Daily Archives: March 18, 2021

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The FDP has drawn up its ideas for the 2021 federal election. The first draft of the election program, which is just under 150 pages long, has not yet been published. In it, the liberals call for, among other things, a new assessment of working hours, the legalization of cannabis, and the abolition of the controversial paragraph 219a.

There is also a list of priorities of just under 50 pages, which repeatedly addresses the issue of intergenerational justice. What seems to play less of a role, on the other hand, is climate protection. We have picked out a few points from the FDP program.

Capping social security contributions: The level of social spending is to be capped at 50 percent of the federal budget. Even before the Corona crisis, the federal government spent more than every second euro on social welfare. This is blocking investment, according to the FDP.

Smoking ban in cars: The FDP wants to ban smoking in cars when children are in the car.

Shopping on Sundays and public holidays: Under the heading of "making city centers fit for the future", the Liberals want to overturn store closing times. Retailers would then also be able to open their stores on Sundays or public holidays.

Club culture: The corona pandemic has hit the club scene hard. Even after a year of pandemic, disco owners are not allowed to reopen their stores. The FDP wants to set an example and calls for electronic dance and club culture to be recognized as an intangible cultural heritage.

No young against old: Here the FDP comes with climate protection by the back door. It wants to introduce a generational balance sheet for laws. Laws are to undergo a sustainability and generational balance check. In the process, society's benefits for future generations are compared with the burdens that the young have to bear or pay off. What is to follow from this, however, remains open.

Armored Europe: The FDP wants more European cooperation on armaments. This should relieve individual states of the burden of developing and procuring military equipment, as well as maintaining and training it, and allow them to benefit from each other's knowledge.

Away from daily maximum working hours: The FDP wants more flexibility in the Working Time Act. This is to be achieved by defining weekly working hours instead of maximum daily working hours. For mobile work and home offices, the Occupational Health and Safety Act should apply, but not the Workplace Ordinance, which regulates workplace safety, for example.

Against a women's quota: Although the Liberals would like to see more women in management positions, they do not want to use rigid quotas. Instead, they leave it at voluntary commitments for larger companies. Companies should also commit to improving the proportion of women at the board level.

Top tax rate: The classic FDP theme of tax cuts is also to be found in the election platform for the 2021 federal election. The FDP wants the top tax rate to apply only above an annual income of 90,000 euros. Average earners should not already pay the highest tax rate.

Term limits and reduction in the size of the Bundestag: If the Free Democrats have their way, future chancellors will only be allowed to rule for a maximum of ten years. They also want to do something about the large Bundestag (currently 709 members). In order to reduce the size of parliament, the number of constituencies and thus of direct mandates is to be limited to 250.

Abortion paragraph: The FDP wants to abolish the controversial paragraph 219a. This regulates so far that physicians on their Internet sides may not place information about legal medical abortions. However, this often makes it more difficult for women to obtain objective information and advice on the subject.

Legalize cannabis: The FDP calls for the controlled distribution of cannabis. Possession and consumption should be allowed for adults and thus the quality should be controlled and the passing on of contaminated substances prevented.

According to its election program, the FDP also advocates abolishing the EEG surcharge for renewable energies, diesel driving bans, and the rent brake. At the very end of the detailed collection of ideas, there is the proposal to recognize and support e-sports as a sport.

Since October 2020, all members of the party have been able to participate in the guidelines for the election program. The Julis, the youth organization of the FDP, also want to contribute their own proposals, such as the introduction of the Everyman's Right in Germany. This would allow anyone to pitch a tent in any place. The Julis want to make it possible for young people in Germany on a budget to get to know their country. The draft is to be officially adopted in May of this year.

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Low taxes, flexible work, legal cannabis: The FDP wants to enter the Bundestag election campaign with these... - Business Insider

Numerous groups have seized on the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol to shame the business community for making political contributions from their employee-funded political action committees (PACs). The disapprobation ranges from criticism for contributing to certain politiciansthat is, those who disputed the results of the Electoral Collegeto calls for the complete abolition of business PACs.

Following Jan. 6, some Big Law firms and several corporations indicated they would either stop contributions from their PACs or review their process.

Critics of PACs are not the first to co-opt the political stage with designs on reordering our system of campaign finance. And there is no denying the high-volume of anti-PAC rhetoric we are hearing today.

So, the question on the minds of us in the business communityfrom manufacturers of goods to service providers like law firmsis how to address it. Before answering that, lets first see what history can tell us.

Since business PACs first entered the scene in the mid-20th century, numerous laws and reforms set the standards for PACs as we know them today. However, there have been no meaningful campaign finance reform efforts directed at business PACs for almost 50 years.

The reason for this was explained on the floor of the U.S. Senate by one of historys most ardent campaign finance reformers, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who said: "[W]e try to help political action committees because they provide us, generally speaking, with small donations that are an expression of small individuals involvement.

McCain provided this historical look back in 2002 while debating what became known as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. That bill also marked the beginning of a 20-year journey by Congress and the courts to address all manner of participants in our campaign finance system other than business PACs, which remain free to operate as they have for the past 50 years.

The current anti-PAC sentiment is clearly an anomaly in the larger campaign finance reform context. Cynically, it appears to be an attempt by those opposed to the business communitys political involvementwhich we see manifested in many different waysto seize an opportunity from the chaos at the Capitol. Though there may not be a basis in history for this moment, it should not be ignored, either.

First, dont apologize. Dont express regret for having a PAC and the important work it does to encourage small contributors to participate in our representative democracy and to advance the political goals of the business community and its many constituents. Although the impact of Jan. 6 weighs heavily on our thoughts and actions, its important to not lose sight of the value of a PAC, which has been borne out for decades. Rise above the noise of anti-PAC chatter, both internal and external, and be proud of your PAC.

Craft a long-term strategy. Use this as an opportunity to revitalize interest in your PAC by planning for future success. Build a value proposition, focusing on long-term objectives, rather than short-term goals. Have the conversation about the type of political engagement that is in the best interest of the organization, rather than reacting to a set of events that may soon be in the rear-view mirror.

Educate, educate, educate. Promote your PACs long-term strategy to stakeholders. The need for PACs has not diminished, but the anti-PAC rhetoric leads people to the opposite conclusion. Educating stakeholders about the value of the PAC will be critical to overcoming todays criticism and help insulate against the next wave.

But dont stop there. Transparency is key to maintaining momentum for your PAC. Share information through annual reports, weekly or monthly political and legislative updates, and testimonials from your employees, members, and officeholders. Be aggressive in distributing information to your constituents so your storythe real storyis louder than the misinformation.

Solicit small. Emphasize small-dollar participation in this environment and broaden your donor base. Giving a political voice to small donors is one of the many virtues of a PAC. And over time, broader participation will drive future growth and ensure success for the long term. The intent is to create a vast, educated constituency that will rally behind your organizations political efforts.

Jan. 6 was a historical moment, but the current anti-PAC sentiment should have no place in it. For decades, business PACs have been accepted as fully transparent participants in federal political campaigns. They are subject to strict limits and encourage political participation and awareness by even the most modest of contributors. These are virtues to promote and celebrate.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owners.

Write for Us: Author Guidelines

Caleb P. Burns, partner in Wiley Rein LLPs Election Law & Government Ethics Practice, represents participants in the U.S. political process on compliance with all aspects of campaign finance, government ethics and lobbying laws.

Trey Richardson, managing partner of Sagac Public Affairs, creates and implements finance, communications and market research for Americas business political action committees and advocacy organizations.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Wiley/SAGAC or their clients.

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Navigating the Current Anti-PAC Sentiment - Bloomberg Tax

Edinburgh City Council has approved plans to add a plaque to the St Andrew Square landmark - denouncing Henry Dundas role in deferring abolition of the slave trade and his role in expanding the British Empire.

The approval has been welcomed by activists, with one leading campaigner saying the Scottish people are big enough to take on their whole history.

The Category A-listed monument pays tribute to Henry Dundas, the 1st Viscount Melville, the trusted right hand man of Prime Minister William Pitt and at one time the most powerful politician in Scotland.

He was instrumental in the Scottish Enlightenment, the prosecution of the French Revolutionary Wars and British colonial expansion in India.

However, Dundas is a controversial figure in Scottish history, due to his role in subjugating indigenous populations in the British Empire and for his part in delaying the abolition of the slave trade.

He was the Scottish Lord Advocate, an MP for Edinburgh and Midlothian, and the First Lord of the Admiralty.

As first lord of the admiralty, Dundas deliberately prolonged slavery to protect the elite in the 1800s forcing about 630,000 slaves to wait more than a decade for their freedom.

In June 2020, during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in the city, the monument was vandalised.

Now, Edinburgh City Councils development management committee has approved an application by Edinburgh World Heritage and Essential Edinburgh for the installation of a plaque on the Melville Monument that will outline his misdeeds.

The planning application for the plaque attracted over 2,200 comments from members of the public.

The plaque reads: While Home Secretary in 1792, and first Secretary of State for War in 1796 he was instrumental in deferring the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade.

Slave trading by British ships was not abolished until 1807. As a result of this delay, more than half a million enslaved Africans crossed the Atlantic.

Dundas also curbed democratic dissent in Scotland, and both defended and expanded the British empire, imposing colonial rule on indigenous peoples.

The plaque concludes: In 2020 this plaque was dedicated to the memory of the more than half-a-million Africans whose enslavement was a consequence of Henry Dundass actions.

The idea of a plaque on the statue first raised its head in 2016, when Adam Ramsay, the editor of OpenDemocracy started a petition which was handed into the council.

Commenting on the approval, he said: Scotland needs to come to terms with our historic role in the violence and plunder of the British Empire.

This is one very small step in the right direction.

Chas Booth, Green councillor for Leith, who was convener of the council's petitions committee in 2016 when the petition for a plaque on the monument was first raised, said: Im delighted this plaque has finally got the planning green light.

Its vital that Edinburgh addresses the impact of its past links to slavery and colonialism, and this plaque is an important step towards that.

We must listen to the black and minority-ethnic community in the city and the Black Lives Matter movement, who have asked us to address all memorials to those with links to colonialism and slavery.

Its just a shame that this plaque has taken nearly five years since the petition was first brought to the council, and I hope the work of the Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review Group won't take so long."

Sir Geoff Palmer, chair of the Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialsm Legacy Review Group, has previously called for statues to remain where they are and for educational information to be made available at the sites, as he believes that if you remove the statue you remove the deed, and our statues are in the context of our history.

Commenting on the approval of the slavery plaque, Sir Geoff said: Henry Dundas statue, with his old plaque, has been there for about 200 years, and the word slavery wasnt on it - it didnt teach us anything about slavery.

What is important about this plaque, is that for the first time in 200 years slavery will be mentioned here.

This is the publics victory, that the governing body of Edinburgh has looked at the evidence, looked at the evidence very carefully, and decided that slavery should be on this plaque, and that some recognition should be given to the suffering of the people, who not only endured slavery as whole, but of the 630,000 people he was responsible for transporting into slavery.

This is an enormous victory, not just for the people of Edinburgh, but for the people of Scotland, because theyve acknowledged that they were involved in slavery and have now decided to do something about.

I can assure you that some of the people who dont want this plaque, with slavery on it, they would rather the statue would come down, because thats the power of the plaque and the truth of the plaque.

Those activists and self-serving people who think theyre doing the Scottish people a favour by telling lies, those people would rather the statue down because they think theyre moderating Scotlands role in slavery by not telling the truth.

The Scottish people are big enough to take on their whole history.

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'An enormous victory for Edinburgh and the people of Scotland' - reaction to Melville Monument slavery plaque - Edinburgh News

CHEYENNE The Wyoming Legislature has considered repealing the death penalty many times. But its only come close once.

In 2019 Rep. Jared Olsen (R-Cheyenne) the first Republican champion after years of Democratic sponsorship picked up the mantle of death penalty repeal, taking on the subject from an angle of government mistrust and fiscal conservatism, rather than the traditional moral argument against the state-sanctioned killing of a human being.

Though the state has not ordered an execution since that of convicted killer Mark Hopkinson in 1992, simply keeping the death penalty on the books costs Wyoming more than $1 million each year, Olsen explained. Actually trying a capital-punishment case costs taxpayers millions more, he argued.

A long-held stereotype is that conservatives in this country favor capital punishment, while liberals oppose it, Olsen wrote in a2019 op-ed in the New York Times. But that doesnt accord with reality: In recent years, more conservatives have come to realize that capital punishment conflicts irreconcilably with their principles of valuing life, fiscal responsibility and limited government.

But after passing the House of Representatives that winter, Olsens bill House Bill 145 Death penalty repeal-2 failed to pass an introduction vote in the Senate. Nearly two-thirds of the chamber voted against it.

Two years later, the repeal effort has again taken root, this time in the same body that killed it so resoundingly two years ago. Sen. Brian Boners (R-Douglas) Senate File 150 Death penalty repeal advanced out of committee last week to the Senate floor. The House of Representatives, meanwhile, preemptively passed abudget amendment to defund the states death penalty program should the Senate choose to repeal it.

Those arent the only differences this time around. The bill also comes on the heels of a multi-year public awareness campaign by an unlikely coalition of faith leaders, conservative groups and liberal advocacy organizations to bring a permanent end to the death penalty in Wyoming.

Its a formula that some close observers of the legislature hope might finally prove successful in a state that has long rebuffed the measure.

The first test of the groups influence could come as soon as this week, as the Senate begins whittling down a stack of bills on general file. Advocates, who said they sought to work through the Senate first as a strategic choice, are optimistic about the odds.

I think that as long as we focus on the facts, I think we have a really good chance of getting through the Senate this year, Kylie Taylor, the Wyoming coordinator for pro-repeal group Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, said.

Prior to a1972 United States Supreme Court decision banning states from performing executions due to the arbitrary and capricious nature of those laws, Wyomings territorial and state government successfully executed 25 men. All had been convicted of murder.

The death penalty was reinstated a half-decade later, and in the years since, the state has executed just one man Hopkinson. Death penalty prosecutions also remain rare, with just one such case, Dale Wayne Eaton, having taken place in the last decade.

Proponents say the death penalty serves as an effective deterrent to violent crime, and can be used as a bargaining chip for prosecutors in gaining information from those theyve charged with violent crimes. Many supporters also believe the penalty should be an option for families seeking justice.

Those in favor of abolishing the death penalty, meanwhile, argue the rarity of its employment by the criminal justice system justifies ending the practice. Death penalty cases are expensive and arduous, they say, and are emotionally draining on the families of victims and perpetrators, creating a cycle of trauma that rips open scars already slow to heal.

Christal Martin, a Wyoming resident who lost both her mother and husband in separate murders, favors abolishing the penalty.

Losing her mother at 8 years old, she said she had difficulty processing what had happened to her and her family. She spent the next several decades learning about restorative justice in the judicial system, she told lawmakers during a hearing on the death penalty repeal bill earlier this month, and eventually met with the perpetrator on what she called a mission of forgiveness.

When her own children lost their father 22 years after her mothers murder, Martin found herself confronting the issue again, she said. The offender who killed her husband had a family of his own a 5-year-old daughter and a wife. Martin, who has previously written about the insufficient resources she received from the states victim services division to cope with that loss, did not want to inflict another set of wounds, she said.

At that point in time, I knew the loss of two family members through a violent crime, she said in her testimony. And in no way would I ever invite for somebody to go and be put to death, by my hand or by the judicial system, and cause a chain reaction of trauma.

Supporters of repeal also offer statistical evidence that challenges the death penaltys effectiveness. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have argued there is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment, according to a policy brief. Some research has argued murder rates are actually lower in states that have banned the death penalty, though a sweeping review of existing research by the National Academy of Sciences in 2012 found insufficient evidence to support whether the death penalty was an effective deterrent to violent crime or not.

Critics have argued the efficacy of the death penalty also depends heavily on the infallibility of the justice system itself. According to the non-partisan Death Penalty Information Center, since 1973 atotal of 185 people who were sentenced to death have been exonerated of the charges against them, while at least 20 were executed despite standing questions about their guilt.

Its no longer debatable that innocent people can and do get sentenced to death, and some have been executed, the Death Penalty Information Centers executive director, Robert Dunham, told lawmakers. The data raised serious questions as to whether we can trust our governments to carry out the death penalty fairly, honestly and reliably.

One of those innocent individuals was Ray Krone, a Pennsylvania man and a military veteran who was wrongfully sentenced to death for murder based off the shape of a bite mark on the victim before his name was cleared by DNA testing. In his own testimony to lawmakers earlier this month, Krone argued the potential for the government to get it wrong was enough to do away with the death penalty. For those who are guilty, the death penalty is the easy way out, he said.

If youre about the death penalty and you want people to suffer, you make them wake up each and every day in our justice system, in our prisons, he said. So if you want them to suffer, you make them see that every day what they made that family have to go through.

Others feel Wyoming should keep the measure on its books. Jennifer Burns, a Cheyenne resident who testified against the bill earlier this month, said that she considered the death penalty not only a tool for prosecutors, but a choice for the victims of violent crime, particularly for the most heinous and gruesome examples of homicide.

If my family is brutally murdered, I want that choice, she said.

As a legislative candidate in the 2020 Republican Primaries in Cheyenne, Burns said she had asked every potential voter on the campaign trail about their support for the death penalty, and heard almost no opposition.

That is really the wish of Wyoming residents, she said.

The only other person to testify against the bill echoed those desires, even with the potential for mistakes to be made.

If someone hurts my family, I want to hurt theirs, said Jim Merryfield, a Cheyenne resident who testified against repealing the death penalty.

Id like to keep the option open, to be able to put them to death if I feel that its necessary, he added. Decisions have to be made, right or wrong. Are some mistakes going to be made? Probably But to take it off the table is to say they dont have to fear it anymore.

The majority of Americans support capital punishment, according to nationwide Gallup polling data. But that support has been shrinking: in 1996 the approval rating reached its all time high of 80%, today the figure is 55%.

They say support for the death penalty runs a mile wide and an inch deep, and its so true, Taylor said. Support for the death penalty is high until you take a look at the facts. And once someone is willing to look at the facts and accept them for what they are, its really hard to continue supporting the death penalty.

Where support has remained consistent over the years, according to Gallup, is among white conservatives, who still approve of the death penalty at overwhelming margins to liberals and in particular, people of color a group thats disproportionately represented among death-row inmates.

Researchers have presented numerous arguments for why that demographics belief in the death penalty has been so steadfast. However, it is within peoples religious beliefs where support for the death penalty remains the strongest. According to research compiled by the DPIC, those who identify as religious maintain some of the highest percentages of death penalty supporters.

In Wyoming, however, the religious community has been an integral part of the campaign to repeal it. During testimony earlier this month, representatives of numerous religious organizations testified in-favor of the bill, with some sharing personal experiences in dealing with the death penalty.

Should offenders face consequences for their actions? Absolutely, Ashley Engel, the associate director of pastoral ministry at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Cheyenne, said in her testimony earlier this month. Is death a fair penalty? Absolutely not. Death is not justice.

And knowing the tie between religion and support of the death penalty, organizers opposing it here have made religion a centerpiece of their campaign. Between public rallies in Cheyenne and numerous events on platforms like Facebook Live, groups like Taylors and ACLU of Wyoming have focused significant attention on organizing with religious organizations, while the Catholic Diocese of Cheyenne has evolved from a quiet supporter of repeal to a vocal player in the coalitions broader efforts in recent years.

We have to think about where our inconsistencies lie, Deacon Mike Leman said. It hit me at one point, like there is no good time to commit a murder. But if you plan it ahead of time, thats worse. If you involve others in the planning, thats even worse. But were paying the state to do the exact same thing. Theres a lot of inconsistencies there.

For two years, Taylor and individuals like ACLU Wyomings Sabrina King have worked to build a coalition that reaches people where they are at their most receptive through their computer screens, through their churches and their pastors and through conversations that force them to reckon with their emotions at their rawest. The number of people willing to engage in those conversations, Taylor said, has grown steadily since the death of the 2019 repeal bill, allowing her coalition to grow from just a handful of individuals then to dozens of groups statewide today.

Repeal is so important to so many of us that individuals who usually arent aligned politically are willing to come together to make this happen, she said.

Whether that will be a winning combination remains to be seen. Facing crippling budgetary shortfalls last year, Gov. Mark Gordon said he was considering a moratorium on the states death penalty, calling it a luxury the state can no longer afford. And while executions continue across the nation, the quantity has been in decline: a fact proponents of repeal see as a sign the United States position on the death penalty may be turning a corner.

I think that the abolition side is eventually going to prevail, David Gushee, an ethicist at Mercer University who has studied religions ties to the death penalty, said. It may be that some states will keep the death penalty on the books, but they are increasingly using it less. The number of actual executions is dropping dramatically. There must be reasons for that.

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Coalition aims to make 2021 the year Wyo repeals death penalty - WyoFile

BESSEMER, Ala. The South has never been hospitable to organized labor. But that may be changing with an important test in Alabama, where thousands of workers at an Amazon campus are deciding whether to form a union.

Labor organizers and advocates see the David-and-Goliath fight as a potential turning point in the region with a long history of undervalued labor and entrenched hostility to collective bargaining rights. A win could have economic and political ripples for the labor movement and its Democratic Party allies who want a stronger foothold in the South amid decades of dwindling union power nationally.

This election transcends this one workplace. It even transcends this one powerful company, said Stuart Appelbaum, national president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. If workers at Amazon in Alabama, in the middle of the pandemic, can organize, then that means that workers anywhere can organize.

The mere presence of a national union figure like Appelbaum in Alabama underscores the stakes.

The Amazon vote comes as Democrats and Republicans are battling fiercely for working-class voters. Over decades, many white workers have drifted toward Republicans, attracted in part by cultural identity and an anti-establishment posture. Thats left Democrats looking to refine their economic pitch, arguing their party is the one fighting for higher wages, better working conditions and more affordable health care.

A win in Bessemer, where the vast majority of the workforce is Black, would have additional significance as a launch pad for new political organizing in the South, where Democrats want to build on recent successes.

That could prove decisive in newfound battlegrounds like Georgia, which Biden pulled into the partys presidential column for the first time since 1992 and where Democrats won two Senate races. It could be a building block in GOP-dominated states like Alabama and Mississippi. And any domino effect nationally could boost Democrats in old industrial Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, where Republicans have gained ground.

Biden drew plaudits from labor leaders with a recent video address pushing the right to organize through free and fair elections, although he did not directly mention the Amazon campaign.

The ongoing mail vote by almost 6,000 workers is the largest union push ever at Amazon, one of the worlds wealthiest companies. The election, which runs through March, also ranks among the largest single organizing efforts in Southern history. It follows a series of failed organizing votes at automobile assembly plants Nissan in Mississippi in 2017, Volkswagen in Tennessee in 2019, among others that have flocked to the region over the last three decades.

Wages in this region have been depressed from the time of slavery, said historian Keri Leigh Merritt, because weve always had these competing underclasses of different races that white elites, from the South and elsewhere, have been able to play off each other.

The result, Merritt said, is nearly all laborers being paid below the national market.

The 2019 median household income in the U.S. was $62,843, according to Census Bureau data. In Bessemer, part of an industrialized swath outside of Birmingham that once teemed with steel mills, that figure was $32,301.

We just want whats owed to us, said Kevin Jackson, a worker at the distribution center.

Jackson, who is Black, compared Amazon wages, which start at $15 an hour, about double minimum wage, to the fortune of company founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, whose net worth measures in the hundreds of billions.

When you kick a dog so many times, hes going to bite, Jackson said. Were biting back.

The unions election overlaps with Biden and Democrats in Congress pushing the PRO Act, legislation that would overhaul labor law to make organizing easier. The bill represents the most significant labor law change since the New Deal era and follows a decades-long slide in union membership. In 1970, almost a third of the U.S. workforce were unionized. In 2020, that number was 10.8%.

The House approved the overhaul Tuesday on a largely party line vote, but it faces almost certain defeat in the 50-50 Senate where major bills require at least 10 Republican votes to avoid a filibuster.

Even without that law, labor leaders say the Amazon result could be a springboard for labor organizing nationwide. Regionally, a win would provide a roadmap for a Southern workforce unaccustomed to unions as a routine part of the economy.

Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, said the Alabama workers are inspiring, and added that her union and others are watching closely as they mull expansion.

Organized labors Southern deficit is glaring: all 11 states of the old Confederacy have so-called right to work laws, which allow workers in unionized shops to opt out of paying union dues even as they retain the benefits and job protection negotiated by the union. That weakens unions by reducing their membership and their negotiating leverage. Most Southern states also bar public employees from collective bargaining.

The entire region lags national union membership when measured as a percentage of the workforce. For example, the United Auto Workers has more than 400,000 members, but just 12,000 in Southern states, despite the regions abundance of internationally owned auto plants and associated suppliers.

Merritt, an expert on Southern labor politics, drew a straight line from the pre-Civil War economy to the current climate.

Before slaverys abolition, she said, white workers were threatened explicitly or implicitly with being replaced by slaves, stripping them of any leverage with employers. After emancipation, free Black laborers and poor white laborers had to compete in a devastated agricultural economy that struggled to rebuild itself from the war. Eventually, northern industrialists entered Southern markets, joining white Southern land barons to take advantage of cheap labor in industries including textiles, steel and mining.

The trend continued as the regional economy expanded with chemical plants and oil refineries in Texas and Louisiana, shipbuilding along the coasts and, eventually, auto plants from Texas to the Carolinas.

Generations of Southern elected officials Democrats and Republicans perfected their pitch to outside firms.

They always offered major tax breaks and basically sold people on moving their factories South by saying, look, we can offer you rock-bottom labor prices and labor laws that will always favor employers, said Merritt.

Some observers say that history should temper expectations.

The political power of business and corporate leaders and the anti-union power in the South are still quite strong, said Duke University emeritus professor Robert Korstad, an expert on Southern labors evolution. So its not going to be anything easy.

Amazon, which has a long record of beating back organizing campaigns, has held mandatory sessions to tell workers a union would command dues when they already get the kind of compensation benefits, including health insurance, that unions negotiate.

We believe we already offer everything the unions are requesting and that we highly value direct communication with our employees, said company spokeswoman Heather Knox.

Amazon offered a similar message to Democratic elected officials who joined Appelbaum on a recent visit. Members of Congress welcome to Bessemer, an electronic sign in the facilitys parking lot read. Please match Amazons $15/hour minimum wage.

All House members there already had supported a $15 wage bill.

The union organizers have a sign of their own in Bessemer one that hints at the broader political possibilities beyond the campaign. Outside the Amazon warehouse is a banner depicting voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams credited as an early architect of Bidens win in Georgia as a Rosie the Riveter character, an iconic symbol of workers power.

We can do it, the banner reads.

Bill Barrow, Associated Press

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Labor union targets Amazon as a foothold in the South - The Dallas Morning News

Tyler Stovall. (Courtesy of the author)

In his new book, White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea, the historian Tyler Stovall seeks to offer a new approach to the relationship between freedom and race in modern Western societies. This approach reveals a different historical perspective for understanding how the Enlightenment era, which provided the basis for modern Western conceptions of human freedom, coincided with the height of the transatlantic slave trade, and for how the United States could be founded simultaneously upon ideas of both liberty and African slavery, Native American genocide and systematic racial exclusion.

Stovall does so by arguing for an alternative explanation to what he describes as the standard paradoxical interpretation of freedom and race. If liberty represents the acme of Western civilization, says Stovall, racismembodied above all by horrible histories like the slave trade and the Holocaustis its nadir. In other words, the paradoxical approach sees freedom and race as opposites. This means that there is nothing about freedom that is inherently racialized. The relationship between freedom and race from this perspective, argues Stovall, is due more to human inconsistencies and frailties than to any underlying logics.

Stovall challenges the paradoxical view by arguing that there is no contradiction between freedom and race. Instead, he thinks that ideas of freedom in the modern world have been racialized, and that whiteness and white racial identity are intrinsic to the history of modern liberty. Hence Stovalls notion of white freedom.

Stovalls book aims to tell the history of white freedom from the French and American revolutions to the present. But to what extent can the vast history of modern freedom be reduced to white freedom? How can white freedom account for class differences? Moreover, if modern freedom is racialized how is it to be differentiated from fascism and others forms of white nationalism? And can political freedom break away from the legacy of white freedom? To answer these questions, I spoke with Stovall about the history of US slavery and immigration, the fascism of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, Trumpism, and Joe Bidens recent election to the White House.

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins: Can you explain your concept of white freedom?

Tyler Stovall: In this study I argue that white freedom, which is a concept of freedom conceived and defined in racial terms, underlies and reflects both white identity and white supremacy: To be free is to be white, and to be white is to be free.

DSJ: Your thinking on white freedom has been strongly influenced by whiteness studies. Can you explain the connection between the two?

TS: Whiteness studies starts from the proposition that whiteness is not simply the neutral, unexamined gold standard of human existence, arguing instead that white identity is racial, and white people are every bit as much racialized beings as are people of color. White Freedom explores the ways in which the ideal of freedom is a crucial component of white identity in the modern world, that great movements for liberty like the American and French revolutions or the world wars of the 20th century have constructed freedom as white. More generally, this book follows the tradition of whiteness studies in considering how an ideology traditionally viewed as universal in fact contains an important racial dimension. I argue that frequently, although by no means always, in modern history, freedom and whiteness have gone together, and the ideal of freedom has functioned to deny the realities of race and racism.

DSJ: How might you respond to the criticism that your notion of white freedom is potentially monolithic? How do you account for its diverse historical application and impact, especially concerning class differences?

TS: I would begin by saying that white freedom is by no means the only kind of freedom, that in modern history other, more inclusive visions of liberty have frequently opposed it, and those visions have often interacted and mutually reinforced each other. One thinks, for example, of the rise of the movements for womens suffrage in 19th-century Britain and America out of the struggles to abolish slavery. The concept of white freedom does position race at the center of the history of liberty, something I found it necessary to do both because it has frequently been left out or seen as peripheral to the story, and because making it more central in my view offers new insights about the nature of freedom in general.

Class differences, and the ways in which they have historically been racialized, play an important role in the development of white freedom, as well. The example of Irish immigrants during the 19th century provides an interesting case in point. In both Britain and America, Irish immigrants not only occupied the lowest rungs of society but were frequently racialized as savage and nonwhite during the early parts of the century. In Britain, integration into working class movements like Chartism and the 1889 London dock strike to a certain extent brought them white status, whereas in America the ability of the working-class Irish to differentiate themselves, often violently, from African Americans gradually helped enable their acceptance as white by the dominant society, integrating them into American whiteness.

DSJ: You argue that the paradox of American slaveholders fighting for liberty is not a paradox at all if one considers the racial dimensions of the American idea of freedom during the American Revolution. Denying freedom to Black slaves was not a contradiction, you show, because freedom was reserved for whites. How does your thinking about white freedom and slavery differ here from the notable The New York Times 1619 Project, which caused a storm of controversy by arguing that the American Revolution was primarily waged to preserve slavery?

TS: I think the 1619 Projects argument that the founding fathers waged the American Revolution in defense of slavery has much to recommend it, although I think this debate could benefit from some nuance. Certainly American slaveowners, who were amply represented among the proponents of independence, worried about the implications of the 1772 Somerset case, which banned slavery in Britain, for the colonies and their own property. The 1775 call by Lord Dunmore, royal governor Virginia, to American slaves to free their masters and fight for the British further outraged them, leading them to condemn him in the Declaration of Independence for having fostered domestic insurrections against the colonists. It is also true that this question bitterly divided Northern and Southern patriots, in ways that ultimately prefigured the Civil War. It is quite possible that revolution devoted to abolishing slavery, as many Northerners wanted, would have failed to enlist the support of Virginia and other Southern colonies and thus would have gone down to defeat. Whether or not that means that the Revolutions primary goal was the preservation of slavery was less clear.

However, there are other ways to approach this issue, which the current debate has tended to neglect. First, one must consider the perspective, and the actions, of the slaves themselves, who constituted roughly 20 percent of the population of colonial America. White Freedom not only considers the question of slavery central to the American Revolution but also sees the Revolution as one of the great periods of slave resistance and revolt in American history. Tens of thousands of slaves, including 17 belonging to George Washington himself, fled their plantations in an attempt to reach the British lines and freedom. Whether or not white patriots believed they were fighting for independence to preserve slavery, many of their slaves certainly did, and acted on that belief with their feet. American history to this day praises Blacks like Crispus Attucks who fought for the Revolution, but ignores the much larger number of American slaves who took up arms for the British. For many African Americans, therefore, the American Revolution was certainly a struggle for freedom, but for freedom from their white American owners and the new independent nation they fought for.

Second, one should underscore the basic point that, whatever the relative motivations of the patriots of 1776 in seeking freedom and independence from Britain, the new United States of America they created was a slave republic, and would remain so for the better part of a century. It is certainly true that the Revolution resulted in the abolition of slavery throughout the North after the Revolution, but that did not change the fact that the overwhelming majority of African Americans were slaves before 1776 and remained so for decades thereafter. Moreover, far from a relic of an imperial past, slavery proved to be a dynamic and central part of Americas economy and society during the early 19th century. Whether or not American patriots revolted to preserve slavery, the success of their revolt did exactly that, creating a new nation that largely reserved freedom for whites.

DSJ: The Statue of Liberty might be considered the most well-known symbol of freedom in the modern world. You provocatively state that it is the worlds greatest representation of white freedom. Why is this the case?

TS: The Statue of Liberty symbolizes white freedom in several respects. In my book I analyze how both its French origins and its establishment in America underscore that perspective, and in doing so illustrate the history of white freedom in both nations. In France the image of the statue drew upon the tradition of Marianne, or the female revolutionary, most famously depicted in Eugne Delacroixs great painting Liberty Leading the People. Yet at the same time it represented a domesticated, nonrevolutionary vision of that tradition; whereas Delacroixs Marianne is carrying a rifle and leading a revolutionary army, the Statue of Liberty stands demurely and without moving, holding a torch of illumination rather than a flame of revolution. She is the image of the white woman on a pedestal. The racial implications of this domestication of liberty became much clearer in the United States: Although France gave the statue to America to commemorate the abolition of slavery in the United States, Americans soon ignored that perspective and instead turned the statue into a symbol of white immigration. The broken chains at Libertys feet that symbolized the freed slave were effectively obscured by the pedestal and more generally by the racial imagery surrounding the statue, and remain so to this day. Americas greatest monument to freedom thus turned its back on Americas greatest freedom struggle, because that struggle was not white.

Moreover, many Americans In the early 20th century considered the statue an anti-immigrant symbol, the white goddess guarding Americas gates against the dirty and racially suspect hordes from Europe. Only when the immigrants, and more particularly their Americanized descendants, were viewed and accepted as white did the Statue of Liberty embrace them. To this day, therefore, Americas greatest monument to freedom represents above all the history of white immigration. No equivalent memorials exist on San Franciscos Angel Island to commemorate Chinese immigration, or on the US-Mexican border to memorialize those Americans whose ancestors came from Latin America. The Statue of Liberty effectively conceals the fact that New York City was itself a great slave port, so that for many the arrival in the harbor represented bondage, not liberty. Not only the statues white features, but its racial history, make it for me the worlds greatest symbol of white freedom.

DSJ: One implication of your argument about white freedom is that it suggests that the modern history of liberal thought actually shares something in common with the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini, namely that both systems of government defined freedom in racial terms. What, then, fundamentally distinguishes these understandings of freedom?

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TS: As I and many other historians have argued, there are some fundamental similarities between fascism and liberal democracy when it comes to race. In some ways, the increasing emphasis on the role of the state as the central locus and guarantor of freedom found its logical culmination in the fascist state, which rejected individual liberty, instead defining freedom as integration into the racial state. But I would also point out two important differences. First, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany stated their commitment to a racist vision of freedom far more explicitly and dramatically than did the democracies of the liberal West. The Nazi vision of a racial hierarchy in Europe with Aryans had none of the pretensions of uplift and stewardship found in Western imperialism, but instead called for domination and ultimately genocide. The horrors of the Shoah were a foretaste of what awaited Europe, especially Eastern Europe, had Nazi Germany triumphed. The liberal democracies of the West, for all their racism, did not share that vision, were instead horrified by it, and in the end combined to destroy it.

Following from this point, I would also argue that, unlike liberal democracy, European fascism developed in a climate of total war, which fundamentally shaped its vision of race and freedom. Fascism and Nazism were born at the tail end of World War I (both Hitler and Mussolini were war veterans), and their histories culminated with World War II. The era of total war powerfully reinforced state racismthe idea that the enemy posed a biological threat to the nation. This happened in the West as well, of course, but did not constitute the heart of national identity in the same way. Moreover, unlike in fascist Europe, total war in the West also created a massive movement against white freedom, for a universal vision of liberty.

DSJ: I found your parts of the book on the end of the Cold War fascinating. Regarding Eastern Europe, you write, The overthrow of communist regimes in this period happened in the whitest, most European part of the world, one barely touched by the history of European overseas colonialism or non-European immigration. Does this view of Eastern Europe fall prey to a mythology of white homogeneity, which is exploited by white nationalist leaders in Eastern Europe today driven by anti-immigrant and Islamophobic sentiment? The region had long had millions of immigrants from Central Asia.

TS: There are very few, if any, purely white parts of the world, and Eastern Europes contacts with Asia go back at least to the Roman Empire. There is, for example, an interesting history of Blacks in the Soviet Union, which was itself a regime that spanned and brought together Europe and Asia. I would nonetheless argue that, compared to the rest of the continent and to the Americas, the peoples republics of Eastern Europe lacked racial diversity, a situation that led many American conservatives to embrace their resistance to the Soviets during the Cold War as a struggle for white freedom. In the minds of many, the liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet control represented a continuation of the war against Nazi rule of Western Europe, an unfinished campaign to ensure freedom for all white people. It was counterintuitive to witness nations of white people as captive or enslaved, so that the Cold War against Soviet Communism had an important racial dimension. The collapse of the Soviet bloc represented in theory the unification of white Europe, yet at the same time it underscored the fact that Europe wasnt really white. The dramatic rise of ethnic and racial tensions in the former communist countries, especially eastern Germany, after 1991 illustrated the extent to which the victory of whiteness was not completely assured in the post-Soviet era.

DSJ: Do you understand Trumpism to be a white freedom backlash to the Obama administration or in continuation with the longer history of white freedom? Intellectuals and pundits, for example, are significantly divided on the question of whether Trumpism is unleashing long-standing fascist impulses in this country, especially given the events of January 6. Where do you stand?

TS: The Trump phenomenon certainly represents a backlash against the Obama presidency, but it goes well beyond that. In my book I discuss how the campaign for universal freedom represented by the campaign civil rights and many other popular movements provoked the rise of the New Right, which in many ways reinforced Americas history of white freedom. The current Freedom Caucus of the House of Representatives, composed overwhelmingly of white conservatives, exemplifies that. To an important extent, Trumpism represents a continuation of that political movement which triumphed under Ronald Reagan. At the same time, however, the Trump presidency, in contrast with Reaganism, has sounded a defensive and at times even desperate note, a fear for the survival of white freedom. The election of Barack Obama demonstrated that a universal vision of liberty could triumph at the highest levels of American society and politics, prompting an anguished reaction that created the Tea Party and other reactionary movements. The fact that Trump never won a majority of the popular vote combined with the increasingly multicultural and multiracial makeup of Americas population has led many to believe that the days of white freedom are in fact numbered. The fact that so many Americans cling to Donald Trump and his Republican party, in spite of their outrageous and buffoonish behavior, I believe arises out of this elemental fear.

I do believe events in America since the 2020 presidential election show that Trumpism has the potential to morph into an outright fascist movement. We have never in the modern era witnessed such an outright attempt to overthrow the will of the electorate after an American election, one grounded squarely in the fascist technique of the Big Lie. It has represented the culmination of Republican party efforts to suppress the ability of peoples of color to vote, efforts whose history goes back to the white terrorist campaign against Reconstruction after the Civil War. Moreover, I believe that if fascism does come to America, it will come in the guise of white freedom. The insurrection of January 6 is a case in point. On that day America witnessed the spectacle of thousands of mostly white demonstrators invading the US Capitol Building and trying to overthrow the government. They proclaimed their movement as a campaign to protect their freedoms, and were for the most part allowed to depart peacefully after violently invading federal property. If that didnt demonstrate that whiteness remains an important part of freedom in America, I dont know what does.

DSJ: Given mainstream acceptance of Black Lives Matter and Bidens election to the White House, what do you see the implications to be for white freedom today in this country?

TS: For me and many other African Americans, one of the most surprising things about the murder of George Floyd was the intense reaction by so many white people against the official brutalization of Blacks in America. Leaving aside the rather belated nature of this reaction, or the observation that a movement calling for the right of African Americans not to be murdered is hardly radical, the mainstream acceptance of Black Lives Matter does point to a new day in American racial politics, a new affirmation of universal freedom.

Joseph Bidens electoral victory, and his acknowledgment of his debt to Black voters and voters of color, also suggests the limits of white freedom in American politics. The fact remains, however, that 74 million Americans voted to reelect Donald Trump. He continues to dominate the base of the Republican Party and maintains a wide base of support in the nation as whole. White freedom is in many ways on the defensive, but that can make it more dangerous than ever. It also remains to be seen how committed President Biden is to a progressive vision of liberty. Initial signs seem encouraging, but during the election campaign he boasted of his ability to work across the aisles with white Southern senators to resist busing for school integration. Such bipartisanship in the past led to Jim Crow and Black bodies swinging from trees. Hopefully President Biden will prove more adept at resisting the Republicans siren song of white freedom.

DSJ: Finally, very little is mentioned in White Freedom about the political tradition of democratic socialism, which is experiencing a revival today. Do you believe it is a viable option for resisting white freedom today?

TS: I think democratic socialism is not only viable but vital in the struggle against white freedom. The fact that a significant segment of the white working class has embraced Trumpism is by no means inevitable, but rather speaks to the widespread conviction that the Democratic establishment has abandoned the concerns of working people. Some people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 also supported Bernie Sanders, for example. Right now in America one of the strongest reasons for the survival of white freedom is the belief of many white workers that their racial identity trumps their class position, that, in a political world where no one stands up for working people and their interests, racial privilege is their greatest asset. The election to the presidency of a key member of the Democratic establishment like Joseph Biden does not augur well in the short term for changing this perspective, yet as the painstaking work of Stacey Abrams in Georgia has demonstrated there is no substitute for long-term political organizing. Socialism does have the potential to empower all people and thus demonstrate the universal nature of liberty. Developing and actualizing that potential will be a central part in the campaign to render white freedom history.

Read more:

The History of Freedom Is a History of Whiteness - The Nation

"Campaigners against the compulsory levy on horticulture to fund the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) have reacted angrily to suggestions that, despite a clear majority vote to abolish the levy and recognition of the votes outcome by Secretary of State George Eustice, growers could still be charged a levy for the 2021/22 financial year."

"The comments came as industry speculation suggests that the amount of Parliamentary time required to amend the statutory instrument means that the legal basis for the compulsory levy may not be repealed before the end of the current financial year."

Spalding-based Flower Grower Simon Redden commented: Despite receiving an income from growers of around 7 million last year and sitting on reserves of 5 million, AHDB Horticulture is now suggesting that it needs another 7 million from hard-pressed growers to wind-up its operations, at a time when some of the largest names in horticultural production are sadly closing their businesses or completely changing their cropping patterns to cope in an increasingly cut-throat sector.

It is not as if AHDB have not been aware that the vote could see the abolition of the levy. If they dont have contingency plans to this effect, it further questions the validity of an organisation that continually lectures farmers and growers on becoming more commercial. This attempt to continue to milk the industry for funds also poses serious questions for the other sectors which have also been promised votes.

Vegetable grower Peter Thorold added: This is no more than a cynical ploy by the AHDB to try and cling to power for another year when growers have voted to abolish their sector. The fact that AHDB waited for 3 months from our request for a ballot before instigating the ballot was just a foot dragging exercise, and this latest actions suggest that AHDB is simply unable to accept the clear no vote by levy payers.

The administration associated with closing the sector is essentially a desktop operation and the reserves the organisation holds should be used to cover such eventualities. The vote clearly showed that most growers no longer wish to pay the levy, and the likelihood is that some, if not most, may simply refuse to pay. Where AHDB would stand in such a situation could be open to debate. We urge those within AHDB, and elsewhere in the industry, who seem to be in denial about the outcome of the levy vote, to accept the loss of the compulsory levy and work towards the future. It is telling that press reports show that even some AHDB grower board members are questioning Nicholas Saphirs handling of the situation, which is making AHDB look shifty.

Furthermore, is has now come to light that AHDB did not count 138 (14.6%) of the votes cast. AHDB says these votes came from horticultural businesses which are registered with AHDB but from which no levy payment had been received by 10 February 2021 when the vote ended. Of the 940 votes cast, the 138 discounted are most likely to be struggling to pay their levy. In fact, AHDB has admitted that it sent ballot papers to 1,463 Active Accounts even though the number of levy payers in 2019/2020 was only 1,281.

The 138 voters appear to have been disqualified without being notified, posing questions about why they were disqualified, who ratified the ballot list and who notified them of their disqualification.

Vegetable and potato grower John Bratley said: We have been trying to get details of the uncounted votes from AHDB for some time, and they have now admitted that almost 15% of the votes received were not counted. We believe that these votes would have further strengthened the no result, as smaller growers are more likely to vote no.

Now we learn that AHDB is seeking to extract another years levy out of growers, almost in revenge for voting them out of office. This displays breath-taking arrogance will not succeed, and we urge other representative organisations to distance themselves from this behaviour before their own image is affected.

For more information:Email: ahdbpetition@gmail.com

John BratleyTel: +44 1775 840322

Simon ReddenTel: +44 1775 722670

Peter ThoroldTel: +44 1775 840360

Originally posted here:

"AHDB must not be allowed to charge another year's horticulture levy" - hortidaily.com

By David M. Greenwald

Last fall, a joint subcommittee comprised of members of the Police Accountability, Human Relation and Social Services commissions put forth a report on Reimagining Davis Policing that contained nine recommendations.

Council at that time asked staff to come back with specific proposals. They are scheduled to return to council with those recommendations for the April 6 meeting. In advance of that meeting, community activists are ramping up a social media campaign Time for the Nine to raise awareness about Re-imagining Public Safety in Davis.

On Tuesday night, during public comment, a number of commenters called in to express their support for the nine recommendations of the Temporary Joint Subcommittee.

Im asking the city to place a three year moratorium on new police hires, one call requested hoping that a shift in resources will decrease the need for new police officers.

Another caller noted that it has been one year since Breonna Taylor was killed by police in Louisville and ten months since the death of George Floyd in Minnesota.

I commend the council for creating the temporary joint subcommittee, he said. However, I ask why you havent committed to any real change in policing or public safety.

He noted that since that report was delivered, we havent heard any sort of consensus on a vision. And now without any consensus the buck has been passed to staff who are not elected to come up with a plan.

He called for a public safety department that can handle non-violent service calls. The TJS recommended that 24 percent could be diverted from the Davis Police Department but he believes that as much as 44 percent of the calls can be diverted from the Davis Police Department.

That, he said, would require a new structure to process these calls. He called for an independent department of public safety and a three year moratorium on the hiring of new police officers.

Julea Shaw called to voice her support for all nine recommendations. She pushed to implement the crisis now model as well as an independent public safety department.

She noted that staff was working on a plan, and she said, I look forward to seeing their plan and the implementation of these commonsense reforms because everyone in Davis deserves safety and support.

A student called in also for support of a public safety department that would take the place of some of the responsibilities of the Davis Police Department.

A researcher at UC Davis and a three year resident of Davis. She explained that she grew up in Eugene, Oregon where they have the CAHOOTS program.

CAHOOTS works hand in hand with the Eugene Police Department, they both answer 911-dispatch calls and CAHOOTS deals with a wide range of mental health crises including conflict resolution, welfare checks, substance abuse and suicide threats. This division of labor allows the police to focus on crimes and other pressing public safety.

She continued, Its estimated that the program saves the city of Eugene about $8.5 million a year.

In my experience, Eugene and Davis are pretty similar, she said. They are both college towns on the West Coast and they are both great places to live and raise a family and I strongly advocate that Davis invests in this kind of public safety program that has served Eugene for so many decades.

Another caller, Nusrat Molla, called in asking for an independent public safety department. She explained that her brother has an intellectual disability.

My family has interacted with the police a lot, she said. But she said, What we really needed was a behavioral specialist and help navigating social services for him.

Supporting real public safety means reallocating resources and things that are not making us safer or helping people like my brother towards the services that are in desperate need of resources, she said.

Morganne Blairs-McPherson made suggests that could help the city divert 44 percent of calls to a public safety department and away from the police.

These include: welfare checks, code enforcement, city code violations, disturbances, trespass complaints, animal related incidents, school truancy, vandalism, noise complaints for loud music, drunk in public, mental health evaluation, child abuse reporting and much more.

Francisco Lopez-Montanyo said he currently works at a convenience store and noticed over the last year the mental health crisis affecting our community, it doesnt really seem to me that the police are able to handle a response appropriately to these problems.

He noted even with domestic violence complaints, I noticed the police unable to address the problem at its root cause.

He also noted the history of policing, starting out as a slave patrol, and has quickly become a system of cheap labor for the prison industrial complex. He also noted that the January 6 event exposed the infiltration of white supremacy groups into police. This is beyond policy change or institutional reform, we need to begin to transition to a truly safe society for all.

Robert Henderson a lifelong resident of Davis, urged the council to be real leaders and work towards real public safety in Davis. We have seen time and time again throughout this country that police do not make the community safer.

Another caller noted that he has continually heard from other community members about the mistreatment they have faced at the hands of the police.

Additionally the police budget in Davis is much too big for a city that does not need police patrolling all over the streets Davis is a very low crime area, he said.

A graduate student at UC Davis argued that the current system Fails to keep all of the people in Davis safe. She added, Our current system operates in such a way so that Black people, indigenous people, people of color, Queer people, homeless people and other minorities are not only unprotected by the police, but are often victims of unfair, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and ultimately violent policing practices.

This caller went further than others calling for the complete abolition of policing in Davis.

The major move has been for the nine recommendations by the Temporary Joint Subcommittee.

The 9 recommendations are:

David M. Greenwald reporting

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Public Commenters Push the Council To Adopt Nine Recommendations on Police Reform - The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

In December 1920, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) merged with the left wing of the Independent Social Democrats (USPD) under the leadership of Paul Levi. The unified party had a membership in excess of four hundred thousand. Its members had recently helped defeat an attempted far-right coup, the Kapp putsch, and had great confidence about the future. Within months, however, the KPD launched an ill-fated uprising on March 17, 1921 that became known as the March Action. The insurrection was a complete failure; in its aftermath, the KPD lost more than half of its membership.

Paul Frlich (18841953) is best remembered today for his classic biography of Rosa Luxemburg, which is still in print. Frlich was a member of the KPD leadership in the 1920s and witnessed events firsthand. In this extract from a recently discovered memoir, lost until 2007 and now translated into English, Frlich explains why the KPD came to launch the March Action and how it unfolded. He also gives his impressions of influential Communist leaders like Paul Levi and the Hungarian Bla Kun, and recalls a discussion with Lenin in Moscow after the failure of the March Action.

The following is an abridged extract from Paul Frlichs memoir In the Radical Camp: A Political Autobiography 18901921, translated by David Fernbach as part of the Historical Materialism Book Series.

It was both objective political events and psychological preconditions that led to the so-called March Action, both in the KPD and in the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI). There was a general will in the party for a more energetic policy, and the unification with the left USPD also seemed to have created the preconditions for a stronger activity. We all overestimated at this time the growth of the party.

But we made a further error of judgement. During the Kapp putsch we had been able to note almost everywhere in the provinces that a weak party such as ours could nonetheless exert a very great influence on the movement, so that large masses followed the party in action. Now we simply extended the partys radius of action by the organizational growth that the merger with the left USPD had brought.

This, however, was wrong. The party cadre was substantially strengthened, and in many districts, it was only now that a party was really formed. But the direct influence on the masses did not for a long while follow in the expected degree. Besides, it needed really major circumstances, immediately understood clearly by the masses, to bring them into a general movement.

The impatient pressure for action was still greater among the former USPD functionaries and members than in the old KPD. They felt liberated from the impediment of the right-wing leaders and experienced something like a moral obligation to prove that they had now become genuine revolutionaries.

The mood in leading Russian circles was very depressed, among many people desperate. The civil war had left in its wake scarcely anything but ruins. The war with Poland had led to defeat. The Kronstadt uprising had been a glaring alarm signal. The New Economic Policy (NEP) had been introduced, with the abolition of requisitions, the encouragement of private capitalist initiative, and the concessions policy.

It was in no way predictable where the NEP would lead. There was a very strong fear among the Bolsheviks that after the October Revolution, they might now be the pioneers of a capitalist Russia. They yearned for relief from the proletariat of the West. It is certain and understandable that the Russian comrades wanted an action that would relieve them. But this in no way means that they wanted one in the form that the March Action then took.

What was the situation with Bla Kun? He has gone down in this story as a real devil, always conjured up when the reactionary side needs a scarecrow. Truth and falsehood are also mixed together in the depictions drawn of him by his opponents in the workers movement.

He was certainly not the noblest figure in the Comintern. The first impression that he gave was that of an unusually energetic person, ruthless to the point of brutality. He was not selective in his choice of means: Ern Bettelheims revelations after the Hungarian defeat of 1919 have brought proof of this. But after these revelations, it is necessary to emphasize right away that he was entirely disinterested and gave everything without hesitation to those who were close to him.

Despite the ugliness of his facial features, he emanated a strong charm. He understood how to inspire people and carry them along. He had made great efforts to school himself theoretically and politically, but he had too unrestrained a temperament to assess situations calmly. He was attracted by adventure, and always ready for action.

Naturally, Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin, who sent him to Germany, were aware of these qualities of Bla Kun. But they counted on German caution and knew very well that even the left wing of the party displayed a strong resistance towards artificial actions. Still more so could people like August Thalheimer and Heinrich Brandler be relied on to apply the necessary brakes.

If Bla Kun was easily able to win the majority of the party leadership for a risky policy of offensive, the reasons lay essentially in the general situation. Germanys foreign policy position was as perilous as hardly ever before. The international conference in London had led to open conflict between the Allies and Germany. On March 8, Dsseldorf, Duisburg, and Ruhrort were occupied militarily by the Entente. In Upper Silesia, there was fighting between Germans and Poles. People counted on the possibility of a German-Polish war.

There was strong discontent among the working class, particularly the miners and even the agricultural workers. The devaluation of the mark, which had come to a halt for a while after the Kapp putsch, had once again rapidly accelerated, and inflation fuelled discontent among the whole population. In this situation, even Paul Levi turned sharply against the policy of pure propaganda and pressed for action.

The governments behavior also showed that it saw conflict with the working class as unavoidable. It took the necessary measures even before the will for action had taken concrete form in the party. All the same, we overestimated the tensions, did not see the inhibiting factors, and particularly failed to recognize the possibility of a compromise in German foreign policy.

It was as a result of this overestimation that Bla Kun very rapidly managed to win the majority of the party leadership for an offensive policy. I myself favoured an offensive policy from the start. I believed at that time and this had long been the basic point of contention with Paul Levi that it was our duty to make use of every possibility for a revolutionary advance.

I failed to recognize as a general strategic lesson the necessity of a retreat or escape in a dangerous situation; this would only be brought home to me under the pressure of very harsh facts in the particular case. The fact that on this occasion the party leadership shared my view naturally gave my temperament a strong impulse.

It is certain that without the work of Bla Kun, without his influence on the most prominent members of the leadership, the readiness for action would not have been aroused. But we should guard against the conclusion that the March Action was undertaken either directly or indirectly at the command of the ECCI. At this time, the ECCI had a great moral authority, and the Russians were seen as almost infallible on tactical questions. But they did not yet have in their hands the means of pressure to enforce their directives.

We would not have acted or failed to act because of a command from them. It is true that we lacked the necessary critical equipment with which to confront proposals or ideas from the Russians. At all events, no one of the then party leadership is entitled to hide behind the Russians or Bla Kun. We all bore full responsibility for the action.

On the other hand, none of us wanted a March Action. The intention was, as soon as the expected open conflict erupted in one place, to bring to a head the festering conflicts where we had the possibility of doing so in other words, on the field of social struggle. If this succeeded, then the further development would show what possibilities for action had arisen. The action should be conducted with the aim of the overthrow of the government.

What was immediately at issue was to create the readiness for action in the party by means of both propaganda and organizational methods. When the central committee of the party was convened for the middle of March, no one believed in an immediate outbreak of armed struggle. We certainly did not yet know the point where we would engage. That depended on objective conditions.

News then reached the session of the central committee that the Social Democrat interior minister Carl Severing had ordered the occupation of the Mansfeld industrial district and its factories by the police. The party found itself like an athlete poised ready to leap who suddenly receives a blow in the back: he stumbles, manages with difficulty to regain his balance, but remains confused and spoils his jump.

It is extremely important for the historical record to take due account of Severings police action. It is generally left out of consideration, thus ignoring one of the most important preconditions for the March Action, so that this seems just complete madness. In fact, Severings action had been prepared for weeks in conjunction with the big industrialists of central Germany.

It arose precisely from the general situation that led us to envisage an offensive approach. Its object, admitted by Severing himself, was to impose on the adversary a battle that would intimidate, weaken and surprise them on a particular territory, before the material for conflict had generally matured. The action was organized in such a way that it was designed to provoke armed struggle.

We found ourselves in a psychological state that did not allow calm consideration of the situation. We were just preparing to put our forces into marching order when the enemy attacked. We were mentally disposed to an offensive and saw ourselves suddenly surrounded. We were incapable of switching from the offensive idea to defence, since we generally overestimated greatly our influence over the masses.

If we were reluctant to order a complete retreat immediately after the outbreak of armed conflict in the Mansfeld region (and such an order would have meant the demoralization of the party and the resignation of its leadership), all that remained was to widen the struggle. In our already overheated mood, we committed the following mistakes:

On the central committee, we received information on March 22 of a planned action in Hamburg, which struck us as too general and dangerous. I was dispatched there immediately, in order to intervene if possible. I arrived in the night.

On the way to the headquarters of the action executive I learned the following details. This executive had issued a leaflet on March 22 calling for a general strike. On the 23rd, the day that was just dawning, the unemployed were to surround the dockyards and force the workers there to abandon work. From all the information that I received, it was clear that the dockworkers were not prepared to strike, and that force would have to be used in order to enforce a shutdown.

I was horrified by the light-hearted way in which this undertaking was approached and tried to make clear to the comrades that they were simply preparing a putsch, that the idea of forcing the workers into struggle by force was ludicrous, that an enterprise of this kind was morally condemnable, doomed to failure from the start, and bound to bring the party fearful repercussions.

I demanded in the name of the central committee that the enterprise should be immediately broken off, and the preparations made reversed. I spent a long time arguing with them, but to no avail. In the early hours of March 23, the action was carried out as planned.

The dockyards were indeed cleared out. The workers left half convinced and half unwillingly. There were demonstrations, shooting, and a number of dead. In the afternoon it was clear that the enterprise had failed.

On the central committee the decision for offensive action was not carried without the heated opposition of a minority. One part of this minority then kept its distance completely during the action. Another part kept discipline while seeking at the same time to prevent the worst.

Paul Levi seems to have been travelling at the time of the March Action. Neither he nor Ernst Dumig made any kind of attempt to influence events. They then organized a comprehensive report, the result of which was published by Paul Levi in his booklet Unser Weg (Our Way).

Levi completely misconstrued the situation in the party at this time. There was indeed a certain unease among the members about the tactic embarked on. But apart from a small group of functionaries, the members supported the action and took upon themselves the defeat. And then Levi appeared, who had neither warned nor advised during the action, with a text that was not a critique of particular party comrades, but a hostile blow against the party.

It was only this blow that was felt, and all the more strongly, as the party was subject to heavy persecution. In these circumstances, Levi found no reception for his arguments and criticism. At the beginning of April, he was expelled from the party for this text, and the party stood behind this measure.

After the end of the March Action, the party leadership felt the understandable need to justify its policy. In particular, it had to argue against Levis critique and was naturally driven to an extreme position, the so-called offensive theory.

Bla Kun, Thalheimer, Brandler, and myself were particularly involved in conceiving these ideas. They more or less corresponded to my pre-existing views. I summarised these ideas in an article in the booklet Taktik und Organisation der revolutionre Offensive (Tactics and Organization of the Revolutionary Offensive).

The offensive theory had a very short life, which was ended at the Third Congress of the Communist International in Moscow. We went to Moscow with the feeling of being completely on the right path, and we were enthusiastically welcomed by Russian functionaries. They were completely in accord with us. But this changed after a few days.

Their attitude towards us remained the same. But they explained that Lenin was against us; they could not understand this, but it had always turned out in the past that Lenins view was correct, even when he had everyone else against him. Karl Radek had told me that Lenin was extremely annoyed about the March Action and our pamphlet. He was unable to sleep, and afraid that we might commit new Blanquist stupidities again in future.

The discussion with Lenin made an extraordinary impression on me. But since I have no notes, I can only reliably recall parts of the conversation that had personal importance for me. We first had to give a report, the detailed themes of which we had rehearsed among ourselves.

After I spoke, something surprising and disturbing happened. Radek handed me a piece of paper on which he had reproached me with very crude words. Why had I said such unnecessary things? All that mattered was to win over Lenin, but I had pushed him over to the other side. I was tremendously disturbed by this note. Were things such that diplomacy was the game and we had to try and dupe one another?

I believed that we had to go over the facts together and seek the correct policy. This meant being completely open and speaking things objectively and unvarnished. I was not prepared to accede to Radeks demand. But his note was like the blow of a dagger, which never completely healed. A large part of my trust in the ECCI and the Russians went out of the window.

After the reports, Lenin spoke. He failed to convince me, speaking in too imprecise terms for my expectations. I finally asked him clearly the one question that had been for me that most important problem of the March Action. We had been attacked by Severing. The Mansfeld workers had taken up the struggle. Should we have left them in the lurch, rather than doing everything to support them? Should we not stand in the lead and widen the field of struggle if a section of the working class is struggling against reaction?

Lenin replied that it was not necessary to fight in all conditions. This seemed to me an evasion. I wanted to have a clear answer, a kind of formula, in what conditions one should engage in such a struggle and in what conditions abstain. There was nothing more to be got out of Lenin.

It was only much later that I understood that it was wrong to conduct a vanguard struggle in a bad position and with an unfavourable balance of forces for a decisive battle. Further, that it is impossible to apply suitable tactical formulas for all cases; one must rather depend in each situation on a correct view, instinct and intuition.

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The March Action and the Tragedy of German Communism - Jacobin magazine