/LDR

    Having attended many protests over his life as well as having many friends and family involved in different types of activism, he said the difference in how a Māori-led campaign operated was stark.

    “Ihumātao was totally different, hīkoi to parliament are different,” he said. “With Māori, when we have a protest, our people will go down to Wellington, we prosecute our kaupapa, present our petition and members of parliament will often come out to greet you.

    “It’s always well-organised, and it’s safe and then we clean up after ourselves and we continue to prosecute the kaupapa back home from our marae.

    “This is completely different. It’s violent, it’s aggressive and they have no respect for the whenua.”

    He noted that even after protesters sent out a press release welcoming visitors, “a reporter from Wellington Live went down there, and was beaten up”.

    Māori culture appropriated
    He said it was particularly concerning to see both Māori culture and New Zealand’s wartime history being appropriated.

    “Unfortunately our Māori whānau are being used as clickbait by those in the alternative right, who are pushing messages from the United States,” he said.

    “We’re being used, our symbols are being appropriated. Our tino rangatiraranga flag is flying next to the Trump flag, next to where a Nazi swastika symbol was painted on a war memorial.”

    He said the prime minister had made the right call not engaging and he felt some blame could be laid at the feet of politicians who had helped stoke racist conspiracies.

    “Many politicians have used Māori issues as a political football over the last 12 months,” he said.

    “What they have done is they have set free the sorts of racist attitudes that have been hiding in dark corners, and look at what those same politicians have done now — blame the government for it all.”

    Peddling of racist ideas ‘normalised’
    This wasn’t the first time Tukaki had received abuse, given his role with the National Māori Authority, which advocated for iwi and Māori business and community service organisations around New Zealand, but he was concerned by how normalised the peddling of racist ideas was becoming.

    “I was getting racist and threatening messages before the protest, but what this has taught me is the issue of racism is out there more, because people are now emboldened to show their names and faces.

    “And to be frank, people like [David] Seymour and [Judith] Collins, [Winston] Peters and Matt King all need to take responsibility for the beast in the cave they have conveniently let loose.”

    Justin Latif is a Local Democracy Reporting project journalist. Read more of his stories here. Asia Pacific Report is a community partner.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Lynley Tulloch: The irony of the Parliament protest: Peace and love – and ‘executions’

    COMMENTARY: By Lynley Tulloch

    There is a dangerous anger on rapid boil at the protest in Wellington. It is a stew of dispossession and unrest alongside various delusional beliefs and violent threats.

    Two weeks into the protest and the police have had to endure human waste and acid thrown at them; a car driven into them; threats of violence; chants of “shame on you”; accusations of police brutality; physical attacks and injuries.

    Meanwhile, the illegal occupiers (who refused to move their cars to a free car park) claim peace and love as the Ministry of Health reported today a record 2846 new community cases of covid-19 with 143 people in hospital with the virus.

    This “protest” was from the beginning organised in part and spread by QAnon (a conspiracy group that want to hang the government literally) alongside religious groups. Also in the mix are white supremacists (Nationalist Front).

    It was joined by “everyday people” annoyed with mandates they don’t want to live with.

    Well, if these “everyday people” can lower their standards to stand shoulder to shoulder with violent extremists all I can say is, “shame on you”.

    Deputy Leader of the House, Labour’s Michael Wood recently spoke of these threats at Parliament: “There is a river of violence and menace. There is a river of anti-Semitism. There is a river of Islamophobia. There is a river of threats to people who work in this place and our staff.”

    A recent Stuff article reported that a “Labour MP says protesters have been waiting at the doors of her office at night, and are telling politicians they will be ‘lynched, hung or kidnapped’”.


    Deputy Speaker Michael Wood speaking in Parliament on February 17. Video: NZ Parliament

    These underlying threads of violence give the protest its bite, if not its bark. The protest in Wellington was inspired by the truckers’ convoy in Canada and the occupation of Ottawa.

    We know that this was not an organic uprising of truckles, but was rather inspired by QAnon conspiracy theorists.

    Conspiracy far right media platform Counterspin in New Zealand was central in the formation and viral spread of the Aotearoa convoy,

    It is also, astoundingly, a protest that is preaching aroha (love) and peace. This is at odds with the Trump-loving, QAnon inspired cesspit of violence. QAnon believes that the government is full of elite Satan-worshipping paedophiles in government, business and media.

    They believe that politicians and journalists will be executed in a day of reckoning.

    That is why “hang ‘em high” was chalked on the steps to Parliament in the first days of the protest. Many people at this protest want to see politicians and media people executed.

    This protest also has the support of white supremacists with swastikas chalked on a statue in the early days.

    This disgusting far-right, anti-establishment hatred has no place in Aotearoa. Yet here it is at a protest supported by thousands on the Parliament lawn.

    I have protested at many events over the years in Aotearoa in the name of animal rights. Never would I stand alongside people who preach violence. And in all cases police behaviour toward myself and my fellow protestors has been exemplary and respectful.

    The protest was ill-thought out in direction, leaderless, and doomed to failure. Their demands cannot possibly be met in a time of global pandemic that has brought the world quite literally to its knees.

    And yet as the days tick by, yoga classes spring up alongside gardens. Food stalls and dancing, a concert, love and freedom grow like fairy tales.

    It’s all a fairy tale. Make no mistake. This protest may preach peace, but its bones are evil.

    — Lynley Tulloch

    It’s all a fairy tale. Make no mistake. This protest may preach peace, but its bones are evil.

    So where to go from here? There is no end in sight for this drama. The protesters are revelling.

    The government can’t move them. Police can’t move them. The army can’t move them.

    Ironically, as suggested by ex-Labour party president Mike Williams, it will be the covid virus itself that will bring them down. And that is one little virus that doesn’t care about threats of violence.

    The only thing it will take notice of is a vaccine and a mask, and those are in short supply on Parliament grounds right now.

    The virus doesn’t care if you are a child, or elderly, or immune-compromised or dangerously deluded. It doesn’t give a care in the world about your rights. It just goes and sticks its spikes right into you joyfully.

    And so, Mike Williams is probably right. And therein lies the biggest irony of this whole protest.

    Dr Lynley Tulloch is an educational academic and also writes on animal rights, veganism, early childhood, feminist issues, environmentalism, and sustainable development.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • It’s time to ramp up our fight against the police bill

    On 28 February, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will return to the House of Commons. The bill suffered a series of defeats in the lords. But those defeats were never going to be enough to kill the bill. And indications from the Home Office now confirm that home secretary Priti Patel will try and reinstate some of the provisions dismissed in the upper house.

    So it’s now time to take to the streets again and ramp up our protests against this racist and draconian piece of legislation.

    Don’t believe the hype

    As The Canary previously reported, it was always important not to get too excited about the defeats inflicted to the bill by the lords. Yes, the lords voted against amendments that would have introduced a raft of draconian protest offences, such as locking on. And these amendments, due to the fact they were introduced in the lords, cannot be re-added to the bill.

    The lords also voted against the provision for criminalising protests that are too noisy. But as this was in the original bill, it can just be added back in. Now, according to the Guardian, ministers are to “continue fighting” for the protest powers.

    Additionally, the lords didn’t amend the massive watering down of the threshold for prosecution for breaching conditions imposed on a protest. This key change in the wording of the 1986 Public Order Act means that a person commits an offence if they “ought to know” the conditions imposed by the police. In other words, you could be convicted of breaching a condition even if you didn’t know they’d been imposed. Currently, it has to be shown that a person knew the conditions were in force.

    Many other protest provisions, such as ten-year sentences for damaging a statue or ten years in jail for actions that cause “serious annoyance”, were also left unchanged.

    Racist and draconian

    Even if all the protest amendments had been stripped from the bill, it would still be a racist and draconian piece of legislation. And it’s essential that we all remember that the bill isn’t just about protest.

    As Eliza Egret previously wrote for The Canary in the wake of the lords defeats:

    The bill will still criminalise the way of life for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities by making trespass with the intention to reside in or near a vehicle criminal offence. It will allow the police to arrest travellers, and/or confiscate their caravans or vans, which are literally their homes.

    And as Egret points out, there’s a whole raft of other worrying proposals:

    The bill will change the minimum age of receiving a life sentence in prison from 21 years old to 18 years old, locking up young offenders who are usually from the most working class and difficult backgrounds. On top of this, the bill will introduce secure schools, which the government describes as a “planned new form of youth custody”. Secure schools will, essentially, be prisons for children aged from 12 to 18 years of age, and they will be run by charities: yet more money being funnelled into the private sector.

    To the streets…again!

    When the bill was first introduced, it led to a wave of protests across the country, including the uprisings in Bristol. It’s time to ramp up that pressure again. We need to be noisy, disruptive, and seriously annoying. We need to be ungovernable.

    We didn’t win our rights by asking nicely, and we’re certainly not going to keep them unless we make a hell of a fuss. The time for action is now. See you on the streets!

    Featured image via Emily Apple

    By Emily Apple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • As storms batter the UK, homelessness is a political choice for the Tories

    Storms Dudley, Eunice, and Franklin have recently struck the UK. As one after the other hit, many of us stayed at home rather than getting battered by the wind and hail outside.

    But what about Britain’s rough sleepers? As trees have crashed down and church spires have toppled, local authorities have temporarily provided severe weather emergency protocol (SWEP) placements for rough sleepers. SWEPs mean that emergency beds are given to people to prevent deaths on the streets in extreme weather conditions.

    But despite SWEPs supposedly being put in place throughout the country, the public has noticed people remain on the streets, sleeping in the brutal weather.

    Meanwhile, Streets Kitchens has continued to serve food to people who are still on the streets:

    Wildly inaccurate government stats

    The government’s official statistics put the figure of rough sleepers at 2,688 during the pandemic in autumn 2020. But many are critical of the Tories’ figures, which conveniently show Boris Johnson’s government to be successfully tackling homelessness.

    Figures from Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) show that the government figures are likely to be inaccurate. According to CHAIN, in London alone, 11,018 people were seen sleeping rough between April 2020 and March 2021. The Big Issue says:

    The figures show rough sleeping has increased by 94 per cent in the last decade – almost double the number of people living on the streets in the English capital 10 years ago.

    Homelessness is a political choice

    According to recent data, there’s currently a staggering £200bn worth of empty homes in Britain. In England alone, there are 665,628 vacant dwellings. In London there are currently 80,295 empty homes, and they’re worth around £41bn.

    A warm shelter is surely the most basic right that someone should have, and there are more than enough buildings to house everyone. Despite this, the Tories continue to put capitalism first, taking zero steps to regulate the property market. After all, it’s their rich speculator friends who are rubbing their hands with glee, sitting on empty properties in prime locations, doing nothing while they watch their properties increase in value.

    On top of this, many who own more than one home commonly rake in the money by letting out their properties short-term using Airbnb or short-term property agents. There’s been uproar around the world as Airbnb has driven up rental prices. Properties that would have once been long-term rentals are now higher-priced short-term Airbnb lets, reducing the supply of long-term housing and pricing out local people.

    System change

    If local authorities are able to open emergency beds during the storms, it begs the obvious question: why can’t the government do it permanently? After all, it was able to hurriedly house people in its ‘Everyone In’ campaign during the first wave of the pandemic.

    But perhaps more importantly, why do we accept a government that puts property speculation before human lives?

    With higher rents, increased fuel costs, last year’s cut to benefits, and an increasing number of people struggling with their mental health while living through a pandemic, it’s highly likely that the numbers of street homeless people will increase. We need complete system change where everyone has the right to a roof over their heads, and where everyone can afford to heat their homes and feed their children.

    Featured image via Leo Reynolds / Flickr. Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Jack Lapauve: Why we walked out in protest over EMTV news independence

    COMMENTARY: EMTV’s deputy news editor Jack Lapauve Jr in Port Moresby writes in defence of the newsroom’s decision to walk out in protest over the suspension of head of news and current affairs Sincha Dimara on February 7.

    The EMTV News editorial decision to run the two stories [about the court cases involving Australian hotel businessman Jamie Pang] was based on two important points in our line of work:

    Impartiality and Objectivity.

    Impartiality cannot be achieved by the measure of words in a story, it is achieved by:

    • Avoiding bias towards one point of view
    • Avoiding omission of relevant facts
    • Avoiding misleading emphasis

    All of which are stated in the EMTV News and Current Affairs Manual 2019 in section 17.5 under standard operations of the television code.

    By running the stories, the team was accused of bias.

    We fail to see the areas of bias in our stories, especially because we presented more than one point of view in both stories.

    The information presented was based on facts and in avoiding any misleading emphasis; we delivered objective television news packages that were fully impartial in the code and conduct of journalism.

    Objective stories
    Overall, both stories were objective stories where two or more opinions were looked at closely in each story.

    To be clear, in television news objectivity is achieved by taking a rational but sceptical approach to ALL points of view.

    In this case, Jamie Pang’s arrest, conviction and charges were looked at, as well as his community and social activities:

    • Pang was arrested – Fact
    • Pang was convicted, charged and fined for having firearms and munitions in his possession – Fact
    • Pang was acquitted by a sound and proper court of justice in the PNG judicial system, from charges relating to methamphetamine – Fact
    • Being acquitted by a sound and proper court of justice in the PNG judicial system, makes Pang a free man from drug charges – Fact
    • Pang is heavily involved in social and community works – Fact
    • Pang was rearrested and detained – Fact

    All these factual points were documented in one story.

    Head of news Sincha Dimara .
    Head of news Sincha Dimara … suspended by EMTV. Image: RSF

    It is important to understand, that in objective writing, the opinion of the interviewees are their own. However, [how] it is perceived by the our viewers is up to them to weigh [up] and decide.

    Objective [news] stories are often mistaken as opinion pieces.

    They are not the same.

    An opinion piece is a commentary on one point of view.

    Journalism independence
    As journalists we cannot be servants of sectional interests. It is our duty to speak to both “saints” and “sinners”. It is our democratic right to report on the good, bad and the ugly aspects of any story.

    There are no instances of perceived impartiality in our reporting which display a lack of objectivity.

    And a lack of objectivity leaves room for personal bias which is not acceptable in the journalism code of ethics.

    The failure of the interim EMTV CEO, Lesieli Vete, to understand how a newsroom operates and a newsroom’s code of conduct led to the suspension of head of news Sincha Dimara.

    Vete’s failure to try to understand the newsroom’s points of objectivity and impartiality in the stories led to her issuing of the statement portraying the newsroom as biased and in support of meth by sympathising with Pang’s employees and friends.

    Vete’s statement served the purpose of explaining the leaked memo and portraying a bad picture of her newsroom.

    Her statement lacked objectivity and impartiality because a written standpoint of the newsroom’s reasons for airing stories in the coverage of the Pang story were not included in her statement.

    Suppression of media freedom
    Vete’s questioning of our stance on running the story, and not showing any interest in learning nor understanding the way it was put together, led to further suppression of freedom of speech; direct and daily intimidation of senior and junior staff; micromanagement of staff whereabouts and activities; and direct and indirect threats of termination on staff.

    The immense pressure to put a [news] bulletin together while being highly and closely monitored took a direct and serious toll on newsroom staff morale.

    This created conditions that were suffocating to work under. A walk off was imminent.

    We are making a stand now in solidarity against bullying and ill treatment of newsroom staff in the absence of news managers.

    This is the third time we are experiencing a suppression of our right to freedom of speech, and we want it to stop once and for all.

    After the suspension of Sincha Dimara, EMTV’s deputy news editor Jack Lapauve Jr is now the most senior news manager and he was with the walk out. He posted this commentary on his Facebook page and it is republished here with his permission.

    The empty EMTV newsroom
    The empty EMTV newsroom last Thursday … after a walkout in protest by journalists over the suspension of their head of news Sincha Dimara. Image: APN

     

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Nick Rockel: Flower children and neo-Nazis, don’t hold the capital to ransom

    COMMENTARY: Open letter by Nick Rockel to the Parliament protesters.

    So the Parliament protest goes on, the first protest I can recall having absolutely no sympathy for. I’ve been on marches protesting lack of education funding, nuclear testing, abuse of GCSB [Government Communications Security Bureau] powers, the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] etc.

    All of which I cared about, but this protesting against health measures – yeah nah.

    People have been through a lot during this covid-19 pandemic; some have lost loved ones, and some have endured serious illness. We’ve all missed events or time with family and friends by following restrictions for the greater good.

    But these people? No they don’t want to comply with mandate restrictions to help others, no they don’t want to do their bit for herd immunity like the other 95 percent

    Sure a small number have suffered as a direct result of mandates although unless there is a genuine medical reason you can’t be vaccinated I have no sympathy, choices have consequences.

    You’re entitled to not get vaccinated, despite your placards this isn’t a fascist state. But if you want to be able to do certain jobs then get vaccinated, it isn’t hard, it is well tested, the science is out on this one.

    There is a false equivalence between “no jab no job” restrictions put in place to reduce the spread of a virus with the persecution of people based on race or sexual orientation. How ridiculous.

    Heavy machinery regulations comparison
    A better comparison is of someone being outraged at regulations where because you work with heavy machinery you have to pass a drug test to check you’re safe to do so for the benefit of others around you.

    Even that falls down, you’re not a danger to others if you turn up to work on Monday having smoked a joint on Friday evening, but if you refuse to get vaccinated to perform a role where you come in to contact with vulnerable people, for example in a retirement village or on a hospital ward, you present an additional risk to others.

    It may be a small risk but it is an additional risk that you are happy to impose on others for your “freedom”.

    There is also the additional, and unnecessary, cost to the health system of people not being vaccinated — the hospitalisation rate of the unvaccinated versus those with at least two doses is many many times higher. If our health system becomes overwelmed leading to the need to increase restrictions ironically it will be disproportionately down to people who want to remain unrestricted by regulations.

    Some suggest we could run parallel systems for the unvaccinated so the odd nurse or teacher who doesn’t want to get vaccinated can continue working. Our public services have limited resources, they are already under pressure, to think that we should run a parallel system for the 5 percent of people who choose not to be vaccinated is absurd.

    In addition to those opposed to health measures there are people at the protest for many different causes. According to their placards they oppose Jeffrey Epstein — which seems a reasonable thing to do if a little weird to include in this protest, fluoridation, 1080, Three Waters, and support Groundswell, Trump etc

    Some refer to “Jewcinda”, paint swastikas on statues and carry placards of the PM as “Dictator of the year” with a toothbrush mustache, or talking about Nuremburg trials. But those are just a few bad eggs, like the ones that threw, err eggs, at a child for wearing a mask.

    Not wanting others to wear masks
    Apparently their desire for freedom extends to not wanting others to be allowed to wear masks.

    Yes many people are there simply to oppose health measures rather than support these other causes, but the nutjob quotient, the thug element, even allowing for media sensationalism, seems incredibly high. I note the local Iwi have called for an end to the abuse and the threats at the protest.

    If Philip Arps or Kyle Chapman turned up at many protests they would be made very unwelcome to say the least. Seemingly this group is quite tolerant of them, tolerant of white supremacists. Nah — you’re supposed to be intolerant of fascists. Not protest alongside them and pretend you can’t see them.

    I don’t know if the other protesters are intimidated by the far right elements that are there with them, or happy that they have a common enemy in the government and content to co-exist.

    What is not plausible is any claim that says they are not aware of them, of the abuse and the death threats by those around them. I call BS.

    The Speaker of the house, Trevor Mallard, playing repetitive songs and covid health messages to the protesters, has outraged some people — many of us think it is rather funny.

    New Zealand has seen protests where people have really endured hardship for causes, be it Ihumātao, Bastion Point, the Springbok marches. Honestly the people outside Parliament have been there in the middle of summer, had some rain, probably don’t have enough toilets, and listened to some annoying music — its not much compared to getting battoned on Molesworth Street by the Red Squad.

    No return to Red Squad
    I would certainly not want to see a return to the approach of the Red Squad, but the police, as they have at other protests against covid health measures, have really lost credibility with the lack of action, at least against those intimidating people. The failure to tow, or at least clamp, illegally parked vehicles has become a joke.

    The mandates will eventually be gone of course; the government has already acknowledged this. When they go it will be based upon health information, one would hope, and not a relatively small group of people protesting.

    Not protesting, it should be noted, when these health measures were introduced a year ago when border workers became the first workers who had to be vaccinated in order to stop more spread into Aotearoa, but when the end is likely already in sight.

    Barring of course the unforeseen, the unknowable, that protesters demands would have ignored.

    I’ve been on protests of 10,000 people, and boy that feels like a big protest when you’re on it. These people though look to have maybe 400-500. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say there are a thousand protesters. That is still a very small number to be getting this level of media coverage, making demands the majority are opposed to, or to be claiming to speak on behalf of others.

    Don’t claim to be standing up for my rights, put down the placard and stop holding the good folks of Wellington — who would like their city back — to ransom. As one old fellow interviewed on the news said: “Go home — and take a bath.”

    These people do of course have the right to protest, not erect tents or park illegally mind you, but certainly to protest. I also have the right to think and say they’re a bunch of selfish idiots, a view I suspect is shared by a very large number of people.

    Nick Rockel is a “Westie Leftie with five children, two dogs, and a wonderful wife”. He is the author of the Daily Read where this article was first published. It is republished here with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Basically everything about the Tories new anti-refugee boat plan goes against expert military advice

    Private sector ships could be leased to stem the flow of migrants across the English Channel. At least, according to defence minister James Heappey. In a flustered interview on LBC, Heappey said the extra ships would be used in the channel to stop refugee boats.

    But there is a problem with this plan. Just weeks ago an ex-navy commander warned against virtually every aspect of it. And called for a move away from the rhetoric of ‘pushback’.

    Here’s Heappey stumbling his way through some moderately challenging questions from LBC presenter Tom Swarbrick:

    Stopping the flow

    Heappey seemed to be saying up to ten ships, and an unknown number of smaller vessels, would be leased by the military. He seemed to think these would be manned by military personnel. Measures in home secretary Priti Patel’s new Borders bill (here’s our take on this racist legislation) could then be used to arrest refugees “in the channel.”

    But Heappey’s comment were confused. And they contravened the advice of a former navy commander called before the defence select committee just weeks ago. However when pressed on who would be arresting refugees. Heappey admitted the Navy’s sailors and marines had no legal power to do so.

    Heappey also said that navy platforms were too big to ‘cross-deck’ people from dinghies to ships. And that:

    …we are looking that we would need anywhere up to another ten of the larger vessels that you would use to do the mid-channel cross-decking, and I’m guessing that we would need a number of smaller vessels to shadow dinghies to the shore.

    The plan was yet to be modelled, Heappey added, before suggesting 10 ships would be the upper end figure.

    Select committee

    But let’s look at what Heappey has said in comparison to recent testimony at the defence select committee on this exact issue or ‘Operation Isotrope’ as the military calls it’s involvement in the anti-refugee effort.

    The English channel is a busy global shipping lane, retired commander Tom Sharp warned the committee on 26 January. And he said that using boats to stop dinghies carried its own risk to life:

    In my view, we need to move our mindset very slightly away from this idea of large boats or small boats coming alongside overladen rubber dinghies. You are creating a safety of life issue right there, even though you are trying to help.

    Tremendous risk

    As currently envisaged, the operation carries serious risks to people’s lives, Sharp said:

    There is a tremendous amount of risk just associated with what is being discussed, which is why I do not think it is the right solution.

    Committee member Mark Francois asked about Rules of Engagement (ROE). This term usually describes the conditions under which the military can use violent force. Sharp did not approve:

    I am not even sure “rules of engagement” is the right term. This is a bit like confusing the inherent right of self-defence with rules of engagement.

    Immutable laws of the sea

    He also explained that it was “immutable” maritime law that mariners helped other mariners if they were in distress:

    SOLAS and UNCLOS 98 are immutable requirements that are nothing to do with rules of engagement. The rules of engagement will be set from the centre. They are then defined by lawyers.

    Francois then asked about “pushback” – the notion that small boats at sea could be turned around and sent back. Sharp rejected this terminology, and the ideas behind it:

    I would be happy if the expression “pushback” were never used again. I cannot conceive of a situation where you are physically turning these ships back that is either legal or, perhaps more importantly, safe

    Rhetoric vs reality

    Clearly the Tories love to sound hawkish on this issue. Refugees are one of their favourite punchbags to distract from internal crisis and appeal to their base. Former senior military officers would be the last place one would expect a nuanced view from. Yet the kind of views and plans put forward by people like Francois and Heappey have run aground on reality.

    The evidence is that there aren’t enough actual navy ships for the job; that the whole belligerent framing of the debate around ‘pushback’ and ‘rules of engagement’ is wrong; and that putting even more ships into an incredibly busy shipping lane is, according to people who actually know, a really bad idea.

    That’s before even getting into the heartlessness it takes to turn refugees away.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/PO Lee Blease, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under Open Government Licence.

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Civility policing: So what if activists cause discomfort?

    The Governor of Florida, Republican Ron DeSantis, is reportedly pushing for a bill that would make it unlawful for schools and workplaces to make people feel uncomfortable when providing instruction on discrimination in US history. The bill is part of a wider debate in both the US and Australia over the teaching of critical race theory — a debate that has been used as a proxy for an ongoing culture war over the nature of racism and systematic injustice. This wider debate raises many important issues, but one I am particularly interested in here is the issue of discomfort, because it permeates so many of the current debates around injustice and social change.

    When children marched peacefully for climate justice, for example, our Prime Minister admonished them for not being in school and said, ‘What we want is more learning in schools and less activism in schools.’ When a local conservation NGO used litigation to force the Minister for the Environment to actually follow the law when considering an application to approve the Adani coal mine, our then Attorney-General accused them of illegitimate green ‘lawfare’. When NFL players quietly took the knee to draw attention to systemic racism in the US, President Trump called on them to be fired.

    In all of these examples, the real target of the critique was the underlying cause. The Prime Minister did not agree with criticism of his government’s record on climate change, and nor did the government agree that the Adani coal mine poses an unacceptable risk of damage to the local and global environment. Similarly, President Trump is an unashamed defender of white supremacist ideology, and underlying this new Florida bill is a fundamental refusal to acknowledge any problem with the systemic nature of racism in the US or the responsibility of white people to challenge it.

    However, as fundamentally problematic as all these examples are, what I find particularly insidious are those critics who profess to support activist causes, but still insist that their activism should avoid causing discomfort.

    We see this all the time, such as in the civility policing of Grace Tame, whose principles and activism are apparently less important than the Prime Minister’s self-serving photo opportunity, or in the hounding of Adam Goodes for not being more gracious to football fans who booed him and shouted racist epithets. We see it in the (incessant) cries of #NotAllMen from men who claim to support campaigns to end violence against women by are more offended by any language that might appear to implicate them, the good guys, as being part of the problem.

    You may well disagree with the actual agenda of protestors, whether they be from Extinction Rebellion or the Anti-Vaccination Convoy. If so, have the courage to debate their ideas rather than hiding behind a critique of their methods.

    This same attitude is also evident in the calls from liberals for protests not to inconvenience fellow citizens (by, for example, disrupting traffic), or in the recent debates around the boycott of the Sydney Festival for accepting a prominent sponsorship deal with the Israeli government. Ben Adler and Nawfel Alfaris, for example, argue that Palestinian activists should have confined their activism to non-disruptive forms of free speech — such as speaking to organisers behind the scenes — because art should ‘unite’ us or, as festival director Olivia Ansell put it, ‘everyone has the right to feel safe’ (where ‘everyone’ apparently does not include Palestinian people).

    The consistent theme here is that challenging the status quo is fine unless and until it actually threatens to make anyone uncomfortable or, you know, to disrupt the status quo. Fundamentally, this is an underhanded means of silencing people while refusing to debate the merits of their cause. Of course, you may well disagree with the actual agenda of protestors, whether they be from Extinction Rebellion or the Anti-Vaccination Convoy. If so, have the courage to debate their ideas rather than hiding behind a critique of their methods (so long as they are not hurting anyone) or complaining that their approach makes you uncomfortable.

    Avoiding discomfort is a privilege only enjoyed by those who benefit from the status quo, and civility policing is fundamentally about protecting both that privilege and the status quo itself. Confronting the reality of injustice in both our past and our present should be uncomfortable, and no one is entitled to immunity. A corollary of this is that no matter how far removed you may wish to be from the struggle, you are not entitled to sit comfortably on the sidelines. As the late, great Archbishop Desmond Tutu, my absolute favourite rabble-rouser, once said, ‘If you are neutral in the face of oppression, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.’ The only option left is to rock the boat.

    Please note: Feature image is a stock photo.

     

     

    The post Civility policing: So what if activists cause discomfort? appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • Opinion | Prescription opioids aren’t driving the overdose crisis. Illicitly manufactured synthetic opioids are.

    This story originally appeared in the Garrison Project on Feb. 15, 2022. It is shared here with permission.

    New recommendations for addressing the opioid crisis from Stanford University and The Lancet are emblematic of the dominant approach to the crisis over the last decade, which has been focused on limiting opioid prescribing. “Hundreds of thousands of individuals have fatally overdosed on prescription opioids,” the study’s authors wrote, “and millions more have become addicted to opioids or have been harmed in other ways, either as a result of their own opioid use or someone else’s (e.g., disability, family breakdown, crime, unemployment, bereavement).”

    The overdose crisis is indeed worse than ever—there were nearly 100,000 drug-involved overdose deaths in the US in 2020—but, since 2016, the leading cause of overdose deaths has been illicitly manufactured synthetic opioids, not pharmaceutically manufactured prescription opioids. After peaking in 2011, opioid prescribing is at its lowest level since 1993. The CDC is now backtracking on its 2016 guidelines recommending strict limits on opioid use in pain treatment.

    The Stanford-Lancet Commission’s recommendations emphasize that US opioid prescriptions dwarfed those of other wealthy countries between 2010 and 2012. That was true then, but in 2019, the US opioid prescription rate lagged behind those of Germany and the United Kingdom. Even so, the US drug overdose rate remained more than three times greater than that of the UK and ten times greater than Germany’s. 

    The report reflects the prevailing narrative around opioids. Instead of grappling with systemic issues underlying the overdose crisis, TV shows, news organizations, and lawmakers have focused on stories of white victims whose dreams were derailed by greedy pharmaceutical companies and irresponsible doctors pushing opioid prescriptions. It’s an appealingly simple story with clear villains and victims, which has helped bring some accountability to opioid manufacturers. And it’s likely wrong.

    Between 2000 and 2010, opioid prescribing and opioid overdoses rose dramatically, but the percent of adults using opioids nonmedically hovered around 5% as shown in the accompanying graph.

    How can this be? Surely, if more opioids were prescribed and an increasing number of people were overdosing than more people must have been using opioids nonmedically, right?

    Not necessarily. Imagine if the death rate from car accidents in the US doubled. One reason might be that twice as many people are driving cars, so there are twice as many deadly car accidents. But there are other possible explanations. What if the people who were already driving cars are driving twice as often, or if it’s become twice as dangerous to drive a car because of lax car safety regulations?

    That’s likely what happened in the overdose crisis. It’s not that many more people started using drugs, but that drug use became more frequent and dangerous as prescription opioids flooded the illicit drug market, putting large amounts of opioids within easy grasp of people already using drugs.

    Studies show that the people who became addicted to prescription opioids overwhelmingly used illicit drugs before they were exposed to opioids. Whether people obtained their first opioid through a legitimate prescription is less important than how easy it once was to get ahold of prescription opioids.

    Prescription opioids were so prevalent in the 2000s and 2010s that people didn’t need to go to a doctor or a dealer to get them regularly. Between 2013 and 2014, two-thirds of people who used prescription pain relievers nonmedically got them from friends or family, often for free.

    This is the true story of the overdose crisis—one of pharmaceutical companies who made drug use more dangerous by flooding the illicit market with opioids—and it forces us to consider the well-being of people who use drugs and how to make drug use safer. It requires lawmakers to confront the harms of their policies criminalizing drug use, banning harm reduction services, and underfunding addiction treatment.

    Recommendations from institutions like Standford and The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, have an outsized influence on policymakers, especially when compared to views of community-based organizations led by people with lived experience of chronic opioid use or addiction. No community-based groups participated in the report, despite The Lancet’s own calls for more participation of affected populations in academic publications. 

    Because of lawmakers’ denial of evidence and derision of people who use drugs, the principal response to an irresponsible surge in opioid prescribing in the past has been an irresponsible plunge in opioid prescribing in the present.

    So it’s no surprise that many lawmakers’ proposals to address the overdose crisis target prescription opioids, like Sen. Joe Manchin’s legislation which would place a tax on prescription opioids or Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s proposed bill to pay providers more for using non-opioid pain treatments.

    There are several reasons why lawmakers cling to the idea that reducing prescription opioids will improve the overdose crisis. For one, Pacira Pharmaceuticals, a company pushing non-opioid pain products has spent millions in lobbying Congress. But the idea of cutting prescription opioids remains relevant because it stems from a fundamental misunderstanding about how prescription opioids led to the overdose crisis.

    Armed with a faulty narrative that prescription opioids caused new addictions, lawmakers passed laws to limit opioid prescriptions when they were already plummeting, mandated Medicaid and Medicare to implement programs limiting opioid use despite evidence that the programs increased use, and doubled down on criminalization by prosecuting people who use drugs as murderers when their friends overdosed. 

    A predictable effect of this approach has been that criminal organizations moved in to meet the demand left by rapidly declining prescribing rates, first with heroin and then with fentanyl. These shifts have made the US drug supply more volatile and lethal than ever. Another predictable effect has been that people with chronic pain who relied on opioids for relief have been left suffering without adequate care.

    Because of lawmakers’ denial of evidence and derision of people who use drugs, the principal response to an irresponsible surge in opioid prescribing in the past has been an irresponsible plunge in opioid prescribing in the present.

    Confronting the catastrophic harm of drug criminalization would involve reckoning with its role in racial oppression. Compared to white Americans, Black Americans have similar rates of drug use but are arrested at higher rates and receive harsher criminal sentences. They are also disproportionately suffering from the overdose crisis; a new study from the Pew Research Center found that, in 2020, there were 54.1 fatal drug overdoses for every 100,000 Black men in the US, while the rate among White men was 44.2 per 100,000.

    Presenting opioid use as inevitably harmful obscures the policy choices that make it so.

    Tellingly, the only mention of racism in the The Stanford-Lancet Commission report was to suggest that Black Americans avoided initial harms of the opioid crisis because racism limited opioid prescribing to Black patients in pain. The suggestion is that racist prescribing benefited Black communities. What’s more, the report argued that reducing economic deprivation is unnecessary in addressing the overdose crisis in part because the culture of poor people protects them from addiction, a startlingly paternalistic view. There are many studies linking economic adversity with higher risk of addiction-related harms, pointing to the importance of socioeconomic investments in reducing harms from drug use.

    Rather than discussing the harms of criminal-legal involvement for people who use drugs, the report casts criminal legal system involvement as an inevitability because people who use drugs commit non-drug-related crimes at disproportionately higher rates. But they don’t provide any evidence for this stigmatizing claim that casts people who use drugs as dangerous. Studies have found that people with addiction have high rates of being victims of violence. 

    The report also fails to appreciate that crime rates are largely determined by enforcement practices, which are usually targeted at Black communities. Research shows violent crimes and property crimes may actually increase with greater drug-related enforcement, not with greater drug use.

    Hardly mentioned in the report are the benefits of treating opioid addiction with medications like buprenorphine and methadone. These medications are proven to reduce crime, opioid use, and death. But state and federal policies restrict access to these medicines such that we don’t have nearly enough providers of medication treatment for opioid addiction to meet our needs.

    Presenting opioid use as inevitably harmful obscures the policy choices that make it so. Harm reduction programs like syringe exchanges are proven to make drug use safer without making it more common. Germany, where opioid prescriptions are now higher than the US and overdoses are far lower, has embraced a harm reduction approach. The US’s problem isn’t prescription opioids but a policy environment that’s hostile to people who use drugs.

    The Stanford-Lancet report makes recommendations for regulating pharmaceutical companies that, had they been in place in the ’90s, might have helped avoid the overdose crisis, though they’ll do little to reduce current deaths. When lawmakers fixate on reducing prescription opioids, they show us that they’re interested in scoring political points and campaign contributions, not in real solutions to the overdose crisis. We’ve long had the tools to ease the suffering of this crisis. We need leaders with the courage to use them.

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • Gavin Ellis: Copycat media abuse from ragtag bag of protesters

    COMMENTARY: By Gavin Ellis

    It is common practice for journalists to share contact details and locations in hostile environments such as war zones. Something is very wrong when news organisations in New Zealand share those details about their staff covering a story in downtown Wellington.

    Stuff’s head of news Mark Stevens disclosed last Friday that “competing media have shared contacts of journalists in the field to provide a safety network if things get dangerous”.

    It followed incidents during the “Convoy 2022” protest in the grounds of Parliament when journalists were abused, spat on, and assaulted. A Stuff reporter was pushed and shoved and a protester abused a Newshub news crew member and threatened to destroy his video camera.

    Protesters told reporters to “watch your backs on the street tonight” and that they would be “executed” for their reporting. Placards read “Media is the Virus”, “Fake News”, and accused journalists of treason.

    One placard parodied a covid-19 health message: “UNITE AGAINST MEDIA 22”.

    Anti-media sentiment is nothing new. The 2020 Acumen-Edelman Trust Barometer showed New Zealanders scored media poorly — and below the global average — in terms of competence and ethics and only 28 percent thought they served the interests of everyone equally and fairly.

    Those results did make me wonder what news media Kiwis were actually seeing and hearing but, in such things, perception is everything.

    Journalists reasonably thick-skinned
    But journalists are reasonably thick-skinned: They can take criticism and even insults. I doubt there is a reporter in the country who hasn’t been on the receiving end. Even death threats are something that goes with the territory.

    I’ve received a few in my career. Most were of the “Drop Dead” or “You don’t deserve to be here” variety and only one was a credible threat. That one could have endangered others and was not specifically directed at me (it was reported to the police).

    However, something has changed.

    A reporter I hold in high regard told me last week that he had received more death threats in the last three months of 2021 than in the previous three decades. I’m not going to name him because to do so will simply increase the likelihood of further attempts at intimidation.

    He told me reporters had become the focus of a great deal of anger and resentment:

    “A few recent events I’ve covered have seen members of the anti-crowd deliberately moving to within a foot of me, maskless, and breathing or coughing at me, or trying to physically rub against me. That’s not an uncommon experience for those out in the field. And there’s the odd occasion, too, where the threat of physical violence is such that I’ve needed to back-peddle quickly.”

    We are seeing a migration of behaviour. The US Press Freedom Tracker recorded 439 physical attacks on journalists in that country in 2020 (election year) and a further 142 in 2021. That compared with 41 in 2018 and 2019.

    Tightened security
    Last June the BBC tightened security around its staff after an escalation in the frequency and severity of abuse from anti-vaxxers. During Sydney anti-mandate protests last September, 7News reporter Paul Dowsley was sprayed with urine and hit in the head by a thrown drink can.

    Then, in November, it came here. A 1News camera operator on the West Coast graphically recorded a foul-mouthed middle-aged man carrying an anti-vaxx placard who shoved him backwards and tried to dislodge his camera: “Do you want this [expletive] camera smashed in your face, you [expletive]?”

    The current anti-vaxx movement in Canada has generated similar behaviour. Brent Jolly of the Canadian Association of Journalists said several reporters covering the trucker convoy in Ottawa have said they have been harassed on the scene and online and feel like they have a “target on their backs”.

    Evan Solomon, a reporter for CTV, told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that he had a full can of beer thrown at his head. It missed but exploded inside a camera case. All CTV crews now have a security person with them when filming outside, no longer use lights or tripods, and in one province have removed CTV identification from vehicles.

    In Ottawa people have asked reporters to remove their names from stories because they are getting death threats. Broadcasting journalists have been targeted – probably because their presence is more obvious – although one print reporter told the CPJ that she does not wear a mask during protests because it draws attention to her (she is triple vaccinated), does not go into protest crowds at night, and liaises with other reporters to advise current locations and risks.

    None of this should suggest a coherent and organised anti-media campaign is sweeping the globe. We are seeing something that is a good deal more orchestrated than organised, in which the anti-vaccination movement is no more than a rallying point, and the media are a target because they are messengers for inconvenient truth.

    The proof of that became apparent while I was watching the live feed of the protest in the grounds of Parliament.

    ‘End the Mandate’ signs
    A string of images spelled out how incoherent it was. There were printed “End the Mandate” signs, “My body, my choice” t-shirts, a loony sign saying natural immunity was 99.6 per cent effective, Canadian flags, a figure in Black Power regalia wearing a full-face plastic mask, someone wearing a paramilitary “uniform”, and a man waving the ultimate conspiracy theory sign: “Epstein didn’t kill himself”.

    Then there were the actions of the protesters. A few were gesticulating to police and the media, uttering things I could not (and arguable did not want) to hear. Many more were gyrating to rhythms playing over loudspeakers, beaten out on the plastic barriers on the forecourt, or generated in their own heads. It was a sort of group euphoria.

    And in a perverse sort of way I think that is what is behind the attitude toward media. 1News reporter Kristin Hall had been reporting the protest and wrote a commentary on the broadcaster’s website. In it she said that despite their varying opinions and causes, the protesters were “united in their distaste for the press”. Then she gave an example of just how incoherent this united front can be:

    “‘You’re all liars,’ a man told me today. When I asked if he could be more specific, he said he doesn’t consume mainstream media. People have asked me why I’m not covering the protests while I’m in the middle of interviewing them.”

    Unfortunately, it is this lack of logic that makes abuse of media so hard to counter. Media cannot make peace with leaders of a movement because it is a moving feast and the orchestrators are hidden from sight. It cannot be remedied simply by stating facts because these people accept only what supports and ennobles their own disinformation-fuelled world view, a view fed by inflammatory social media that conflates then amplifies discontent on a global scale.

    Nor can media offer immediate solutions to pent-up anger aggravated by two years of pandemic.

    What media can — and must — do is prevent contagion. They need an inoculation campaign to ensure that the malaise infecting a small group of people does not spread.

    Duty of care a priority
    Mark Stevens alluded to cooperation between media to keep staff safe and that duty of care is a priority. However, media organisations need to go further. They must, on the one hand, earn the trust of a population that does not generally hold them in high regard. It is best done by demonstrating that journalists are following best professional practice and that means quality reporting and presentation.

    On the other hand, they must ensure that the community understands that journalists have a right (indeed, a duty) to report on events in its midst — irrespective of whether or not its members agree with what they are being told.

    The United States has an excellent track record in openly discussing professional standards and the role of media in society. We should take some leaves from their book and bring the community more into the conversation.

    That is challenging, because the problem does not lie solely with the media but with the system of democracy of which it is a vital part.

    Rod Oram, in a commentary on the Newsroom website last weekend, discussed the need for democratic reform:

    “We have really struggled, though, to conceive, plan and execute deep systemic change, let alone get as many people as possible involved in that and benefiting from it. But that’s the only way we’ll tackle our deeply rooted economic, social and environmental failures.”

    That democratic reform must include the media rethinking how it engages with the public. They must introduce open industry-wide governance to replace anachronistic and sometimes self-serving structures. They must demonstrate their commitment to accuracy, fairness and balance. They must find new ways to be inclusive and pluralistic. They must secure recognition as trusted independent sources of verified facts.

    Calling out manipulation
    That will take time. Meanwhile the problem of media abuse will continue. The short-term solutions will include calling out those who seek to manipulate a minority to destabilise our society. Here are two good examples:

    The short term also requires media organisations to continue to meet that duty of care toward their staff. The Committee to Protect Journalists has developed a four-part “Safety Kit” to provide journalists and newsrooms with basic safety information on physical, digital and psychological safety. It’s a good starting point for any journalist.

    Of course, journalists also need to keep matters in perspective. The threats represented by a group of disorganised protesters remains relatively small and, with the right training, journalists can judge the level of risk they face in most situations.

    When it came to death threats, for example, I soon learned that I could bin the ones that were written in crayon.

    Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications – covering both editorial and management roles – that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a blog called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

    • Read the full Gavin Ellis article here:

    Copycat media abuse from ragtag bag of protesters

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Banishing body shame: ‘Ladies, We Need To Talk’

    ‘Ladies, We Need To Talk’ (the book) breaks the stigma around everything women are thinking but not saying. Author and presenter Yumi Stynes and health reporter and digital editor Claudine Ryan cover all the trickiest taboo topics from their hit podcast of the same name…from bodies and mental health to sex and relationships.

    In this Q and A BroadAgenda’s editor, Ginger Gorman, asks Yumi few pithy questions about what readers can expect.

    The book ‘Ladies, We Need to Talk’ is based on your hit podcast of the same name. Let’s go back to the start. Why and how did it begin?

    It started more than 5 years ago when Claudine Ryan, who is an experienced health journalist and very dearly loved boss lady at the ABC, wanted to pitch a podcast to the powers that be at the ABC. She needed a host who was a little bit out-of-the-mould for ABC. She reached out to me and we hit it off immediately.

    Why DON’T we talk about things like ageing vulva, female incontinence and clitoral orgasms? 

    There are lots of reasons – but the biggest one is shame! We’re taught from very early on that our bodies are shameful, embarrassing, and “weird” – just for being what they are, which is female bodies! If, for instance, menstrual fluid is so disgusting and shameful that we couldn’t possibly talk openly about it or show it on TV, then how are we going to be able to talk to our doctors and lovers about it? How are we going to robustly seek out the best ways in which we can manage it?

    If, for instance, we’re never told that urinary incontinence can be a common side effect of pregnancy and aging, then we’re led to believe that we’re the only ones experiencing it – that we’re defective, broken, and disgusting.

    Clitoral orgasms are wonderful things – but to talk about them? That would be to admit that women experience pleasure, and actually quite like it. And that, to some people, is fucking terrifying.

    When you look a bit deeper at why we are not talking about these things it comes back to gender inequality, especially in medicine and medical research.

    Why is it important to change that? 

    It’s important to talk about what we go through as people living in these funny bodies because we’re ALL situated on the spectrum of human experience, no matter how goddamn “perfect” we may appear to be from the outside. And all our bodies do weird things sometimes. And our minds. And all our relationships are sometimes whacky and all our behaviour is sometimes the result of trauma, hardship, pain, mistakes and misinformation. Cherishing ourselves, our spirits and bodies through better understanding is a feminist act.

    A really tangible example of why it is important to get comfortable talking about our bodies.

    Yumi Stynes (left) and Claudine Ryan

    Yumi Stynes (left) and Claudine Ryan with their book “Ladies, We Need to Talk.”

    Also given that so many topics you cover are taboo, how hard is it to get experts and case studies to speak out? 

    It’s the easiest thing in the world! It’s a universal desire to help others by sharing knowledge. Once the podcast ‘Ladies, We Need to Talk’ was established back in 2015, people knew it was a safe space. Their stories would be handled with gentleness and respect. Most people who come in to record their stories start by saying, “I wish more people knew this!” They’re ready to unleash. It’s quite a thing to behold.

    What was the most surprising thing you’ve learned both making the pod and writing the book? Can you please give a specific example or quotes/colour here…we want people to get a taste of the book + your wonderful writing style. 

    I loved talking to women about opening up their relationships to polyamory. There’s a lot of science backing up why women get bored of having sex with the same partner year in, year out, and while I like hearing from experts who study this stuff, it was hearing from women whose pussies are literally engorged and practically AFLAME from having hot additional partners and the kind of sex they actually WANT rather than bullshit obligation sex – that really thrilled me and made me think, “Oh my God, I know NOTHING!”

    I could just picture it, and their storytelling was so vivid. It made me think that this idea of being loyal to one partner is as flimsy and light as a helium balloon. The women I interviewed let go of their balloons. The balloons floated away. Oh, guess what? You can fu** who you want. No one cares. It’s your body. Do what you want with it. Have the fun you want. Feel the pleasure. Be greedy for it. Those rules? That shame you’re meant to feel? It floated away.

    So brilliant. If I were you I’d flick straight to the chapter on polyamory. And also listen to that podcast episode. I spoke with different people for the book than for the podcast. As soon as I put a call out for polys – among my own friendship group – my phone started pinging. It’s mainstream, but invisible to a lot of us. I mean, I’m exhausted just thinking about it, but also swollen with admiration.

    This book as adamantly feminist and refreshingly focuses a lot on choice – and thinking things through from many angles. Why did you write like this? 

    We’re all products of the society we live in, and it’s enlightening to question if we’re doing certain things because we want to – or because we’re expected to? Our culture isn’t all awful – but there’s a lot of expectation that sets women up to bear the brunt of bullshit – working for less pay, having to spend more time and money looking “pretty”, putting up with bad sex, taking on unpaid caring roles – because why? Because that’s just how it is.

    Questioning how it is snatches the power back into our hands. 

    A classic example is the expectation that we all want kids. What if we don’t? Like, what if we actually choose not to have children? People love to give women the “choice” to have or not have kids, so long as they eventually choose to have kids! If they actively choose to remain childless, it’s a revolutionary act.

    You’ve deliberately made the book super accessible. Tell me about your motivations for that. 

    I’m the daughter of a migrant. I’m always checking in to make sure that what I am saying would make as much sense to someone who speaks English as a second language as it would to a Aussie-born university professor. You don’t win prizes for being an incomprehensible wanker. I’ve been a broadcaster on TV, radio and now podcasts for more than 20 years, and the guiding principle of what I do is to make sense and be understood and hopefully bring some clarity, new information or enlightenment to the listener. I save being a clever bit** for my friends! Ha ha. 

    The post Banishing body shame: ‘Ladies, We Need To Talk’ appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • The Fear Not to Be

    This year marks the seventieth anniversary of the theologian Paul Tillich’s famous book, The Courage to Be.  Widely read in the days when an educated public read books, it is long forgotten.  In it, Tillich surveys the history of anxiety and fear and their relation to courage, religious faith, and the meaning of life.  His closing sentence – “The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt” – became acclaimed as an astute description of the existential need to find a foundation for faith and courage when their foundations were shaking.

    His writing profoundly influenced many, even when they didn’t wholly agree with him.  This included Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who, commenting on Tillich’s death in 1965, said, “His Christian existentialism gave us a system of meaning and purpose for our lives in an age when war and doubt seriously threatened all that we had come to hold dear.”

    I mention The Courage to Be not to engage in a recondite theological and philosophical analysis, which is the last thing we now need, but to contrast his call for spiritual courage with what we have been experiencing pouring forth from the mass corporate media for years  There is a drumbeat of fear-mongering so intense and constant that it is almost comical if it weren’t so effective in reducing people to quaking, frightened children.

    Primarily about Covid and the need to obey the authorities and submit to being jabbed with mRNA Covid “Vaccines” – the idolatrous religion of bio-security – this  religion of fear goes much further and much deeper.  Scenarios of fear have been rehearsed and produced for decades by the intelligence/IT/media giants on a multitude of issues, large and small.  They are rooted in a spiritually nihilistic political propaganda campaign that is exponentially increasing fear, anxiety, and despondency on a vast scale, which is its intent.  Fearful people are easily cowered and controlled.  The elites know that regular people throughout the world are fed up with being subjected to violence and abuse in multiple forms, and if courage triumphs over their fears, they might join in worldwide solidarity and revolt, as they have been doing in various places recently. To prevent this, the authorities must use terror tactics to divide and conquer them. If people dare to rise up and even question the propaganda, they have been and will be called terrorists for doing so.  Dissent is now equated with terrorism and thus it must be censored.

    All this fear-mongering draws on people’s normal fears of “not to be,” meaning dead. It is, of course, understandable not wanting to be dead, but living in constant fear is a living death.  Tillich, who suffered deep trauma as a chaplain in the trenches of WW I and was later dismissed from his teaching position in Germany when Hitler came to power, wrote that courage is rooted in the spiritual acceptance that underlying our individual lives is the power of Being, by which he meant God, and that fear and anxiety about our fates can be confronted only through the courage to accept in faith this foundational reality.

    I think it is self-evident to anyone who glances at the mainstream media that fear is their staple.  In just the last week or so, I have seen The New York Times, an official organ of propaganda if there ever were one but known historically as the Grey Lady for understatement, tell its readers in a hyperventilating style that anxiety about climate change has spawned a growing field of therapeutic treatment for sufferers, how deer in your back yard are infected with Omicron, how the Russians are coming, etc.  This is the typical fear promoting propaganda that headlines all the media sites every day and has been doing so for years.  Any casual observer can list them on a daily basis, from major to minor matters to fear.

    Yet despite this constant, blatant propaganda, governments flip the truth and warn that anyone who questions this are conspiracy theorists intent on causing trouble and therefore must be watched and refuted. Just the other day the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a “Summary of Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” saying:

    The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors.

    After twenty years of such obvious propaganda, you would think these people would be embarrassed, but they obviously are not and intend to propagate this bullshit for years to come.  They and their media accomplices have taken their lingo lessons straight from Nineteen Eighty-Four.

    On the bio-security religious front alone, Kit Knightly of Off-Guardian has recently reported that the authorities have warned us that there is a vast underdiagnosis of heart disease that may stealthily be coming to get us (not from “vaccines,” of course) and that HIV testing and vaccines look to be the next big push, for there is now the claim that a new variant of HIV is spreading in Europe.  President Biden declared in December 2021 that his administration was aiming to “end the HIV/Aids epidemic by 2030.”  While Covid restrictions may be easing, the mRNA “vaccine push” is not, and their promoters will only find different germs to defeat with “vaccines” and tests to ease the fears of the propagandized public, so many of whom have been turned into hypochondriacs.

    The promulgation of the fear of germs and disease and foreign and domestic “threat actors” is permanent.  For anyone naively thinking that there will be an easing of this elite war of lies, I would suggest they rethink that assumption.  The state of siege that is the Covid crisis will be followed by many more, and this germ warfare includes a vast array of foreign variants, led by Russia and China.  We are in a permanent crisis and emergency engineered by the ruling classes to maintain their control.

    This elite war against regular people has no end in sight.  The elites know that people get worn down over time and lose hope; thus, they plan for the long haul and keep hammering away.  Paul Tillich’s book is important because of its stress on the need for courage in the face of the fear-mongering.  Without a spiritual foundation to sustain one for the long haul, depression will lead to despair or surrender.  History should teach us this. The evil ones often win, at least in the short run, and each of us doesn’t have a long run.  Our time is brief.

    The great dissenters and rebels of the past, even when not overtly religious, kept faith with their comrades and causes because they felt a deep, unbreakable, invincible connection.  It is called different names or none at all.  Maybe faith is the best word.  Faith in what?  Some call it God, as I do. Words can’t explain it; I feel it. Others say nothing and just carry on, sustained by the invisible. Some call it faith in human solidarity.  The names don’t matter.  It is not about naming but experiencing. The poet D.H. Lawrence said wisely that we are transmitters of life, “and when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow through us.”  And he added in his inimitable style: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  But it is a much more fearful thing to fall out of them.”  It is not easy, but fear helps us fall out.

    There were those who called Tillich an atheist because his philosophical explanation sounded too abstruse, which is true.  But he made a fundamental point about how as human beings we participate in Being, which is the ground of our existence.  We are part of something that is far larger than our puny selves –  beings in the sea of Being.  Who can deny that?  His call to courage hit a resonant cord with believers, agnostics, and atheists alike.  Not a poet but a German trained immigrant scholar who emigrated to the U.S.A., his language was steeped in heavy philosophical verbiage, yet it found a wide audience in its analysis of fear, anxiety, and especially courage because it was about fundamental truths.  Courage is fundamental, as is faith.

    The Spanish poet Antonio Machado put it less philosophically and more elegantly:

    I talk always to the man who walks along with me;
    – men who talk to themselves hope to talk to God
    Someday –
    My soliloquies amount to discussions with this friend,
    Who taught me the secret of loving human beings.
    ….
    And when the day arrives for the last leaving of all,
    And the ship that never returns to port is ready to go,
    You’ll find me on board, light, with few belongings,
    Almost naked like the children of the sea.

    We are children of the sea and courage keeps us afloat.

    Humor also helps, for we are funny creatures.

    It is not often that one escapes an unintended assassination attempt.  I am glad to say that I have.

    This is an example of the power of fear. Where I live, the winter has been quite cold and there was a recent ice storm with thick ice everywhere on top of snow.  My wife was fearful of falling and so had bought hiking poles for herself and me as Christmas gifts.  I said I didn’t want them and wouldn’t use them; that I wasn’t afraid, that I had faith in my ability to sustain myself.  So I didn’t use them, which angered her.  One day when the ice in the driveway and on the car was inches thick, she cajoled me into using the sticks to reach the car.  She set them for me with their clips at the proper height, since they are adjustable.  We toddled down the pathway to the car, setting one pole out ahead of the other in turn.  I exaggerated my need for them, bending far over as if I were in great need of the crutches.  Approaching the driveway, I extended my right hand pole out in front and it collapsed because the clips weren’t set tight and I went flying face forward onto the ice.  She looked at me in fear, not sure if I was dead or hurt or if her fear had made her into an accidental assassin.  She needn’t worry.  It was funny.

    We all fall eventually, but in the meantime, worrying about it is self-defeating.  It is a reaction to fear.  Worrying is a form of preying on oneself (etymology: to seize by the throat with one’s teeth and kill), and it can be induced – and is – by the campaigns of fear that we are being subjected to.

    The courage to be was Tillich’s way of saying that we are upheld by far more than we know.  Call it Being, Tao, the Great Spirit, or God.  Courage is contagious and will carry us on.  It is what we need to resist the fear-mongers who are at our throats.

    The post The Fear Not to Be first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • How Google moulds public opinion on West Papua, disrupts education

    ANALYSIS: By Yamin Kogoya in Brisbane

    Google images of a country or region can offer a wealth of information about the people and cultures that live there. Some images accurately portray reality while others present camouflage, attempting to deceive or twist our perception.

    From a marketing standpoint, it’s all about selling the national identity, brands and products.

    When you type “West Papua” or “West Papua genocide” into Google Image search, you are immediately confronted with some of the grossest human rights violations on Earth.

    Images of other Melanesian island countries, conversely, display pristine, exotic beauty, presenting them as an ideal vocational playground for first-world self-exhausted tourists.

    West Papua is a region where its public image is produced and controlled by those who want West Papua to mould to and represent their modern, capitalist ideals.

    On the one hand, we have images of West Papua representing a hidden heaven on earth, with majestic glaciers, mountains, lush lowlands, mangrove swamps along the coastline, and coral reefs with a rich biodiversity.

    On the other hand, we see images of Indonesian soldiers torturing, killing, bombing, and destroying ancestral homelands; we see images of West Papuan freedom fighters in their jungles with modern machine guns, performing their cultural rituals while declaring war on the Indonesian military.

    Freeport’s gigantic hole – a graveyard for Papuans
    At the centre of this tragic display of contradiction is the image of a giant gaping hole right in the middle of West Papua’s magnificent ancient glacier — a sacred home of local indigenous people.

    Grasberg mine in Papua province
    The Grasberg mine in West Papua is the largest goldmine in the world and Indonesia’s biggest taxpayer. Image: Free West Papua.org

    Local elders say that this hole has become “a graveyard for Papuans”.

    This hole was created by the discovery of a strange-looking, greenish-black rock on Gunung Jayawijaya (Mount Carstensz) by Dutch geologist Jean Jacques Dozy in 1936.

    It took some 20 years before the discovery was brought to the attention of American geologist Forbes Wilson in 1959, who was the vice-president of Freeport Minerals Company at the time.

    From 1960 to 1969, the Papuan people lived through a century of great historical significance. It began with a sense of hope and optimism as the Dutch prepared Papuans for independence in 1961.

    This independence dream was taken to New York in 1962, only to be abandoned at the mercy of the United Nations, and then to Indonesia in 1963.

    The controversial UN sponsored “Act of Free Choice” in 1969, which Papuans called “Act of No Choice”, ultimately sealed the fate of Papuans’ independence dream within Indonesia. It may seem that the world and UN have forgotten Papua’s dream, but Papuans have never lost sight of it and continue to die for or because of it.

    The US-based Freeport-McMoRan was given the green light to begin digging this hole behind the scenes during that decade, during which Papua’s fate was controlled by world leaders in their cruel puppet show. For the newly created state of Indonesia, this was an economic blessing, but for Papuans it was a death sentence.

    Over the past 60 years, this hole has taken the lives of many Papuan mothers, fathers, and children, creating an endless world of grief and mourning.

    Papuans not happy, says Governor Enembe
    It was these decade-old wounds and grievances that caused Governor Lukas Enembe, the current governor of Papua’s province, to erupt on February 7, 2022.

    “Papuans are not happy. Papuans are not happy in all of Papua. Papuans are the most unhappy people on earth. You take note of that,” he said in a recent video posted by senior journalist Andreas Harsono on his Twitter account.


    Papuan Governor Lukas Enembe in the middle: Twitter image

    The governor also said that some areas such as Intan Jaya, Nduga, and Star Mountains “cry” with the harsh conditions experienced by the Papuan people.

    “Papuans do not live in happiness. Intan Jaya is crying, Puncak is crying, Nduga is crying, The Stars Mountains are crying, and Maybrat is crying. People are crying. People [Papuans] do not live safely in our own country. We were not born for that,” he said.

    “We want to live happily. We want to live and enjoy happiness. Papuans have to live happily, that’s the main thing,” Governor Enembe said in a statement he made in a speech circulated on a video on Tuesday, February 8, 2022.

    These areas, where the governor is referring to, are among the most militarised in West Papua.

    Victor Yeimo, a prominent Papuan, said that over the past three years, Jakarta had sent 21,369 troops to West Papua, some of them referred to as “Satan Troops”, as reported by Arnold Belau on Asia-Pacific Report.

    Sadly, this overwhelming military presence in West Papua is not a new phenomenon. Indonesia has been sending military troops equipped with western-made and supplied war machines since 1963.

    The West Papua National Liberation Army of Free Papua Movement (OPM-TPNPB) is actively engaged in an ongoing war with Indonesian forces, which is being ignored by the international media.

    The grace of Papuan mothers
    In spite of the tragedies, grievances and the haunting images that Google displays, one story is rarely shown — The story of Papuan mothers. They are known for their resilience, courage, and indomitable will to live and work, despite the odds being stacked against them.

    They are hard-working, compassionate, and strong — the backbone of Papuan society. They sacrifice everything to send their children to school and welcome foreigners with open arms.

    There was a recent Tiktok video clip circulating in West Papua and Indonesia which received thousands of views and comments. The video footage featured a young Indonesian migrant weeping while singing in Papuan, the language of the Lani people of the highlands. Her name is Julitha Mathelda Wacano. She works in Tolikara, one of the newly created regions in the highlands of West Papua.

    @pemilikcancer #stoprasisme #@olvaholvah.official #kobelumrasatinggaldengandorang#sadikasihselimut ##😭😭 #fypシ ♬ original sound – Wizan Lewa Cidy481 – Tik Toker

    The young Indonesian woman singing in the local Papuan language of the Lani people. Video: Tiktok

    The following lines are translations of what she wrote on the video below:

    I cannot hold this song anymore.

    I am a migrant, my hair is straight,

    my skin is white, but in Tolikara,

    after I return home from office,

    food is already prepared on the table.

    Who cooks this?” she asks. Then she replied “Mama gunung dorang…” meaning the “mothers from the mountains”.

    Julitha Mathelda Wacano
    The emotional video depicts the experience of a young Indonesian migrant girl being cared for by people deemed “enemies” by the state in some of the most demonised and militarised areas in Indonesia, due to constant negative representation in media coverage.

    She opened a window to the world of Papuan mothers, for others to see the kindness of Papuans in the face of a society segregated by racism and caste.

    The video of Julitha singing in the local Lani language has received more than 1500 comments, many of which share their own experiences of the goodness of the Papuan people. Many praise the love and kindness of Papuans, while others praised God and Allah for her story.

    Papuan mothers still face so many challenges
    Despite their unwavering love for others, Papuan mothers struggle to compete with the might of migrant economic dominance and their modern entrepreneurial skills.

    In the eyes of Indonesians, Papuans do not produce anything of value to be traded or sold on either the national, regional, or global market.

    Most Papuans produce fresh food, which has its own value and merit for those seeking a healthy lifestyle.

    Papuan mothers spend their days sitting in the rain, in the dirt, alongside busy dusty roads. Meanwhile, migrants sell their imported products and gadgets in high-rise buildings, malls, kiosks, and shops, with comfort and convenience.

    At sunset and sometimes into the night, if the mothers don’t sell their produce, they have no place to store it — no cool room or freezer– so they either give it away or take it home to be eaten. They have to start it all over again the next morning.

    Many of these mothers are torn between taking care of their children, attending constant funeral services for family members, and finding money to send their children to school to participate in the education system that fails them and demonises their identity at every turn.

    All roads lead to Rome – West Papua economics
    A total of Rp 126.99 trillion (more than US$20 billion) has been distributed to the provinces of Papua and West Papua since Jakarta passed the so-called Special Autonomy Law in 2021. The details of how this figure was distributed throughout the period 2002-2020 are summarized here by Muhammad Idris and Muhammad Idris on compass.com.

    Fiscal figure of this type, or any reports provided by those who seek to promote the state’s interests, can be difficult to verify independently, owing to the nature of the mechanism in place by Jakarta to carry out its settler colonial activities on Papuan Indigenous lands. Nevertheless, this type of report gives us some rough insight into what goes on in the region.

    Despite such an amount, the poverty rate in these two provinces is nearly three times higher than the national average. Infant, child, and maternal mortality rates are among the highest, and health services and literacy rates are among the lowest in Indonesia.

    There is an “all roads lead to Rome” economic system operating in West Papua, to which no matter how much money Jakarta gives to Papuans, it will all end up back in Jakarta, with migrants, security forces, foreign companies, misfits and opportunists.

    Unfortunately, Papuan mothers’ hard-earned money ends up in the same hands that control and maintain this brutal settler colonial system.

    Mama-mama market in Jayapura
    A mama-mama Papua (market for Papuan mothers) in Jayapura. Image: bumipapua.com

    As part of the efforts to empower Papuan mothers, President Jokowi in 2018 toured the five-story building which he ordered to be constructed two years earlier in Jayapura, the capital city.

    As it was dedicated to Papuan mothers, it was named “Pasar mama-mama Papua” (Market for Papuan mothers).

    The building can accommodate up to 300 traders. Each floor has been allocated for “mama mama Papua” to sell their produce and to display cultural artifacts. The building also houses a school for Papuan children to learn.

    Papuan mothers have unimaginable willpower and determination to compete with Indonesian settlers, who have almost total control of the economic system in West Papua.

    Their lives and work are shaped by the realities of constant violence and inequality in one of the most heavily militarised regions in the world.

    No matter what the odds are, Papuan mothers overcome them with grace and compassion.

    This sacred power broke the heart of that young Indonesian woman living in the highlands of the Lani people.

    Papuan mothers and their international students
    Unfortunately, the majority of Papuan international students whose scholarship funds were threatened to be cut by President Jokowi’s administration are the sons or daughters of these mama-mama Papua.

    The students who are now spread across different continents and countries, from North America, Russia, Asia, Europe and Oceania, have united under the name International Alliance of Papuan Student Associations Overseas (IAPSAO) and strongly condemn any slight alteration in the scholarship package that would have a crippling effect on their education.

    Some of the Papuan students in Aotearoa New Zealand pictured with Papua provincial Governor Lukas Enembe
    Some of the West Papuan students in Aotearoa New Zealand pictured with Papua provincial Governor Lukas Enembe (front centre) during his visit in 2019. Image: APR

    These students overcome so many obstacles, from connecting to the right people within the brutal system, to leaving home, learning new languages, and adjusting to a new cultural system.

    The constant loss of their family members back home takes a heavy toll on their studies.

    Ali Mirin is one such student who is pursuing a master’s degree in International Relations at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.

    Mirin came from the Kimyal tribe of Yahukimo region of West Papua. He came to Australia on a student visa in 2019 to study at Monash University in Melbourne but struggled to meet the English requirements.

    The university placed him in an English language course before enrolling him in a master’s programme. In the end, he was trapped between international student agencies such as International Development Programme (IDP), university and immigration departments since his two-year required study visa had almost run out, though he had yet to complete his master’s degree.

    It was not clear to them why he was not in a master’s programme, but he was struggling to make sense of all the information he was receiving from these various parties.

    The combination of covid-19 lockdown, passing of family members in West Papua, frustration with adjusting into a new culture, along with inconsistency in scholarship funds nearly cost everything that his mother worked for to help him achieve this level of education.

    Additionally, he had to find a part-time job in Melbourne just to survive and pay rent, which nearly led to his study visa being revoked.

    Papuan Ali Mirin
    Ali Mirin at Flinders University, Adelide … “tip of the iceberg in terms of the challenges faced by Papuan students.” Image: YK

    Mirin’s case is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the challenges faced by Papuan students studying overseas. Almost all Papuan students have dramatic and traumatic stories to share about the obstacles they faced just to receive a scholarship, let alone the difficulties of studying abroad.

    Studying in first world industrialised countries like USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Germany requires tremendous amounts of money, which the parents of these students will likely never be able to afford in their lifetime.

    Papuan Governor Lukas Enembe implemented a policy in 2012 that allows these students to study abroad, based on his own educational struggles in West Papua, Indonesia, and Australia.

    The governor knows and understands what it is like to be Papuan (especially from the highlands) and study in Indonesia, let alone overseas.

    With all these tragic circumstances Papuans have endured for decades, when the Jakarta government withdraws scholarship funds or changes its policies, Papuan students are shattered.

    Papuan mothers, who Jokowi calls “mama-mama”, are the ones most affected by the news of deported or failed Papuan students who are studying abroad.

    A new policy needs new minds and hearts in Jakarta
    The central government in Jakarta should listen to what students have to say as they clearly stated in Asia Pacific Report on January 27.

    Indigenous Papuan representatives should oversee Indonesian and foreign agents and agencies that deal with students’ affairs. Because as long as they are not Papuan, whether Indonesian, American, Australian, or British, it will be difficult for them to fully comprehend the mental trauma and cultural issues that each of the students suffer due to the conditions at home.

    Papuan students fail their studies or struggle with them, not because they are unintelligent, but because they are deeply traumatised by the abuse and persecution that their families endure at home.

    Most of these result from decades of violence, torture, and denigration of their human value under Indonesia’s settler colonial system in their own homeland.

    Whatever the number of expert reports on success and failure stories of education in West Papua, if students’ deepest issues are not being listened to or understood, how can we help them or hope to change things for the better?

    The politicisation of these students will continue to cloud Jakarta’s judgment about West Papua as it has for 60 years. Elites in Jakarta forget that these people have no agenda to colonise the island of Java, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Ukraine or build nuclear weapons.

    They simply want to live peacefully in their own land and pursue their education.

    Jakarta’s policies in West Papua are largely influenced by fear, and worst of all, wrong ideas and misguided judgments. They should be more concerned about a potential global nuclear war between the Western Empire and its allies, and the emerging Chinese-led eastern empire, which poses an existential threat to everyone and everything on this planet.

    Indonesians target the wrong people and attack the wrong places — West Papua is not your enemy.

    Images of ‘Wonderful Indonesia; and West Papua torture
    I wonder if Jakarta searched images of West Papua on Google if they would like what they see. Would they see the truth — the horror, torture, abuse, murder, and exploitation of Papuans at their own hands?

    Or would they see their ideals reflected back to them, the current state of terrorism that they manufactured in stolen lands.

    These images do not represent the true nature of West Papua and its people, it is Indonesia that is reflected in these images.

    Indonesia’s famous national promotional image of “wonderful Indonesia” that has been marketed throughout the world can be best authenticated when it uses the situation in West Papua as a mirror in which to see what Indonesia really is.

    Wonderful Indonesia
    Wonderful Indonesia … The programme promoting Indonesia as a country “blessed with countless wonders”. Image: Wonderful WI screenshot PMC.

    This hallmark of Jakarta’s nation-building image of Indonesia, which has been marketed around the world, can be best comprehended when it uses West Papua’s reality as a mirror to show the reality of Indonesia. In any case,

    It may represent Bali or Java, but for West Papua it is just an elaborate ploy to deceive people about the terror image they have been projecting in the region.

    Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • John Minto: The hypocrisy of NZ’s silence in calling out Israeli, Indonesian rights violations

    COMMENTARY: By John Minto in Christchurch

    On December 30, New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade published a tweet condemning the forced closure of two Russian human rights groups, International Memorial and the Memorial Human Rights Centre.

    The groups were shut down by the Russian Supreme Court which was enforcing strict laws relating to dealings with “foreign agents”.

    In releasing the tweet, the government urged Russia to “live up to its civil and political rights commitments”.

    Our government has also been speaking out against human rights abuses in China against the Uighur people, to the extent of facilitating a parliamentary motion condemning the cruel policies of the Chinese government.

    Compare the criticism of Russia and China with MFAT’s reaction to Israel’s outrageous attacks on Palestinian human rights groups last October when it declared six of them to be “terrorist” organisations.

    The targeted groups (Bisan, Al-Haq, Addameer, Defence for Children International-Palestine, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees) typically challenge human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority as well as Israel, both of which routinely detain Palestinian activists.

    Israel’s “terrorist” claim against these groups was a blatant attempt to undermine some of the most effective Palestinian civil society organisations, stifle their collective voices, and cut their sources of funding.

    Not a peep from MFAT
    But not a peep from MFAT. No tweets, no public statements, nothing.

    When our Foreign Minister is asked about these things her officials say the government is “very concerned” about developments in the Middle East and “keeping a close watch” on the situation. They say they regularly raise human rights concerns with the Israeli ambassador in meetings with officials.

    Heaven only knows what goes on in those meetings but if all human rights abuses by Israel against the Palestinian people were discussed, the Israeli ambassador would be in permanent residence at MFAT.

    MFAT gives similar responses when massive human rights abuses are perpetrated against the people of West Papua by the Indonesian Army, which has occupied the territory since 1962. These are discussed behind closed doors, if they are raised at all, with Indonesian officials.

    So what’s the difference that results in the Russian and Chinese governments being castigated for human rights abuses but for countries like Indonesia and Israel, there is minimal, if any, public comment?

    The awful truth is that our current government has moved New Zealand closer to the US than at any time since the 1980s and MFAT calls out human rights abuses to a US agenda.

    If the abuses are perpetrated by enemies of the US, such as in Russia or China, they get a full public blast but if US allies are killing unarmed people protesting the occupation of their country then it’s all hushed up.

    Kept ‘in the family’
    It’s kept “in the family”, behind closed doors. Martin Luther King’s comment about “the injustice of silence” applies.

    Human rights abuses against Palestinians and the people of West Papua continue because countries like New Zealand have self-important ministry officials who think it’s clever to operate a public/private hierarchy of human rights abuses according to US criteria.

    Aotearoa New Zealand is complicit in many ongoing human rights abuses through our silence.

    Cowardice is another word that comes to mind. It’s not acceptable.

    The hypocrisy of the US, and Aotearoa New Zealand’s, position on human rights was laid bare last week when Amnesty International released a 280-page report which concluded that Israel was an apartheid state. US Government officials attacked the report outright without reading it and without challenging any of the report’s substance.

    MFAT hasn’t uttered a word
    At a Washington press conference, a State Department official was left to try to explain why US Human Rights Reports have quoted extensively from Amnesty International regarding Ethiopia, China, Iran, Burma, Syria and Cuba but reject outright Amnesty’s report on Israel.

    Needless to say, MFAT hasn’t uttered a word on the Amnesty report but is busy helping support a webinar intending to “build strategic partnerships in agriculture” with Israel through AgriTech New Zealand. This is deeply embarrassing to this country and MFAT should cancel Aotearoa New Zealand’s involvement in this webinar.

    It goes without saying this country should stand against all abuses of human rights in a principled and forthright manner. This won’t happen until the current leadership of MFAT is stood down.

    John Minto is a political activist and commentator, and spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. This article was first published by the New Zealand Herald and is republished with the author’s permission.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Old World Odor Needs Cleansing by a New World Order before the Stench Kills Everyone

    The imperial center of the capitalist attack on nature in pursuit of private profits that threaten ultimate public loss continues into the new year, but we’re hopefully closer to a solution of our racial (human) problem at this most crucial time. With countless systemic breakdowns and divisions among people that seem, especially in America, to invite calamity, it may be the rest of the world that offers the most hope. The present maniacal threats to Russia, or rather Putin, since individual villains always count for more than systems, could bring about a nuclear war. But Russia and Putin, while capitalist, are not nearly dumb or murderous enough to invite that, yet the brainless assault on that nation in the psycho-economic need to maintain an imperial war business continues. The growing inequalities among those who finance this idiocy are forcing the subjects of empire, including most Americans, to begin a serious effort to clean up the moral and physical sewer created by the empire of waste and war.

    While imperial efforts to deal with the fact that China has become a major global marketplace force as great as America gets worse by the minute, equal efforts provoking potential warfare are presently directed at Russia with daily psychodramas being played out on alleged news reports more akin to mad doctor comic book science fantasy. A recent episode in surreal idiocy passing for reality has it that Russia is working on a film production of “false flag” action that will depict a Ukraine attack on Russia so as to allow Russia to retaliate. American state of inanity plots and conspiracies make left wing kooks and right wing pinheads look like superior fiction creators, but this is the expression of a dying world order that could take humanity with it if we don’t stop just watching the show and close it down before the theater roof collapses on all our heads.

    The United States of capital has a debt of 30 trillion dollars in order to maintain its crippled infrastructure and demonic consciousness control while its confused people grow in awareness of the injustice and near total disaster they are compelled to finance. We all borrowed that money from rich people and must pay them interest so that we may continue paying rent, mortgages, credit card bills and drug, alcohol, religious and other therapy bills to enable us to continue the irrationality. More of us are not only asking why but demanding that priorities change radically so that debt is only incurred to make life better for us rather than simply afford a minority of billionaires incredibly lavish wealth while a vast majority of workers who might as well be peasants for the way they are treated sink lower in political economic stature while consciousness controllers assure that we are all equal participants in something called our democracy. This is despite zero evidence of anything but minority control over a vast population reduced to hating one another and striving for national progress in separatist ghettos that make real democracy impossible.

    Today, what passes for liberal politics makes conservative politics stronger than ever in America’s lesser evil form of alleged democracy. Trump still serves as a whipping boy for the print stenographers and TV performers of corporate media but that distraction only furthers the alienation of former liberals who trend toward intellectual Nazism while labeling everyone else fascist white supremacists and far less economically privileged others fall more deeply into a pit of malevolent ignorance that has creatures like democratic party leaders treated as socialist enslavers preventing freedom by forcing people who pick up dog shit as civic duty into wearing masks to prevent a modern plague that has already killed hundreds of thousands in America. This supposedly expresses the heavy hand of murderous socialist-commies in this combat between the brain washed and the brain dead.

    An alleged menace to humanity is supposedly proved by Russia massing troops on its Ukrainian border while the USA and its NATO lapdogs – even if a few are starting to nip at their master – mass weapons and troops at the Ukrainian side of that border. Lost to the befogged and uninformed is that the Ukraine borders Russia — not Indiana, Florida or California. Ukraine was once part of the USSR and was given up on the promise that it would never be part of NATO and menace Russia, and that Russia would treat that possibility the way the USA would treat the possibility of Russian troops and weapons massed on the Canadian and Mexican borders

    The Un-Intelligence community that knew nothing about 911 but everything about Russian-Chinese dangerous intervention in our great market is still warning about Putin stealing elections, threatening invasions and China committing genocide while Americans willing to buy an insurance policy to protect them against being attacked by sharks while being struck by lightning need better wake up calls accompanied by respect rather than condescending contempt practiced by alleged liberals who gain supposed intellectual stature by how many times they can include” fascist white supremacist” in any sentence directed at even more powerless people.

    Here is how Putin put it in a recent press conference, injecting sanity and reality into a faster growing madness conducted by American government and media screeching about a Russian menace to the Ukraine, Europe, the world, outer space, shopping, elections and collective imbecility:

    We have made it clear that any further movement of NATO to the East is unacceptable. Is there anything unclear about this? Are we deploying missiles near the U.S. border? No, we are not. It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep. Is it going too far to demand that no strike systems be placed near our home? What is so unusual about this?

    This was not widely shared, or understood, by America’s alleged “free” market media, but that isn’t odd given practice of information control that has been going on since the birth of “our” nation. Here’s a quote from a supposedly bright guy rarely, if ever, seen or considered by millions who’ve been taught how bright he was but without this wisdom:

    Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society.

    This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the less privileged sections of the population.

    Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for citizens to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of their political rights.

    We are supposedly aware of his equation about energy and matter even though most of us haven’t the vaguest idea of its meaning but these insightful words about capitalism written by Albert Einstein back in 1949 have only been read by a few more folks than seeing them here for the first time. Karl Marx spoke of this reality back in the 19th century but most of us are barely aware of the great humorist Groucho and only know of Marx through teachings that come from people selling the insurance to protect us from being struck by lightning while being attacked by sharks.

    We need to stop buying the alleged insurance against the impossible and demand protection against the all to real menace of warfare. We’ll need public banks, higher taxes on wealth and a higher minimum wage and lower limits on individual wealth while millions live in poverty and the nuclear menace grows. If we cant do it our selves and have to rely on China and Russia growing closer to bring an end to an American minority attempting continued rule of the world that promises total disaster, we’ll deserve the outcome, rather than help create it, as we should.

    The post Old World Odor Needs Cleansing by a New World Order before the Stench Kills Everyone first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Vale Harn Lay, a cartoonist who stood by victims of the powerful and ruthless

    OBITUARY: Phil Thornton profiles cartoonist Harn Lay, 1963-2022

    I first met cartoonist Harn Lay, who has died peacefully at 59, 15 years ago in the northern Thai town of Chiang Mai. He was then working for The Irrawaddy Magazine.

    I was impressed by his cartoons that never failed to skewer Burma’s military regime and wanted to write a feature about him and his work.

    Today, the military regime still rules Burma with an iron fist. Poets, writers, lawyers, monks, artists, doctors, comedians, musicians, bloggers, politicians, activists and journalists have been hunted, arrested, tortured and jailed for for speaking out against the regime and its 1 February 2021 coup.

    During our series of interviews in 2006, Harn Lay didn’t hold back in his contempt for Burma’s military hardmen.

    Harn Lay said he detested former General Than Shwe and his regime and it showed in the cartoons he drew for The Irrawaddy Magazine, Democratic Voice of Burma, Voice of America and the Shan Herald Agency for News.

    Harn Lay dismissed the generals with a cutting barb: “Than Shwe’s a pumped up bully. I try to show how ridiculous he is, a little fat man in a uniform. His only power, his gun.”

    Despite the humour, Harn Lay took his role as an artist seriously and said it was his duty to point out the emperor was naked, even when it was the so-called “good guys”.

    Cartoons also upset pro-democracy, aid groups
    “It’s like a responsibility. I stand by the victims of the powerful and the ruthless. I try to make people not only laugh, but to be aware of how they can be manipulated. Sometimes my cartoons have upset the pro-democracy and aid groups.”

    Harn Lay was proud of his Shan State heritage and explained he first tried for freedom by joining an ethnic armed group.

    “When I was younger, I joined the Mong Tai Army (MTA) to fight for Shan freedom and independence. But it was an illusion. Khun Sa [the MTA leader] was power mad, the same as Than Shwe and other dictators.

    “He was like a kid, no control, he wanted everything he saw.”

    Harn Lay soon realised it was time to put down the gun and pick up his pen.

    “The gun kills, the pen doesn’t. I tried to use cartoons to express my politics, the injustices people suffer and to make them laugh at the powerful –– they can’t be too powerful if people are laughing at them.”

    Harn Lay told me his intention was always to get under the skin of the ruthless and powerful dictators of Burma.

    “Translated, my name means a leaf that causes irritation and itching. I want to make these powerful generals uncomfortable, I want to show people what they are really like without the protection of their uniforms and I want to show they are mortal.”

    Harn Lay said the cruelty of the Burma regime was never a laughing matter and he was still drawing cartoons lampooning the generals until recently.

    “Every Burmese person has been hurt or touched by their brutality. I’ve given up the gun, but I’ll keep drawing and try to expose this regime for the criminals they are.”

    Until late 2021, Harn Lay was still lampooning the military junta and its generals in his cartoons.

    Harn Lay enjoyed the support of his wife Yuwadee and his daughter Wan Wan, but told me at the time they could be his harshest critics.

    “I met Yuwadee 16-years-ago in Shan State. I test my work out on her for clarity. If she laughs, I know I’m on track.”

    Harn Lay’s art has featured in a number of international exhibitions and he is the recipient of numerous awards for his work.

    Phil Thornton is a journalist and senior adviser to the International Federation of Journalists in South East Asia. This article was first published by Karen News and is republished with the author’s permission. Thornton is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

    A Harn Lay cartoon on human rights
    Harn Lay realised it was time to put down the gun and pick up his pen. Cartoon: Harn Lay/Karen News

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Mark Craig: Now we just need to be brave about omicron – we’ve shown we can do it

    COMMENTARY: By Dr Mark Craig in defence of New Zealand’s dedicated managed isolation and quarantine team and facilities as the country braces for omicron.

    As workers on the ground running ourselves into the ground, it’s quite disheartening to read all the reactionary criticism of MIQ, the managed isolation and quarantine system which has saved thousands of lives in New Zealand.

    It’s easy not to appreciate what it has achieved, given it has prevented something awful from happening, and only see the restrictions and disadvantages it has necessarily caused by its existence.

    Also, most of the people who have been spared from severe illness are not the ones who are complaining.

    I am so impressed with the small and dedicated MIQ teams I have worked with — a throw-together of excellent nurses, health care assistants, well-being coordinators, security, hotel staff, police and the impressive NZ Defence Force.

    These people are gold and the cornerstone of preventing a certain healthcare system crisis.

    They have retained great professionalism in the face of numerous extremely challenging guests and logistics around dealing with covid positive cases while keeping them as happy as can be in a confined space.

    Currently we are full of overseas border returnees from all over the world, many angry at being in isolation and taking it out on our staff, to the point where absenteeism is common and job satisfaction has dipped hugely.

    Staggering towards MIQ end
    We are all staggering towards the end of the MIQ system, rather punch drunk and weary.

    Our staff currently receive relentless angry calls from guests who don’t get what they want immediately, currently often the investigation of potential historical covid status (of which there are dozens presently), more than one expressing “there will be blood on the walls” if their immediate demands are not met.

    I can understand why to a degree — they are stuck in a room and can’t see the huge amount of work going on behind the scenes, with teams putting in long tiring days, well over their paid hours, but unfortunately it also brings out the worst in some people of certain personality types and those with mental health issues.

    Dr Mark Craig, MIQ doctor
    Dr Mark Craig … “The small and dedicated MIQ teams I have worked with are gold and the cornerstone of preventing a certain healthcare system crisis.” Image: Jason Oxenham/NZH

    Also I must add that a majority of people are able to “just get on with it” and do the time, something most of us would find tedious.

    There is a financial cost to saving lives in any area of healthcare and now it has been deemed the harms of MIQ outweigh the benefits, rightly in my and most people’s opinion, as covid spreads in the community and borders open up.

    If only we could have the same political will and public acceptance that we have had for lockdown and vaccination programme to put preventative health measures and laws to address the two other huge elephants in the room, our chronic disease epidemic and environmental crises.

    Firm beneficial health laws
    We could reduce our health spending by orders of magnitude while greatly improving health if we had some firm laws for clearly beneficial proposals such as sugar and fat taxes, and the marketing of harmful, processed foods and alcohol, especially at our children.

    We could equally slash our carbon emissions whilst raising health outcomes with the promotion of a plant based type of diet, as per the current international public health consensus.

    We just need to be brave, follow the science and not give in to the numerous interest group detractors. Our world beating covid response has shown we can do it.

    Let’s keep the momentum up and not go back to our pre-covid slumber.

    Dr Mark Craig is an Auckland-based lifestyle medicine doctor working in managed isolation and quarantine facilities. This article was first published in the New Zealand Herald and is republished here with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Mary Argue: Why have scholarships dried up for Papuan ‘band of brothers’?

    COMMENTARY: By Mary Argue of the Wairarapa Times-Age

    In 2016, I was on a yacht in the Bahamas.

    Every morning I woke surrounded by postcard-perfect azure water — so crystal clear you could count the sharks sweeping the seafloor.

    From my porthole in the laundry, my 1x2m kingdom, I would watch the rain clouds gather in the afternoon and a breeze toss the palm trees 30 metres from anchor.

    It was below-deck before the reality TV series existed — Downton Abbey for the 21st century.

    I flew home in March, surprising my family with an early return. It turned out being the help on a luxury yacht was not for me.

    When I arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand, however, the surprise was mine. There was no room at the inn.

    My family had taken in two West Papuan boys who were enrolled at the local high school.

    They were part of a group of students at the start of a six-year scholarship programme funded by the Indonesian government.

    I bunked in with my brother, sharing a room for the first time since I was 10 years old.

    My new Papuan ‘brothers’
    The Papuan boys, my new brothers, had shivered through the Wellington summer. Their English was improving daily, but conversation was still a struggle.

    Every day they woke and sprinted to catch the school bus. There they spent the whole day surrounded by fast-talking, monotone English voices. At the end of it, they were exhausted but still chipped in at the dinner table, cracking jokes and bravely consuming the foreign cuisine before them.

    Our family grew from six to eight.

    My youngest brother relished no longer being the baby and took our exchange students under his wing.

    After enormous peer pressure, the boys taught us some choice Indonesian swear words, but our ability in their language didn’t progress much beyond that.

    They graduated high school, turned 18, went out clubbing, played for the local football team. They embraced New Zealand life and all our family’s quirks.

    After four years, they moved from Wellington and enrolled in tertiary education.

    This Christmas, they schooled us all in volleyball.

    Embassy letter brings bad news
    At about the same time, the Indonesian government sent a letter to the embassy in New Zealand.

    In it was a list of Papuan students who had “fallen behind” in their studies. These students, they said, would need to be sent home immediately.

    One of our Papuan brothers is on this list, a young man almost at the end of his study.

    He has an apprenticeship with a local builder lined up, by all accounts, is excelling in his field, as are the other 38 students listed.

    The list of names is the fallout of law changes in Jakarta in 2021 that reallocated money away from the Papuan provincial government to the districts. The scholarship fund for the students has dried up.

    These victims of politics, however, have taken a stand.

    Despite no longer receiving the money to pay their rent and food, they have told the authorities that they will not return and have demanded dialogue with the Indonesian President, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

    The Asia Pacific Report has investigated the human rights issue, but aside from one or two other outlets, by and large, the New Zealand media have ignored it.

    Times-Age will be joining the debate.

    Mary Argue is a Wairarapa Times-Age journalist where this commentary was first published. It is republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Kill the Bill defendant cleared of riot but guilty of arson. The case against her was always outrageous.

    A jury has found Kill the Bill defendant Jasmine York guilty of arson, but not guilty of riot. The case against Jasmine York was always outrageous, and evidence against her was scant. She’s one of 82 people who have been arrested – most of them for riot – following the 21 March demonstration in Bristol.

    The jury was unanimous on a not guilty verdict for the riot charge.The state poured a lot of resources into trying to find Jasmine guilty, and the prosecutor had a police team assisting her throughout the trial. For a person to be guilty of riot, they have to have committed unlawful violence. But the prosecution showed no evidence that Jasmine used any violence at all. It relied heavily on footage of other protesters graffitiing and rocking a police van, and, much later, vehicles on fire. But none of this involved Jasmine. Most of the footage they did have of Jasmine showed her yelling at the police and chanting. As defence barrister Russell Fraser said in his closing speech:

    emotion runs high indeed in times of social upheaval. I suggest you saw that full range of emotion in the footage played in the trial: optimism, excitement, anger, pain. That anger, even when it spiralled into foul language, never came close to unlawful violence, not violence for a common purpose.

    He pointed out:

    The Crown says, of course, that chanting is important as evidence of a common purpose [of riot]. Let’s have a serious analysis of chanting. Anti-police chanting is not evidence of a common purpose to do anything…

    So chanting is one of the reasons why Miss York finds herself here, why the Crown sees her as a leader, an instigator. It is a particularly big claim.

    Tall tales

    Desperate to prove that Jasmine was the ringleader, prosecutor Sarah Regan relied on a video clip of Jasmine saying that she was going to set up a Signal group chat on her phone. Regan suggested that Jasmine set up this group before 21 March in order to organise with others against police at the protest. But it quickly became apparent that Jasmine had set up the chat days later – only after she had been traumatised by the police, hit by a baton, and bitten by a police dog. In response to Jasmine being painted as a premeditated instigator, Fraser said:

    If someone is a leader, are they not recognised as a figurehead? Are they not someone of influence? People need to know who you are and she’s not known to the police. She’s not noticeably with anyone else at the protest. She isn’t with anyone outside the police station. How is it that from that she becomes the orchestrator of a riot?

    On top of this, Jasmine arrived at the demonstration unmasked and wearing a long, bright yellow skirt. That’s hardly clothing you’d wear if you were planning a riot.

    Protecting others

    The prosecution, along with its police witnesses, did a good job of painting a one-sided picture of a “mob” attacking the defenceless police, of a police force solely acting in self-defence. But as The Canary has extensively reported, there’s ample evidence of the police using shocking violence, and even of them ‘blading’ protesters with their oblong shields. Jasmine herself called the police after the demonstration to make a complaint about the violence the police had inflicted upon her.

    Fraser pointed out:

    We played a number of incidents of footage that you would appreciate – we say – demonstrates police violence. A man who was kicked several times on the ground as he retreated. A man who had a shield brought down on his head. The men lying down on the pallets who were hit while they were on the ground. Miss York being hit by a baton when she wasn’t a threat to anyone. A photographer being pushed with force: what could he have been doing?

    Regan was so keen to portray Jasmine as violent that she tried to discredit livestream footage which Jasmine herself had submitted as evidence. The livestream was filmed by Jasmine, and it showed her screaming “no, don’t hit” and “stop hitting her” at the police as they attacked the crowd. Regan ludicrously argued that because the footage came from Jasmine herself, she obviously had “an agenda”. But as Jasmine and her defence pointed out, she was on the frontline to protect others.

    Referring to the footage played to the jury, Fraser argued that at one point in the video:

    where she has her arms outstretched, if you watch the video and watch it in full, she is putting herself in harm’s way to protect others. She shelters people and takes a small female with her, away from danger.

    He continued:

    The one consistent thing she does is that she comes to the aid of other women. Consider the woman thrown back into the crowd. She moves across the line for that reason. There’s not many of us who would do that sort of thing, you might think.

    Fraser told the jury that “time and time again” Jasmine put herself between danger and other people.

    Arson claims

    The Crown insisted that Jasmine was guilty of arson because she pushed a commercial rubbish bin towards a burning police car, and the bin added fuel to the fire. But Jasmine insisted that she didn’t push it towards the police car but towards the police themselves. She said that she was using the bin to try to create an obstacle between her and the police. Crucially, there was no evidence whatsoever that the bin in question was ever on fire.

    Fraser said that the car was:

    already engulfed in flames. Most importantly of all, when you’re considering the standard of proof, where is the bin? There’s no photos of it. No one reported it missing. Does that absence of evidence leave you uncomfortable?

    Despite this, the jury found her guilty of arson.

    Stand with the Kill The Bill defendants

    Regardless of what happened in court, it’s important to stand with Jasmine and others who defended themselves against the police’s violence on 21 March. We know that the combined force of the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, and the mainstream media is stacked against them. They need our support now more than ever. The Kill The Bill demonstrations of March 2021 were the beginning of a new wave of resistance against the state’s latest authoritarian measures. We need to carry on that struggle and build real community power that can truly challenge state control.

    Featured image via Eliza Egret

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • As the Tories Americanise the NHS, we all need to be yelling ‘stop’

    In John Pilger’s 2019 documentary The Dirty War on the NHS, campaigner Dr Bob Gill says:

    The NHS has been repurposed from a public service to something for profit extraction. And all the changes we have seen have just been about liberating up these potential assets for the corporate raiders to take them over.

    This is a stark warning about attacks on the NHS by capitalists. Yet the campaign to save the NHS, relative to the destruction that could be on the way, doesn’t appear to reflect that. I say this not to knock the excellent work of tireless campaigners around the country, but to remind people of how serious this current assault on the NHS is.

    Capitalists have waged a war on the NHS for decades, and they appear to be winning. So now, as the Tories’ Health and Care Bill powers its way through the Houses of Parliament, we need to wage a war to save the publicly run health service that was once the envy of the world. Because should the profit-driven capitalists get their way, the NHS could become little more than a mirror image of the dystopian US healthcare system. A system that’s dominated by profit-driven health insurance corporations and run at the expense of sick, injured and disabled people.

    Let’s sound the alarm bells

    The people who really care deeply about our health service are sounding the alarm bells. They believe this bill spells the end of the NHS as we know it. And it’ll be a “legislative lock-in for the changes already embedded throughout the NHS”. It will also cost people more while delivering less. This bill, if it becomes law, will consolidate a privatisation agenda as they sell off parts of the NHS to the highest bidder.

    Successive UK governments, in full public view, have enacted this. Yet it feels as if there’s an absence of outrage. Why aren’t we all yelling ‘stop’ with the ferocity this deserves? How is it that a local campaign to save a local hospital can get 25,000 people on the street, but a national campaign can’t do something comparable?

    Given the cut-throat capitalistic policies of successive Tory and neo-liberal Blairite governments, attacks on a valuable and free public service aren’t at all surprising.

    Sajid Javid certainly wasn’t the first

    Let’s take a look at this stealthy path towards NHS privatisation, culminating in this damaging bill which is currently in the House of Lords.

    Nye Bevan, the Labour minister credited with founding the NHS, famously said “the NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it”. The NHS faced opposition before it even started in 1948. And Bevan himself admitted he only got doctors and its trade union, the British Medical Association (BMA), on board by “stuffing their mouths with gold”.

    The NHS has been under attack since that time. In fact, Bevan resigned just three years after its founding over the introduction of dental and spectacle charges.

    From there, one of the first organised attacks on the NHS started with Arthur Seldon. Seldon was a Thatcherite and once adviser to “cross-party” think tank Demos. He wrote the book After the N.H.S.: Reflections on the Development of Private Health Insurance in Britain in the 1970s. Seldon, as well as others at the right-wing Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank, put forward in a report “the advantages of user payments and private medical insurance instead of the NHS”.

    Furthermore, Thatcher targeted the health service for privatisation when she came to power in 1979. Documents from 1977, before Thatcher took power, show they were already planning to privatise key public services.

    Thatcher hands it over

    Following the Thatcher and John Major years, the Blair and Brown regime took up the mantle. During their time, according to director Ken Loach, they increased NHS privatisation and also outsourced medical and cleaning services. In his documentary The Great NHS Heist, Gill laid out the timeline of NHS privatisation from the early 1980s until 2014:

    Gill says “the number of beds per head of population, has more than halved since the 1970s”. When Gill spoke to The Canary in July 2021, he explained:

    We have the lowest bed capacity per head of population compared to all other OECD countries of similar economic status. We have the fewest number of doctors per head in Europe. And by the time we entered the pandemic, we’d suffered a historic freeze of annual increase in the budget of around 1% on average over the decade, where since 1948 it’s averaged about 4%.

    As shown in the figure above, the Health and Social Care Act became law in 2012. According to Gill, it then became a:

    defunded, repurposed, marketised NHS with a huge hole in the workforce – 10,000 vacancies in doctors, 40,000 nurse vacancies – and then we were hit with a pandemic. So this was a disaster waiting to happen.

    Integrated Care Systems

    According to Gill, one of the biggest changes proposed in this latest bill is the creation of Integrated Care Systems (ICS). But instead of integrating or improving healthcare, as its name suggests, these ICSs will integrate and be:

    based on the US Medicare, Medicaid system – which is dominated by big private insurance companies like United Health, the world’s biggest private insurer – where the government, the taxpayer, puts in the money, but the management of that money is with a private insurer. And they are allowed to make profit… out of the ICS budget.

    Gill also explained that the “terminology is deceptive”. Because it’s not about integrating the clinical services for improvement, but about “integrating the budgets”:

    to pull over social care budgets… into NHS budgets over time, and all primary care and secondary care budgets, and give responsibility for control of all that money to an arms length new public-private entity called an integrated care board.

    Now this integrated care board, on the board will be sitting all the private corporations that have been awarded outsourcing contracts over the years. And what most people are unaware of, is that this legislation is making legal what has been going on behind the scenes very quietly for over a decade. Which is, corporations such as the big four accountancy firms, the management consultancies like McKinseys, the outsourcing giants like Serco, they have all been at the heart of the backroom function of the NHS…

    So they’ve already been in place, this is not some hypothetical threat, the corporations are embedded within the NHS, and what the creation of the new legal entity will do is formally transfer power from government… to this new public-private entity. So that’s a massive step.

    In Consortium News last December, Gill and public policy analyst Stewart Player warned of creeping “Americanization of the NHS” and “the penetration of the healthcare system by the giant U.S. insurer UnitedHealth”. They believe the current bill, with its 42 regional-scale ICSs, is proof of this. And they believe it’s being:

    effectively designed and fast-tracked by the private UnitedHealth.

    The severity of Private Finance Initiatives (PFI)

    As Gill told The Canary, the Blair years also saw the private sector being allowed “to saddle the NHS estate, land, and buildings with PFI debt”. PFI uses private money to build public infrastructure such as hospitals or schools. These are then leased to the government but owned by the private institution. It was actually introduced by the Tories, but Blair’s Labour drove it forward with enthusiasm.

    Gill told us this saddling of debt can:

    then be used as an excuse to flog off land

    And PFI:

    also handed over ownership to the private sector. So you had the assets being privatised.

    In 2010, PFI investor David Metter received dividends of £8.6m. He had a stake in 19 hospitals. In 2013, BBC’s Panorama likened overall PFI programme to a credit card, because:

    they buy now, we all pay later

    In 2018, the chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland said PFI was a “fraud on the people”. And the Independent reported the PFI bill for NHS hospitals was projected to be above £79bn. A considerably high price on its own, but significantly higher than the build cost of £11.4bn.

    In 2019, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that £13bn invested by the private sector in new hospitals would cost the NHS in England £80bn. Some trusts spent one-sixth of their budget repaying debts because of PFI.

    But there’s still time to save the NHS

    Large as the Tory majority is, Boris Johnson – assuming he survives much longer – certainly doesn’t have the loyalty of his ranks. And if public pressure is brought to bear, it could once again force change. Tory MPs or House of Lords members could possibly rebel if they believed there was significant public opposition to this bill, or indeed if they believed their own position was under threat.

    There’s so much we need to defend at present. It’s essential the NHS is part of that, and that every individual plays their part. The campaign to stop this assault on our health needs to be as loud as the campaigns for our planet’s survival and the campaigns that stand up for our civil and human rights. It’s really is that important.

    Because if we all don’t stand up now, what we know and cherish most about our health service could very well be a distant memory. A mirror image of the US’s profit-driven ‘healthcare’ system.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons – SLaMNHSFT & Pixabay – TheDigitalArtist

    By Peadar O'Cearnaigh

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • US worried about losing out in South Pacific to Chinese influence

    COMMENTARY: By Michael Field in Auckland

    China’s activities in the South Pacific are causing growing alarm in Washington, forcing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to make an urgent visit to Fiji.

    But, sources say, he cannot do it due to the continued absence of Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, and like many people, Blinken is awaiting word on when he will return.

    Last month Bainimarama flew to Melbourne for unannounced open heart surgery and has given no word on when he will return.

    Washington has regional concerns but Blinken appears to believe he can speak to the whole South Pacific in a single meeting with Bainimarama.

    Washington regards its concerns as too important to be dealt with via acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

    US aid and involvement in the Pacific has been minimal and the last high level visit of any kind was the 2012 trip to Rarotonga of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A decade between visits shows a high level indifference.

    But concern has mounted after recent riots in the Solomon Islands in the wake of its switch in diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China.

    Beijing appears now to have strengthened its hand in Honiara.

    Slow to give significant aid
    While China has been slow to get significant aid to eruption damaged Tonga, they will still beat the United States to it. Washington got a frigate to Nuku’alofa with boxes of water; China’s PLAN Wuzhishan and Chaganhu are grunty vessels, carrying significant aid.

    Nuku’alofa is already home to a large and modern Chinese Embassy.

    The business of asserting Western power has not been helped by Australia’s naval failure of its flagship HMAS Adelaide.

    However, while Blinken’s flying trip into Suva will wave flags and provide the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) with yet another dress up parade, how it will go down with other countries in the region is far from clear. They are not overly fond of Bainimarama’s preaching.

    But all depends on one thing: Bainimarama showing up at all.

    Michael Field is an independent New Zealand journalist and co-editor of The Pacific Newsroom. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Journalism academics question News Corp’s deal with Google and Melbourne Business School

    ANALYSIS: By Andrew Dodd, The University of Melbourne; Alexandra Wake, RMIT University, and Matthew Ricketson, Deakin University

    News Corp Australia and Google have announced the creation of the Digital News Academy in partnership with the Melbourne Business School at the University of Melbourne. It will provide digital skills training for News Corp journalists and other media outlets.

    Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

    The academy won’t provide full degrees, just certificates and a chance to upgrade digital skills in a fast-changing media environment.

    Many companies in various industries have partnered with universities to deliver what used to be in-house training programmes. Strengthening the links between industry and the academy has been welcomed in many sectors and certainly encouraged by governments for many years.

    Why then are we as journalism academics concerned?

    There are several reasons. The first and most obvious is the incursion of a high-profile and controversial media company into the higher education sector and the extent to which that is funded by a large disruptive digital search company.

    Antagonism towards academia
    It is telling that the Digital News Academy will be housed in the University of Melbourne’s private arm, the Melbourne Business School, rather than its Centre for Advancing Journalism within the Arts faculty.

    Australia’s largest commercial media company has long criticised university journalism education, and journalism academics, including each of the authors of this article and many of our colleagues.

    The company even once sent an incognito reporter into a University of Sydney lecture to uncover criticism of News Corp in the classroom. That reporter, Sharri Markson, is now investigations editor at The Australian and a member of “the panel of experts” that will oversee the Digital News Academy.

    Source: Digital News Academy
    Source: Digital News Academy

    So it comes as no surprise that News Corp has avoided journalism programmes.

    News Corp Australasia’s executive chairman Michael Miller has said part of the academy’s role will be building a stronger Australia by keeping society informed through “strong and fearless news reporting and advocacy”.

    Yet partnering with a journalism programme would have facilitated that. It might also have helped assuage News Corp critics, some of whom have been active online during the week with reminders about News Corp’s unethical conduct during the hacking scandal and its disregard for scientific evidence in its reporting on climate change.

    University journalism courses teach ethics and critical thinking alongside practical skills such as new digital ways of fact checking, gathering information and telling stories.

    Google Australia already offers free tutorials to journalism programmes about smart ways to use its search engine to find and check investigative stories.

    University journalism programmes also distinguish between training and education; the former is predominantly about skills, the latter places those skills in context and teaches students how to think critically about the industry and environment in which they work.

    By placing this course in a business school and not a liberal arts or humanities faculty, the venture gets the kudos of the University of Melbourne’s backing without the challenging academic culture News Corp dislikes.

    News Corp and Google are corporate clients, paying the university for these courses, so the capacity for independent criticism of Australia’s most dominant newspaper company is eroded even further.

    The Digital News Academy will be within the Melbourne Business School, rather than the University of Melbourne's Centre for Advancing Journalism.
    The Digital News Academy will be housed within the Melbourne Business School, rather than the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism. Image: The Conversation/Shutterstock

    What will the Digital News Academy do?
    All we know so far about the academic credibility of the Digital News Academy comes from its promotional announcement, in press releases reported in the Media section of The Australian (published by News Corp).

    The publicity says the nine-month course will take 750 enrolments from journalists at News Corp Australia, Australian Community Media (the stable of 160 regional publications formerly owned by Fairfax) and smaller media partners.

    A “governance committee” will select candidates (who nominate themselves or are put forward by their employers). These students will be expected to use the Google suite of tools as they collaborate online at the Melbourne Business School, to generate, build and sell stories to the course’s “Virtual Academy Newsroom”.

    Each year there will be what is being billed as a major journalism conference and a US study tour for a select group of trainees.

    There are no public details yet of the academic credentials of the certificate programme but the academy has drawn on a “panel of experts”, almost all of whom come from inside News Corp and Google.

    Google gains influence
    It’s easy to see why Google was motivated to fund a News Corp training academy above and beyond what it is required to do as part of its bid to stop further intervention in its workings by the Australian government under the terms of the News Media Bargaining Code.

    But there are some deeper questions about why a company that has such a stranglehold on the new digital economy is involved. By funding the academy Google may be undercutting full university degrees specialising in journalism.

    Relying on Google to make up the shortfall in news organisations’ training budgets is a problem. It allows Google to shape curriculum while appearing to be a champion of the same journalism industry it has been accused of undermining.

    As journalism academics we respect the need for specialised training and skills development. But journalism programmes should never be captured or constrained from being critical of the industry for which they prepare students.

    They should continue to embed ethics in their courses. The aim, after all, is to improve journalism, for everybody’s benefit.

    As it is often said, news is not just another business. While studying journalism often involves the study of business, business imperatives should not drive the study of journalism itself.The Conversation

    Dr Andrew Dodd is director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne; Dr Alexandra Wake is programme manager, journalism, at RMIT University, and Dr Matthew Ricketson is professor of communication at Deakin University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    Dr Dodd has worked as a journalist at The Australian newspaper and has provided in-house legal and news writing training for News Corp. Dr Wake has provided in-house training for the ABC and for Australian Provincial Newspapers. She is the elected president of the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA). Professor Ricketson has worked on staff at The Australian, among other news outlets. He was a member of the Finkelstein inquiry into the media and media regulation which was sharply criticised in News Corp Australia publications. His appointment as the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance’s representative on the Press Council was also criticised by News Corp Australia. Full disclosures at The Conversation.

     

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ deserves far more respect for keeping covid deaths so low

    ANALYSIS: By Peter Davis

    With the arrival of the omicron variant on our shores, it is hard to believe, judging by the media coverage — particularly on MIQ, that the Aotearoa New Zealand government has got anything right in its pandemic response.

    One important feature that has been missed in the debate on New Zealand’s pandemic response to date, however, is our very low death rate. At under 60, it is 0.5 percent of the rate in the United Kingdom – approximately 10 per million, compared with more than 2000 per million in the United Kingdom.

    This is a very important metric that has been given too little regard here and overseas. The number of people dying of covid-19 in the UK is well over 150,000. This figure is confirmed by the data on excess deaths estimated against the long-run average; the two numbers closely correspond.

    This figure is just under half the number of British troops killed in World War II. And this in two years of a pandemic, compared with the six years of that conflict.

    In other words, the deaths wrought by covid are on a scale comparable with a major outbreak of warfare. And yet too many commentators and decision-makers have become inured to this death toll, concentrating instead on the performance of the health system and the enjoyment of individual freedoms.

    If we had suffered the same rate of covid deaths as the UK has, that would make the number of deaths not 50-60 but 10,000, not far short of the number of New Zealanders dying in World War II (just under 12,000).

    The scale of death — or the potential for death — therefore needs to feature more prominently in the coverage of the politics of the pandemic.

    ‘Let the bodies pile high’​
    For example, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is said to have stated that he would prefer to “let the bodies pile high”​ rather than pursue another lockdown.

    True or not, that reported statement had almost no impact on his popularity compared to stories of his attending parties at Downing Street when the UK was under firm restrictions on gatherings.

    This blind spot in the media coverage and cultural resonance of the pandemic came home to me when a columnist in the left-of-centre publication New Statesman pointed out that, pre-omicron, her friends in Australia didn’t know a single person with the virus, and yet their state and federal governments at that time were pursuing far stronger public health measures than were being applied the UK.

    The same could have been said of New Zealand since the two countries have followed similar policies.

    Yes, most Australians — and New Zealanders — pre-Omicron were unlikely to know anybody with the virus; but neither were they likely to know anybody who had died of it, which is in many respects a far more important metric both ethically and politically.

    Arguably, New Zealand — like Australia — is a more communitarian country, with “two degrees of separation” and all that. Thus, it might matter that bit more to us whether or not our neighbour, friend, or relative dies of a pandemic disease.

    In larger, more anonymous societies there is less proximity to death.

    Pictures of morgues
    At present anyway, pictures of morgues piled high with the dead from the pandemic would be socially unacceptable in our culture. Added to this is the special place of Māori, who could suffer disproportionately with a premature opening of our borders.

    This is something that Grounded Kiwis, the expatriate New Zealanders’ group pushing the legal case against the government, may have missed. If it forces the hand of the government to open our borders before we have been able to achieve acceptable levels of both vaccination and infection protection — such as masking, ventilation, distancing, and self-testing against the onslaught of omicron – then the consequences may also be an increase in the likely death rate in New Zealand.

    For example, New South Wales at the peak of its omicron outbreak recorded rather more deaths in a single day than New Zealand had recorded over the near-two years of the pandemic, despite the supposedly milder and less impactful character of this variant.

    Is that really what we want?

    It is also as well to remember our responsibility to all vulnerable populations, including the elderly, Māori and Pasifika, and all those with relevant underlying health conditions. These groups have suffered disproportionately in the pandemic so far.

    Few of us have experienced over a short time and in a proximate way significant numbers of deaths in our circles. Half a century ago, it was more common for people to die at home, often surrounded by family, but this has become much less so.

    These days it is more likely to be professionally and medically managed, with much of our experience of death otherwise coming packaged via mass and social media.

    The government — and New Zealanders — have done well to keep pandemic death at bay. This is not to justify draconian measures without considered trade-offs against wider societal costs and benefits.

    But it is to argue for a more balanced discussion of our pandemic response, and to show greater respect for the more communitarian style of it.

    Peter Davis is an elected member of the Auckland District Health Board, and emeritus professor in population health and social science at the University of Auckland. His article was first published at Stuff and is republished on Asia Pacific Report with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Opinion | Everyone loses when nations forcefully limit global migration

    This story originally appeared in openDemocracy on Jan. 31, 2022. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.

    Free movement is seen as an unworkable position—but it is our current immigration system, both in the UK and globally, that is unworkable. It is barbaric, it produces exploitation and, with the rising threat of the climate crisis, it is unsustainable.

    For too long, the status quo has been accepted as the default ‘common sense’ approach, but border enforcement policies are a relatively recent phenomenon. In the UK, they date no earlier than the 1905 Aliens Act (and until 1962 the UK had an open-door policy to Commonwealth countries), while the first fence on the US-Mexico border was erected only in the 1990s.

    Free movement is fundamentally about reducing suffering, tackling inequality, and ensuring everyone’s rights—issues that many care deeply about. But people are presented with a false dichotomy with migration: cruelty or chaos.

    While there is no doubt that border enforcement policies are deadly, their effectiveness is questionable. Yet they cost us a fortune—from complex technologies to back-room deals signed with regimes in different countries to contain their populations. Then there is the incalculable loss incurred by systems preventing people from reaching opportunity and from being entitled to work, change employer or unionise.

    And this is before we even discuss their cost in human lives. The overwhelming economic case for free movement has been made repeatedly, but the argument from a human and workers’ rights perspective—for migrants and non-migrants alike—rarely gains a mainstream hearing.

    Migrants’, workers’, and human rights activists have been forced onto the back foot, able only to resist the increasing brutality of our border regimes rather than arguing for an entirely new migration system. But we must not lose sight of the complete overhaul that is needed, and challenge the false logic that underpins the status quo.

    Many things that we today consider to be basic rights were once viewed as unrealistic and too radical, such as universal suffrage. Attitudes and policies have been changed before and we can do so again to make what was once unthinkable possible, and then obvious.

    As climate change devastates communities around the world, many more will be forced from their homes. Will those in the West, the states that have contributed the greatest emissions, abandon those least responsible but most affected? Or will we attempt to work out a global system that supports migration of this scale in the most humane way possible? The crises we face require bold solutions that go beyond existing limited programmes to assist small numbers of people.

    All but a tiny minority of the world’s richest people are excluded from the opportunity to obtain a visa and travel to escape persecution or to seek a better life for their families. People are dying attempting to cross the Channel and other Western borders, and those who survive their journeys face increasingly restricted rights in the countries in which they settle. Often they are denied benefits, housing assistance, the right to change employer or reunite with family members. In some cases they are banned from working at all, leaving them at risk of destitution or becoming victims of exploitative rogue employers.

    Regardless of restrictions and risks, people will continue to move—as they have done throughout human history. Under the current system, they are simply stripped of their rights upon crossing an international border. As activists Juno Mac and Molly Smith argue, “a system where everybody could migrate, live and work legally and in safety would not be a huge, radical departure; it would simply take seriously the reality that people are already migrating and working and that as a society we should prioritise their safety and rights.”

    By far the most common type of migration is the kind we largely ignore, which takes place within countries. Most forcibly displaced people worldwide never cross an international border.

    Indeed, free movement is also a workers’ right and there are real benefits to be derived for everyone, including those who choose not to exercise their right to move. While some fear migration would depress wages and cause unemployment, even in the current climate of weakened trade unions, stagnant wages, underfunding, and a hostile environment, the government’s own research shows that immigration has little to no impact on employment and a small short-term negative effect on low-paid workers. The truth is that exploitative bosses and the system enabling them are to blame for low wages, and the answer is stronger workers’ rights for all and a unionised workforce.

    A lack of migrants’ rights is part of this system. For example, migrants whose right to live in a country depends on employers’ sponsorship, as is currently the case in the UK, are less likely to challenge exploitative employers for fear of deportation. This precarity undermines their ability to unionise, which is detrimental not only to migrant workers but to their non-migrant colleagues. If migrants were free to change employers and to exercise their workers’ rights, it would likely improve working conditions for all.

    Free movement is fundamentally about reducing suffering, tackling inequality, and ensuring everyone’s rights—issues that many care deeply about. But people are presented with a false dichotomy with migration: cruelty or chaos. With such a strong humanitarian case for free movement, it is an idea on which people can be won over if concerns about its practicality are addressed. There is a body of evidence that suggests many of the fears about free movement are unfounded.

    There is a theory that free movement and an inclusive welfare state are mutually exclusive. However, the research does not appear to support this. The development of free movement rights must include access to the state safety net that we rely on in times of difficulty, but under such a system, ‘benefits tourism’ has been shown to be largely a myth.

    Where people are able to move freely within a region, they tend to go to where they can find good jobs, and leave when the jobs go. Where regional free-movement areas are developed, mutual access to welfare states needs to be negotiated, but evidence suggests that this is not an insurmountable challenge to generous policies—as in the Scandinavian countries under EU freedom of movement, for example.

    The use of public services is not a zero-sum game: migrants pay taxes and staff as well as using public services. They also create jobs. The Turkish city of Gaziantep grew its population by 30% in ten years by taking in half a million Syrian refugees. Instead of separating the migrants from the previous residents, authorities invested in improving infrastructure to benefit everyone.

    It is through the gradual growth of regional free-movement areas—such as the EU, South American trade bloc MERCOSUR, and Australia and New Zealand’s Trans-Tasman agreement, among many others—that we can advance towards a world where crossing a border does not mean losing one’s rights and, eventually, one where mobility is free and everyone’s rights are strengthened.

    Moving step by step to promote greater transnational rights for all can mitigate and manage the challenges brought by freer migration. By far the most common type of migration is the kind we largely ignore, which takes place within countries. Most forcibly displaced people worldwide never cross an international border.

    The evidence shows that, given freedom, people tend to move within their region or choose not to move, and adopt circular migration patterns, bringing knowledge, skills and money gained elsewhere back into their communities of origin and back out again and so on.

    Regardless of restrictions and risks, people will continue to move—as they have done throughout human history.

    Permanent migration from the Global South to the Global North is more unusual. The path reflects the immense global inequality that the Global North has created through hoarding wealth often extracted from migrants’ countries of origin, and the lack of flexibility in our systems for managing human mobility. People are forced to abandon their homes and travel large distances, risking everything, just for the chance at a better life.

    But our rich societies equally would not function without immigration, so we must not see migration purely as something that ‘happens to us’, but as a complex and natural process in which we are a disproportionately powerful player and have the levers to manage it in a way that benefits us all.

    We are currently a long way from global free movement and such a system could not be achieved by the UK alone. But in the immediate term, there are policies the UK could introduce that would increase mobility rights, lessen the brutality of our immigration system, and create a more just world.

    We need to prevent further moves towards an immigration system based on wealth, minimum income and employer sponsorship; lift hostile environment policies that restrict access to public funds and the NHS; guarantee safe routes and rights for asylum seekers; shut down detention centres; restore free movement with Europe and gradually agree to free-movement rights with more countries. We must also redouble our efforts on international development and climate justice for the Global South.

    The UK is in a position to stop doing so much harm towards migrants. Even as we struggle to protect existing rights, we must not lose sight of the ultimate goal—an equal world where we all have strong rights and opportunity is shared—and fight to take steps towards it.

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • The Big Lie Liar

    Perhaps you’ve seen it up-close: a parent, an uncle, or maybe a boss with an almost visceral tendency to lie. The lie and the need for affirmation is never a one-off occurrence; you’ve seen its dynamic play out many times: “If validated, I will be happy; if not, I will be angry.” You know that he knows he is lying, and he probably knows that you know he is lying, but none of that is actually important. It’s not the affirmation of truth being sought; it’s the confirmation of power. The dynamic in play is a tacit agreement between you and the liar. Acceptance of the lie confers amity to you, and control to the liar.

    If you’ve not seen it up-close, you’ve had plenty of opportunity to view it from afar. Our former president put it out there for all to see on a daily basis. David Markowitz (Forbes) tabulated 18,000 lies told by Trump, while a Washington Post team credited him with more than 30,000. That kind of momentum doesn’t end suddenly (unless death is involved) so it’s not surprising to see it continue beyond his presidency. His mother of all lies, the one they call The Big Lie, came upon his losing bid for a second term in office. The Big Lie, of course, is that Trump didn’t lose; the election was a fraud, a fraud perpetrated by evil Democrats that cheated patriotic Americans out of the blessings of his rightful second tour of duty.

    For some strange reason, we’re often moved to doubt an obvious liar’s culpability, as if it’s unbelievable that he’s willfully unbelievable. Early on, even before his presidency, it was often asked, “Does Trump know when he is lying?” Peter Warski cited one early and obvious lie, but was uncertain of Trump’s mindfulness. An LA Times editorialist posited that Trump’s memory cells had a one-day capacity, rendering his lies to be inadvertent. Others, like Billy Bush, were quite certain of his self-awareness. Bush shared the infamous Access Hollywood bus ride with Trump and recalled his words: “Billy, look, you just tell them and they believe it. That’s it; you just tell them and they believe. They just do.”

    Billy Bush had an up-close opportunity to hear the essence of lying explained by an “honest” liar. Lying isn’t an accidental misstatement of facts. It’s a conscious (however fleeting) effort to control the perception and/or behavior of others. To presume a liar is unaware of his purpose is a haughty and dangerous condescension. The presumption grants the liar a near pardon, and blinds the recipient(s) to the dynamic in play. The lie is not inadvertent. At inception, the liar is fully aware of his intent, even if masked by a sense of entitlement. He says what he says to control others. Never mind that he genuinely appears to “believe” the lie. Indeed, he must appear so; it’s a necessary part of the dynamic.

    Let’s bypass about 30,000 lies and go to the big one, The Big Lie that’s still current. The seed for the lie was consciously planted before the 2020 votes were cast. Ahead of the balloting, Trump said, “Make sure, because the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged. Remember that. It’s the only way we’re going to lose the election.” That was foreplay for the lie, providing premeditated lubricant for insertion of the Big Lie. More than a year later, it’s still embraced by a majority of Republicans. Save for Fox News, the media seems fully on top of Trump’s voting fraud claim. It’s been shown over and over, even verified by Republican officials, that no meaningful fraud took place. But the lie lives on, bigger and louder than ever.

    So, who believes the Big Lie? Actually, nobody; no one really believes it. Well, almost no one — if you’re shirtless and wearing a furry headdress with horns, maybe you do believe it, but you’re an exception. And if you’re among the 66% of Republican Party members (with shirts) who purport to believe the lie? Well, you probably don’t; you don’t really believe it. You like the Big Lie, you might even live the Big Lie, but you don’t really believe it. You have fooled a lot of people though. Much of the media “credits” you with being duped into believing it. It’s condescension, much like the doubt once given to Trump’s cognition. It means you’re seen as gullibly naïve, as suckers to a con man. It’s also a dangerous misjudgment; it means you’re not seen for what you’re capable of. But then again, maybe you don’t see what you’re capable of either.

    The dynamic of lying to yourself is similar to that of lying to someone else, and just as easy. A paraphrase of Trump’s revelation to Billy Bush sums it up: “You just tell yourself and you believe it; you just do.” It’s done for empowerment and the pursuit something blameworthy in a blameless sort of way. You lie to yourself and then pretend to believe it for inner harmony’s sake. Pretending to believe provides an ethical veil for the part of you that’s lying, and a pardon for the part of you that accepts it.

    But donning a lie is not the same as believing a lie. The Republican 66% Big Lie proponents are not illiterate victims. They’re not country bumpkins deceived by an urban huckster. They’re mindful people willing to wear the Big Lie for the same reason Trump chose to fabricate it: for control. It’s what they do; it’s what all liars do to get what they want. The 66% accept the Big Lie because they like what Trump promised, and what he still offers. They profess the Big Lie because it justifies wanting more of him and suspends culpability.

    The Big Lie is consciously adopted because it provides a facade of integrity to what’s already been done and justification for what’s yet to transpire. It’s currently being used as an excuse to usurp political representation from vast portions of the populace. All across our nation, the Party of Trump is actively working to impede meaningful suffrage and to control elections through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and Electoral College manipulation. Trump’s Big Lie gambit is an authoritarian attempt to circumvent the will of the people, an effort that likely, has only just begun.

    What does it matter; who cares whether it’s belief or justification? Why quibble over semantics? It’s for this reason: Belief is tied to a fixed perception of reality; justification allows an open-ended course of action. The 66% have clearly embarked on a course of action: the pursuit of Trumpism. It first requires the reelection or installation of Donald Trump as president (or a willing protégé). It won’t stop there; the pursuit is open-ended. When the Big Lie becomes obsolete, another justification will take its place. In for a penny, in for a pound; one lie leads to another.

    The 66% are not guileless victims of deception. They know what they want and who offers it. They clearly know that the Big Lie is its vehicle. It’s not so clear however, that they know its final terminus.

    There are little lies and big lies. The biggest lie is the one we tell ourselves, the one that justifies what shouldn’t be done. It’s never all done.

    The post The Big Lie Liar first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • What voting rights mean for the planet

    As studies increasingly tally the death toll of climate change, the recent stalemate over voting rights legislation in the Senate puts the United States at a grave crossroads. 

    The Republican Party that is rolling back voter protections in the states and blocking them on Capitol Hill _ enabled by conservative Democrats _ is the same party blocking, watering down, and gutting environmental protections at every opportunity. That means that as long as voting rights hang in the balance, so does environmental justice.

    Last year, a study by Harvard University and British researchers found that nearly 9 million people around the world died in 2018 from inhaling the particulate matter of fossil fuel pollution. That includes 350,000 premature deaths across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Illinois, New Jersey, and Wisconsin.

    In another ground-breaking 2021 study published in the Lancet, nearly 70 researchers found that more than 5 million people a year are dying from extreme cold or heat, with heat deaths expected to increase. That includes 173,600 deaths a year in the U.S. 

    There were no racial breakouts for those studies, but there is plenty of evidence that the very people most in need of voting rights are also in need of environmental protection. 

    In New York City, Black people comprise 24 percent of the population but accounted for 49 percent of heat-related deaths from 2000 to 2012, according to city data. Chicago is 29.6 percent Black but in its historic 1995 heat wave, 49 percent of fatalities were Black. In California, emergency visits for heat-related illness from 2005 to 2015 rose by 27 percent for White victims, but they soared a respective 67, 63, and 53 percent among Black, Latino, and Asian victims.   

    In the South, the disproportionate proximity of people of color to coal ash dumps, refineries, oil and gas fracking sites, and “cancer alleys” hyper-concentrated with petro-chemical plants is well documented. In the predominantly Black town of Reserve, Louisiana, chemical plants give residents a cancer risk 50 times the national average.  

    It thus should be no surprise that voters of color are also environmental voters. In a 2020 Yale University and George Mason University poll, 69 percent of Latinos and 57 percent of Black respondents said they were “alarmed” about climate change. That compares to just 49 percent of White respondents.

    The alarm is because Black and Latino households disproportionately breathe in the particulate pollution from our consumption of goods and services – disproportionately caused by White households. Black and Latino households are more likely to be in “fenceline communities,” a term used for neighborhoods in close proximity to, or literally  abutting, industrial facilities and traffic corridors.

    Black and other families of color are also more likely to live in neighborhoods that become potentially fatal summer heat islands for lack of tree shade and less ability to afford air conditioning. Flood risks under climate change are expected to dramatically shift disproportionately to predominantly Black census tracts, in a country where families of color are less able to access federal aid. 

    Many of these environmental injustices, which result in chronically compromised health, are tragically being exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two years into the pandemic Black, Latino, and Indigenous people still have double the chance of dying from an infection than a White person.

    Protest sign that reads "your vote is your voice; don't let them silence you"
    A protest for voting rights in January near the U.S. Capitol. Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

    The Biden administration promised action on environmental justice and last week, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan outlined several actions it was taking to achieve that goal, including $600,000 for air monitoring in the U.S.’s most infamous cancer alley in Louisiana. At best, that’s a tiny first step when there are 150 toxic plants along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, with several census tracts having the highest cancer rates in the nation.

    The chances of having state and federal agencies with the commitment to eliminate the disparities, remediate the damage, and regulate future industrial pollution depends on the most affected people being able to elect the most effective, representative government. 

    Between 2011 and 2012, as a clear attempt to stop the possible reelection of the nation’s first Black president, 19 states passed 27 laws making it harder for people to vote according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Last year, after President Trump claimed a stolen election and egged on the January 6 insurrection, the same number of states passed 34 laws restricting voter rights. The nastiness of the measures was symbolized by Georgia’s criminalizing the act of passing out water to voters in long lines.

    Despite 25 states also passing laws last year expanding voting rights, the Brennan Center for Justice said, “this expansive legislation does not outweigh the impact of the restrictive laws… there is a stark and growing divide in the nation, where access to the right to vote increasingly depends on the state in which a voter happens to reside. That divide only stands to widen next year unless Congress acts.”

    With Republicans controlling the legislature in 30 states, it means that any high turnout by voters of color in much of the country is democratic heroism. One example is the 2020 primary in my home state of Wisconsin, where Republicans required in-person voting, despite COVID-19 raging throughout the state. Milwaukee was hit so hard by the pandemic, it had only five polling places open, one at Marshall High School, my alma mater. 

    I was proud of the long lines at my old school. Even before all this, I experienced how easily a voter could be disenfranchised by the sheer laziness of voting officials. The weekend before the 2008 presidential election, my father was in a Veterans Administration hospital in Milwaukee for a heart attack. Hooked up to I.V.s and monitors, he said he still wanted to vote. So I went downtown to the city’s election office to get him an absentee ballot. The clerk insisted the deadline had passed for him to obtain one, even for major health reasons. 

    I went back to the hospital and told my dad this in front of one of his nurses. The nurse happened to be a patient advocate for various services, including elections. She angrily said that what I was told was nonsense for hospitalized veterans. She left the room and returned with a document for me to take back downtown. 

    When I went back to the elections commission, the same clerk saw me coming, remembered me, and had words for me before I could open my mouth.

    “I thought I told you that you were too late,” she said.

    I handed over the document: “Take this to your supervisor.”

    I watched the clerk and her supervisor stammer for a few minutes before the clerk finally came back and gave me the ballot, without a word, without apology.

    I went back to the hospital with the ballot and watched as my dad’s hands — trembling from his traumas — marked off the spot for Barack Obama. I learned forever that if it is this hard for just one Black man to vote, even in one of the “bluest” cities in the United States, who knows what barriers will rise elsewhere?   

    Protesters and a sign reading "protect voting rights! reject racism"
    There is plenty of evidence the people who most need their voting rights protected also need environmental protection. Ty O’Neil / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

    We’re getting that answer. While the turnout in the 2020 presidential election was historically high, aided with early voting and pandemic mail-in balloting, major racial gaps in turnout persist. The Brennan Center found that while white turnout was 71 percent. Black, Asian, and Latino turnout was a respective 63, 60, and 54 percent. Overall, the turnout of people of color was 58 percent, 13 percentage points behind that of White voters.

    In a college basketball game, a 71-58 final score would be decisive from any angle.  The Brennan Center, citing several studies on voter ID laws, distance to polling stations, and reductions of early voting days, said, “There is ample evidence that the sorts of barriers being introduced by Republicans this year disproportionately reduce turnout for voters of color.

    This is happening at precisely the same time that young voters and voters of color are voting for environmental protection. Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) reported a big boost in 2020 turnout among voters aged 18 to 29, with climate change hugely on their mind. Those voters were crucial in Biden winning battleground Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. While 78 percent of all voters 18-29 said they were concerned about climate change, 84 percent of young voters of color said they were concerned.

    Nathaniel Stinnett, head of the Environmental Voter Project, told public radio’s “Living on Earth” that high Black turnout, with the environment as a priority, helped send Georgia’s first Black and Jewish senators to Washington in a special 2021 runoff. The project’s analysis of the election found that nearly 7,000 voters who voiced strong concerns for the environment voted in the runoff even though they had not voted in the state’s monumental presidential upset of Trump by Biden.

    Stinnett said these voters care about the environment “because coal-fired power plants aren’t put in lily-white suburbs. They’re put in communities of color.”

    If there is one good thing from this war on voting rights, it’s that legacy environmental groups are signing up for the fight after years of frequent criticism for pursuing conservation agendas and greenhouse gas strategies that leave out communities dealing with fossil pollution. Back in June, environmental and conservation organizations were prominent among the more than 200 groups calling for an end to the Senate filibuster. 

    The coalition called the filibuster, the rule that requires 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to close debate to let most legislation reach the floor, “a relic of the Jim Crow era. It was designed and used for decades to thwart civil rights legislation, including blocking critical protections for voting rights and anti-lynching legislation. It has also been used to stop legislation that would protect workers, to relax environmental safeguards, and to stifle other legislative initiatives that have had broad support among the American people.”

    As Texas Southern environmental policy professor Robert Bullard told E&E News this month, “Our environmental justice movement grew out of civil rights, and the fight for equal protection, the fight and the right to vote and not be intimidated, and not to be treated differently in that way.” It is critical to the fate of democracy and the planet itself that the Senate sees it this way.  

    This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What voting rights mean for the planet on Feb 1, 2022.

    This post was originally published on Grist.

  • Muzhgan Samarqandi: MIQ debate trivialises the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan

    OPEN LETTER: A reply to Charlotte Bellis from Afghanistani mother and former broadcaster Muzhgan Samarqandi

    My name is Muzhgan Samarqandi and I am from Baghlan, Afghanistan, but living in New Zealand with my Kiwi husband and our son. Like Charlotte Bellis, I too was a broadcaster in Afghanistan, back when this was possible for a woman without being a foreigner.

    As a mother, my heart goes out to Charlotte, and I sincerely hope she and her partner get to New Zealand so she can give birth at home surrounded by her family.

    As someone who has travelled for study and work and love, and who does not share the same passport as their significant other, my heart goes out to everyone stranded overseas, and I sincerely hope they can all get home and be reunited with their loved ones.

    But as an Afghanistani woman, who has only recently emigrated from Afghanistan to New Zealand, I have to speak up.

    I almost did so when Charlotte interviewed Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the Taliban spokesperson with the Kiwi accent. She went easy on him. For example, at the end of the interview, she asked what he had to say to those who called the Taliban “terrorists”.

    He said people didn’t really believe they were terrorists, but this was just a word the US used for anyone who didn’t fall in line with their agenda. There were no further questions.

    This was a man who claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban for attacks on innocent civilians. A man who has admitted to crimes against humanity. It made me so upset to see him get away with answers like that. But then my energy was taken up just coping with the reality of what was happening to my friends and family in Afghanistan.

    Social media responses
    But now, when I read Charlotte’s letter in the New Zealand Herald and see the media and social media responses, I see the situation in my country being trivialised, and it makes me angry.

    Charlotte refers to herself asking the Taliban in a press conference what they would do for women and girls, and says she is now asking the same question of the New Zealand government.

    I understand there are problems with MIQ. And I understand the value in provoking change with controversy. But what I don’t understand is how someone who has lived and worked in Afghanistan, and seen the impact of the Taliban’s regime on women and girls, can seriously compare that situation to New Zealand.

    Afghanistani women who resist or protest the regime are being arrested, tortured, raped and killed. Young girls are being married off to Talibs (a member of the Taliban). Education and employment are no longer available to them.

    A 19-year-old girl I know from my village, who was in her first year of law last year is now, instead, a housewife to a Talib.

    There are so many stories like this.

    New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis
    Pregnant New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis was unsuccessful in gaining an emergency MIQ spot. Image: Al Jazeera English screenshot APR

    The Taliban distort Islam
    Charlotte says the Taliban have given her a safe haven when she is not welcome in her own country. This is obviously a good headline and good way to make a point. But it is an inaccurate and unhelpful representation of the situation.

    One commentary on Instagram, re-posted by Charlotte, suggested her story represents the truly Muslim acts of the Taliban, which the Western media have not shown. This makes me angry.

    If a person in power extends privileges to someone who doesn’t threaten their power, it doesn’t mean they are not oppressive or extremist or dangerous.

    The Taliban distort Islam and manipulate Muslims for their political gain. They violate the rights of women and girls, and it is offensive to compare them to the New Zealand government in this regard.

    New Zealand is no paradise, I have experienced my fair share of racism here, and I am sure the MIQ situation can be improved.

    But relying on the protection of a regime that is violently oppressive, and then using that to try to shame the New Zealand government into action, is not the way to achieve that improvement.

    It exploits and trivialises the situation in Afghanistan, at a time when the rights of Afghanistani women and girls desperately need to be taken seriously.

    Muzhgan Samarqandi works for an international aid agency in New Zealand. Her article was first published on the TV One News website and is republished here with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • One third of Biden’s Cabinet are Jewish Zionists

    The US became increasingly Zionist subverted in the 1960s after Apartheid Israel gained nuclear weapons and after the assassinations of JFK and Robert Kennedy. Support for Apartheid Israel (and hence for  the repugnant crime of Apartheid) is now a pillar of US politics, with anti-racist critics of Israeli Apartheid ferociously attacked, side-lined, and falsely defamed  as anti-Semitic. However Zionist control and hubris are now blatant: 32 percent or about one third of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet are Jewish Zionists and the remainder are moderate Christian Zionists.

    (a). Jewish Americans are an astonishing 17-fold over-represented in the Biden Cabinet. Jewish Americans total 6.4 million people, or  1.9% of the total US population of 333 million. However Jews represent 8 of the 25 people in President Joe Biden’s Cabinet (including Joe Biden himself) or 32% of the Cabinet. If we consider people who are Jewish or have Jewish spouses we must add Kamala Harris to get 9 out of 25 or 36% of the Cabinet. Thus Jews are over-represented in the Biden Cabinet by an astonishing factor of 32%/1.9% = 16.8-fold. The sine qua non of US politics is fervent support for theism, America first, neoliberalism and Apartheid Israel (and therefore for Apartheid) — accordingly the non-Jewish 68% of the Biden Cabinet fervently support Apartheid Israel, albeit as moderate Christian Zionists as opposed to the ferocious, Biblical literalist, and genocidal evangelical Christian Zionists who support Trump. If we realistically assume that 50% of Jewish Americans are anti-racist and reject the genocidal racism of Zionism and Israeli Apartheid, then Zionist Jewish Americans are 34-fold over-represented in the Biden Cabinet.

    (b). African Americans are about 2-fold  over-represented in the Biden Cabinet. African Americans total 46,936,733 or 14.2% of the total US population, but comprise  6 out of 25 or 24% of the Biden Cabinet. Thus African Americans are over-represented in the Biden Cabinet by a  factor of 24%/14.2% = 1.7-fold.

    (c).  Hispanic and Latino Americans are equitably represented in the Biden Cabinet. Hispanic and Latino Americans total 65.3 million or 19.5% of the overall US population, but comprise 4 out of 25 or 16% of the Biden Cabinet. Thus Hispanic/Latino Americans are under-represented in the Biden Cabinet by an unexceptionally modest degree of 16%/19.5% = 0.8-fold i.e. their representation in the Biden Cabinet is a modest 0.8 times less than expected.

    (d). Asian Americans are equitably represented in the Biden Cabinet.  Asian Americans (mainly  Chinese, Indian, and Filipino Americans but also notably  including  Korean, Vietnamese, Afghan, Arab and Japanese Americans) total 24 million or 7.2% of the US population, but comprise 2 out of 25 or 8% of the Biden Cabinet. Thus Asian Americans are over-represented in the Biden Cabinet by an unexceptionally modest factor of 8%/7.2% = 1.1-fold. Chinese, Indian, and Filipino Americans total 5 million, 4.3 million, and 4 million people, respectively, or 1.5%, 1.3% and  1.2% of the total US population.

    (e). Indigenous Americans are equitably represented in the Biden Cabinet. Indigenous Americans total 9,666,058 or 2.9% of the total US population, but comprise 1 out of 25 or 4% of the Biden Cabinet. Thus Indigenes are over-represented in the Biden Cabinet by a modest factor of 4%/2.9% = 1.4-fold (the lowest figure possible short of having no Indigenous people in the Biden Cabinet).

    (f). Non-Jewish and non-Latino White Americans are 2.5-fold under-represented in the Biden Cabinet. Thus from the 2020 US Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were White alone, and 71.0%, or 235,411,507 people, were White alone or combined with another race. Non-Latino White Americans totalled roughly 191,697,647, or 57.8%. White Latino Americans totalled about 12,579,626, or 3.8% of the population. Non-Jewish and non-Latino White Americans total 191,697, 647 – 6,400,000 = 185,297,647  or 55.6% of the US population, but comprise only 6 out of 25 or 24% of the Biden Cabinet. Thus non-Jewish and non-Latino White Americans are substantially under-represented in the Biden Cabinet by a significant degree of  24%/55.6% = 0.4 fold i.e. their representation in the Biden Cabinet is 0.4 times less than their “fair share.” However the even more remarkable thing about these 6 non-Jewish and non-Latino White members of the Biden Cabinet is that they are all Catholics. Of the 17 non-Jewish members of the Biden Cabinet all but 5 (i.e. 12) are Catholics.

    (g). Female Americans are slightly under-represented in the Biden Cabinet by a factor  of 0.9.  Thus females represent 50.5% of the American population, but comprise 11 out of 25 or 44% of the Biden Cabinet. Women are thus slightly under-represented in the Biden Cabinet by a factor of 44%/50.5% = 0.9.

    (h). Catholic Americans are 3-fold over-represented in the Biden Cabinet. The US has the world’s largest Christian population. About 48.9% of Americans are Protestants, 23.0% are Catholics, and 1.8% are Mormons. In 2016, 74% of Americans identified as Christians while 18% claimed no religious affiliation. However, all (100%) of the 6 non-Jewish and non-Latino White members of the Biden Cabinet are Catholics. Of the 17 non-Jewish members of the Biden Cabinet, 12 (71%) are Catholics, i.e. while Catholics are 23.0% of the US population they are 71% of the non-Jewish members of the Biden Cabinet, and thus are disproportionately over-represented by a factor of 71%/23% = 3.1-fold.

    (i). Protestant Americans are 2–fold under-represented in the Biden Cabinet. While Protestants are  48.9% of the US population, a maximum of only 6 out of 25 (24%) of the members of the Biden Cabinet are Protestants i.e. they are 48.9%/24% = 2.0-fold under-represented in the Biden Cabinet.

    (j). Republicans, Pentecostal Christians (Evangelical Christians), and Racist Religious Right Republicans (R4s) are totally absent from the Biden Cabinet.  Not surprisingly there are no Republicans in the Biden Cabinet, and despite its representational inequities, the Biden Cabinet is blessed by the absence of Biblical literalist and genocidally pro-Zionist Pentecostal Christians (Evangelical Christians), and of Racist Religious Right Republicans (R4s) in general. Biblical literalists are simply nuts.

    (k). All of the members of the Biden Cabinet are fervently theist, nationalist, neoliberal, pro-market, pro-One Percenter, anti-socialist, pro-nuclear terrorism, pro-US hegemony, pro-militarism, pro-US interventionism, pro-Apartheid Israel (and hence pro-Apartheid) and pro-Zionist. To state the obvious, American politicians have to observe the sine qua non pillars of US politics of theism, capitalism, nationalism and support for Apartheid Israel (and hence for Apartheid).

    America portrays itself as a “democracy” but this assertion is highly flawed because of differential representation and influence as illustrated here, neoliberal One Percenter domination, and entrenched lying by commission and omission by mass media journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes. A Zionist-subverted and obscenely neoliberal US has transmuted from a one-person-one-vote democracy to a kleptocracy, plutocracy, Murdochracy, lobbyocracy, corporatocracy, and dollarocracy in which Big Money purchases people, politicians, parties, policies, votes and hence more political power and more private profit. The support for Apartheid Israel and hence for Apartheid by the non-European members of the Biden Cabinet is particularly disgusting.

    This Zionist perversion and subversion of America is deadly serious because 1.7 million Americans die preventably each year from “life-style choice” and “political choice” reasons, and since 9/11 about 33 million Americans have died thus in this ongoing American Holocaust. The long-term accrual cost of the War on Terror has been about $6 trillion. About 32 million Muslims have died from violence, 5 million, or from imposed deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity. Thus Zionist-subverted America has committed $6 trillion to killing over 30 million Muslims abroad instead of trying to save over 30 million American lives at home. For a very detailed and documented analysis see Gideon Polya, “Zionist-subverted America: Jewish Zionists Are One Third Of The Biden Cabinet,” Countercurrents, 27 January 2022. Wake up America!

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