Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

Republicans are on the wrong side of historyand everything elseand conservatism is a dead end.

So-called conservatives are actually regressives and reactionaries, pushing us down to a worse state of being. Republicans are conserving little beyond their own wealth, racism, sexism, and homophobia, while eroding American democracy, health, and the environment. Progressives, in contrast, have brought us forward to a better world and continue to do so. Progressive ideology and action is what makes America as great, civilized, and advanced as it is, despite its continuing shortcomings, which progressives seek to repair.

Progressive ideology and action is what makes America as great, civilized, and advanced as it is, despite its continuing shortcomings, which progressives seek to repair.Progressivism has brought us independence from England, slave abolitionism, racial desegregation, womens suffrage, minimum wages and maximum hours, Social Security and Medicare, civil rights and civil liberties, clean air and clean water laws, pure food laws, public education, public libraries, public parks, public transportation, public health, public housing, pay equity, net neutrality, consumer, worker, health, and environmental protections, womens rights, human rights, welfare, food programs, unemployment insurance, birth control and abortion rights, unions, paid vacation and sick leave, separation of church and state, anti-discrimination laws, racial and sexual marriage equality, a reduction in poverty, gun reform and protections, protections against corporate monopolies, medical and recreational marijuana, freedom of expression, the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps, and most of the rest of the public sphere that civilizes and enhances our society. Conservatives have opposed all these and other vital achievements throughout our history.

And when the U.S. finally achieves universal single-payer health care (expanded Medicare For All or Berniecare); a Green New Deal; tuition-free public education from daycare through university and graduate school; an Equal Rights Amendment for women and sexual minorities; a living minimum wage; money out of politics; higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations; tough regulations on the financial sector; a Wall Street sales tax; Universal Basic Income; the end of homelessness; the end of child marriages; full reproductive freedom; a carbon price; a wealth tax; a society based on renewable energies; meaningful gun reform; expanded animal welfare and a stronger Endangered Species Act; an end to private prisons, money bail, and mass incarceration; universal suffrage including for inmates; abolition of capital punishment; marijuana legalization; paid parental and sick leave; doctor-assisted suicide; a national high-speed rail system; free public transit; Post Office banking; a smart electrical grid; free nationwide wi-fi; automatic voter registration and better election protection; and so on, it will be because of the hard work of progressives over the objections of conservatives.

In stark contrast, conservatives supported British colonialism in opposition to American independence; supported slavery and racial segregation; supported discrimination against religious minorities and atheists; opposed womens right to vote, equal pay, and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA); opposed protections against racial and sexual harassment and discrimination; oppose contraception, abortion, and reproductive freedom; support child labor; opposed the National Park System; opposed seat belts and airbags in cars as well as higher fuel efficiency standards; blocked marriage equality and block full LGBT+ rights; block expansion and extension of healthcare; blocked civil rights; block full voter access while supporting voter suppression; block higher minimum wages; blocked desegregation of the military based on race, sex, and sexuality; opposed interracial marriage; opposed same-sex marriage; opposed Social Security and Medicare; opposed expanding the voting franchise to women, African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, the poor, and 18-year-olds; opposed reducing work to the 8-hour day and the 40-hour work week; oppose labor unions; oppose job security; opposed family leave laws, sick leave, and paid vacations; oppose anti-trust laws and consumer protections; oppose regulations to rein in Wall Street; oppose unemployment insurance and workers compensation; blocked health, worker, consumer, and safety laws; opposed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA); oppose DACA (Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and block comprehensive immigration reform; do not welcome or protect refugees; oppose net neutrality; undermine health and safety measures for workers, consumers, and students; oppose any meaningful gun reforms and the banning of assault weapons; block environmental protections; oppose the Endangered Species Act; oppose more national parks and monuments; oppose tackling the climate crisis; support private prisons and mass incarceration; support privatization and corporate deregulation; support tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations; and so on.

Conservatives blocked the great artist Pablo Picasso from entering the U.S. and tried to do likewise with the great scientist Albert Einstein, who was escaping Nazis during the Holocaust. Similarly, conservatives were against Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, Helen Keller, Saul Alinsky, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Ralph Nader, Harvey Milk, Lois Gibbs, Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and many other progressive American heroes who nonviolently struggled for a better and fairer America. A conservative is one who admires radicals, Leo Rosten once remarked, centuries after theyre dead. Republicans selfishly only want what they think is best for themselves (focusing on the greed of me), while progressives want what they know is best for society (focusing on the need of we).

Our most populous and richest state of Californiathe 5th largest economy in the world!has no Republicans in any statewide office and Democrats dominate its Legislature. California erased its budget deficit and had a healthy budget surplus of several billion dollars for 2019 and a rainy day fund of $20 billion, some of which will likely be deployed during this pandemic-induced recession, even as California fosters innovation and creativity, has the most start-up businesses of any state, grows richer, and was creating more jobs. California also taxes the rich; raises the minimum wage; expands social services; makes community colleges free to all; advances womens rights; protects womens right to choose and reproductive freedom; reduces maternal mortality; expands protections for the LGBT+ community; celebrates diversity; protects immigrants and refugees; feeds more children at school; increases solar power; fights climate change; raises fuel efficiency standards; reduces air pollution; reforms the criminal justice system; enacts gun control measures; expands the Earned Income Tax Credit for poor Californians; legalized medical and then recreational marijuana; put a moratorium on the death penalty; supports privacy in its Constitution; institutes net neutrality; provides healthcare to more residents; increases protections for animals; extends rights; increases election security; begins public banking; and actively resists regressive Trumpism.

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There has been substantially more job creation and economic growthas well as social, racial, sexual, religious, and economic equityunder Democratic administrations.

In contrast, Mississippi and Alabama are the most thoroughly conservative states by most metrics. For some mysterious reason according to Jacob Hoss, theyre also the poorest, least educated, fattest, and have the lowest life expectancies. Similarly with Kentucky and West Virginia. The ten poorest counties (and more than 90 of the poorest 100 counties), as well as the ten counties with the highest rate of poverty, are in Republican-led states, while nine out of the ten poorest states in America are Republican-led red states. The top ten states with the highest obesity rate are also Republican-led states, even as they oppose expanded healthcare. Its as if Republicans dont want to make peoples lives better. Democrat Bill Clinton is the only president since 1970 to report a budget surplus, instead of a deficit, and did so for four years.

There has been substantially more job creation and economic growthas well as social, racial, sexual, religious, and economic equityunder Democratic administrations. Recessions tend to occur under Republican leadership, then get cleaned up under Democratic leadership. Republicans are socially, politically, and fiscally irresponsible with deadly consequences, while their party continues to get older, whiter, more male, and more Christian, yet less compassionate. Faux News and the greedy GOP wouldnt tell you these things, but its the truth.

Its not that Democrats are always good or that California has solved all its problemsof course, thats not nearly the case, especially with corporate Democratsbut Republicans are always destructive and regressive, both aggressively anti-people and anti-planet, if not individually, then certainly as a party. Even the most moderate and seemingly-reasonable Republican in Congress is giving the GOP its majority, protecting Trump despite his treason and conflicts of interest, and supporting nearly all of Trumps destructive policies and abominable nominations, while eviscerating our democracy, increasing inequality, weakening our alliances, violating domestic and international law, eroding civil rights and liberties, and degrading our health and environment. It is for these kinds of reasons that Noam Chomsky has called the Republican Party the most dangerous organization in world history.

Of course we need to conserve enough of what is societally going on to maintain cultural continuity, yet we need to continually include, innovate, invent, democratize, and change for positive progress. Republicans have outlived their usefulnessindeed, are complicit in undermining democracyand are obsolete. Republicans are on the wrong side of history and conservatism is a dead end. Progressivism is for the people and the planet!

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Republicans Are On the Wrong Side of Historyand Everything Else! - Common Dreams

On February 24, Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of a criminal sexual act in the first degree and rape in the third degree. On Wednesday, March 11, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison. On Thursday, March 19, California issued a stay at home order, the first statewide measure in the United States, and New York followed suit on March 20. On Sunday, March 22, Weinstein tested positive for the coronavirus.

The impact of the Weinstein verdict is not as simple as a win for the #MeToo movement. His sentencing, by a jury that included six men, isgood newsfor women who hope to be successful in court and thus may encourage women to come forward and bring charges against their assailants. But the conviction does not change theculturein which women live, especially women of color and working-class women. These women still live in a world where sexual assault is common, and resources to bring charges are scarce.

This victory for the #MeToo movement will not have the same impact on women and feminism now that the coronavirus crisis has all out attention. Shelter-in-place orders, which are clearly necessary during this crisis, have several unintended effects that will impact #MeToo and other social movements.

First on a long list of these unintended consequences is the fact that women (and children) are forced to stay at home with their abusers.Domestic abuseis on the increase across the world during the lockdowns. The UN hasaskedgovernments to take this into account in the ways they address this pandemic.

Second, feminism, womens advances in work and pay, as well as hard-won cultural changes of the past 50 years in the US and abroad,will take a hit. In families with two working parents and children, telework will most often result in women having a triple or at times a quadruple burden: paid work, unpaid housework, childcare (which will now include home-schooling for some) and, at times, elderly care. There will be places where men help or take up an equal share of this burden, but more often than not this will fall on women. In single-mom households, of which many women are low-wage workers who unlikely to telework or who have lost their jobs due to layoffs, survival, not feminism, will be the priority.

Then there is the fact that no one is paying attention to the Weinstein verdict during the coronavirus crisis. This is partly due to so many other pressing concerns and partly to the primacy of the story in the news. This reduces its potential to fuel the movement. To compound the problem, no one can protest or march, or even go to court in some places during a lockdown. Many legal practices have been suspended.

Finally, a recession is imminent. This will mean that fewer people have money to give to organizing efforts and nonprofits will have to lay off staff. Many nonprofits are alreadyfeeling the impact.

How will all of this impact the future of the #MeToo movement? While we cannot answer this question, we can look for clues in past crises that led feminist movements to refocus their efforts, and the #MeToo movement can look for guidance and hope in their strategies. Of particular relevance is the womens suffrage movement. During its lifetime, it survived three major crises the American Civil War, World War I and the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 as well as economic recessions, including the panics of 1857 and 1873. What can the current #MeToo movement learn from their reaction to these crises?

First of all, it needs to focus attention on the crisis because the crisis requires it and deserves it. During the Civil War, the womens rights movement directed its energy toward assisting with thewar effort. This was a strategic choice as well as a practical one there was really no other choice. The crisis required all hands on deck and did not allow for other issues to take primacy.

The #MeToo movement needs all its organizational strength to assist with the crisis, thereby maintaining member involvement and positive relations with political allies, the press and kindred movements. During the Civil War, the womens rights movement worked with or created groups dedicated to abolition. The womens movement viewed the two issues as related and hoped that after slavery was ended, their allies would assist them in gaining the vote and other womens rights.

The focus on abolition kept women involved, politically savvy and ready to take up the cause again once the war was over. When the United States joined the First World War, many women from various American suffrage organizations assisted with the war effort and with the Spanish pandemic that followed. There is evidence to suggest that they wererewardedin some states for their work during both crises.Embed from Getty Images

Finally, #MeToo needs to look for ways in which its issue and the crisis are interconnected and frame the movement narrative around that. But it must choose carefully. The womens suffrage movement sought to connect the plight of women with that of slaves. This tactic met with mixed reactions. Women were legally chattel at the time, but the reality of life for many white women in the movement was not identical to the reality of life for slave women. Thus, this tactic harmed some of their relations with abolitionists and didnt resonate with the public. But later in the movement, during World War I, women did successfully make the case to President Woodrow Wilson and other political leaders that it was ironic that the US was fighting for democracy abroad when it wasnt truly a democracy at home. So: Connect, but choose wisely and thoughtfully.

How can these lessons be put into in practice? During the currentCOVID-19 pandemic, the groupWomen Deliverhas highlighted the interconnectedness of this virus and womens issues, thereby maintaining their work on womens issues while simultaneously showing their commitment to ending the pandemic. The frame is thoughtful and relevant. Many womens groups could adopt a similar approach, as we know this virus will have a disproportionate impactonlow-wage workersandpeople of color, but in particular women in both groups.

The #MeToo movement could organize around ways to help women who are stuck at home with an abuser during lockdown orders. While the #MeToo movement has been focused around sexual harassment at work, domestic violence is a close cousin. And the movement certainly could continue to organize around the sexual harassment that female low-wage workers continue to face as essential workers. This is as pressing as ever.

Crafting ways for those active in the movement to remain relevant at this time will help everyone. It will help the movement survive this time when attention is rightly directed elsewhere, it will help women in abusive relationships, and it will help women who continue to be sexually harassed in the workplace and have no recourse during this crisis. Given the roots of the movement, it is a logical step.

Alana Jeydel

This article was first published in Fair Observer

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Qrius editorial policy.

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Wuhan and the Weinstein Verdict - Qrius

Tokyo Despite an official homework campaign and the unprecedented coronavirus crisis putting Japan in a state of emergency, Sayaka Azuma always visits his office in Tokyos Nishi-Azabu district regularly.

Everyone else in his tech company, Venture Republic, is locked up at home. But once a week, Azuma has to return to his office only to perform a ritual that dates back to the 19th century. Opening a velvet case, she grabs a wood hankoor seal by hand, apply vermilion ink and begin to carefully stamp a stack of official documents, affixing the stylized corporate seal on each page.

TBS

For security reasons, I am not allowed to take the company seals home, she told the CBS News partner network. TBS. So I have to go to the office to use them.

Azuma is not alone: many workers say they are forced to keep on packed trains in the city only to stamp by hand, or to print documents or perform other office work that would seem redundant to our digital age.

The continued use of hand seals in the Japanese business community is one of the reasons why suburban traffic remains stubbornly high in major cities well below the target of an 80% reduction, according to experts, must be reached in order to control the coronavirus epidemic here.

Getty

Research by a nonprofit organization, conducted this year, found that only 43% of Japanese businesses have adopted digital seals. Even among the high-tech companies in Tokyo that have adopted telework, almost all were still forced to deploy employees for hand stamping tasks.

For more than a century, dating from an era of low literacy, the Japanese have brandished finely carved hand seals not their John Hancocks to approve contracts, buy real estate, incorporate businesses and even sign school permission slips. In a way, in the midst of automation and digitization, the hanko managed to hang on.

Inkans.com

The old custom has a loyal ally in the current government. Naokazu Takemoto, 79, who has been inexplicably entrusted with the governments information technology portfolio, is a big supporter of this archaic practice.

Takemoto gained fame last year after its website went offline and stayed there for months. He heads a parliamentary group dedicated to the preservation of hand seals. Asked if it was finally time to give Hanko the boot, Takemoto told reporters in mid-March that such migration was at the mercy of the private sector.

The root of the problem is not hanko its our paper-centric office work culture, writer Soichiro Matsutani told Yahoo News. Many offices were frozen in the 1970s or 1980s, and never went beyond word processors, photocopiers and fax machines.

But this time, with lives and livelihoods at stake, calls for the abolition of seals are growing stronger. A closely watched IT company, GMO, has announced that it is phasing out the use of hand seals. Seeing the writing on the wall, seal maker Shachihata unveiled a cloud-based signature service that allows users to apply an analog-like analog or vermilion seal to documents online.

The company gleaned around 2,000 orders in February for its seal that doesnt require an ink pad, which has a unique digital signature to prevent counterfeiting. In April, orders had reached 110,000.

Source > https://www.cbsnews.com/news/19th-century-ritual-forcing-japanese-workers-into-trains-and-offices-amid-a-coronavirus-pandemic/

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19th century ritual forcing Japanese workers to board trains and offices amid a coronavirus pandemic - The Press Stories

As we celebrate the triumphs of the Great Generation this weekend, Writer at Large Neil Mackay explores how we squandered their legacy, and warns that the same mistakes cannot be made again

LISTEN to Gus Bialick and youll learn everything you need to know about VE Day its significance, its promise, the way its legacy has been thrown away.

Gus was there as a soldier at the invasion of Sicily. We knew that we were doing something that would help every one us to live decently, he said. Without winning this war, wed have no chance of living a better life therefore this war had to be won.

When he recalled VE Day, Gus said: To feel that wed come out as a victorious nation and that we could still see a great future in front of us, it was a wonderful feeling.

Guss words werent triumphalist they were simple words of hope. He, and millions of others, risked their lives in order to make this country a better place. Thats the simple story of what VE Day meant to those who fought and died.

It should shame us that we failed Gus and all those other men and women. We didnt build on their sacrifice. We wasted it.

Lost legacy

OVER the weekend, if we really wanted to honour the heroes of VE Day, the Gus Bialicks, wed have reflected soberly on how we let them down and threw away their legacy. Instead, we offered up Union Jack bunting, renditions of Well Meet Again, and cloying nostalgic sentimentality.

The men and women who won the war gifted us a world of opportunity and freedom which 75 years later weve squandered. They bled so we could inherit peace. Their struggle gave us the United Nations, the NHS, the welfare state. They forged for us the belief that the world was a meritocracy that you didnt have to stay poor, that life would get better as each generation progressed. They set us on the path to true personal freedom, where the individual decides what life they lead, not the church, state, family or society. They fought for tolerance, decency.

But nearly everything the Great Generation gifted us has been wasted. Weve trashed the international community the UN is a dark, useless joke. The NHS and welfare state have been crippled by years of neglect. The social mobility that the war generation began is a thing of the past. Instead of cherishing tolerance and difference of opinion, weve divided the world into politicised, cult-like camps of us and them we sit in our confirmation bias bubbles hating anyone we disagree with.

Then theres the Iraq War that squalid episode disgraces the memory of the Great Generation. They went to war to defeat aggression. In 2003, Britain and America lied to launch a war of aggression. The Great Generation fought for human rights. Today, the West wears badges of shame called Extraordinary Rendition and Enhanced Interrogation Techniques kidnap and torture.

Our failure to live up to the promise of the new world the Great Generation fought to build is made all the more egregious by how we exploit their memory. We invoke their courage, while simultaneously undoing everything they strived for; we use wartime metaphors with little consideration of what struggle really means. This time of global pandemic has been littered with lazy language which seeks to steal the glory of VE Day veterans. Politicians mouth platitudes about the Blitz spirit, and invoke the ghost of Winston Churchill, like children playing toy soldiers.

Yet, while we deploy the language of wartime amid coronavirus where are the remaining men and women who fought the war? Most are now in care homes the graveyards of coronavirus, where the death toll soars. Could there be a more disgraceful way to fail the people we pretend to honour?

The tragic irony is that were at it again repeating the same mistakes from the past. Today, we rightly recognise a new breed of hero the NHS worker, shelf stacker, delivery driver, cleaner. The people keeping the world running and saving lives while risking their own safety, as we shelter in lockdown. We talk of building a better world after the pandemic, of honouring the sacrifices of the heroes of coronavirus. But will we? Or will we squander their sacrifices just as we squandered the sacrifices of the heroes of the Second World War?

Many of us went into the pandemic imagining society would come out the other side fairer, more decent. As the days wear on, though, and we see how it is the weakest suffering the most the poor dying at twice the rate of the rich and how the wealthy and powerful suffer least, it is hard to believe that there will be that much-needed great reformation of society once this is over.

Perhaps, 75 years from now, our grandchildren will be celebrating the nurses who kept us safe during coronavirus, and wondering why we their grandparents didnt take 2020 as an opportunity to build the better world we promised.

Forgotten sacrifice

IT has become fashionable to sneer at remembrance as if respecting those who fought in the war is somehow embracing the sins of empire, or an act of flag-wrapped xenophobia. It is not difficult, however, to reflect bitterly on empire, shun patriotic exceptionalism, loathe xenophobia, and still feel great respect for the sacrifices made by the Great Generation.

For folk my age, the sacrifices were tangible they were made by our grandparents. For my children, the memory grows more distant but Ive tried to keep a flame of remembrance burning because I know the simple, decent reasons why my grandparents went to war. They wanted that same better world that Gus Bialick dreamed of.

All four of my grandparents played their part. One grandfather was a sailor, the other a solider; one grandmother an army nurse, the other a civilian firewoman during the London Blitz. All were ordinary folk, their sacrifices no greater, nor less, than those made by millions. Although each lost friends and family, all four survived though my sailor grandfather eventually succumbed to his war wounds, dying too young.

I was closest to my maternal grandmother the firewoman. Her family was poor. Some had even spent time in the poorhouse. She knew squalor and hardship long before 1939. She told me stories of the war when I was little and each story had the same moral: we went through hell, so you didnt have to. The stories were never told with any demand for thanks or recognition there was no superiority to her memories of suffering. It was simply a fact: people like her wanted the world to be a better place for future generations.

You could call such simplicity the purest form of love. I do.

And so, it saddens me to think of so many idealistic people today folk who long for a better world rejecting any remembrance or reverence toward the Great Generation. You can remember in your heart, without decorating your breast with a poppy. Nor does remembering and honouring glorify death or the atrocities of war. Remembering ordinary individuals who wanted to make the world better isnt celebrating destruction and hatred.

This isnt to sentimentalise the Great Generation. Theirs was a generation with as many faults as any other. Nor should we forget the darkest side of the allied victory Dresden, Nagasaki. But their sacrifice far outweighs their sins the same cannot be said for any other generation, I believe.

Everyone of us has a forebear who fought and in many cases died. Admiration for the Great Generation shouldnt be a political act. When it comes to the exhausted phrase were all in it together, the Great Generation were the last people to really know what that means.

Litany of betrayal

LETS consider some of the many ways the legacy of the Great Generation has been squandered or abused how weve failed our own ancestors who bequeathed us so much.

For a start, we should consider something few of us even think of when we count the gifts the wartime generation gave us: liberal values. In a time of mass death, if youre in love and want to be together, it doesnt really matter whether youre married or not. War began to erode conservative attitudes. In my family, there were more than a few illegitimate children born because of the war.

Young people had risked their lives for six years come VE Day, and although Britain was still a conservative, religious country, change was starting. It would come to completion in the 60s and 70s with the pill, the abolition of the death penalty, legalisation of abortion and homosexuality, the Equal Pay Act, and the Racial Discrimination Act. We think it is the baby boomers who enacted these changes. It wasnt it was their parents, the Great Generation. They were the ones voting, running the country, setting the tone of debate as society gradually liberalised.

Liberal values are one of the few gifts from the Great Generation that we havent yet squandered they persist. The bitter irony is, we dont even acknowledge the debt. We credit their children the ones who began the dissolution of the work of the Great Generation, ushering in the conservative backlash of the 1980s.

Social mobility and income equality rose steadily after the war as Britain became a more financially fairer place. My own family, like millions of others, felt that first hand. We went from slums to universities in one generational leap. Then it stopped. Britain and America turned its back on the industrial working class. Reaganomics and Thatcherism saw inequality rapidly accelerate and social mobility stagnate. Today, were at a point where my children can expect a life worse off than mine. If thats not failing a generation who died so we could live better lives, then I dont know what is.

The Beveridge Report the foundation stone of the post-war welfare state and NHS named five giant social evils to be eradicated: want, ignorance, squalor, idleness and disease. Bit by bit that dream has been dismantled over the last 75 years. Today, we live in an era of foodbanks, declining schools and student debt, mass poverty, low wages, zero-hour contracts, intergenerational unemployment, and a gulf in life expectancy between the rich and the poor.

Im no Christian, but who could disagree with the then Archbishop of Canterbury, who said the Beveridge Report was the first time anyone had set out to embody the whole spirit of the Christian ethic in an Act of Parliament. We had heaven in our hands and let it slip through our fingers.

Welfare from schooling to income support to university to healthcare was to be comprehensive, universal. It wasnt meant to be an act of humiliation for the recipient no matter what their circumstances there would be no return to the poorhouse. Today, we make a sport of mocking benefits scroungers". Claiming financial assistance, even for the disabled, is demeaning, dehumanising sometimes it even kills.

The policy of full employment was cast aside as utopian it didnt pay investors and speculators enough as voodoo economics took hold. The idea of a fair playing field a simple metaphor at the heart of the Great Generations view of the world was for losers. Greed was good.

While the work at home of the Great Generation was gradually dismantled, so too were the changes they wrought on the worlds stage. The governments of Bush and Blair, with their push for preemptive war in Iraq, neutered the United Nations set up post-war to rein in aggressors.

Today, we live in a world where democracy the very essence of what the Great Generation fought for is under threat, often at the hands of democratically elected politicians. The Great Generation denazified Europe now the Nazis are back. Belief in democracy is crumbling.

The Great Generation gave us three decades of the post-war consensus": there would be active, positive state involvement in society, a mixed economy including nationalisation, strong trade unions, rigorous regulation, fair taxation, and a decent welfare state. Now thats withered on the vine. Reagan and Thatcher put a stake through the heart of those dreams. Social democracy limps on, badly wounded.

Our grandparents cared about the world around them, not just their own pocket. Their horror and outrage gave us the word genocide" in 1944 yet genocide goes on from Rwanda to Burma, while we watch on TV. Their decency saw them care tirelessly for Europes refugees post-war, rebuilding shattered lives, finding orphans new families. Now we tweet our thoughts and prayers about dead refugee children on Mediterranean beaches, and then pull up the drawbridge.

The Great Generation replaced empire with Europe. The wind of change blew and they knew how to adapt to Britains new place in the world. Then their children voted Brexit, and had the audacity to invoke the war as they did so. Now, weve thrown Europe away the continent the Great Generation brought peace to and so were back as we were in the 1930s, a little country on its own, minus an empire.

As the years wore on, we put this Great Generation in care homes. We gave up on the people who saved us and strived to make our lives better than theirs. We locked them away, and we stole their language we took words like blitz spirit and we rendered them meaningless. We reduced their struggle to a meme: Keep calm and carry on.

We may have failed them but weve a new generation of heroes sacrificing themselves today our essential workers from hospitals to supermarkets. They want a better world too just like the Great Generation. They dont need bunting or patriotic songs. They need they want, they deserve change which makes society a better, fairer place. We cant fail them. If we do, we just fail ourselves once again.

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Opinion: Neil Mackay: We failed the heroes of VE Day ... we cannot fail the heroes of Covid-19 - HeraldScotland

It had been over five years since I last watched The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham. I recalled it being a really good episode of Lost, and one that sometimes gets overshadowed by others when thinking about standout episodes in the series. What I wasnt prepared for when revisiting this episode was how emotional I would be left feeling when it was over. This episode of television left me feeling like someone had punched me in the gut and made me want to watch more episodes instead of starting on this article.

This episode was John Lockes journey off The Island, in an attempt to bring the Oceanic Six back, and a journey that we the audience knew going into it would result in John Lockes death. We had previously heard Richard Alpert tell Locke he was going to die bringing them back and Christian Shepard had confirmed this. We had also already seen Locke, off Island, in a casket, visited by Jack and Ben.

The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham accomplished a lot. Locke was picked up by a group of men in a pickup truck, in the exact same spot in the Sahara Desert that we had seen Ben in when he had left The Island. The men delivered Locke to Charles Widmore, who told Locke that this was the exit from The Island. Ive always found it interesting that when people turn the wheel to make The Island move, that they wind up in the Sahara. While I dont quite understand why, it is still a mystery solved, or at the least, expanded upon.

One of my big takeaways from early in the episode was that we got to see Charles Widmore in a completely different light than we ever did before, or after for that matter. Widmores typical demeanor was tense, argumentative and assertive. He was an easy character to dislike and his characteristics made it easy to root for Ben Linus over Widmore in their feud, despite all of the terrible things wed seen Ben do. Here in this episode, Widmore didnt openly try to exert any power over John Locke. He treated him as a peer, although I do believe that to have been manipulative behavior. Widmore helped send Locke on his way to find all of those who had left The Island and here is when we see Locke fully enter his role as a pawn in the game between Widmore and Ben.

John Lockes life had been one of pain. An unwanted child, bouncing from foster home to foster home, John lead a lonely and mostly loveless life. His birth parents would ultimately con him out of a kidney, using him as a pawn in their ongoing dynamic, and the pain from that broke John. The Island gave him a chance to heal, both physically and emotionally but it was almost like he didnt have enough time there to fully heal. He got to find self worth but John was so desperate to be loved and accepted that he remained prone to manipulation and obsessive thinking. The Island was home to two major power struggles: the one between Ben and Widmore and, on a larger scale, Jacob and the Man in Blackand Lockes life ended because he was a pawn in both, all out of a desire to feel special.

What gets me now about The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham, is that both Ben and Widmore knew Locke would fail at convincing anyone to come back to The Island. It was a fools errand in the fact that none of them wanted to go back and even if they were tempted, Lockes soured relationships with all of those people made him the least likely candidate to tempt them. So why did Widmore and Ben allow this mission to happen? They both knew that Locke had to feel special, like he was the only person who could accomplish this, and then when he failed, the race would be on between Ben and Widmore to be the one to catch him first, get whatever information he might have and then kill him. Make no mistake about it, Widmore wouldve done the exact same thing as Ben did, although he likely wouldve had someone else commit the act instead of him. Both Ben and Widmore had the same attitude when it came to Locke. He did appear to be the next chosen one on The Island but he wasnt the same level of competition that they were to each other. Locke could be used and discarded. Then whoever got to him first would try and replace him. Ben merely won the race.

At this point in time, we had spent years wondering if John Locke was important to The Island or not. This broken man, who in every flashback of his that wed seen unveiled a new level of pain seemed like he shouldve been destined for something rewarding, wound up being murdered and deprived of any kind of resolution. John Locke had been manipulated and conned for the last time. He never got to escape his tragic cycle and in fact, he died from it. Seeing the on Island portions of this episode did give some hope that Locke, after death, would achieve some level of importance, but that was untrue as well. The resurrected Locke was just another con, as we would find out in the Season 5 finale, The Incident. The only purpose Lockes death served was to advance sides in a war he had nothing to do with. How tragic is that?

Of course, the story doesnt stop there and this is where the Jeremy Bentham element really comes into play. The real life Jeremy Bentham was known for being ahead of his time on certain issues. Bentham advocated for many issues, including the abolition of slavery, the decriminalization of homosexual acts, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, freedom of expression, as well as animal rights, all before his death in 1832well before most of these topics were on the forefront of the publics mind. These issues have all been met with resistance over the years, yet throughout time, have become more and more important to the masses. A very easy comparison to John Locke can be made here. Locke, like Bentham, went to his grave having advocated for something that few else did, yet after their deaths, opinions would slowly begin to change and people would begin to see the importance of both mens causes.

Jack is the narrative depiction of both the resistance to the idea, as well as the slowly changing opinion. In The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham, Jack and Locke have their final scene together as themselves, and their entire struggle is encapsulated here in their one scene together. Locke always viewed Jack as his path to acceptance. Although it was literally stated in this episode, that he just needed to convince Jack and the rest would follow, that had in fact always been Lockes mindset. Locke saw things differently than everyone else and Jack had the ability to influence peoples minds, through built up trust. Together, they could have been a formidable partnership, but it never came to fruition. Instead, Jack would attempt to play both roles after Lockes death.

One might ask, if your lifes work is accomplished after your death, does that diminish the value of the work being achieved? The end result is the same after all, yet the tragedy lies in the fact that the voice advocating for progress didnt get to see their mission gaining traction. John Locke never got to see the impact that his death, his words and his beliefs would have on Jack and how Jack beginning to come around to these ideas that The Island was in fact special and that he needed to protect it would have a snowball effect on many others, just the way that Locke knew it would. Ultimately, Lost vindicated John Locke through Jack, yet that image of Lockes body hanging in a run down hotel room haunts me. Locke was murdered and left to look like he had committed suicide, dying feeling like he had failed. Dying for mens selfish desires for power, after being used as a pawn, just like he had been his whole life. While its great that Lockes beliefs and work would later be validated, his life and the way it ended is something more than tragic. That kind of storytelling is why Lost will always stick with me.

See more here:

"The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" Still Haunts and Asks Big Questions - 25YearsLaterSite.com

the Rockwool Foundation has been the first examined the impact of abolition of integrationsydelsen from 2015.

Integrationsydelsen, which is about half as large as the cash benefit, will not get more women in work. In turn, increases the proportion of the male refugees, who have been in work for ten months, from they came to Denmark, from four percent to almost double.

It shows a new study of integrationsydelsen made by the Rockwool Foundation, writes Information.

all in All, integrationsydelsen according to Jacob Nielsen Arendt, who is the research director of the Rockwool Foundation and stands behind the study, a relatively large employment impact for men.

It is clear that it is marginal, compared to how many that still do not work. But I would describe it as a significant employment impact for the men, says he to Information.

The socialist government, in the autumn of the so-called Ydelseskommission, which should come with recommendations for a new kontanthjlpssystem.

President of the european commission scientific director of Vive Torben Trans, who have read the new study. The data is according to him difficult, but the study looks solid out, and the commission will scrutinize the material more closely, he says.

There is a large employment impact, relatively speaking, with a doubling for men. However, it is not uncommon to get big relative effects when the groups starting point is very low, says Torben Trans for Information.

Integrationsydelsen was introduced in 2015 to get more refugees and immigrants into work and to reduce the number of asylum seekers coming to Denmark.

the Rockwool Foundations study of integrationsydelsen also shows that the low income have some unintended effects. It applies increased petty crime and more doctor visits among the women.

newly arrived refugees must, however, have nothing to do with a forsrgelsesydelse, as we know it today, says foreigners and integration, Mattias Tesfaye (S) for Information.

instead, those who are not in work, are offered an integration programme, where you get money for each hour you participate, he believes.

the Liberal partys rapporteur for the integrationsydelse, Morten Dahlin, is pleased to see that performance get more men in the work.

It is good news that we will have more with in the community, and it is once again a testimony to the low benefits it works, he says in a written comment to the news agency Ritzau.

Unfortunately, the study also, that the women still hangs after. It is not good enough. Much suggests that in several cases is the case of social control in environments where we see a very high proportion of unemployed immigrant women, says Morten Dahlin.

/ritzau/

See original here:

Studio: Integrationsydelse get more men in the job - The Global Domains News

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has approved a proposal for the abolition of 9,304 posts in the Military Engineering Service (MES), the Defence Ministry said on Thursday.

This is in line with the recommendations of the Lt. Gen. D.B. Shekatkar (Retd.) Committee, which had suggested measures to enhance combat capability and rebalance armed forces expenditure.

In line with the recommendations made by the Committee, based on the proposal of Engineer-in-Chief, MES, the proposal of abolition of 9,304 posts in MES out of the total 13,157 vacancies of the basic and industrial staff has been approved by the Defence Minister, the Ministry said in a statement.

One of the recommendations was to restructure the civilian workforce in a manner that the work of the MES could be partly done by departmentally employed staff and other works could be outsourced, it stated.

It was aimed at making the MES an effective organisation with a leaner workforce, well equipped to handle complex issues in the emerging scenario in an efficient and cost- effective manner, it added.

The 11-member committee, appointed by the late Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in 2016 with a broad mandate, had made about 99 recommendations from optimising defence budget to the need for a Chief of the Defence Staff.

The recommendations, if implemented over the next five years, can result in savings of up to 25,000 crore in defence expenditure. Of these, the first batch of 65 recommendations pertaining to the Army were approved in August 2017.

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Rajnath Singh approves abolition of 9,304 posts in Military Engineering Service - The Hindu

Abraham Lincoln needed votes. In January of 1864, as the Civil War raged on, the president was gearing up for a re-election campaign, believing his loss was imminent. But in order to unify the shattered pieces of the nation and abolish slavery, he needed four more years. With more time, he could end slavery with a law, but that law needed votes, which, by his own count, he knew he didnt have.

In his hunt for votes for his re-election and for this new law, he turned to a map of the United States, focusing his dark eyes on a newly formed territory called Nevada.

By turning Nevada into a state, its citizens could vote for Lincolns second term. Votes from Nevadas two Senators and one Representative would provide the margin Lincoln needed not just to win a second term, but to ratify the 13th amendment and clinch the abolition of slavery. All he had to do was put some finishing touches on this untamed territory to transform it into an acceptable candidate for statehood and quickly. Elections were around the corner and Lincoln was at the mercy of the slow legal machinery of Congress to make his plan work.

Many of his cabinet members advised him against admitting the rough-and-tumble Nevada. For them, statehood was like a marriage: Once a state was created, there was no getting rid of it amicably. One cabinet member told Lincoln that Nevada was superfluous and petty. The mining of gold and silver from the Comstock Lode gave birth to Nevada as a territory and with these riches came the tradition of vice, particularly drinking, gambling and womanizing. As future states went, Nevada looked pretty shabby.

But, Lincoln thought about the weekly military reports that tallied the thousands of Civil War casualties. It is easier to admit Nevada, he told Charles Dana, his Assistant Secretary of War, than to raise another million soldiers. The math was simple in Lincolns mind, for a new state could cast three electoral votes, votes he needed for reelection. It is a question of three votes, said Lincoln or new armies.

Nevada, he reasoned, was his best chance to vote for him and his Republican party. While Nevada wasnt as populated, it was pro-Union, since many of the residents came from the North, and it was also pro-Republican in the truest sense of the word: It believed that power resided in the federal government, and that the federal government should intervene with economic policies. Nevada had also been a team player. It guarded the Overland Mail route, which allowed the East to communicate with the West via stagecoach, and also Nevada contributed hundreds of millions of dollars from its mines, offsetting the cost of the Civil War.

To help the birth of the state, an Enabling Act was approved by Congress to start the process of putting this largely uninhabited territory on equal footing with more populous states, like New York. The requirements for statehood were clear: The territory should not have slaves. (This was straightforward, since Nevada had at most 360 blacks.) A territory should tolerate various religious sentiments. (This was ignored, for Nevada was fashioned from a disdain for Mormons.) And, the territory should relinquish unappropriated public land. (This was simple too, for the region was vast.) The other stipulation of this Enabling Act was the state constitution had to be ratified and a copy had to be on the presidents desk (with enough time for elections in early November of 1864). That requirement was not going to be easy.

During the second state constitution convention in Carson City in July of 1864, with only three months remaining to establish the state, attendees again contended over its name, as they had done in an earlier unsuccessful convening. In this second convention, they proposed Humboldt (after the German naturalist), Esmeralda (meaning emerald in Spanish), Bullion, Oro Plata, Sierra Plata, and Washoe (the name of the Native American tribe of the region). Arguments were made against the name of Nevada, since there was a well-known city in California called Nevada City as well as a Nevada County. Additionally, Nevada, which meant snow-covered in Spanish, was impractical for a land that rarely got below freezing. Consensus was formed when one voice reminded the attendees that most of the country knew it by Nevada, and it had to stay that way.

Over the weeks of wrangling at the convention, the name Nevada was settled on. On September 7, 1864, the citizens of Nevada voted 8 to 1 on their new constitution, approving it. Now, the task was to get a copy of the state constitution to the president. There was little over a month to get it to Washington. Given the means of delivery, there was just enough time.

One common way of getting a long document across the country was by boat. After a courier reached the Pacific Ocean at San Francisco, which took a couple of days, they would board a ship that headed to the Isthmus of Panama. They then crossed it by mule, and then continued on by boat up to Washington, D.C. The other way to get a document across was the stagecoach. In the 1850s, the Overland Stagecoach was created. It took over 20 days to reach the Missouri River from the West; from there a message could be carried by train, taking about a week. Nevadas Territorial Governor Nye sent several copies of the document both by land and by sea, and waited to hear the good news from Lincoln with a proclamation of statehood.

Page 1 of the Nevada Constitution.

National Archives, General Records of the Department of State

Statehood looked promising, particularly for Nye, who had great political ambitions. He preferred living on the East Coast and saw his post in Nevada as a way to launch himself into what he really wanted to be a Senator. Nye was charismatic and known for his winning friendly face, but his countenance changed rapidly when a telegram arrived the evening of Tuesday, October 25, 1864. The head of the California Pacific Telegraph passed on a telegram to him, which said, The President has not received a copy of your constitution. The deadline for the materials was just a few days away. There wasnt enough time to mail it to the President. If Nye was going to get 175 pages of this official document to Abraham Lincoln, he was going to have to use the new technology that was just installed three years prior the telegraph.

On the afternoon of the next day, Mr. Hodge and Mr. Ward, the regions best telegraphers had the job to transmit 175 handwritten pages containing the Nevada State Constitution to Salt Lake City, just over 500 miles away. In a room of Nevadas esteemed government officials whose names would go down in the annals of history, these two men, whose first names the world would never know, were actually the most important people in the room.

The fancy cursive writing of the document had to be translated into plain dots and dashes of Morse code and then tapped into the lines. Ward began sending electrical pulses in the first shift and Hodge in the second. When Wards lightning-fast fingers started their dance of pat-a-tat-tat on the telegraph key, the city officials breathed a sigh of relief. The beginning of the birth of their state had begun. They retired to the inn nearby for it was going to be a long night.

The document that Hodge and Ward had to send contained 16,543 words. The message began with, His Excy Abraham Lincoln. Official The Constitution of the State of Nevada, followed by what would be equivalent to 40 single-spaced pages of text. The work was onerous, but this was Nevadas opportunity to join the world stage, and also influence it. Opportunity knocked with the pitter-patter of telegrapher fingers.

The tapping went on for 12 hours, with Hodge, who was on the second shift, finishing at 5:30 the following morning, before the sun rose. Except for finger fatigue, there was no trouble sending the message. However, there was trouble on the receiving side. There was no direct line between Carson City and Washington, D.C., so the message had to be sent to three different relay stations on its way East where the dots and dashes were translated into words and then converted back into dots and dashes and then sent to the next leg.

In Salt Lake City, the telegrapher did not expect such a deluge and got tired after a while. One person substituted for him, but didnt last long, and then another sat in, and then a third, before the first operator returned and finished the work. Once the dots and dashes were received in Salt Lake City, they were copied down and then sent 1,400 miles to Chicago, and then 800 miles to Philadelphia, before finally reaching Washington, D.C., 150 miles away. Thousands of dots and dashes marched across the country inside metal telegraph wires with the mission to help Lincoln abolish slavery in the land.

When these electrical impulses finally reached the last leg of their journey, they were sent to the telegraph office of the War Department. This transmission was of such importance that intelligence from the warfront was put on hold for five hours to make way for Nevadas telegram. Hodges and Wards message took two days to get to Lincoln and the cost of sending the message was $4,303.27 ($60,000 today). Nevadas electric constitution reached Lincoln on the evening of October 28 and he proclaimed it a state on the 30th. On the 31st of October, Nevada officially celebrated its statehood, which gave it the right to participate in the election a week later on November 8.

On November 8 of 1864, Lincoln won a second term. Nevada had made good on its promise. Two out of three of its votes from the electoral college were cast for Lincoln. (The third voter got stuck in a snowstorm.) Nevertheless, the presidential election became less critical, when Lincolns chances of winning due to a three-way race improved when the race settled to just two candidates. Before Lincoln got to the business of leading the nation, he paused and declared the mission of his next four years. In his inaugural address, he stated that he would not be vindictive towards the South or ignore their transgressions as other candidates had promised. He set a tone for healing, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nations wounds. As president, he would serve, with malice towards none; with charity for all.

With this victory behind him, Lincoln now worried about the vote on the abolition of slavery act in the House of Representatives. This act had already passed in the Senate, but it had failed to get the majority of votes in the House the year before. Lincoln wished Nevadas sole Representative, Henry G. Worthington, a swift and safe journey from the West so he could cast his single vote. Worthington arrived in time to cast his vote on January 31, 1865. The resulting count was 119 yeas, 56 nays, (with 8 abstains). The amendment passed with Worthingtons vote as one of the two that put the number of yea votes safely in the majority. Those two votes were precious like gold to Lincoln.

Lincoln now had all the pieces to heal the country and states began ratifying the 13th Amendment to make it into law. Nevada was the 16th state to ratify it on February 16, 1865. The amendment needed 27 of the 36 states to pass and it would get them in December of 1865.

But Lincoln would never get to see it. He was shot by an assassin and died on April 15, 1865, a few days after the surrender at Appomattox, ending the Civil War. The great architect, who drew up the blueprints to abolish slavery, would never witness the nation he helped to build. His dream was made possible by many factors, however one of them being a very long and expensive telegram from Nevada.

Ainissa Ramirez is a materials scientist and the author of The Alchemy of Us. Twitter: @ainissaramirez

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The $60,000 Telegram That Helped Abraham Lincoln Abolish Slavery - TIME

When the lockdown ends what will happen to tenants? Almost nine million households, more than a third of all families in Britain, rent from a private landlord, a council or a housing association.

Because of coronavirus, many are now in financial need. Nearly two million claims for universal credit have been made since lockdown measures were announced in the UK. Welfare claimants are entitled to payments equivalent to housing benefit. But, as a result of changes made to benefits over the last decade (like the bedroom tax and restrictions to local housing allowance), it is increasingly rare for housing benefit to pay all of a tenants rent.

Others, although ineligible for universal credit, are also in difficulty: because they have received a redundancy cheque that will soon be spent, or their self-employed grant hasnt arrived yet. Then there are furloughed workers, paid now, but waiting for news of redundancies from their employer.

Right now, all possession hearings the main step in evicting a tenant are stayed. This is the legal equivalent of putting food in a freezer. The cases are still there, ready to be thawed out at any moment.

Where a tenant is behind with their rent, landlords can issue them with a notice instructing them to leave, but (for the moment) the tenant can ignore it. On 25 June the housing courts will reopen for business. Judges will have to determine thousands of stayed pre-coronavirus cases, and the even greater number of new claims for possession arising from the lockdown.

Ministers have grasped that hundreds of thousands of homes are at risk. Earlier this week the housing minister, Robert Jenrick, announced that the government was working closely with judges to draft a pre-action protocol for when the stay is lifted.

He told MPs that the protocol will enable tenants to have an added degree of protection, because instead of embarking upon the eviction proceedings immediately, there will be a duty upon their landlords to reach out to them, discuss their situation, and try to find an affordable repayment plan.

The problem with the protocol is that it is toothless essentially depending on the benevolence of landlords.

The two most common ways landlords seek possession are under section 21 and ground 8. Section 21 provides that where a landlord has complied with certain procedural requirements (like issuing a notice using the correct form and waiting for a prescribed time before applying to court) the court must order possession.

The statute does not require a landlord to have complied with the governments proposed pre-action protocol. For that reason, even where landlords have rushed to issue proceedings, and have ignored requests from tenants to defer payments for a short time, judges will be required to approve evictions.

Ground 8 provides that where a tenant is in rent arrears (eight weeks if the rent is due weekly), both when the landlord serves a notice on them and when the hearing takes place, the court must order possession.

Again, the court takes no account of the landlords conduct; it focuses simply on the amount of the tenants arrears. In these circumstances, if the new protocol is as the minister describes it, it will not protect tenants at all.

There are alternatives. In last years general election, the Conservatives committed to abolish section 21 as part of their better deal for renters. The government reaffirmed that commitment in the Queens speech, announcing a renters reform bill to include the abolition of section 21. They should be held to that promise. As for ground 8, it too needs to be abolished. Or, if that is impossible, rescinded for such time until tenants have had a chance to reduce their debts once theyre able to go back to work.

Abolishing or rescinding ground 8 would not prevent landlords relying on other grounds of possession. But, without it in place, judges will be free to order possession only if reasonable thereby giving effect to the tenant defences the government says that it wants in place. One further advantage of abolishing ground 8 is that courts can turn to other possession proceedings in which possession orders are made but suspended, while tenants are given the chance to repay arrears to a realistic plan.

Muddling on without the abolition of section 21 and ground 8 will lead to millions of people forced out of their homes. It will send those evicted scattering some to stay with elderly relatives, some into local authority housing (although it is at breaking point) and many into homelessness.

The government accepts that street homelessness speeds the transmission of coronavirus: this is the grim calculation that underpins the governments granting of resources to councils to house rough sleepers. Drifting into a future where huge numbers of people lose their homes needlessly would be just as dangerous for those who are evicted, and for everyone else.

David Renton is a housing barrister at Garden Court Chambers

Read the original here:

Thousands of renters could be evicted in June. Will the government protect them? - The Guardian

The 2019 Common Field Convening in Philadelphia (photo by Constance Mensh, design by Margaret Anderson, Piping Hot Press)

Welcome to day five of the Common Field Convening, originally slated to take place in person in Houston, Texas. The gathering of more than 500 arts organizers in the US includes panels, workshops, and conversations touching upon topics of equity, collaboration, and sustainability across various arts fields.

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the conferences have shifted online, taking place on April 23-25; April 30; and May 1-3. A full program, along with links to sign up for each conference, can be found on Common Fields website.

Hyperallergic will be live-blogging select conferences on every day of the convening. (Read our commentary on sessions from day one,two,three, and four.)

The ongoing health crisis, which has had a devastating impact on the cultural sector, means some of the issues addressed in the Common Field Convening are more urgent than ever before. Read about day fives discussions, below:

* * *

Live-blogged by Hakim Bishara

Speakers: Carol Stakenas (Brooklyn, NY), Damon Reaves (Philadelphia, PA), Jacqueline Mabey (Brooklyn, NY), Pato Hebert (Los Angeles, CA)

6:00pm EDT: Question Party is a place where sticky issues are welcome, Common Field announced in advance of the meeting. Sounds promising.

6:04pm EDT: Stakenas starts the meeting after some tunes by the band SOHN.

6:07pm EDT: The goal of the meeting is to create a space for collective learning, Stakenas says.

6:09pm EDT: The first section the meeting will be dedicated to generating questions, which will later be exchanged and discussed.

6:11pm EDT: Mabey says that the format of a Question Party allows people to ask questions they wouldnt normally ask out loud.

6:14pm EDT: Reaves continues the introduction, emphasizing that its important to acknowledge the things we dont know.

6:17pm EDT: Donning a red mask, Hebert welcomes the audience in Spanish.

6:18pm EDT: How do we shelter at home if we dont have a home? How do we wash hands if theres no clean water? Hebert asks.

6:20pm EDT: Hebert shares that he tested positive for COVID-19. He explains that his red mask was made by his aunt, a fabric artist, out of a shirt that used to belong to his grandfather.

6:23pm EDT: Participants are being asked to rename themselves on Zoom in order to keep their questions anonymous.

6:25pm EDT: Most participants changed their names to anonymous or anon.

6:26pm EDT: A free writing of questions session begins.

6:28pm EDT: Participants were asked to unmute their computer microphones while writing their questions. I hear humming, typing, an alarm clock, and a baby crying in the background.

6:32pm EDT: Participants are adding their questions to the group chat, anonymously.

6:33pm EDT: What if our organization ends up better off financially due to the pandemic? Is that wrong? one person asked.

6:34pm EDT: Is art just about putting more objects in the world that we dont actually need? another participant asked.

6:35pm EDT: Am I horrific? one person asked the group. Whats the point of anything? asked another.

6:35pm EDT: When will this end? someone asked. Will I become destitute? another added.

6:38pm EDT: Am I contributing to the inequality of this city?

6:40pm EDT: Do I even like working in the arts or do I just keep going because its all I know/Ive been doing okay at it?

6:41pm EDT: What if I am wrong about the value of moving slowly?

6:42pm EDT: A controversial question: How can we encourage minority groups to have a seat at the table when they do not show up?

6:44pm EDT: What can you do if you are part of an arts organization occupying a perceived gentrified space? What can be done to move past that negative narrative?

6:45pm EDT: When working to address power dynamics in the art world how do we ensure one set of biases are not replaced by another?

6:46pm EDT: Will my lover return? When?

6:47pm EDT: Can I, as a white cis male, queer myself, my family, the things I have influence over? Is it co-opting to use queer or queering this way? How do I move away from reinforcing my whiteness, my maleness?

6:48pm EDT: Who else is enjoying being locked down?

6:49pm EDT: How do I deal with someone who is being a Karen or a privileged person? How do I approach someone who has done something that is racist towards me in an institution, e.g. undermining my right to define myself and my own work, and not by my race or background? How do I get them to acknowledge the harm they have done? Do I even try? Im a POC artist.

6:50pm EDT: By contrast, How does a white person find the balance between accommodating POC in their community in acknowledging histrionic disparity, and becoming a doormat for POC in the hopes of balancing the scale: white people are people too, and theres a point at which we enable individuals who choose not to do their fair share of work as people, regardless of race?

6:50pm EDT: What does it mean if I cannot cry?

6:52pm EDT: Participants were asked to take a moment to reflect on these questions.

6:54pm EDT: Groups will discuss the questions in breakout rooms.

6:58pm EDT: I was sent to room 8 with four other people.

7:00pm EDT: The group is discussing the question: How do you preserve something that wasnt yours to begin with?

7:04pm EDT: The participants come from Houston, Dallas, and Seattle. They said they prefer to stay anonymous.

7:06pm EDT: The discussion goes into questions of gentrification and ownership.

7:08pm EDT: The room shifted to the question: Do we even need art?

7:09pm EDT: We need it now more than ever, one participant said while acknowledging that lees privileged people do not have the luxury to engage in the arts during this crisis.

7:11pm EDT: Another participant suggested discussing the question: Do you resent me for having more than you?

7:13pm EDT: Working in the arts sometimes feels like being a butler for exorbitantly rich systems, a participant said.

7:16pm EDT: Back to the main room, where good music is playing.

7:18pm EDT: Hebert throws the question, Whats the gesture of our curiosity?

7:20pm EDT: Silence in the room. Asking questions, I think? a person finally answered.

7:21pm EDT: Seeking understanding, someone added in the chat.

7:24pm EDT: Wanting to know and be known, another added.

7:25pm EDT: Participants are sharing some of the discussions they had in the breakout rooms.

7:27pm EDT: The moderators suggest to embrace the awkward pauses in the discussion.

7:29pm EDT: The party ended with a group toast (with mostly cups of water) and a collective Salute!

Live-blogged by Jasmine Weber

Speakers: Imani Brown (New Orleans, LA), Bryan Parras (Houston, TX), Priscilla Solis Ybarra, Ph.D. (Denton, TX), Regina Agu (Chicago, IL)

4:15pm EDT: Brown is reading a poignant missive on the exploitation of Earths resources, and the reliance of the art world on oil and gas funding.

4:16pm EDT: A panel on oil in Houston, an oil hub, is especially poignant. One standout line, by Brown: What does it matter if our institutions lights are on if their physical buildings are underwater, and if their politics are dying from cancer and are left more vulnerable to pandemics like COVID-19?

4:18pm EDT: The oil industry is collapsing Brown ponders how we can utilize our current moment 0f isolation and rapid transition to come out of this time with new tools for change.

4:25pm EDT: Brown introduced all of the panelists, and is now opening them up to speak with a few key prompts: Speak about your past work to address the propagandistic impact of fossil fuel philanthropy and fossil fuel environmental justice and transformative justice-related issues, reflecting as well on where you see us headed from this current moment, and how the tools that youve cultivated throughout your life and work will help us to get there. Is it possible for the unjust transition of this moment to end injustice?

4:35pm EDT: Agu says Alabama Song hosted Liberate Tate, from the UK, when they were in Houston. She explains: There are important lessons there for artists to learn at an individual and collective level, and looking at whats happening right now, Houston is being deeply impacted by the energy crash. This is not the first one since Ive been there. But the current moment is, of course, being compounded by the pandemic shutdowns.

4:37pm EDT: Snead moved to Houston shortly after the BP oil spill,the repercussions of which are still seen in wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.

4:42pm EDT: Snead is sharing a satirical video that his organization shared on April Fools Day as part ofFossil Free Fest an announcement for a childrens book called Goodnight Refinery.

4:50pm EDT: Ybarra is discussing Indigenous and Latinx knowledge and futurism, and how we can learn from these modes of understanding the earth and society. She shares information from an interview with Cherre Moraga, who believes justice is about our relationship with the earth, rather than environmentalism being rooted in justice. Another highlight from their interview: Expose Capitalism and White Supremacys fetishization of life for the elites at the cost of early death for everyone else.

4:54pm EDT: Bryan Parras shares a beautiful poem by John Trudell, called Honor Song: You must remember the gentleness of time. You are struggling to be who you are. You say you want to learn the old ways. Struggling to learn, when all you must do is remember. Remember the people. Remember the sky and earth. Remember the people have always struggles to live in harmony and peace.

4:55pm EDT: Acknowledging indigenous erasure and violence against indigenous people is integral to understanding US capitalisms stronghold on the environment the exploitation of the land for fossil fuel extraction goes hand in hand with the USs tradition of stealing land and/or making land uninhabitable for the indigenous people that live there.

4:57pm EDT: Parras is sharing stories about the foul air in his mothers hometown, which used to make him nauseous. He developed asthma, and the water in his local spring was undrinkable. The destruction of natural resources in low income and predominantly POC neighborhoods is violence. He believes his grandmothers kidney failure was due to her environment, similar to his asthma. And they were not alone, many of his friends experienced similar issues.

4:58pm EDT: Barras speaks elegantly about the tragedy that is environmental racism: As I learned more about the fossil fuel industry, all these things really upset me. And made me feel like things had been taken from me. My full potential, the full capacity of my lungs, my attention in grade school, that irritability that these chemicals cause, that waft in the air every morning, so these are the things that compelled me and motivated me, to really think about other folks who grew up in these spaces, and how to get folks to think about these things.

5:00pm EDT: He continues: All of the oil that has been extracted from the earth, the earth remembers, and it will reclaim that. In one way or another. So when I think about the 6th extinction, and what oil really is, thats kind of a reckoning, but also, it is restorative justice for the planet. And were sort of the fallout.

5:17pm EDT: Brown asks the panelists how we can emerge from the pandemic as arts workers: How do we ensure that we are prioritizing this visioning for the world that we want to exit out into? That we want to build? And how do we ensure that our societies are supporting the arts and culture bearers? She believes our society demands a more robust social safety net, like Medicare for all.

5:19pm EDT: Parras explains that we are all working with a high level of trust for one another in this moment: We should keep that level of gratitude and compassion moving forward.

Beyond the Binaries Virtual Brunch (B.Y.O. Brunch), 2-3:30pm EDT

Live-blogged by Jasmine Weber

Speakers: Ashley De Hoyos (Houston, TX), Raven Crane (Houston, TX), Farrah Fang (Houston, TX), Frank Hernandez (Houston, TX), Philip Karjeker (Houston, TX), Slant Rhyme (Houston, TX), and Donald Shorter (Houston, TX) with support by Common Field Partners Ashley DeHoyos (Houston, TX) and Jessi Bowman (Houston, TX)

2:05pm EDT: Beyond the Binaries started last year; they also hosted an event called Gender Buffet. As Common Field was intended to take place in Houston, De Hoyos says they prioritized Houston voices to present at todays virtual brunch.

2:08pm EDT: Slant Rhyme wished us a happy May Day!

2:10pm EDT: Ahead of the event, everyone was asked to bring their brunch to eat while we convene (Im drinking iced coffee). People are sharing what their snack is in the chat (chocolate cake, mimosas, challah, papaya, etc.), and uploading photos in a Google drive.

2:15pm EDT: Crane shared footage from a group exhibition of Black and brown artists called Theres Enough for Everyone, which looked like a really interesting exploration of queer Southern aesthetics.

2:18pm EDT: Slant says their practice is about the act of giving something away you love. The act of setting it free.

2:20pm EDT: Check out some of the images from the brunch on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/beyondthebinariesbrunch/

2:21pm EDT: This weekend would have been the first queer job fair in Houston, Slant says. Theyre a part of a TGNC guild that offers job training opportunities prioritizing unhoused and undocumented people, as well as sex workers and people with disabilities.

2:23pm EDT: Slant and Raven are also co-curators of the Black and Brown Mail Art Biennale in Houston.

2:27pm EDT: Donald Shorter worked in commercial theater and on Broadway tours, but felt she wasnt able to be her authentic self and drag became a space where I was able to really find myself. She started a one-woman show, Generosity, where she shares her story about being gender non-conforming and coming to a place of radical self-acceptance. She lived in NYC for over 15 years before coming to Houston.

2:30pm EDT: Philip Karjker is an organizer and contributing artist in Qollective for Queer Houstonian artists.

2:33pm EDT: Frank started a program called Draw, to gather queer artists at a bar to make art. Shes currently out of work, but along with her partner, works as a videographer for things like weddings and music videos hire them!

2:37pm EDT: Frank is sharing a video compilation of performances called Smoke Break showing some of his work in Houston it started with a video of them in a cage, nude with America the Beautiful playing in the background.

2:45pm EDT:Weve moved into the breakout session, and will be discussing the following questions: What does it mean for us to think about gender and TGNC limitation, access, and representation now and how do we want to shift for the future? How is COVID-19 affecting people, how are we treating and giving resources to TIGNC folx? In what ways, we can share resources? How do we imagine safe digital spaces and access for TIGNC folx? How do we center TIGNC folx without tokenizing in workspaces? What can be done to negate the amount of labor placed in TGNC folx in workplaces?

2:55pm EDT: To respect their privacy, I wont be live-blogging the answers of the participants in my breakout group, but well be convening again as a larger group soon.

3:19pm EDT:And were back. A poignant note from the group: As we learn people are hurt, people are harmed. We need to continue to discuss the growing pains as we build with one another rather than brushing this pain that has been caused under the rug. Regardless of intention, impact is fundamental and ignoring it will stunt our betterment overall.

3:38pm EDT: Shorter, who uses movement to communicate, is inviting us all to spend a minute making shapes with our body to respond to the session. Its amazing.

The rest is here:

Live Blogging Discussions on Fossil Fuel Abolition and Representations of Gender in the Arts - Hyperallergic