Daily Archives: September 2, 2021

This weekend, Ethan Hawke accepted the Presidents Award for career achievement at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in Czech Republic. As the award is intended to honor Hawkes entire, Oscar-nominated body of work, it was only natural that questions about his breakout role in the 1989 prep school drama Dead Poets Society would come up.

As reported by Variety, Hawke took the opportunity to talk about his experience working with co-star Robin Williams.

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I thought Robin hated me, Hawke admitted. He had a habit of making a ton of jokes on set. At 18, I found that incredibly irritating. He wouldnt stop and I wouldnt laugh at anything he did.

But Hawke also added that it was Williams who helped him get his first agent.

He called, saying, Robin Williams says you are going to do really well. There was this scene in the film when he makes me spontaneously make up a poem in front of the class. He made this joke at the end of it, saying that he found me intimidating. I thought it was a joke. As I get older, I realize there is something intimidating about young peoples earnestness, their intensity. It is intimidating to be the person they think you are. Robin was that for me, he said.

Hawke also talked about his upcoming projects, including a possible new collaboration with Boyhood and Before Sunrise director Richard Linklater centered on transcendentalists in the 19th century.

They were the first leaders of the abolition movement; they were vegetarians; they fought for womens rights. [Richard Linklater] is obsessed with how their ideas are still very radical. This could be a super cool movie and Rick is writing it right now. He is mad at me [for coming to Karlovy Vary], he thinks I should be at his house, he said.

Story continues

Regarding his prior work with Linklater, Hawke said you could look at the films as if theyre all connected. I could make a case that Boyhood is a prequel to Before Sunrise Ellar Coltrane is playing Richard Linklaters surrogate and then I start playing Richard Linklaters surrogate. Its like the Marvel universe!

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Ethan Hawke Thought Robin Williams Hated Him on Dead Poets Society Set - Yahoo Entertainment

It was difficult to remain indifferent to the declarations by Likud MKs in October 2020, when the issue on the agenda was legislation to prevent economic violence in the family. If a husband says to a wife, Hand over your salary, then that is the situation between them, Amit Halevi said. To which Ariel Kallner added, Maybe she bought 10,000 shekels worth of clothes [$3,000] and bankrupted him.

The lawmakers brought more than provocative comments to this meeting of the Knessets Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. They were equipped with position papers and abundant data to explain why the proposed law, which aimed to help women who were controlled economically by their husbands, against their will, was misguided and will drive families crazy and destroy them, according to MK Shlomo Karhi.

The MKs information came from an organization founded that same month, called the Forum of Organizations for the Family. The Forum comprises 15 nonprofit organizations that banded together, among them: a Hardali (national-religious ultra-Orthodox) nonprofit that is fighting the draft of religiously observant women; a womens group that rejects feminism because it erases our feminine identity; an organization of divorced fathers that warned against wild incitement against men in the wake of the murder of Michal Sela [whose husband stabbed her to death in 2019]; a group of intellectuals headed by a woman who claims that LGBTQ people are performing conversion therapy on our children; a self-described Jewish human rights organization that opposes animal rights; and also Dror in Likud a group of activists who advocate a government with strong religious presence of which Kallner, who is no longer in the Knesset, is one of the founders.

Though they ostensibly operate on different fronts and have diverse goals, these organizations turn out to have a common denominator: fear that the traditional institution of the family is disintegrating. From their perspective, government sponsorship of the Prevention of Economic Violence bill had to be blocked. Not only would any such law have brought about the intervention of the judicial system in family life, it would also have sparked an apocalyptic scenario.

The background information prepared for the Likud group by the Forum explained how these grim events would unfold: If passed, the proposed legislation would lead to a dramatic decrease in the marriage rate, thereby causing no less than demographic upheaval. Accordingly, a situation would arise of fewer working hands fewer revenues for the economy, producing a rise in the cost of living. The result, according to the Forum would be a diminished ability to raise children. Ultimately, the process would bring about nothing less than a national collapse, see under: The Strange Death of Europe a reference to the 2017 book by Douglas Murray.

Their campaign succeeded: The law against economic violence was blocked. And now members of the Forum are girding their loins and pooling their resources with the goal of realizing their full vision, on various fronts.

A document prepared by the Forum ahead of the last election, in March, spells out its aims. In the realm of education it is demanding a comprehensive revision of the curriculum in state-run secular and religious schools in order to place family values at the center, by means of teaching the necessity and importance of forging a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. In addition, the Forum is calling for an end to any involvement in the education system of organizations which, they claim, blur the boundaries between the sexes and cultivate fear and rivalry between men and women.

Republican cachet

In the realm of the family unit, the Forum seeks to change the concepts of treatment of domestic violence and sexual assault (quotation marks in the original) so that it will encompass appropriate treatment for all victims of violence without the assault necessarily being linked to men. Institutionally, the Forum is calling for the establishment of an authority that will promote the family and a Knesset committee dedicated to enhancing the status of the family, which will set as a goal an increase in the rate of marriage and in the birthrate in Israel, and a reduction in the divorce rate. Also on the Forums agenda: abolition of the position of adviser on the status of women in local governments and its replacement by a unit to promote the family in the community.

Some of the Forums member organizations are of recent vintage; others have been active for years. The messages they are sounding are also not all new. However, the cumulative power derived from joining forces and creating a coalition signals a new stance, which plays up family values with a conservative-Republican cachet. On top of which, the entire collective of groups is being led by women. What remains now is to see whether they will be able to accumulate sufficient power and influence to achieve their goals.

Not surprisingly, the tone at the Forum of Organizations for the Family is being set by Hardali groups that are typically under the intense influence of rabbis and include activists from among the evacuees of the Gaza Strip settlements in 2005. One of them is the Achva Center, whose Choosing Family program recently produced a pamphlet titled What the LGBTQ people are hiding from you. The flyer purports to provide the public with reliable information about the causes of homosexuality and the treatment possibilities information that can save precious lives from the abyss of darkness.

The leader of the project is Michael Puah, one of the Forums most prominent figures. A founder of the Jewish Leadership faction in Likud and member of the partys central committee, Puah has distributed a book put out recently by Choosing Family, entitled Everyone and His Fake Family, which criticizes families with same-sex parents or single parents, and families that are half-Jewish. A few years ago Puah published an article called Abuse of the aged due to the LGBTQ agenda, in which he argued that holding public discourse in favor of rights for the gay community is a deliberate move toward dismantling the natural family, one that is starting to blow up in our face as manifested by what he cited as older members of the family being shunted into assisted-living facilities, where they suffer abuse at the hands of caregivers.

Another key figure in the Forum is his son, Yehuda Puah, chairman of Btsalmo, which terms itself a human rights organization in the Jewish spirit. Recently Puah and his father petitioned the High Court of Justice to ban anonymous sperm donations. That process is undermining the institution of the family, is harmful to children, erases the biological parents and affects the childrens natural right to parents of their own, Yehuda explained in a recent interview.

Another Hardali nonprofit in the Forum is Chotam, which seeks to end service by religious women in the Israel Defense Forces. An animated video it recently circulated shows a young religiously observant female soldier whos totally occupied with doing paperwork and becomes a target of sexual harassment. Chotams president is Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, recipient of the 2020 Israel Prize for Torah Literature. The choice of Ariel to receive the countrys highest honor drew protests because of comments he has made, according to which gays "are disabled people who suffer from a genuine problem, and Its best not to rent an apartment to a lesbian couple.

Fathers for Justice whose goals include eradicating the discrimination, violence and suppression of fathers and promoting equality between the sexes is another group in the Forum. This organization, which has many religious members, wants to eliminate early-childhood custody going to the mother by default, and claims that domestic violence is symmetrical between the members of the couple. The organization has been involved in trying to prevent the release of Erica Frishkin, who is serving a life sentence for the 2003 murder of her husband, who abused her for years. The group opposed legislation intended to deny custodianship to a parent who has been accused (but not convicted) of the murder or attempted murder of their partner, or of raping children.

Yonadav Stern, head of Father for Justice, acts as a sort of operations officer for the Forum of the Organizations for the Family, being in charge of coordinating between the different groups and assigning missions to the activists.

Women out front

Even though most of the Forums organizations are headed by religious men, the male presence there is played down. The Forum highlights the women involved in it in the media and elsewhere, and indeed they effectively spearhead its public activity. The fact that women are in the forefront of this conservative enterprise is a new development; in the past womens organizations were typically the preserve of more liberal lobbying and pressure groups identified with the values of feminism.

One leading Forum activist is Naama Zarbiv, who in 2018 founded an antifeminist organization called Shovrot Shivyon (deriving from the Hebrew term tie breakers, used in tennis but here more literally meaning equality breakers), intended for women who want to strengthen femininity, motherhood and family. Zarbiv, who was the secretary general of Katif, a former Gaza Strip settlement, and has also managed a Haredi nonprofit, was given an unrealistic slot on the right-wing Yamina partys slate in 2019, as the representative of the National Union faction.

Zarbiv claims that there is no salary discrimination between men and women in Israel, objects to encouraging women to work and criticizes the flexibility being manifested by the IDF vis-a-vis gender issues. She has been giving frequent interviews lately, talking about femininity issues currently on the agenda: She rejects expansion of the pilot program to recruit female tank crew members, supports gender separation in higher education and clashed with MK Yair Golan (Meretz) who stated in a post that Zarbiv and her colleagues are out to send women back to biblical times.

Yet another leading personality in the Forum is Dalit Laub Souter, aka Gali Bat Horin (Gali daughter of freedom, aka GBH), chairwoman of the Caf Shapira Forum, an organization whose members are intellectuals and professionals. Literary editor, publicist and social activist Laub Souter identifies herself as the daughter of a communist father, a member of Hashomer Hatzair [left-wing youth movement] and an automatic Meretz voter. During Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, in 2014, she published a post lauding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his management of the campaign, which drew hostile responses from her friends. She then underwent an accelerated process of shaking off her roots, and her status on the right soared.

In 2016, she organized a meeting in Caf Shapira, in Tel Aviv, with like-minded people who live in left-wing surroundings and are afraid to come out of the closet as right-wingers. Her organization was established three years later; its Facebook group now numbers more than 10,000 members. Its offices in Ramat Gan are the venue for weekly lectures and gatherings with the participation of journalists, educators, jurists and politicians. The group also conducts workshops whose goal is to acquaint participants with content that affects the institution of the family, LGBTQ people, radical feminism, hatred of males and more. Those were also the values in the name of which the Caf Shapira Forum joined the coalition of organizations for the family last fall.

The Caf Shapira Forum has made its motto restoration of a sensible discourse, Laub Souter explained in a telephone interview last month. And because the entire progressive offensive is an assault on good sense and harms the institution of the family, we speak the same language. Not only does she live in harmony with the militant mens rights organizations that cooperate with her organization, but in her view they are not militant enough. If they shout so loudly, it must be because someone is standing on their foot, she says. Things may seem to give off a bad smell, but when you open the lid of the sewer, you discover that its only an image thats been created from progressive ideology.

The influence of gay organizations in schools is a disaster, Laub Souter believes, who is enraged over the ostensible encouragement the education system gives to trans youth. Little kids come and are told, If you sometimes feel not right about yourself, maybe youre going through something, maybe youre actually boys, not girls, she says.

The worst thing, from her point of view, are the lessons about gender issues. They talk with 10-year-olds about toxic masculinity, she continues. The feminist organizations have succeeded in instilling the assumption that every boy is a budding patriarchy and a potential rapist, while every girl is a wretched victim and helpless. The operating assumption is that women are always humiliated. Exactly the opposite of womens empowerment.

Ex-secularist at the helm

Whats especially surprising is that the Forum of Organizations for the Family is headed by a woman one who in the past called herself an avowed secularist. Shes Naama Sela, 57, a Haifa lawyer who specializes in property cases and who is married and has four children. Sela embarked on her public path as a social activist in Ramat Begin, the Haifa neighborhood where she lives, and as head of the parents committee in her childrens school. Residents had known her as a popular, accepted figure, so they were surprised when, in 2019, she joined a number of religious activists in the city in organizing a family procession to protest the municipalitys participation in funding a Gay Pride parade in the city.

In the procession, which drew about 400 participants, Sela was the center of attraction. Today the conservatives are waking up and saying to the LGBTQs, No more, she declared in her speech there, in which she also called on the Education Ministry to bar gay organizations from the schools. We want life, and we, the conservatives, must put a stop to the progressive madness.

Asked, in an interview on the Mako website, why she has gotten herself so worked up over the LGBTQ issue, she replied, It bothers me exactly the way I am bothered when I go outside and see garbage strewn around, so I pick it up and throw it in the bin. That was no slip of the tongue. She expressed herself similarly about the 2019 Pride parade (If I would disrobe in public, you know, Id be taken to a mental hospital), what she perceives as exaggerated media coverage of the LGBTQ community (They are apparently in the saddle, they control the media) and surrogacy for gay people (I dont think a group like the LGBTQ people should be allowed to say that there are children who dont deserve a mother).

Local parents didnt like what the head of the PTA was saying and showed their displeasure. Our neighborhood is very liberal and pluralistic, and we couldnt accept a woman who espouses such extreme views as our representative, one resident told Haaretz. However, their objections didnt deter Sela on the contrary.

Although Sela declined to be interviewed for this article, her views were published in April in an article titled The Damage of Radical Feminism, which she published on Mida, a website that aims to present the public with information and opinions not common in the Israeli media, according to its mission statement (in English). In the item, Sela maintains that women are not a discriminated group and are in fact privileged compared to men. The salary gaps between men and women are due to false consciousness (as per Karl Marx), because they stem not from discrimination but from substantive differentiation between the sexes. She also writes that the number of women agunot in Israel is lower than the number of male agunim meaning, there are more men who are stuck in marriages because their wife wont divorce them than women whose husbands refuse to grant them a Jewish bill of divorce. Womens organizations, Sela asserts, seek to bring about ideological, progressivist and feminist engineering of all the countrys governmental systems.

As she sees it, because of this obstruction of consciousness [the government] allocates tens of millions of shekels a year to dealing with the problem of violence against women, whereas the problem of violence against men by their wives is excluded from public discourse. This state of affairs creates a consciousness of fear among women, even though Israel is one of the safest countries in the world for women.

Sela concludes her article by criticizing the choice of Shira Isakov whose husband attempted to murder her to light a torch in the traditional eve of Independence Day ceremony last April. Have we as a society reached a level where victims become cultural heroes? she asks, and continues, Will Shira Isakov eventually become a symbol, even though she did nothing of benefit to the people of Israel?

Sela can perhaps be seen as a local, pared-down version of Phyllis Schlafly, the American lawyer who in the 1970s campaigned to strengthen traditional family values, gathered a coalition of conservative and religious organizations around her and was known for her uncompromising battle against feminism and against the Equal Rights Amendment. She was recently portrayed by Cate Blanchett in the miniseries Mrs. America, in which a subplot deals with the difficulty Schlafly had in accepting her gay son another similarity to Selas story.

Selas 24-year-old daughter came out of the closet six years ago, to the chagrin of her parents. An attempt to placate them by means of a meeting with the daughters partner did not go well. Persons close to the family say that Sela always espoused relatively conservative views, but dont understand why she has started to express them in such an extreme and destructive manner. They wonder why she has chosen to carve out her public path by means of vicious attacks on the LGBTQ community.

For us its a riddle, a person close to the family says. She must have told herself a story to the effect that through her public activity she is helping or saving her daughter.

The tension with her daughter morphed into a serious rift after Sela organized the anti-LGBTQ rally two years ago. She confronted her mother and said, How can you demonstrate against your daughter? You are actually acting against me, against my rights, against my having a family, the confidant relates. Naama said that there was no connection between the things and that she would stand by her daughter if she should need help. She added with half a wink that there are all kinds of ways to change sexual tendencies. Following that confrontation, the daughter and her parents werent in touch for a year; the daughter is now living abroad and maintains minimal relations with her mother.

Lauding irregularities

Last March, the Forum of Organizations for the Family held a Zoom meeting ahead of the election. The meeting, which can be viewed on YouTube, provides a fascinating glimpse of the groups modus operandi as it seeks to become an influential pressure group.

The main speaker was Naama Sela. In a flat, analytical tone, she began with an anecdote from a visit she made to the school of her youngest son. I expected to see the national flag and the Declaration of Independence at the entrance, she related. What I saw was a huge painting of Winnie the Pooh holding a balloon, with the caption: The things that make me different are the things that make me. Its from there that all the problems start, Sela noted. Children, she said, are getting obsessive guidance and brainwashing in school about accepting the other. Children learn that the more irregular a child is and the irregularity can take all kinds of forms the more laudable it is. Accordingly, the schools should stop cultivating the value of accepting the other and start educating people to establish a family. They should not transform irregularity into an object of admiration.

The online Forum gathering was emceed by Michael Puah, of the Choosing Family program, which is responsible for some of the most extreme anti-LGBTQ content that has been disseminated lately in the media. Puah began by saying that he was thrilled that 88 people who place family at the top of the agenda were in attendance. That may not sound like a very impressive number, but Puah knows that the fact that they represent 15 organizations added up to a broad, powerful coalition. Indeed, he repeated the message that they need to create force multipliers.

How to do that? In this case, the small size of the Forum is an advantage. Each activist will be assigned one or two MKs to contact, in order to provide them with information regarding the preferred family values. Prepare the material, make your pitch like good salespeople, push your ideas so that the person youre talking to will have to come up with answers, Puah explained.

In conversations with MKs who may be potential allies, Puah said, the activists should present themselves as undecided voters (otherwise youre burnt matches) and thereby give the politicians an incentive to feel free about expressing commitment to the Forums agenda. If you manage to record or film the conversation and you succeeded in eliciting a significant statement, forward it to us and we will see that it is disseminated.

Nor did Puah ignore representatives of the other political camp, those who will never identify with his values. Good material comes out of conversations with them. These people launch public offensives against the Forum. Im just waiting for a good offensive, because thats one of the ways that strengthen [us] most and generate an audience that is suddenly exposed [to these ideas]. If we really bug [Labor Party leader] Merav Michaeli or [Meretz leader] Nitzan Horowitz or Adi Roll [MK Idan Roll from Yesh Atid], then a lot of people say: Wow, if theyre managing to get to them, it must be something serious thats worth joining.

Indeed, the bulk of the Forums activity seems to be focused on trying to create media buzz. According to a news item in March, the Forum demanded that IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi restore the use of father and mother to army forms (instead of parent 1 and parent 2). The Forum announced that it had also adopted a letter from rabbis deploring the states twisted intention to change official government forms in the same way.

The Forum has devoted special attention to the use of a diacritical sign in the form of a dot or slash, in print, to express an egalitarian approach in Hebrew, a typographical way of indicating that a word refers to both women and men. They fired off angry letters to organizations that have adopted this form of address, including health maintenance organizations and the Education Ministry, arguing that the aim of this so-called a-gendered language is to enable various sexual and personal identities that are not only male and female. The Meuhedet HMO and the state-religious directorate in the Education Ministry acceded and ceased using the diacritical signs.

The Forum also published a statement in support of Roni Marom, the head of the Mitzpe Ramon local council, who objected in June to the holding of a Gay Pride parade in town and issued an anti-LGBTQ manifesto in which he recommended that locals not join forces with the LGBTQ army.

In a particularly provocative text, the Forum also addressed the murder of women in the country. The group tweeted photographs of 16 women who had been murdered until that point this year and circled in red the faces of the 11 Arab women among them, declaring, This is a problem of community, not of gender.

Such ploys were clearly calculated to draw attention, but does the Forum wield concrete influence? A source knowledgeable about the groups activity believes that there has been much ado about nothing. Its a fiction, the source says. Theyre taking something from this nonprofit and something from that nonprofit, and creating a semblance of a large, influential umbrella organization.

This is apparent, for example, in the multiple roles assumed by the Forums leaders. Sela, for example, wears four hats. In addition to her founding the Forum, she is also listed as a member of the Caf Shapira Forum, as being active in Shovrot Shivyon and as legal adviser to Fathers for Social Justice. Others are also members of two or more of the nonprofits that make up the larger coalition.

Most of the groups that comprise the Forum do not enjoy a significant budget. They depend on private donations, with their annual turnover ranging between zero and a few hundred thousand shekels. The exception is Btsalmo, whose budget surged by a multiple of 36 in one year and stood at 4.2 million shekels (about $1.2 million) in 2020.

The Caf Shapira Forum received a donation recently from the Central Fund of Israel, a clandestine channel for donations from the United States to right-wing organizations in Israel. Perhaps that is why one of the key individuals in the local group likened its activity to the Tea Party the militant, libertarian movement that was established in the United States to combat President Barack Obamas economic policies. Other figures in the Forum, including those from the Hardali fringes, have also adopted conservative American rhetoric, iterating concepts such as the silent majority. That notion is identified with U.S. President Richard Nixon, who famously invoked it to indicate that his policies had the support of the majority of Americas citizens.

But not everyone sees the Forum as a paper tiger. The dangerous concepts propounded by the new pro-family groups, and their efforts to undermine the struggle for womens rights were felt clearly in the parliamentary discussions about the bill against economic violence, says Hagit Peer, president of the Naamat womens organization. MKs who sided with the family organizations expressed at best ignorance and in the worst case misogyny and total disdain for women who live in the shadow of physical and economic violence.

The Democratic Bloc, a civil society platform that is working to research, expose, and shame extremist organizations, according to its website (in English), has also been monitoring the Forums activity and does not make light of its impact, noting also its affinity with the Kohelet Policy Forum. Kohelet, a powerful conservative think tank, has been consolidating its influence among decision-making centers in Israel for the past decade, and is casting a net of right-wing organizations over civil society, based on the American conservative model.

The association between the Forum and Kohelet is seen in the fact that two Forum leaders, Sela and Zarbiv, are graduates of a program about government run by the Civil Society Forum, the foundational arm of the Kohelet Forum. The program Recipe for Influence equips its graduates with tools to deal with lawmakers. In addition, the founding meeting of Shovrot Shivyon was held in Kohelets offices in Jerusalem, as was one of the nonprofits recent annual conferences.

In response to a query from Haaretz, Kohelet stated that it has not been involved in establishing pro-family organizations, adding, These are independent organizations which occasionally enjoy training sessions and the infrastructure at Kohelet, like dozens of other nonprofits. Adi Arbel, head of the program attended by Sela and Zarbiv, noted likewise, but added that he generally provides free strategic consultancy to graduates of the program who are engaged in launching new projects.

The Forum of Organizations for the Family stated in response: The fact that Haaretz is devoting considerable resources to monitoring the Forum shows that its work is important and successful. This is indeed a very large group of activists from 15 civil society organizations, which are working determinedly and openly to promote the institution of the family in Israel, and participating in the struggle against serious discrimination against men in Israel. As [described] in the book The Strange Death of Europe, similar trends exist in Israel as well (because of the assimilation of progressive processes), which constitute an existential danger. Our activity raises the publics awareness concerning the importance of the subject and generates disapproval of those who harm the institution of the family.

See the original post:

In the name of 'family values,' an Israeli coalition is trying to derail gay rights and gender equality - Haaretz

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So how did this happen? The backlash that came from creators (and to a lesser extent users) was able to garner enough attention across mainstream media that it seems to have given OnlyFans the leverage to be able to pressure the banks right back. The creators pushed hard enough to not only change OnlyFans minds, but to also signal to credit card companies that this wasnt in their best capitalistic interests, leading them to cave and give OnlyFans the assurances that they required to keep explicit content on the site.

While the policy change has been averted and OnlyFans comments have emphasized their diverse community and that they are a home for all creators, not all are ready to forgive. Initial responses from content creators on Twitter have overwhelmingly been flavored with mistrust. Several people have suggested they can no longer trust the site, others have suggested that this is purely a crass capital-driven move, and some pointed out that the platform had announced that the plan had been suspended but not fully canceled.

While it appears that a victory has been won against OnlyFans and MasterCard in this instance, this event, on the heels of the same problems arising with Tumblr and PornHub might leave some content creators wondering how long until something like this happens again? While it might be nice to think that banks and platforms will remember this backlash in the future and avoid persecuting sex workers, that would probably be wishful thinking. The issue that caused the problem still exists: a strong religious right who are willing to utilize fears over child porn and sex trafficking to push their own agenda. While efforts to decriminalize and destigmatize sex work have seen some developments and further progress in that area would help to open up safer, more reliable avenues for those workers, in the meantime content creators will have to remember this event as evidence of the strength of their voices to push back in the future.

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Evangelicals, Capitalism, Sex Workers, and OnlyFans INTO - INTO

Hlne Landemore. (Courtesy of the author)

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For well over a decade, scholars and pundits have proclaimed that democracy is in a state of crisis. Some argued that the epic failure to bring democracy to Iraq and Libya, and events in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, indicated a global democratic recession. Meanwhile, Chinas political rise and economic advance, have indicated a viable political alternative to the Western model of democracy. Indeed, the Western model of democracy has not only become the embattled cause of right-wing nationalists, but the pandemic has shown that these states are ill equipped to deal with national emergencies requiring high levels of coordinated international solutions. On all sides, the critics argue, democracy appears endangered.

Yet what if the crisis of democracy is actually a sign of democracys vitality? On this reading, Brexit and Trumpism are, in reality, the products of resentment and distrust of political personnel and institutions that are failing to deliver the promise of democracy. In other words, democracy is not being rejected per se but rather an elitist political system that is failing to protect the power of the people. Such a suggestion lies at the heart of Hlne Landemores new book, Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century, which argues that the problem today is not democracy in itself but rather the existing paradigm of democracy, which is too elitist and is incapable of fulfilling the democratic expectations of the people.

Landemorea professor of political science at Yale Universitytraces the problem back to the 18th century and the emergence of modern representative democracy, a state of governance outlined in The Federalist Papers, which equates the decisions of elected elites with the peoples choice to vote for them. The problem, argues Landemore, is that this equating has proven false; as the system is explicitly oligarchic, elites all too often proven unresponsive to the wishes of the electorate, and we have reached the point where the people are rebelling against the system. Rather than reject democracy, though, Landemore calls for a more inclusive version of it that she describes as open democracy. It is undergirded by five key principles: participation rights, deliberation, majority rule, democratic representation, and transparency.

The purpose of these principles is to make democracy less elitist by making it open to all citizens equally. She believes that this can be done by instituting novel forms of non-electoral democratic representation: for example, there is the lottocracy, a system in which representatives do not run for office but are randomly selected to serve fixed political terms. A lottocracy, Landemore suggests, would limit the chances that representatives will be bought off, since they are not running for office, and would likely allow for greater political, ethnic, gender, and economic diversity, since candidates are randomly selected.

Yet can there be a lottocracy in a country as big as the United States? Does open democracy end up being a utopian fantasy? To answer these questions, I spoke with Landemore regarding her thinking about democracy in a populist age, and how her vision of open democracy might practically be achieved.

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins: Prior to Joe Bidens election, pundits and intellectuals regularly argued that democracy was in a state of crisis. What Trump represented for these critics was the breakdown of democratic norms brought on by a populist backlash against established electoral elites. You, however, state the opposite: One could argue, you claim, that the crisis of democracy as we know it is a sign of its vitality as a normative ideal. Why do you see democratic vitality where others saw a democratic deficiency?

Hlne Landemore: I have become convinced that the regimes we call democracies are not democracies in the authentic sense of the term and at the very least not sufficiently democratic by weaker standards (assuming, for example, that democracy is a continuum). Because our current systems fail to meet the democratic ideals of inclusion and equality, they end up also failing the good governance standard of basic responsiveness to citizens preferences. This failure in turn leads to citizens profound feelings of alienation from the systems that govern them, leading some of them to endorse various forms of reactionary populism. Current Issue

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One interpretation of our current predicament is thus that people are not rejecting democracy as an ideal but simply rejecting a system that claims to be a democracy but really isnt. And if thats the case, thats healthy and a sign of democratic vitality, in my view.

The problem, however, is that most people who are unhappy with our so-called representative democracy are unsure about how to fix it. Many tend to believe that its just a matter of electing the right guy (they rarely imagine a woman in that position) or bending the rules in favor of the party that cares more about the values they think are right. So, in the end, there are a number of people whose desire for self-rule and freedom will lead them straight into the arms of populists or authoritarians. But I think there is a way we could redirect that frustration and desire for control toward constructive, perhaps even radical, authentic democratic reforms.

In other words, I dont disagree that there is a crisis of democracy, but for me, Trump is a symptom, not a cause of democratic breakdown. If you get rid of Trump, you still have a failing democracy, and its just a matter of time before another Trump comes along. And reinforcing counter-majoritarian features of the American system or making it harder for the wrong people to voteor calling for more constitutional checks and less tyranny of the majority (the standard move of liberals on both the left and the right)will just make matters worse, in my view. When faced with alarming populist appeals, it is the instinctive temptation of many to double down on the undemocratic aspects of American democracy. But I think we should do the opposite. We need to open up the law- and policy-making process in a deliberate and deliberative fashion, without falling into the populist trap. And I believe that a system of open democracy, which is sufficiently inclusive of ordinary citizens, would effectually mitigate these populist tensions.

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DSJ:Last Novembers presidential election saw a record turnout, something that many would consider a strong sign of democratic vitality. Yet you would argue that elections, as they are currently structured, should not necessarily be raised to the level of a democratic principle. Why do you downplay the relationship between elections and democracy?

HL:First let me preempt a possible misunderstanding. While I dont think elections are essential to democracy, voting absolutely is. But to me voting means essentially voting directly on issues, not voting for people who are going to make decisions on these issues for us. So, referenda and other mass moments of direct democracy are essential to democracy, whereas voting to elect representativeswhat we generally mean by electionsis, again from my perspective, optional. Not every political system that could legitimately call itself a democracy needs to have elections; thats why elections are not one of the five principles of my open democracy model.

I have come to downplay the relation between democracy and electionsfor two reasons. One is that if you take the long view, from a historical perspective, elections were not always essential to democracy. In Classical Athens political offices were distributed on the basis of a strict willingness to participate (in open assemblies like the Assembly of the People, which were accessible to all citizens up to capacity) or on the basis of lot (the Council of 500, who set the agenda for the Assembly of the People; the nomothetai, who wrote the laws; and the popular juries, who judged political trials). Elections were deemed oligarchic by the Greeks and thus were used only for meritocratic positions, like administrative or military roles that required a certain type of excellence.

And it was not just in classical Athens that elections were rare. If you look at other ancient (and for sure incomplete and imperfect) forms of democracy around the world, as documented most recently by David Stasavage in his excellent book The Decline and Rise of Democracyin ancient Mesopotamia, ancient India, Northern America, Mesoamerica, and Central Africayou see that elections, in the modern sense, were non-existent. The main feature of these ancient forms of democracy, which were invented independently all around the world, was that all or at least most people with relevant interests (including sometimes women, as in the case of the Huron tribes), were consulted, and decisions were made after extensive debates. Even when only a few people were ultimately in charge of the decision-making process, one could argue that they were channeling the will of the rest of the community through the aforementioned consultatory and deliberative processes, and sometimes under the threat of removal.

Second, from a purely theoretical perspective, elections distribute power unequally in a way that contradicts fundamental democratic intuitions about political equality. Bernard Manin has brilliantly and influentially formulated the argument by saying that elections are based on a principle of distinction, such that only those seen as superior to others by some criterion or combination of criteria (e.g., charisma, ideas, oratory skills, looks, height) have a chance of winning elections. While elections have a democratic face, to the extent that everyone gets an equal vote, they also have an oligarchic face, because of this principle of distinction, which means that only some people have access to political office. More often than not, the implications of election-based selection of rulers are largely plutocratic, bringing to power those who can finance expensive political campaigns. If we distribute power unequally, we shouldnt be surprised if, in the end, the people in power are taken from a narrow socioeconomic elite and if, as a result, governance outcomes are unrepresentative of what most people want.

DSJ: As you know, Democrats and voting rights groups are outraged about the state of Georgias new voting laws, which impose strict ID provisions and changes to mail-in voting. And yet even if such laws were reversed, you would claim that such voting rights would not count as genuine participatory rights. Why is this?

HL: The right to vote in elections is crucial, especially if thats all you have. So, relative to the situation in Georgia, of course we should be appalled by any tactics that aim to make it harder for individualsparticularly from historically disenfranchised groupsto vote. But at the same time, once you have this right to vote, its still a very limited mechanism for participation and, indeed, self-rule. You dont get to choose the candidates who run for your vote, you dont get to shape the platform on which they run, and at the end of the day, these candidates, once in office, are free to ignore your preferences. So, the right to vote in elections is an important political right, but its not a real participation right in the sense of a right that allows you to meaningfully shape laws and policies.

In fact, one could argue that voting to elect a representative is essentially voting to abdicate your right to participate in law- and policy-making. I mean this as both a provocation and a truth, one that Rousseau also recognized. I think a true participatory right involves being able to have a say, directly, on the substance of issues. Voting rights remain extremely important, in my model, but this means outside of a strictly electoral democracy and, instead, inside an open democracy framework, where citizens are regularly asked to decide on issues directly. Im thinking of large-scale, possibly multiple-question referenda here, which are a common practice in Switzerland. Im also thinking of the citizens right of initiative, which allows citizens to put an issue on the legislative agenda or directly to a popular vote, and the citizens right of referral, whereby citizens can repeal an existing law.

DSJ: Perhaps your thinking on elections and voting is best summed up with your remark, Many of the regimes we call representative democracies are hardly democracies, are de facto usurping the term. Can you elaborate on this?

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HL: If you look at the history of our so-called representative democracies, they originate in what historians call representative governments, which were designed in opposition to the twin dangers of monarchy and democracy. Democracy back then was identified with mob rule and the tyranny of the majority. So the ancestors of our representative democracies were historically never intended to give the mass of ordinary people actual power. James Madison famously wrote that the American republic is characterized by the total exclusion of the people in its collective capacity from any share in government, and he thought this was a good thing! Representative government was built on republican and liberal principles, not democratic ones. The republican principles are popular sovereignty and popular consent, which sound democratic but are in fact compatible with government by an elected aristocracy, with the best and most virtuous at the helm refining and enlarging the popular judgment. The liberal aspect comes from the emphasis on individual rights as safeguards against governments, including the potential tyranny of the majority. Liberal rights have a connection to democracy, but again, they can be compatible with oligarchic rule.

The origins of so-called representative democracies explain why the US, for examplea republic, not a democracy, as the phrase goesis so counter-majoritarian in its design and makes no room for the direct participation of the masses at the federal level. It also explains why elected representatives are so unresponsive to majoritarian preferences. In a 2014 study, political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page showed that the US in recent decades has taken the form of rule by economic elitesa kind of plutocracy, if you want to be extremely blunt about it, in which majorities have no causal impact at all on public policies once one controls for the preferences of rich people and economic groups. Meanwhile, Schlozman, Brady, and Verba have demonstrated that in Washington, D.C., 70 percent of the population gets represented by 6 percent of the lobbies and groups; whereas the class of people we call executives, who represent about 7 percent of the population, get over 70 percent of the lobbies and groups influencing policy to represent them. If we are honest with ourselves, we should admit that our so-called representative democracies are really at best liberal-republican-elected oligarchies, and sometimes downright plutocracies.

The rule of law is not enough to have a democracy; constitutional protection of individual rights is not enough to have a democracy; even universal enfranchisement is not enough to have a democracy. As the Greeks knew, having a choice of rulers is not the same as ruling. What you really need for authentic people power, in addition to an inclusive definition of citizenship, which the Greeks crucially lacked, is to be able to directly deliberate and decide outcomes where feasible, taking turn in representative functions where representation is needed, and retaining the ability, whatever your position in the system is, to shape the agenda of and deliberation on issues from the onset and throughout the process.

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DSJ: What, then, is the political alternative to open democracy?

HL: Open democracy is first and foremost a new lens through which to see the problems of our existing institutions and to envision a new system. It is a new paradigm of democracy centering ordinary citizens rather than elected politicians. I envision legislative power in particular as something that ordinary citizens are supposed to exercise directly at some point in their lives, not all at once, but in turn.

More concretely, open democracy is a set of 5 institutional principlesparticipatory rights, deliberation, majority rule, democratic representation, and transparencywhich all together add up to a political system open and accessible to all on an equal basis. The key institution is a deliberative body I call the open mini-public, a large randomly-selected body of citizens gathered for agenda-setting, general law-making, or topical issues, and connected to the larger public through various mechanisms.

As a theoretical paradigm, open democracy is radically different because periodic electionsand electoral representation in generalis not a core institutional principle. In theory, one could thus envision an entirely non-electoral form of democracy, a sort of version of what the Greeks of Classical Athens had, but more inclusive, more purposely deliberative, at a wider scale, and technologically augmented. In practice, open democracy is more likely to be implemented as a reformed version of our representative parliamentary systems: for example, by abolishing Senates and replacing them with randomly selected assemblies. It would only turn into something radically different if elected parliaments were replaced by lottocratic ones. Open democracy means making our institutions a lot more participatory, deliberative, majoritarian, and transparent.

So, open democracy is a vision rather than a turn-key alternative political system. I offer it as a different paradigm of democracy that could be instantiated in different ways, perhaps depending on cultural and political contexts.

DSJ: How would you respond to critics who would argue that open democracyis politically naive?

HL: I would reply that the cynicism and so-called realism of there is no alternative have had devastating effects for 50 years. The conceptual space for political ideas from the late 1970s to 2008 was impossibly narrow. Since 2008, more so since 2016, and even more so since the pandemic, we can finally imagine again. Everything is on the table, from democratic socialism to police abolition to a universal basic income to democratic legislatures by lot. While we can debate the individual merits of each of these proposals, at the very least we need the freedom to envisage a different future. People need hope and a belief that a different, better world is possible. Besides, as far as what Im recommending is concerned, its not just fanciful. Its rooted in solid theory and 20 years of empirical evidence, which is more than the American founders had to go on when they invented their deeply original but also deeply flawed governmental system. Im not saying we need to abolish elected legislatures at this moment. Im saying we need to rethink our conceptual frameworkand what we truly mean by democracyso we can finally see all thats wrong with our political system and then proceed to fix it one step at a time.

The American people deserve and can handle the honest truth, not some noble lie about the exceptionalism of American democracy, which anyway is no longer credible since January 6, if it ever was. American democracylike many so-called democracies around the worldis a vulnerable oligarchic system that disproportionately benefits the rich. Weve exported it, by force, to a lot of places, where it has often failed. In the 21st century its time to call a spade a spade and try to do better.

DSJ: I was surprised to see how little war is discussed in your book, especially since the crisis of democracy in this country is now regularly connected to the countrys forever wars. This year, for instance, marks the 20th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. What is the relationship between open democracy and the decision to wage war?

HL: Indeed, I have very little to say on the topic in my book, so thank you for the opportunity to try to develop some thoughts here. I think that a more open democracy would be much less bellicose than our current system. In his essay On Perpetual Peace, Kant made the prediction that republican governments truly reflective of the popular will (even as Kant still envisioned government as a mostly aristocratic affair) would be less likely to go to war. Contemporary political science seems to have proved him right on this, at least when it comes to the likelihood of modern democracies fighting each other. I think this likelihood would be even lower in authentic open democracies, in which ordinary citizens take part in legislation and the authorization of war. For example, in a truly open democracy characterized by deliberation and transparency, the flawed rationale for the Iraq war beginning in 2003that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destructionwould have had a much harder time surviving scrutiny. That said, given the prevalent nature of wars in the modern era and as long as dangerous dictators still exist, the best we can perhaps hope for is the existence of less imperialistic and more abbreviated ones. And for that too a more open democracy would help.

DSJ: The last chapter of your book argues that open democracy is an ideal for global governanceone predicated on what you describe as dynamic inclusiveness? How does it work? And how might you respond to the charge that open democracy is ultimately utopian?

HL: The status quo is profoundly unfair, so we will need to construct something better, closer to Kants idea of a loose federation of republics or, which would be my preference, of open democracies, combined with a global cosmopolitan right to minimal protections and the right of asylum to all individuals, regardless of where they happen to be born or live. My sense is that if we replicate electoral democracy on a global scale, well have the same problems we have at the national level, just worse. Can you imagine the cost of running an electoral campaign on a global scale? Wed end up with a mostly male parliament full of billionaires, hardly a recipe for a more just world. The only other way, it seems to me, is to have an open democracy of a kind, based on sortition (lots).

Some decisions would have to be centralized at the federal (global) level, like facilitating coordination to fight climate change, for example, or to prevent tax evasion by international corporations. But most of the decisions could be left to the individual states or other geographic or even non-territorial entities. Democracy has centrifugal tendencies, as it should. Who counts as a member of the demos ought to be defined in more expansive ways as global integration inevitably progresses and our lives become more intertwined. At the same time, as we re-empower local decision-making, even in a globalized world, the size of the relevant public might shrink on decentralized issues, in a centripetal way. Thats what I mean by dynamic inclusiveness.

Is this vision utopian? It might have been just five years ago. But we are now in the midst of such a global crisis that I think it is less and less so, at least if I judge by the number of governments and organizations that are turning to me for ideas at the moment. What this interest in my work tells me is that people, including political leaders, need ideas, especially when the status quo does not work anymore. The worry, of course, is that the politicians who consult me and other deliberative democrats like me are just cynics in search of participatory-washing strategies, to calm down the masses. But the people I talk to seem to me sincerely motivated. They too see the limits of the system. They understand that they are part of the problem, and they want to be part of the solution. The worry is more the people I dont get to talk to, namely people who actually do not believe in anything like collective intelligence, deliberation, or democracy, for that matter. And Im not talking about the Trump voters here. Im talking about the true cynics, those whose interests are too aligned with the current system and who have every incentive to resist change and oppose reforms.

Also remember, what does utopian mean? To me, it means it has yet to be realized anywhere. But thats the added value of what I do. We need political theorists to think up worlds that dont exist yet, in order to expand our imaginations. All I claim to do is provide a new lens through which to see the world. In order for things to happen, in life and in politics, you first need to visualize them.

The rest is here:

Can Lottocracy Save Democracy From Itself? - The Nation

When Olaf Scholz became the chancellor candidate of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)in August 2020, his bid to succeed Angela Merkel at the rudder of Europes largest economy looked like the dictionary definition of a lost cause. So robotic and uncharismatic was his public persona that he had long been known as the "Scholz-o-mat". Nine months earlier he had not even managed to win the SPD leadership, losing to a rival candidacy fromits left wing. His selection as would-be chancellor looked to many like the desperate choice of a party with no alternatives.

After all, the SPD itself arguably Europes most storied and venerable political force, the party of August Bebel, Friedrich Ebert, Willy Brandt and Gerhard Schrder had slumped to third place and around 14 per cent in the polls. Long years as junior partner to the soothingly, almost apolitically moderate Merkel, under whom Scholz has served since 2018 as vice chancellor and finance minister in a grand coalition, had stripped the SPD of definition and confidence. The party epitomised the crisis of European social democracy.

But skip forward a year, to a rainy afternoon in late August 2021. Scholz is giving a speech on the Bebelplatz, an elegantly restored square in central Berlin named after the man who co-founded the SPD in 1869. In white shirt and suit trousers, behind a banner proclaiming Scholz gets stuck in, the SPD chancellor candidate is uncharacteristically pumped up: Its moving that so many citizens trust me to be the next chancellor of the federal republic, he says to cheers, applause and wavingSPD flags. He calls for more respect in society, and for a 12 minimum wage. Kevin Khnert, the young star of the SPD left, is not onlypresent to support Scholz but is acting as master of ceremonies. The tableau speaks of that rare thing in contemporary European politics: a social democratic party with wind in its sails.

Germany's federal election campaign heats up

New Statesman analysis of the latest polls

Angela Merkel is not runninginthe federal election on 26 September. And as polling day nears, the SPD suddenly has the momentum. In the New Statesmans poll tracker it overtook the Greens on 18 August and passed Merkels Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and their Christian Social Union (CSU) allies to take first place on 30 August. The latest poll by the agency Insa puts the SPD lead at five points, the largest since July 2001. Scholzs own popularity has soared: one poll shows 49 per cent of Germans want him as chancellor, compared with 17 per cent for the CDU/CSUs struggling Armin Laschet and 16 per cent for the Greens Annalena Baerbock. He was easily the winner in snap polling after the first TV debate of the election on 29 August, with even the conservative Bild tabloid deeming it a clear victory for the 63-year-old Social Democrat.

49% of Germans want the SPD's Olaf Scholz as next chancellor

PolitBarometer ZDF poll

It is looking increasingly possible that Scholz will end up as chancellor at the helm of his preferred centre-left coalition: a three-party traffic light formation (so-called as the colours would be red-green-yellow) of the SPD, the Greens and the conservative-liberal Free Democrats (FDP). Such a result would be historic. The CDU/CSU has led the federal republic for the past 16 years and in total for 52 of the 72years since its foundation in 1949. It would bring together an improbable mix of political outlooks and styles in Germanys first three-party federal government. It would make Europes social democrats the continents preeminent political family for the first time in decades, tilt the political balance in the EU and perhaps inspire parties elsewhere.

Luck will have played a major role. Both Laschet and Baerbock have made avoidable mistakes that have greatly benefited the SPD. But such an outcome would also be a product of Scholzs strengths ones honed over a long political journey, from the hard left of politics to a heterodox position closeto its centre and a particular set of theories he has developed about the SPD, social democracy and Germanys future. To understand that journey is to understand the man who now has a better chance of becoming the next German chancellorthan anyone, even a matter of weeks ago, thought possible.

***

Bornin 1958, Scholz grew up Grosslohe, a north-eastern suburb of Hamburg studded with post-war housing blocks, and joined the SPD at 17. He spent the 1980s immersed in left-wing politics: serving as deputy leader of the Jusos (Young Socialists, the SPDs youth organisation) and vice president of the International Union of Socialist Youth; joining the Stamokap grouping that argued that world capitalism was in a final pre-revolutionary phase; and writing for the SPW (Magazine for Socialist Politics and Economics), a tribune of the SPD left. His articles live on as artefacts of Scholz as the angry young man, calling for triumph over capitalist economics, railing against the aggressive-imperalist Nato and decrying West Germany as the European stronghold of high finance.

Then came the 1990s and what Scholz today refers to as his political detox. He built his career as a labour lawyer, representing tradeunions, cooperatives and worker councils including workers in the post-communist east in cases against the Treuhand agency tasked with winding up old East German state industries. And he pulled back into local politics in Hamburg.

[See also:German election TV debate win adds to Olaf Scholzs momentum in the race to succeed Angela Merkel]

Germanys wealthy second city sits on the Elbe River, close to its North Sea estuary its economy is dominated by its harbour, and services industries like media and finance. Historically part of the Hanseatic League, its citizens still pride themselves on Hanseatic values of reason, restraint and reliability; the saying goes that a Hamburg handshake is as good as a signed contract. Cooperative relations between the Kaufmannschaft (merchant class) and the Arbeiterschaft (working class) mark the local SPD, the citys preeminent political force. It was long personified by Helmut Schmidt, the former SPD federal chancellor who in his later yearsbecame a mentor to Scholz, and whose most memorable maxim was: those who have visions should go to the optician.

His practical experiences as a lawyer and his spell in local politics in Hamburg tempered Scholzs politics. He joined the Bundestag as an MP for Hamburg in the 1998 election that put the SPD leader Gerhard Schrder into the chancellery at the head of a coalition with the Greens. In the same year, Scholz married his wife Britta Ernst, a fellow SPD politician and today a minister in the state government of Brandenburg.

Unlike certain others of his generation Scholz made his name in Berlin not by aligning himself with a particular SPD tribe but by moving between them;rather like Angela Merkel in herrise throughthe CDU. He was not heavily involved in any of the three main factions in the party, says Michael Miebach, chair of the centre-left think tank Das Progressive Zentrum: Scholz was seen in recent years as a centrist within the party. This flexibility helped position Scholz to become SPD general secretary in 2002, in which role he doggedly defended Schrders liberalising labour reforms while also cultivating relations with the party left and advocating a minimum wage (then not yet mainstream even within the party).

Gerhard Schroeder and Olaf Scholz in 2005 in Hamburg, Germany. (Image credit: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

The reforms helped lose Schrder the 2005 election, ushering Merkel to power at the head of a grand coalition with the SPD, in which Scholz served first as the partys chief whip and then as labour minister. But when the SPD crashed out of government entirely at the 2009 election he returned to Hamburg.

The partys struggles in the city whose politics it once dominated reflected the gloomy national picture. It had been out of power in Hamburg for nine years and looked set to lose the 2011 election, too. Thus began the defining experience of Scholzs career. He took charge of the local party and led an energetic bid for the votes of moderate CDU voters pledging to make a popular shipyard boss economy minister, running ads encouraging non-SPD voters to back him and delivered a landslide so big that the party was able to govern alone. The Hamburg SPD and its target voters have always been on the conservative, pragmatic end of the social-democratic spectrum, recalls Hamburg-based analyst Martin Fuchs: Scholz looked like a convincing representative of this tradition.

Scholz inherited an array of problems. For all its wealth, Hamburgs public finances had long been in unhanseatically poor shape. Its schools languished at the bottom of the German league table. Housing was becoming ever less affordable. A vast new quayside concert hall, the ship-like Elbphilharmonie, was several years overdue and many times over budget. Scholz rolled up his sleeves. It was impressive to watch, says Axel Schrder, Hamburg reporter for Deutschlandfunk. Ill never forget how amazed I was when, in an informal discussion with journalists, he revealed how he had managed to completely rework the Elbphilharmonie contracts.

[See also:How the SPD is narrowing the gap in the German election campaign]

Scholz balanced the citys budget. He pushed for the dredging of the Elbe to improve the harbours competitiveness, a classic case of Kaufmannschaft-Arbeiterschaft common ground. Scholz isnt in the wrong party, though, cautions Schrder: he is clearly a social democrat. He cites initiatives to help school leavers without qualifications find work, the introduction of free childcare from birth to school age, and a series of deals with developers, housing associations and district authorities to accelerate house-building, another classic example of Scholz as a political craftsman. On law and order, too, Scholzs policies were broadly third-way (Im liberal, but not stupid, as he once put it). The reward was resounding re-election in 2015.

It says something of Scholzs popularity that he was able to weather the debacle of the G20 Hamburg Summit in 2017, which saw clashes between police and anti-capitalist protestors so violent that even residents of the citys alternative St Pauli and Sternschanze quarters were left shaken. He made a public promise that the [summit] would cause little more disruption than the annual harbour-side fair, recalls Schrder. That these promises defied intelligence warnings was, he adds, indicative of Scholzs tendency to overestimate himself. Today the G20 disorder is not the only blemish on Scholz's reputation for competence: he has also faced questions (though no suggestions of wrongdoing) over his contacts as mayor with Warburg, a Hamburg bank subsequently caught up in a tax fraud scandal, and about his responsibility as finance minister for regulatory failures in the collapse of Wirecard, a payments technology company.

***

Scholz took over the finance ministry and the vice-chancellery in 2018. Merkels attempt after the 2017 election to form a Jamaica coalition with the Greens and the FDP (so-called as three colours match the countrys flag) had collapsed when the FDP flounced out of talks. After fraught negotiations and resistance from the SPDs left, the SPD joylessly trudged back into yet another grand coalition. Despite some notable achievements in the 2013-17 government, including the introduction of a national minimum wage, the party had fallen to 20.5 per cent, its lowest result in post-war history, and had been pushed back to old strongholds such as Hamburg and the industrial Ruhr valley.

Those gloomy circumstances, say Scholz confidants, plunged him into a period of reflection on the centre-left in Germany and internationally. He studied the woes of the British Labour Party and the US Democrats, and read widely. Didier EribonsReturning to Reims(2009) and JDVances Hillbilly Elegy (2016), both accounts of fractured societies of winners and losers, urban hotspots and provincial backwaters, particularly affected him. So too did the works of the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel on justice and meritocracy, the Serbian-American economist Branko Milanovi on inequality and the Turkish economist Dani Rodrik on globalisation. That reflection, following his experiences in Hamburg, forged in him a unified approach to politics Scholzism, if you will that deserves at least a share of the credit for the SPDs current revival.

Roughly sketched, Scholzism has three pillars. Pillar one is to restore social democracy as a bridge between middle-class progressives, the old working class and the emergent precariat. That means combining a third-way affinity for what works with a theory of social justice that goes beyond social mobility. Social democracy was never an elitist project telling everyone they need to do an Abitur [academic school leaving certificate] and go to university, explains Miebach. Its revival depends on it being once morethe guarantor of the chance to live a decent life, the respect and dignity that a good job provides, as Scholz put it in his 2017 book Hoffnungsland [Land of Hope]. Respect here is the keyword, and it permeates the current SPD campaign, its rhetoric and its literature (out of respect for your future, a society of respect, respect for you).

Pilar two comprises what might be called wedge policies. The SPD has long been a byword for fractiousness it has gone through eight changes of leader since 2004 but Scholz has presided over an inter-factional truce. When in 2019 he and his moderate running mate lost the partys leadership election to the left-wingers Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken (both backed by the influential Khnert), he moved immediately to find common ground. That helped lay the foundations for his selection as chancellor candidate the following year and for the partys key electoral pledges: the minimum wage hike, stable pensions, the construction of 400,000 homes a year. Such policies help unify the SPD and put the CDU/CSU on the wrong side of important voter groups (another example was Scholzs abolition of the solidarity surcharge, a tax to pay the costs of reunification, for all but the top 10 per cent of earners).

An election billboard showing Olaf Scholz promoting the party's 12/hour minimum wage policyon 23 August 2021 in Berlin. (Image credit: Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Pillar three is a belief in a strong, activist executive. If you ask for leadership, youll get it, Scholz warned the Hamburg SPD in 2009, and as mayor from 2011 he drove policies from his desk in City Hall: for example, personally hosting naturalisation ceremonies as part of a migrant integration push. He has taken that get-on-with-it style into the federal government: He prefers something urgent done 8/10 immediately than 10/10 in two years, observes Wolfgang Schmidt, state secretary at the finance ministry and Scholzs closest ally. In his three years running Berlins most powerful ministry Scholz has pushed through Germanys generous Covid-19 stimulus package, German support for the EUs historic 750bn debt-backed Next Generation EU fund and most recently the international agreement on a minimum corporate tax rate of 15 per cent. Hes an experienced negotiator; Hes a fan of the John Rawls theory of justice, where you have to see conflicts from the others point of view, explains Schmidt.

To be sure, there are points where Scholzs own adherence to Scholzism is debatable. A reinvigorated German social democracy would benefit from the abolition of the onerous debt brake, which restricts public investment but to which Scholz, the hard-nosed Hanseat and political realist, remains committed. A strategy putting the SPD on the right side of important debates should surely involve more climate ambition, yet the partys policies envisage coal power stations belching emissions until as late as 2038. Cases like the G20 riots dent Scholzs claim to be the embodiment of competent leadership.

And it would not do to overstate his achievements. Scholz has been extremely lucky in his timing and opponents. Merkels departure was always going to create a huge gap in German politics. A strong CDU/CSU candidate might have filled it, but Laschet is weak and gaffe-prone; on 17 July, he was filmed laughing while Germanys president gave a sombre speech about the lethal floods in western Germany. Next up might have been Baerbock and the Greens, who soared in the spring but have struggled under pressure. That leaves the SPD. Its recent rise arguably owes most to the mistakes Scholz has has not made. It also deserves some historical perspective: 23 or 24 per cent in the polls may look good today but would have seemed disastrous in the heydays of Brandt, Schmidt or Schrder.

[See also:Germanys CDU/CSU alliance is on course for its worst election result in postwar history]

Yet Scholz and Scholzism do deserve credit. He did not force the errors made by others, but did position himself and his party to benefit when they occurred. The SPD went into the campaign impressively united, with unexpectedly good relations between Scholzs team and the party leadership under Walter-Borjans and Esken; indeed, a common reflection in SPD circles these days is that the ideological differences at the top of the party, by being well-managed, have actually strengthened it by giving the whole party a sense of ownership of the campaign and its messages.

Scholz himself has turned out to be his partys greatest asset. The surest proof of that is his emergence as a sort of continuity Merkel. Germanys outgoing chancellor remains the countrys most popular politician; her calm solidity fundamentally appeals to a relatively comfortable country that has long prized stability. That style comes naturally to Scholz, the dry, mild-mannered, restrained Hamburger. But he has also deliberately cultivated it in recent years. After interviewing him for the Economist in 2018 I wrote: Mr Scholz seems to be styling himself as a reassuring father of the nation, a Vati (dad) to the chancellors Mutti (mum).

In recent weeks the effort has become more explicit, Scholz performing Merkels trademark steepled-fingers pose, and running ads with strapline: Hes got what it takes to be Madame Chancellor. In the TV debate on 29 August he performed the impression to a fault. Where Laschet and Baerbock sniped and sparred, he plodded, talkingin genial generalities and posingas the experienced, familiar, reasonable middle ground between them. Short of donning one of Merkel'sboxy, colourful jackets, it is hard to imagine what more he could have done to encourage the parallel.

***

Three full weeks still separate Scholz from polling day, let alone Merkels office in the sprawling glass-and-steel chancellery by the River Spree. It came out of the blue, it can go back to the blue, ruminates Miebach of the SPD surge. Two more TV debates await, on 12 and 19 September. Scholzs strong personal polling has plateaued. Events (the floods, Afghanistan) have already sent this election campaign in unexpected directions and could do so again. And the CDU/CSU is launching a fightback, including a deluge of retail policies and scaremongering about the chance of Scholz bringing the socialist Left party into a coalition.

Olaf Scholz, Annalena Baerbock and Armin Laschet attend an election TV debate in Berlin on 29 August 2021. (Image credit: Michael Kappeler/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Though an SPD-led coalition with the Greens and the Left party is the SPD lefts preferred option, its chances are low. The Left is divided andpolling poorly, and its foreign policy instincts concern the mainstream. What of the alternatives? Neither the CDU/CSU nor the SPD fancy another spell in government together, and on current polling they would need to add either the Greens or the FDP to wield a majority. Such an outcome is not unthinkable, but more likely at this stage is either a Jamaica coalition led by Laschet (CDU/CSU with Greens and FDP) or a traffic light one led by Scholz (SPD with Greens and FDP). That could make the Greens and FDP the kingmakers; and while the former leans towards the SPD the latter is closer to the CDU/CSU.

Germany's current coalition would lose its majority if an election were held today

New Statesman analysis of the latest polls and projected seat shares

So Scholzs ability to win over the conservative-liberal FDP, among whose voters he is more personally popular than Laschet, could be the decisive factor. His messages hint at examples of social-liberal cooperation in state politics (most notably in Rhineland-Palatinate, where a popular SPD minister-president leads a traffic-light coalition) and in the federal government (his prominent references to Helmut Schmidt evoke not just Scholzs Hamburg roots but also Schmdt'sSPD-FDP coalitions from 1974 to 1982). Still, it will be hard to forge an agreement that wins over the FDPs yuppie-ish leader Christian Lindner, who wants the finance ministry, while satisfying the SPD left. Under Khnerts leadership the Jusos (Young Socialists) have become a strong veto player and are uncompromising on government participation, notes one insider. Areas of common ground for any traffic-light government would likely include green industry, planning reform, modernising the state and digital infrastructure.

[See also:Annalena Baerbock: the woman who could become Germanys first Green chancellor]

It would be a mistake to expect sudden transformative change from such a government, not least as German politics runs on compromise and consensus. The best guide to how Scholz would act as chancellor is his time in Hamburg: recognisably social democratic but pragmatic, big-tent and loyal to German traditions of fiscal conservatism. He would be decisive at points but Merkelishly ponderous (some suggest, excessively so) at others. Internationally he would represent continuity in relationships with the US and UK while edging German foreign policy closer to France. Scholz has known Macron since before he was French president, likes his notions of European sovereignty and, by backing the Next Generation EU rescue package, has nudged Germany towards French visions for the eurozone.

Yet even assuming all this, a broad spectrum of outcomes from a Scholz government is possible. Germany faces enormous challenges and under Merkels placid leadership has come late to some of them (digital infrastructure being a case in point). It is perfectly possible to imagine Scholz being too much like Merkel, delivering decent and mature leadership but weighed down by caution, loss aversionand stasis. At the other end of the spectrum is something more invigorating: Scholz as the Schmidt-esque chancellor of action tackling intransigent problems, the banger-together of heads, the Hanseat steering the ship through waves of change.

So it is right to reserve judgment on Scholz: as an election fighter, a coalition negotiator and as a prospective chancellor. But as the past weeks have shown, it would also be a mistake to underestimate him.

With reporting by Brian Melican

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How Olaf Scholz and the SPD could lead Germany's next government - New Statesman

Lyric of the week:

I wish that I knew what I know nowWhen I was youngerI wish that I knew what I know nowWhen I was stronger Ooh La La by Rod Stewart and the Faces (with Ronnie Wood)

Charles Krauthammer, the tribune of American power after the Soviet Unions dissolution, wrote two important essays on the unipolar moment. Krauthammer disparaged what he characterized as the tepid multilateralism of the Clinton administration. The worlds sole superpower didnt need to respect weakness, limit NATO expansion, or pay allegiance to international norms. Washington could and should throw its weight around. The sole superpower could play by its own rules.

The George W. Bush administration sang from this hymnal. Before 9/11, Bush and his advisory team of Vulcans planned to discard the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty even though Vladimir Putin was willing to accommodate revisions.Putin telegraphed that his rejoinder was to ditch the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, completed in 1993 as Bushs father was leaving office and with it START IIs prohibition on land-based missiles carrying multiple warheads.Bush expressed no need or interest in maintaining this prohibition.

And so, with zero regret, Bush dispensed with two central tenets of nuclear stabilization and strategic stability limitations on national missile defenses and the abolition of land-based missiles carrying multiple warheads.The 9/11 attacks facilitated Bushs planned withdrawal from the ABM Treaty.

Bush reacted to the strikes against the Twin Towers and the Pentagon with a fierceness driven by grievous national injury. Bush wouldnt be human if he didnt feel guilt at not doing more to connect the dots indicating how the attacks would happen data points husbanded by siloed domestic and foreign intelligence collection agencies. As if anger and guilt werent sufficiently high octane, the administrations never again impulse was also fueled by the hubris of the unipolar moment.

Twenty years later, in this current moment of pain, sorrow, and humiliation about events in Afghanistan, it is worth taking the time to re-read the Bush administrations 2002 and 2006 National Security Strategies. The former declared that We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed. The latter avowed that It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

These sentiments fueled the ill-fated war and institution building project in Afghanistan as well as the preventive war and institution building project in Iraq, another fiasco whose primary beneficiary was Iran. The end of the unipolar moment was hastened by these wars, and by much else. For those harboring any doubt, the unipolar moment definitively crashed and burned with the fall of Kabul.

The finest hours of U.S. expeditionary forces in Afghanistan came at the front and back ends of this two-decade-long saga. The routing of al-Qaeda was essential, but soon after this first act, tragedy, miscalculation, and dissimulation followed.There was no way to succeed in changing fundamental realities in Afghanistan, and therefore no good way or time to leave once al-Qaedas leadership was scattered and hounded.

The final act of leaving Afghanistan was suffused with grace even in the midst of chaos and terror. Evacuation efforts at Kabul airport were truly heroic, reflecting a nobility of purpose that had previously been buried by U.S. counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategies.

The second Bush war against Saddam Hussein continues to limp along. Unlike the first, it was unnecessary, deeply unwise and, like 9/11, abetted by the U.S. intelligence communitys failings. Saddam was unable to reconstitute his nuclear weapon program, the ostensible reason for launching a preventive war. While the Bush administration was bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, North Korea obtained nuclear weapons.

The Obama administration inherited both wars and other messes. Obama ordered the premature departure of U.S. troops from Iraq only to have them return as ISIS filled in the resulting vacuum with a mock Caliphate. This cautionary experience probably helped convince Obama to stay in Afghanistan.

John Kerry began his career in public life as a young veteran, returning from the Vietnam War and testifyingbefore the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He asked the assembled notables a question that he, himself, could not answer as Obamas second Secretary of State: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

Then came the Trump administration, with the Pentagon calling for a conditions-based withdrawal while Trump set an early date for leaving and forced the Afghan government to release Taliban fighters to facilitate the U.S. withdrawal. Good Lord.

To argue that Biden screwed up the endgame in Afghanistan is yet another exercise in hubris and political point scoring. There was no graceful exit from this mess, no way to prevent all acts of terror during the evacuation, or the soul-piercing scenes on the tarmac. This is what happens when Presidents ask the last man and woman to die for a mistake.

We are now left to grieve for those lost in war, those with serious injuries, seen and unseen, and those left behind, most susceptible to harm by Taliban rule and by the next iterations of internal strife that has become Afghanistans sorry burden.

And yet, despite so many missteps, the United States of America can recover. Resiliency is in my countrys gene pool; regrettably, division is, too. Recovery requires less domestic division. The healing process might be advanced if some of those who got us into these messes express humility and contrition for their decisions.

A rebound is also possible if good decisions follow excruciatingly bad ones. Three decades after the last helicopter left that roof in Saigon, Vietnam has become an unrecognizable and unforeseen partner. Its too early to pronounce doom after the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.

The United States of America has a fine habit of picking itself up after stumbling and falling. My favorite quote of Henry L. Stimson applies: The man who tries to work for the good may suffer setback and even disaster, but will never know defeat. The only deadly sin I know is cynicism.

So, where do we go from here? U.S. air strikes wont end with the exit from Afghanistan. I hold out the hope, however, emblazoned on one of the Stimson Centers old softball team T-shirts, of More Think, Less Tank. Ill leave the alternatives to preventive war and nation building to others.

In this space, lets consider ourcollective preoccupation with the future of nuclear threat reduction a future that regrettably does not include the ABM Treaty and the abolition of land-based missiles carrying multiple warheads.

The stunning and long belated expansion of Chinas strategic modernization programs accelerates the need to plan wisely for Beijings inclusion in nuclear threat reduction talks. More on this later in conjunction with the mid-October release of my door stop/magnum opus,Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace: The Rise, Demise, and Revival of Arms Control.

Numbers remain all important, but until we get a better handle on the numbers, its crucial to reinforce and extend the three crucial norms of no use and no testing of nuclear weapons, as well as nonproliferation. Suggestions to follow.

A renewed focus on avoiding dangerous military practices is also clearly warranted. A chastened Washington would be so inclined, but its not clear that Beijing and Moscow are on the same page.

Note to readers: A shorter form of this essay was published by Forbes.com on August 30th.

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The Unipolar Moment Crashes and Burns in Kabul - ArmsControlWonk.com

By Miriam Ascarelli

Growing up in Indiana as the child of Italian immigrants, the Underground Railroad was something I read about in books. These African American freedom stories empowering, even for a white girl like me.

Fast forward to the mid-2000s. I found myself teaching at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, on a campus in the heart of Newark, a majority Black city with a rich history. I wanted to get to know the city, and I wanted my students to get to know it, too. After all, Newark is the American story in miniature, starting with its founding by New England Puritans in 1666 as a religious theocracy; then as a 19th-century manufacturing powerhouse; later as a city marked by racial tensions, disinvestment and white flight and today as an urban center working tirelessly to reinvent itself.

So after hearing an oft-repeated story about how the First Presbyterian Church of Newark, known by many as Old First, helped runaway slaves in the early 19th century, I returned to my earlier interests and decided to search for the Underground Railroad. This time, I would take my students with me.

The church a white-steepled brick building in the middle of downtown was founded in 1666 and remains filled with artifacts. But the highlight of our tour was a trip to the basement to see a tunnel that stretched to the shores of the Passaic River and helped shuttle slaves to freedom. We found that path, now blocked by the Prudential Center arena next door, was too dark and damp for us to investigate. Later, when I emailed two historians who specialize in this period, neither could vouch for the tunnels history. This left me with a nagging question: Was this story true? Clearly, more research was needed.

Fortunately for me, Noelle Lorraine Williams, an artist, researcher and director of the African-American history program at the state historical commission, has done much of that work. My whole commitment is to tell the story of African American activism in Newark in the 1800s, Williams explained as we sat together one recent Saturday in Newark.

Her exhibit Black Power! 19th Century: Newarks First African American Rebellion, available online or at the Newark Public Library through Aug. 31 casts a harsh light on Old First. Blacks at Old First were not allowed to sit in the pews; they had to stand in a segregated area known as the Negro corner. This practice prompted Blacks to form their own Presbyterian congregation in 1830: the Plane Street Colored Church.

A 1905 picture of the Plane Street Colored Church. Newarks 19th-century Black preachers, including Samuel Cornish, who helped found the first Black national newspaper and then served as pastor of the church from 1839 to 1844, were connected to other Black abolitionist activists around the country. New Jersey Historical Society.

Old First was also known to host meetings of the American Colonization Society, which sought to persuade Blacks to move to Africa. Many Blacks in Newark were opposed to the idea, Williams says. This raises the question, could Old First really have been a stop on the Underground Railroad?

There are big doubts, Williams says.

Newark was a site for the Underground Railroad, but I dont think it was a site with hundreds of people coming through, she says. What some scholars have come to agree on is that people would come through Newark when other venues were not available. That, she says, is because pro-slavery sentiment in Newark was high, so Newark was seen as a dangerous place for fugitive slaves.

As I combed through the exhibit, I was struck by the dangers Black people faced. Advertisements in 19th-century Newark newspapers announced rewards for the capture of runaway slaves and the sale of enslaved people. One offered a $10 reward for a Negro man named Cato aged 34 years, about 5 feet 5 inches high, pretends to be religious, calls himself a methodist, is a great liar... Another offers a woman with a man child at the breast and two children who can be bought separately. The Sentinal of Freedom offers a black boy for sale, saying he is active, healthy and smart.

Chilling.

Advertisements in 19th-century Newark newspapers on exhibit at Newark Public Library announced rewards for the capture of runaway slaves and the sale of enslaved people. Noelle Lorraine Williams says there was a lot of pro-slavery sentiment in Newark. Photo by Jack Jones | For NJ Advance Media.John Jones | For NJ Advance Media

I wish I could say the racism shocked me. It didnt. Going in, I knew Newarks manufacturers had strong business ties to the South, so there was a lot of pro-slavery sentiment in Newark. But what did shock me was the very existence of slavery in New Jersey. New Jerseys 1804 Gradual Abolition Law allowed slavery to persist. For those born prior to July 4, 1804, there was no end to their enslavement; for those born to enslaved mothers after July 4, 1804, they would be free only after age 21 if they were female, and after age 25, if they were male. This made enslaved children valuable property and allowed some New Jerseyans an opportunity to abuse the law.

The most egregious example was in 1818 when Jacob Van Wickle a former member of the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders, a justice of the peace and a common pleas judge conspired with interstate slave traders to kidnap at least 137 free and enslaved Blacks in New Jersey and sell them to slave owners in the South. Van Wickle was never charged with any wrongdoing. A memorial to those lost souls' is now being planned in East Brunswick.

Slavery in New Jersey didnt come to an end until Jan. 23, 1866, when the state legislature reluctantly ratified the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Another theme that comes through loud and clear in Williams research is that Newarks Black churches provided sanctuary and advocacy for the citys Black community. When the Colored Anti-Slavery Society of Newark was formed in 1834, it was not by accident that those efforts were spearheaded by members of the Plane Street Colored Church.

While many of those church buildings are now gone, many of the words spoken then still exist on tattered pages that Williams has rescued from the soot of history and reproduced for the exhibit. She points out that in the 1800s, many of Newarks white leaders like Sen. Theodore Frelinghuysen, a celebrated New Jersey historical figure who served as the president of both New York University and Rutgers University, noted publicly that they supported Black freedom. But Williams points out that, the freedom they advocated for Black people was one that they could define, control and profit from. They used religion and religious institutions to advocate for the segregation of African Americans in Newark and to plan for their removal to Africa.

Artwork by Noelle Lorraine Williams shows where the Plane Street Colored Church would be located today. Frederick Douglass stands next to the golden structure superimposed on Rutgers UniversityNewarks Frederick Douglass Field. The famous abolitionist spoke at the church In 1849.

In an 1833 speech that Williams included in the exhibit, Frelinghuysen noted that Blacks were a lost and depressed people in the midst of the white race and because . . . their condition is so obscure, they make no impression on the public mind. If we could embody them in one neighborhood, even in all their wretchedness, that would promise more good for them (than) their present state.

Thats exactly what happened decades later. Thanks to discriminatory practices like racial covenants and redlining, the urban ghetto was created. Those forces laid the groundwork for Newarks best-known example of Black rebellion, five days in July 1967 that not only marked a turning point in Newarks history but also highlighted pent-up Black anger over issues like sub-standard housing, police brutality and discrimination.

My dive into Newarks history served as a reminder that the legacy of slavery has continued to reverberate in all sorts of insidious ways, from the mass incarceration of Black men, to police brutality and the wealth gap, which has translated into white household wealth being worth 10 times that of Black households.

It has also reinforced my belief that documenting history is vitally important. Without acknowledging our past, no matter how shameful and painful, we will never be able to move toward a more just future.

Miriam Ascarelli is a senior lecturer in the Humanities Department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark.

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Rethinking the Underground Railroad | Opinion - nj.com - NJ.com

The Vagrancy Act was created in 1824 and - while Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick six months ago called for its abolition - the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) are still able to use it to prosecute people for begging or sleeping rough in enclosed spaces without permission.

Those prosecuted can face a fine of up to 1,000 and a criminal record.

Data released by the CPS under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that the Vagrancy Act has been used to make 1,358 prosecutions in the past six years including 214 between April and December last year during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Some 886 of these prosecutions came from West Yorkshire Police - the region's biggest police force - which also saw 189 cases taken to court over the act between April and December last year.

Humberside Police has seen 220 prosecutions under the Act in the past six years, South Yorkshire Police 199 and North Yorkshire Police 53.

Most prosecutions were made under Section 3 of the Act, which criminalises begging, while the rest were under Section 4, for rough sleeping or sleeping in an enclosed space without permission.

Homelessness charity Crisis described the Act as "cruel", driving vulnerable people away from support and keeping them on the streets for longer. while Housing Secretary Mr Jenrick told the House of Commons in February that the act should be "consigned to history".

Crisis chief executive Jon Sparkes said the charity had been encouraged by Mr Jenrick's comments, but added he was disappointed that the offensive and counterproductive law remains in place.

He said: We all agree that the cruel, unnecessary Vagrancy Act should be scrapped but its still being used week in, week out with devastating consequences.

Fining people who already have next to nothing is pointless and just drives people further away from support, often keeping them on the streets for longer.

Mike Amesbury, shadow housing minister, said the "outdated" legislation criminalises people who have lost their home.

"Stable and secure housing underpins opportunities, saving lives and livelihoods," he added.

"Its in everyones interests that ministers focus on ending homelessness through support, prevention and stronger legislation to protect renters."

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: The Government is clear that no one should be criminalised simply for having nowhere to live and the time has come to reconsider the Vagrancy Act.

Work is ongoing to look at this complex issue and it is important that we look carefully at all options. We will update on our findings in due course.

Superintendent Alisa Newman of West Yorkshire Police, said the force "fully appreciates" the issue was "a highly emotive subject".

As police our main concern is to help those at risk and we do a lot of work to support genuinely homeless people who, by virtue of this, are vulnerable," she said.

"We seek to encourage and support them to the get them the help they need from partners. Outreach teams have been working across West Yorkshire during the pandemic to support those in need and make them aware of available local authority services.

The main thing for us is to make sure people who are vulnerable get the help they need. What we have found - and are still finding - is that some vulnerable people do have accommodation and receive benefits but have other issues that see them on the streets.

Whilst our priority is to support and engage, this is not always successful. Where individuals repeatedly refuse to engage with us and /or partners to get the help and support they need, we do have a range of legislative powers available to us where we have no option but to take enforcement action; this can include arrest under the Vagrancy Act where necessary and proportionate and for persistent offenders we may consider an application for a Criminal Behaviour Order, if appropriate. Dependent on the circumstances, we also have other measures we can use such as dispersal orders and Public Spaces Protection Order Zones.

The police and our partner agencies are committed to working together to protect vulnerable people and will continue to use all available measures to help people on the streets to turn their lives around.

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More than 1,300 rough sleepers in Yorkshire prosecuted under 200-year-old Vagrancy Act which makes begging a criminal offence - The Yorkshire Post