Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

FORMER Edinburgh University rector Iain Macwhirter rightly criticises those who, with a minimum of knowledge, seek to denigrate academics and scholars who dont agree with them on such matters as the reputation of David Hume, or the imagined crimes of Henry Dundas ("Universities are debased by groundless claims of racism", The Herald, January 19).

These attacks come from the chairman of a body known as The Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review Group, the generally respected professor Sir Geoff Palmer. This clearly calls into question the purpose and legitimacy of an ad hoc body whose participants, other than Sir Geoff, are operating under the cloak of anonymity.

I was recently invited to send in a response to a long, rambling box-ticking public consultation survey from this secretive commissariat. It had all the hallmarks of one of those questionnaires which seek to pre-determine the desired response. Whatever authority this body has been granted by Edinburgh City Council or Edinburgh University, it should certainly not be entrusted with the power of life or death over the citys monuments and memorials.

This is not to say the suitability of such things should not be reviewed from time to time. About 300 yards north of Dundass column, there is a bronze plaque to Marie Stopes, a proponent of eugenics who favoured contraception as a means of controlling the birth rate of the lower orders, and sent love poems to a man she particularly admired, Adolf Hitler. I imagine few, if any, would object if this was removed and scrapped, but presumably, since her defects do not fall under the heading of Slavery or Colonialism, it will be staying in place.

Questions inevitably arise as to whether, say, the removal of the statue of Dundas, a listed artefact, on the recommendation of this anonymous body would be lawful. Last year the suggestion that a plaque be fixed to his column to place his effigy in historic context seemed like a reasonable compromise; however those entrusted with the wording decided to distort history by omitting all reference to the fact that it was Dundas, as a young Lord Advocate, who successfully and passionately defended the former slave, Joseph Knight, and then went on to steer William Wilberforces abolition bill through the House of Commons.

Bearing in mind that Martin Luther King, in The Purpose of Education, wrote that we should resist allowing our minds "to become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda" it can reasonably be concluded that the plaque is a travesty.

It seems obvious that such manipulation of history, together with the recent savage attacks on members of our academic community, require the attentions of a Scottish Government inquiry led by qualified lawyers and historians who actually know what they are talking about.

David J Black, Edinburgh.

IN DEFENCE OF DUNDAS

I WRITE in support of the excellent articles by Iain Macwhirter (noted above) and Stuart Waiton ("Statues row reveals our childlike politics", The Herald, January 19), both exposing the disturbing side to the current campaigns by the city of Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh to publicly demonstrate the correctness of their racial credentials. The councils Slavery and Colonialism Review Group is casting its net far and wide in an endeavour to identify anything and anybody associated with Edinburgh who can be linked in some way with slavery or to the British Empire. Even David Livingstone and the Royal Botanic Garden have been included as possible culprits by the Review. Furthermore, the treatment of David Hume on the part of the university has been shameful as have been the actions of those who attack critics like Professor Sir Tom Devine by labelling them as "racist". I just wish the Review zealots would make sure that they get their historical facts right before they rush to criticism.

There can be no doubt that Henry Dundas was a scoundrel. He was heavy drinker, a womaniser and a man who shamelessly used his considerable powers of patronage to help his friends, particularly fellow Scots. However, to continue to place all of the blame on Dundas for the delay in the abolition of the slave trade is I think unfair and ignores the reality of the tumultuous years of the early 1790s. Those attacking Henry Dundas have to address the question as to how a slave-supporting Parliament at that time was ever going to vote for abolition. Britain was then at war with Revolutionary France and was faced with the real prospect of invasion. Furthermore, the British establishment was terrified that the success of the French Revolution might inspire similar uprisings in the UK. The country was in turmoil and it fell to Dundas to try to restore order at home and to meet the French threat.

Realistically in the 1790s there was very little chance for legislation to abolish slavery to succeed in Parliament. A previous attempt to pass a motion for abolition had been very heavily defeated. Dundas knew perfectly well that Parliament was packed with members who had strong vested interests in the slave trade. It would take years for the force of the moral argument against the vile trade to have any chance of success. During the debate in 1792 he proposed a gradual path to abolition stating that "my opinion has been always against the slave trade". Indeed it was Dundas who had taken on the case of the West Indian slave Joseph Knight in 1777 which successfully established that there was no slavery in Scotland. Dundas concluded his remarks in the Court of Session by stating: "Human nature, my Lords, spurns at the thought of slavery among any part of our species. So it is quite wrong to state that Dundas was fighting a rearguard action against abolition and that he alone was responsible for condemning some 42,000 Africans to the horrors of slavery.

Eric Melvin, Edinburgh.

* IAIN Macwhirter and Stuart Waiton are correct about the increasing adolescent attitudes in our universities, local authorities and society generally, particularly when luminaries such as Sir Tom Devine and Professor Johnathan Hearn are insulted as racists. It is akin to traducing JK Rowling for her common-sense response to the fatuous moves by officialdom to abandon a word used since time immemorial to describe a female person.

Mr Macwhirter might also have mentioned that Viscount Dundas, by postponing the slave trades abolition by 15 years until 1807, possibly ensured that the trade did not continue thereafter, for 15 years or much longer. The new explanatory plaque installed on the Dundas monument should include this point too. It is sad that an otherwise-eminent professor like Sir Geoff Palmer should tarnish his reputation by such insults and thus undermine the objectivity of his review into Edinburghs involvement in slavery.

Last March he ascribed a racist element to the medics reaction when his wife gave birth to their first-born in 1977. As he was not present, and the staff did not know he was Jamaican, they were understandably concerned that the babys colouring might indicate something medically wrong (just as my mothers midwives in 1942 recognised something was wrong with me as a blue baby and called in a renowned Edinburgh paediatrician for advice and treatment).

He then linked this out of context with David Humes brief nuanced footnote about non-whites inferiority, said this is the statement that killed George Floyd (though whites die in similar circumstances) and led to the incident that Meghan and Harry talk about (about which he and we know almost nothing).

John Birkett, St Andrews.

SHAMEFUL TREATMENT OF FEMALE OAPs

MANY women's entitlement to a state pension has been systematically exploited by Westminster governments over the years. First we have the scandal of the Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) group, women born in the early 1950s who were not afforded the Governments own rules of notice of an increase to their state pension age. Now we hear that women awarded a small state pension on their own right were ultimately eligible to claim 60 per cent of the basic state pension, based on their husband's contributions, something the women affected were not made aware of. This anomaly was highlighted as far back as during the Coalition Government's time in office (2010-2015) by the then Work and Pensions Secretary Steve Webb, yet only now do we hear any call for justice.

This is a scandal of monumental proportions because it affects well in excess of 100,000 women, many of whom have existed in poverty, with deteriorating health, unable to correctly look after themselves due to a lack of income. Many hundreds of hours of debate on the plight of the Waspi women have been heard in the House of Commons; there has been cross-party agreement for justice, yet the Westminster Government's exploitation of women and state pensions continues. Becoming a pensioner should be a good experience, an experience of "well done" after an average of 50 years of work, so it is quite galling to learn that the Government has been exploiting your entitlement to a state pension.

Catriona C Clark, Falkirk.

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Letters: We need an inquiry into slavery review controversy - HeraldScotland

Burgess is a distinguished professor of political science at Ohio University, a senior professional lecturer at DePaul University and a public voices fellow of The OpEd Project.

For the first time, the United States has been added to the list of backsliding democracies. And majority of young people no longer believe that they will do better than their parents, a key indicator of faith in the American dream.

Few may doubt that the United States is in one of the darkest, most challenging times in its political history, one rife with cynicism and pessimism. Fourteen months after the election, many in the Republican Party still do not accept that Joe Biden won the presidential election of 2020.

But history shows that politics change, sometimes beyond expectations. Fewer than 10 years ago, few may have thought that American democracy would be as imperiled as it is now. Likewise, positive political shifts that were once hard to imagine have become widely accepted, including the abolition of slavery, universal adult suffrage, minimum wage and maximum hours laws, easy access to birth control, and marriage equality for gays and lesbians.

Time and again, politics has changed in unlikely directions, sometimes resulting in heartening new political horizons.

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In American politics, long periods of political order and stability are regularly followed by shorter bursts of significant political change. There have been six great political realignments in the history of American politics, and they have typically occurred during major crises such as the Great Depression or the Civil War.

Recognized realignments include the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800, which reversed a trend of growing national power and higher taxes that had dominated politics since the founding of the nation. Andrew Jacksons election in 1828 led to universal suffrage for white males, increasing the electorate substantially.

Abraham Lincolns victory in 1860 led to the abolition of slavery, and national power again became dominant when the Union prevailed over the Confederacy in the Civil War. Following William McKinleys win in 1896, progressive reforms such as the federal income tax and antitrust laws were instituted to address a growing wealth gap.

Franklin Delano Roosevelts election in 1932 led the national government to regulate the economy, creating a vast web of New Deal programs that established for the first time a social safety net for people devastated by the Great Depression. The funding for many of those programs was slashed and national power was devolved back to state and local governments after Ronald Reagans landslide victory in 1980.

Adjustments in political times recur every 40 years or so in U.S. politics, and it is long overdue. The periods prior to realignment are typically quite politically unstable and politically divisive. For example, mob violence between pro and anti-slavery forces broke out prior to Lincolns election in a series of incidents known as Bleeding Kansas, which has been called a small civil war.

Food riots and labor strife were rising prior to McKinleys election, due to the economic panic of 1893. Hunger marches and makeshift housing called Hoovervilles emerged across the nation, named as a jab at then President Herbert Hoovers inability to address the economic fallout of the Great Depression prior to Franklin Roosevelts election.

Radical politics often become more visible in the mainstream. For instance, in normal times, it would be unusual in mainstream American politics for a Democratic Socialist to gain as much traction as Sen. Bernie Sanders did during the 2016 presidential election, gaining over 13 million votes in the Democratic primaries.

Similarly, communist organizing was as strong as it has ever been in the United States during the 1930s and other revolutionary groups gained great visibility in the 1970s.

It is quite possible that the United States is in the midst of a major political realignment. It is true that a majority of Republicans continue to remain loyal to former President Donald Trump, believing that he won the election of 2020. Rep. Liz Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney stood alone on the Republican side of the House chamber during recent events commemorating last years attack on the Capitol.

And yet, the evidence suggests that Biden defeated Trump soundly. The one-term Trump presidency yielded few major legislative victories apart from cutting taxes and judicial appointments.

Scholars have called this kind of political failure a disjunctive presidency, to indicate that the coalition supporting a long dominant party is fragmenting, a phenomenon that typically occurs right before a major political realignment.

Elected in 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter was a failed, one-term president who could not hold together the fragmenting New Deal governing coalition, right before the Reagan landslide in 1980 ushered in years of Republican dominance based on small government, lower taxes and devolution of power from the national government to the states.

Roosevelt and the New Deal Democrats came to dominate politics after winning over 60 percent of the popular vote in 1936, and for many years thereafter.

Despite these recurring patterns across U.S. history, many people may find it impossible to imagine a different political order other than the one they are in at the moment.

Political history provides reasons for citizens to hold on through challenging political times. To be sure, it is hard to live through political instability, not knowing what will come next. But the certainty offered by cynicism and pessimism, however comforting in the short term, leads to political dead ends in the long run.

Historical patterns suggest that it is far better to have faith that this political darkness will end. But faith without works is not enough. Freedom from slavery, the minimum wage, and votes for women, were only won after years of organizing, resistance and activism.

Cynicism and pessimism make such work impossible. Though it may be painful, democracy requires nothing less.

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OPINION: History shows the dark night of politics will end - The Fulcrum

After Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer fell two votes short of altering the filibuster rule and easing passage of voting rights legislation, progressive opponents of the filibuster were quick to find the bright side.

Despite this setback, it has never been clearer that the filibuster is a dead rule walking, read a statement from the Fix Our Senate coalition. Forty-eight Senate Democrats support reform. President Biden, a long-time supporter of the filibuster, now supports reform. Every Democrat running for Senate, from moderates to progressives, supports reform. As the late [Senate Majority] Leader [Harry] Reid said, its not a matter of if the filibuster will be eliminated, but when and who is in charge when that happens. Former Reid aide and author of the anti-filibuster book Kill Switch Adam Jentleson shared on Twitter that the trajectory is clear. Dems have crossed the rubicon & grasp the need for reform in a way they didn't before. Jonathan Chait of New York magazine wrote, [N]early the entire Democratic Party has figured out that, in the long run, the filibuster hurts them more than it hurts Republicans. The next time Democrats gain control, they will do away with whatever remains of it.

The eventual end of the legislative filibuster is absolutely a plausible scenario. But filibuster opponents should be careful not to assume it is an inevitable scenario.

Filibuster abolition does appear to have become the position of most Democrats: A recent CBS News poll found 58% of Democrats want to end the filibuster, versus only 14% who want it kept. But even in this era of polarized politics, a Senate majority typically includes at least a few members who have an interest in keeping some distance from the national party and displaying a degree of independence.

We saw such a political dynamic during the Trump administration, when three Senate Republicans refused to go along with repealing the Affordable Care Act not a lot, but enough to derail one the biggest items on the presidents legislative agenda. Back in 2005, when the Republican Senate majority threatened to set aside the filibuster to advance contested judicial nominations, a bipartisan Gang of 14 denied them the votes and forged a compromise confirming most of the nominees at issue. Now we are seeing it today, as West Virginias Joe Manchin and Arizonas Kyrsten Sinema were enough to quash a rule change and, with it, two voting rights bills dear to President Biden.

Also complicating matters is the six-year term, designed to insulate senators more than House members from the political passions of the moment and encourage taking the long view. Those planning to spend many years in the Senate have long protected the filibuster, knowing that even if they are in the majority today, they may be in the minority tomorrow. With the filibuster, they ensure the ability to wield power regardless of who is president, speaker and majority leader.

Moreover, as Manchin and Sinema have shown this past year, senators who want to display independence from party leaders, but also pass legislation, need the filibuster to necessitate broad compromise. Except in cases when one party holds a huge majority, that usually involves bipartisanship. Without the filibuster, party leaders can more easily marginalize mavericks.

Progressive filibuster opponents believe their path to success lies in increasing Democratic numbers in the Senate, rendering any mavericks impotent. They are rightly heartened by the number of Democratic Senate candidates in this election cycle squarely in support of abolition. With two Republican-held seats in Biden-won states on the ballot this year, and no Democratic-held seats in Trump-won states, slightly expanding the Democratic majority is not out of the question. Still, expanding the presidents partys Senate majority and keeping it in the House which would require losing no more than four seats in the lower chamber is an extremely tall order in a midterm election year, made even taller by Bidens low approval rating. And without control of the House, a Democratic Senate majority wouldnt have much incentive to prioritize abolishing the filibuster, since whatever legislation they passed would get bottled up in the House anyway.

This is why Chait speaks of the next time Democrats gain control. The main hope of progressive filibuster opponents lies in the next time their party possesses the White House, House and Senate. Democrats cant be very hopeful about the Senate elections in 2024, when the map tilts in the opposite direction: All three of the Democrats seats from Trump-won states will be on the ballot, and no Republican seats in Biden-won states will be. So the next Democratic trifecta could be at least several years away. Will that Democratic majority be homogeneous enough to muscle through filibuster abolition? Will filibuster abolition even be top of mind at that point in time? Its impossible to know.

Even today, the 48 Democrats who voted in favor of the rule change did not vote for permanent abolition. They did not even vote for a permanent rule change. What Schumer proposed was a one-time change that would effectively put a finite end on Senate debate and lead to a simple majority vote on the Democrats voting rights bills. Manchin and Sinema resisted on the knowledge that if you change the legislative filibuster by simple majority once (which requires exploiting a loophole in the rules known as the nuclear option), then you have set the precedent that the filibuster can be waived anytime a majority feels like it, and the filibuster is effectively no more. Some of the other 48 have previously expressed reluctance to get the rid of the filibuster, but concluded that voting rights merited an exception.

But what if the next time Democrats control the White House and Congress, voting rights isnt the big issue on their agenda? Would all of those in the 48 who are still in the Senate at that point still commit to filibuster reform or abolition by simple majority vote? Or will they have been in the Senate long enough probably after experiencing at least one more stint in the minority to take the institutionalist position?

This scenario presumes that Republicans havent abolished the legislative filibuster by that point. The next time they control the White House and Congress, they could well argue (much like Democrats often do today) that Democrats will get rid of the filibuster the first chance they get. So they might as well do it first and get something out it. That could well happen, though in 2017, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell snubbed such a request from President Trump. And both McConnell and his possible successor, John Thune of South Dakota, said they will keep the filibuster in place if they take the majority.

To take such a dramatic step in all likelihood requires a powerful incentive. Some like Chait think Republicans dont have such an incentive, assuming all they want are tax cuts (which can be passed via the filibuster-proof reconciliation process) and judges (for whom the filibuster has already been nuked).

Democrats nuked the procedural tool in 2013 for lower court nominees after Republicans refused to allow confirmation of any of President Obamas judges to the second-most important judicial body, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Democrats concluded that control of the judiciary would always remain in Republican hands if they could never get their nominations through. While Democrats stopped short of applying the rule change to Supreme Court nominees, Republicans finished the job in 2017, after preventing Obama from filling a vacancy the year prior, thereby locking in a conservative Supreme Court majority for the foreseeable future.

The possibility remains that the Republicans agenda is not stuck in 2017 and, given the opportunity, they will find things they want to do beyond tax cuts and a judicial agenda.

In fact, Republicans are the ones who got rid of the filibuster in the House, back in 1890.

For much of the 19th century, the filibuster was more common in the House than the Senate. Then newly installed Republican Speaker of the House Thomas Reed enacted a sweeping rules reform that stripped the minority of its ability to deploy dilatory tactics. But things didnt work out quite as Republicans planned. Their narrow majority had become more ideologically diverse, including Eastern business owners who liked protective tariffs, Western populists who wanted looser currency, and Northerners who supported voting rights for African Americans. Plus, Democrats still had filibuster power in the Senate. Reed pushed through a voting rights bill on a plurality vote, but the Senates protectionists prioritized a new tariff bill, and then the partys Western faction joined Democrats in a filibuster of the voting rights bill. After the 1890 midterm elections, Democrats had taken control of the House. And in 1892, they claimed the White House and the Senate.

The filibuster is not on an inevitable path to its demise; a lot of political stars still need to come into alignment. And then, even if that happens, what follows may not be what the majority expects.

Bill Scher is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine, co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show The DMZ, and host of the podcast New Books in Politics.He can be reached at contact@liberaloasis.com or follow him on Twitter @BillScher.

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Is the Filibuster a 'Dead Rule Walking'? - RealClearPolitics

NPHET has advised the Cabinet that it can remove almost every covid-19 restriction from social distancing to covid passes and hospitality curfews in the coming days Extra.ie can reveal.

As early as tomorrow the Government will be able to announce an end of grinding restrictions that have been imposed on the Irish population at various degrees of severity for almost two years.

NPHET advised the Government this evening that guidance on household visiting; early closing for hospitality and events; capacity restrictions for indoor and outdoor events and even social distancing can be ended as soon as the Government decides it is appropriate. In a major surprise, NPHET has advised that covid passes will not be required in venues and activities.

NPHET has also advised that the work from home advice can be eased on a phased basis.

Cabinet meets on Friday and is likely to consult with Dr Tony Holohan to decide the exact sequencing but pubs, restaurants and even nightclubs are likely to reopen fully as early as Monday. NPHET has set no timeline and has left that open to Government Extra.ie has learned.

The guidance from NPHET sent to Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly by letter said the Government should remove the majority of current restrictions, to include: Guidance in relation to household visits; early closing for hospitality and events; capacity restrictions for outdoor events. In consultation with the HSE, the public health doctors have also said that the covid-19 capacity restrictions should end for all indoor events, including weddings.

The sweeping breath of the abolition of measures recommended by NPHET is breathtaking when compared to the draconian restrictions endured by the Irish population, in varying degrees for almost two years. Further advice to Government also recommends: the ending of formal requirements for physical distancing of 2m and 1m distancing requirements in hospitality. All hospitality measures, like table service, 1m between tables, six per table etc will be ended.

Nightclubs will be permitted to open again. And, crucially for the economic health of city centres, public health advice to work from home will be removed, allowing a return to physical attendance in workplaces on a phased basis. Public health doctors and the HSE have advised that the return to work should be done on a phased basis.

The Government has also been advised, Extra.ie understands, that there should be an end to all curtailment of health services. NPHET has said it does not believe that there should be any further limiting of visiting in health care facilities, including nursing homes.

According to briefings to Extra.ie, from political and HSE sources, NPHET had not determined a timeline.

A senior Government source said: It is expected that Dr Holohan and perhaps HSE CEO Paul Reid will brief the three party leaders first. They will tell the Taoiseach that they believe that the lifting of restrictions can begin as soon as they believe is pragmatic.

It may be necessary to delay the reopening of hospitality until Monday, say, to give restaurants and bars time to get their staff rosters ready.

However, another Government source pointed out difficulties with delaying the mass reopening: Well once people hear of the extent of the lifting of restrictions, well it will be very hard to hold everyone back. Social distancing for instance will just go out the window immediately.

It is understood that there has been more extensive interaction between senior Government Ministers and NPHET in recent days. Government sources said the comparative weakness of the Omicron variant and the effectiveness of vaccines means that the pandemic is almost certainly in endemic stage.

However, NPHET has also recommended that some basic covid measures remain in place. For instance, if a person finds that they are symptomatic they should self-isolate, even if fully vaccinated.

Also wearing of masks and restrictions in schools should remain in place until 28 February. Also people will be reminded to continue to make individual risk assessment and if they believe they are at risk they should take appropriate action.

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Exclusive: Sweeping abolition of COVID-19 restrictions proposed by NPHET revealed - Extra.ie

The first popularly elected government led by B P Koirala enacted the Birta Abolition Act in 1959, that required zamindars formerly granted land by the state to pay full tax. Feudal landlords opposed the move, and it became one of the reasons why King Mahendra ousted Koirala in a coup detat on 12 December 1960.

B P believed that only genuine land reform would ensure that all Nepalis prospered together, and also deflect the Communism tide. But in justifying his coup, Mahendra declared that Nepals first democratically elected government had to be overthrown because it had failed to work in the interest of the poor.

Today, more than six decades later, BPs Nepali Congress that espoused social democracy is leading a governing coalition.Sher Bahadur Deuba,who once led the partys student union, is prime minister for the fifth time.

Yet, 1.5 million families representing a quarter of Nepals households, are still landless or have land issues. Some 53% of Nepals farmers own only 18% of the total cultivable land.

After ousting B P, King Mahendra continued the land reform to retain international support and quell domestic discontent. But the effort was half-hearted: the landed kept their land. Mahendra and his sonBirendraruled through a partyless Panchayat system for the next 30 years.

Ironically, unequal land ownership (the very reason that pushed Mahendra to stage his coup) became one of the factors that led to the Peoples Movement and the downfall of the Panchayat in 1990.

But even after the multi-party system was restored, there was only tokenism for land rights. In 1991, a commission set up to resolve the issue was dissolved even before it could complete its work. In the past three decades, 18 more land reform commissions have been formed by democratic governments, only to fizzle out.

Land ownership and rights have been weaponised time and again at election time since 1990 to win votes, but there has been no real change on the ground. The Nepali Congress, UML and Maoists are all guilty of making false promises to the landless.

The Maoists made land to the tiller and just land distribution a major point in their 40-point demand to Deuba in 1996 during his first tenure as prime minister. Their main slogan to recruit young men and women to take up arms was to promise land.

After all this, the landless have stopped trusting politicians who promise land. Disputes over land make up one-third of all cases in Nepals courts.

Various factors have changed the dynamics of land today. While educated Nepalis do not want to farm and migration is leaving arable land fallow, remittances fuel the market in real estate, the price of which has risen exponentially.

This unorganised and uncontrolled buying and selling of land has once again concentrated ownership in the hands of richer Nepalis, who have grown pheonmenally richer as property values escalate. There is a whole class of new-rich who have made their fortune through real estate speculation.

This is why we have the farce of the Baluwatar real estate scandal that involves the mightiest in the land, even while a quarter of the countrys population is landless.

The Gorkha empires expansion in the 18th century was financed by land, generals and soldiers were granted ownership of portions of the land they conquered. During the Shah reign, the royalty and courtiers could take what they wanted. During the Rana period, at least one-third of the total cultivable land in Nepal was distributed among those close to them. The Birta system may have been repealed six decades ago, but it is still intact in other forms through landlords, traders and brokers owning most property.

Real estate today is booming business, and a major source of revenue for the state from taxes. Urban land value appreciation has made it possible for some Nepalis to become fabulously rich overnight.

It is not productive when real estate speculation becomes a mainstay of the economy. It does not create jobs, and it exacerbates inequality. Private property rights effectively legitimise past injustices that parcelled out large swathes of the country to the privileged. It perpetuates discrimination and inequality, laying the seeds for future conflict.

To be sure, distributing land to the landless alone does not solve their problem, nor does it erase historical discrimination. Self-respect comes from belonging to the land, giving them a sense of purpose and responsibility. It is a start. But it should be without any condition, it cannot be a publicity stunt, or ploy to pad up vote banks.

If we are to safeguard the gains of the 2017 Constitution and build the pillars of the federal democratic republic from the ground up, we must pick up where B P Koirala left off 61 years ago.

Translated from an Editorial in the January-February 2022 issue of Himal Khabarpatrika dedicated to the issue of land.

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Ground reality of landlessness in Nepal - Nepali times

Acclaimed educator, author and activist Angela Davis will keynote SUNY Oswegos 33rd annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration on Wednesday, Feb. 9.

The event -- which also will feature student performances and readings -- is free and open to the public. Sponsored by the colleges Division of Student Affairs, the celebration will begin at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 9 in Tyler Halls Waterman Theatre, with doors opening at 6 p.m.

"You should consider attending the MLK Celebration if one of your goals in life is to live with no regrets," said Takayla Beckon, the Student Association president and a member of the event's organizing committee."Get ready to show up and show out to an amazing celebration of Dr. Martin L. King Jr.!"

Through her activism and scholarship over many decades, Davis has been deeply involved in movements for social justice around the world. Her work as an educator - both at the university level and in the larger public sphere - has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial and gender justice.

Her teaching career has taken her to San Francisco State University, Mills College and UC Berkeley. She also has taught at Stanford University, UCLA, Vassar, Syracuse University and the Claremont Colleges. Most recently she spent 15 years at the University of California Santa Cruz where she is now Distinguished Professor Emerita of history of consciousness - an interdisciplinary Ph.D program -and of feminist studies.

Davis is the author of 10 books and has lectured throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and South America. In recent years, a persistent theme of her work has been the range of social problems associated with incarceration and the generalized criminalization of those communities that are most affected by poverty and racial discrimination. She draws upon her own experiences in the early 70s as a person who spent 18 months in jail and on trial, after being placed on the FBIs Ten Most Wanted List.

She also has conducted extensive research on numerous issues related to race, gender and imprisonment. Her recent books include Abolition Democracy" and "Are Prisons Obsolete?, about the abolition of the prison industrial complex; a new edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; and collections of essays including The Meaning of Freedom and Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement.

Like many educators, Davis is especially concerned with the general tendency to devote more resources and attention to the prison system than to educational institutions. Having helped to popularize the notion of a prison industrial complex, she now urges her audiences to think seriously about the future possibility of a world without prisons and to help forge what she terms a 21st-century abolitionist movement.

Davis is a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex. Internationally, she is affiliated with Sisters Inside, an abolitionist organization based in Queensland, Australia, that works in solidarity with women in prison.

"I believe Angela Davis is an amazing choice as the keynote speaker because of her versatility in advocacy," Beckon said.

Beckon noted that Davis has been an advocate for the oppressed for decades and left her mark on the world in ways ranging from her activism to the grassroots effort for freeing Davis from prison to taking part in the Black Power Movement. Davis has also authored many influential books including the most recent "Abolition. Feminism. Now.," Beckon said.

Attendance information

Free tickets are available for students starting today (Jan. 24).

Tickets will be available online attickets.oswego.edufor:

In addition, a livestream will be broadcast to the SUNY Oswego Syracuse campus, any needed overflow rooms on the Oswego campus and in a password-protected manner to remote learners as well as faculty, staff and alumni.More information on this to come as arrangements continue.

To continue to ensure the health and safety of the campus community, all spectators ages 5 and up) must show proof of having completed a full COVID-19 vaccination series or recent proof of a negative COVID-19 test. Visit oswego.edu/oswego-forward for more information.

Persons with disabilities needing accommodations to attend this event should contact the SUNY Oswego Office of Campus Life at 315-312-2301 or campuslife@oswego.edu.

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Educator, author and activist Angela Davis to speak at Oswego on Feb. 9 - SUNY Oswego

There are thoughts moving through my mind like a murmuration of birds, and I believe that if I share them out loud, you can help me see the patterns, particularly those patterns which can help us avoid predation and extinction. That is the spirit with which I will be approaching this space, a column inches wide and miles deep, for YES! Media.

My name is adrienne maree brown. I am the writer in residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, which is a collective of facilitators, mediators, artists, healers, and curious human beings interested in how we, as a species, align with each other, this planet, and the future.

My work and thinking are rooted in emergent strategy, which is the way we get in right relationship with the constant force of changespecifically, how we build patterns and relationships that can hold our complex nature through relatively simple interactions. It is a way to remember we are earthlings, we are of this place, and we can learn to earn our place here from the adaptive practices of everything around us. Emergent strategy includes adaptation with intention, interdependence and decentralization, fractals, nonlinearity and iteration, resilience through transformative justice, and creating more possibilities. How do we change in ways that increase our freedom and our compatibility with Earth?

My work is also informed by visionary fiction and radical imagination. I believe we are living in a world imagined by ancestors who didnt love us, who didnt believe in an abundant earth and our collective power to steward it. It is time for us to imagine beyond the current oppressive construct. My work is powered by pleasure activism, the belief that justice and liberation must become the most pleasurable experiences we can have, and that we must reclaim for everyone the experience of joy and satisfaction. How do we build the future on a deep yes, a deep longing for what we want?

Attention is the difference between a life you observe from a distance (sometimes within your own bodymind) and a life you live.

My writing is informed by over two decades of experience as a facilitator of movements for social and environmental justice and more than four decades of being alive in late-stage racial capitalism and a rapidly expanding climate catastrophe. I have stepped back from facilitation in the past year to rest, train emergent strategy facilitation, make room for other incredible facilitators, write, and make meaning of the patterns I have observed in human behavior. How do we keep returning to a beginners mind about our species survival?

This column will be a space to ask these questions and share what I am seeing and feeling as potential answers or directions.

What do we mean when we say abolition, accountability, interdependence, community, liberation, and compelling futures? These are the kinds of topics I want to explore here.

I want to ask aloud a lot of questions that I thought I had answers to. So many of us speak as if we have answers, but we arent free yet, so I suspect we would all benefit from a period of listening and shifting in nuanced but distinct ways, together.

Lets write and inspire all manner of fan fiction and fan poetics for the future as our collectively channeled answers to questions beyond our comprehension.

Lets explore how the justice we mete out interpersonally connects to the way we treat our own bodies and the planet. Lets explore how we consider justice for those who have less power than us, and those who have more. Justice for babies and children, for elders, for species who speak in ways we have not yet learned to understand.

Lets examine hopelessness as a tool of our oppressors. And cynicism and meanness. And capitalism, which nourishes death in all these ways and so many others. Can we slip the fatal grip of the economic system of our lives?

How do our relationships reflect and shift our economic conditions? Our survival of gender and race constructs? Can everyone learn to be in healthy relationships? Can we learn these things without captivityI mean, without the armed guard under which we currently all live, tithing our overseers?

How do we face the children we love? And the children in our imaginations? What do we owe them as stewards of their futures? That was the other possible title for this column, you know: Stewards of the Future. Its aspirational. I shamelessly want to cultivate that sensibility in everyone who reads this and in everyone they tell about this column.

There will be prose, with some gifts from poetry. The emphasis here is on experiential learning, observation of patterns, and what to practice. And how to be loyal to the miracle of our lives. The emphasis here is also on being more than doing. I deeply believe you can live a completely worthwhile life in contemplation and reflection, and waste it all while working every second of waking life.

All of my work is about attention. Attention is the difference between a life you observe from a distance (sometimes within your own bodymind) and a life you live. My work is also always about change. How do we pivot from being victims of change to being shapers of it? I am one of many who picked up this lifelong question from the Buddha and Octavia E. Butler, among others.

On each solstice and equinox I will offer a spell, because its a way I know to be in reverence of the cycles of life on this planet: through patterns and spells and evolution.

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Murmurations: Stewarding the Future - YES! Magazine

In many ways, Glenn Youngkin is off to a great start as Virginias new Republican governor. After his swearing-in ceremony last weekend, he immediately took action to let parents decide for themselves whether their children have to wear masks in school, rescinded the coercive vaccine mandate for state employees, and signed an executive order to cut regulations and declare Virginia open for business. Yet on one key issue, Youngkins early governance is way off base.

Over the last few weeks, Youngkin has repeatedly defended the liability shield for police officers known as qualified immunity.

Its understandable that Youngkin wants to back law enforcement in a time of rising crime and mounting anti-police sentiment. Yet defending qualified immunity takes this instinct too far.

In many cases, the judicially invented doctrine lets abusive officers get away with violating the constitutional rights of citizens without civil accountability. It blocks lawsuits from proceeding unless there already exists an exactly similar precedent that clearly establishes the alleged conduct as a violation of citizens rights. But no two tragedies are exactly alike, so this prohibits legal accountability in most cases.

As reported by USA Today, qualified immunity has protected officers from liability suits in the following cases:

These are just a few examples of the countless injustices qualified immunity has protected.

Police officers do important work, but ultimately, they are government officials and work for the people. They ought to be accountable to us when they make mistakes. Theres nothing in line with traditional conservative principles of limited government about giving government agents the ability to violate our rights and escape civil accountability.

Yes, police are essential and have difficult jobs, but the same can be said about doctors and they dont have qualified immunity from malpractice lawsuits.

Ending qualified immunity wouldnt mean police officers would have to start paying out massive damages all the time. It would simply mean that more people would get their day in court, and then, only if their cases were proven by a preponderance of the evidence would they get compensated for abuses.

What, exactly, is wrong with that?

One typical talking point in favor of qualified immunity is that without it, wed have a hard time staffing police departments because police would be so vulnerable. This simply isnt true. Qualified immunity in its current form did not exist until it was created by the courts in 1982, and for many decades before that, the supposed shortage of police officers never materialized.

We could also pair the abolition of qualified immunity with pay increases for officers if such a problem ever did emerge. However, we have bigger problems to solve if police will only work if they have a shield protecting them financially when they violate civilians rights. Luckily, thats not the case.

In fact, a Morning Consult poll found that 57% of police officers themselves support getting rid of the doctrine. So, theres nothing anti-police about ending qualified immunity. In fact, the status quo only protects the corrupt officers who give all law enforcement a bad name.

While Youngkin may understandably fear the wrath of police unions, the new governor ought to realize that his defense of qualified immunity isnt in line with the conservative principles he espouses. After all, no less a conservative stalwart than Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has criticized the doctrine.

Heres hoping Youngkin changes his tune on this important issue soon.

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is co-founder of BasedPolitics.com, co-host of the BasedPolitics podcast, and a Washington Examiner contributor.

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Glenn Youngkin is off to a good start but hes wrong about one big thing - Washington Examiner

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Amos C. Brown and LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson during the announcement of new joint initiatives with the NAACP in Salt Lake City on Monday, June 14, 2021.

| Jan. 20, 2022, 1:00 p.m.

Some 26 years ago, President Gordon B. Hinckley responded to a question from CBSs Mike Wallace about the difficult history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and race.

Part of Hinckleys forward-thinking answer is as useful and wise today as it was then:

Look, thats behind us.

My friends, we cannot control the past. We live only now, in the present. Each day is a gift from God, and an opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder as brothers and sisters in the collective work of creating a future of love and peace.

My association in recent years with Latter-day Saint leaders is full of this kind of work. I count it one of my lifes greatest joys to know these leaders, including President Russell M. Nelson. They are, in my estimation, the embodiment of the best leadership our country has to offer.

Thats why I was troubled by a recent opinion piece in the Salt Lake Tribune inaccurately characterizing the church on the issue of race. (LDS Church must formally repudiate its former racist views, by Dave Winslow, Jan. 2)

I respect the experience and perspective of the individual who wrote those words. Granted, I dont see what he sees. But he omits important facts.

In April 1830, Joseph Smith began building Zion. Latter-day Saint scripture says this is a real place where people are of one heart and one mind, and [dwell] in righteousness; and there [are] no poor among them.

Joseph Smiths vision was of love for all humankind. Many in America do not know that Smith ran for president of the United States in 1844. A major part of his platform was the abolition of slavery by 1850putting him ahead of many American leaders of his time including the venerable Abraham Lincoln. Smith had the spirit of the great Frederick Douglass, who said all followers of Jesus should do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

Its true that the church has had challenges since then with race. But, as Hinckley said, Thats behind us. In recent years, I have stood arm-in-arm with President Nelson to announce important joint initiatives of the church and the NAACP. For example, the church committed millions in scholarship money to the United Negro College Fund to help young Black students. The LDS Church also provided for a fellowship in my name to send students to Ghana to learn more about their heritage and the evils of slavery. And the church has pledged millions to fund humanitarian efforts in underprivileged areas of the U.S.

Nelson preaches a gospel of working tirelessly to build bridges of understanding rather than creating walls of segregation. The man next in line to be president, Dallin H. Oaks, told Brigham Young University students in 2020 that only the gospel of Jesus Christ can unite and bring peace to people of all races and nationalities. We who believe in that gospel whatever our origins must unite in love of each other and of our Savior Jesus Christ.

These are the actions and words of a faith moving forward and creating a better world.

Some time ago, the church presented me my family history. I learned of my great-great-grandfather, Patrick Brown. He was born enslaved in 1821 in Roxie, Mississippi. He left me the best of legacies: He did not let the evils of slavery define him. He did not allow the cruelties of others to embitter his soul. After gaining his freedom, he took the high road. He later acquired land and built a church and a school.

We can gripe about the way things were. We can refuse to acknowledge all the good going on now. We can decline to embrace the opportunities before us. But these approaches will not heal our national divisions. President Hinckley, President Nelson, President Oaks, Patrick Brown, and others point to a better way. As Jesus taught, we dont eradicate evil with more evil. We love generously and live mercifully, even toward those we think to be our enemies.

So, lets keep the past in the past. Yes, we remember it. Yes, we learn from it. But no, we do not let it define us today.

May we continue to move forward together in the great work of racial harmony and civil rights for all.

Amos C. Brown is a renowned civil rights leader and president of the NAACP in San Francisco. He has served as pastor of Third Baptist Church of San Francisco since 1976.

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Amos C. Brown: Follow the LDS Church's example to heal divisions and move forward - Salt Lake Tribune

Supporters of a U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons gathered Jan. 22 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to mark the first anniversary of the pact going into force, stepping up their calls on Japan to sign it.

Standing in front of the symbolic Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, 10 or so members of a Hiroshima-based groupcalling for the abolition of nuclear weapons hoisted a banner that read the whole world should join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Unless Japan, the only country in the world to have been ravaged by atomic bombing, speaks out in the international community, it will be impossible to eliminate nuclear weapons, said Shuichi Adachi, a lawyer representing the group.

Participation in the rally was kept to a minimum as asafety precaution against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tomoyuki Mimaki, a representative of the association of A- and H-bomb sufferers in Hiroshima Prefecture, expressed disappointment with a joint statement released Jan. 21 by Tokyo and Washington on the issue of nuclear weapons.

They treated the question with kid gloves, he said dismissively, noting that although thestatement encouraged the worlds political leaders and youth to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it made no reference to the treaty.

Mimaki, 72, said he sent a letter to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is from a constituency in Hiroshima, urging Japanese representatives to attend the first meeting of signatory countries of the treaty in Austria in March as observers.

Attendance on the part of Japan, he said, is indispensable as Kishida has pledged that Tokyo will work as an intermediary between the nuclear and nonnuclear powers.

In Nagasaki, about 150 nuclear-bomb survivors and their supporters gathered in the Peace Park to press the Japanese government to join and ratify the treaty.

The government continues to ignore the treaty even though many countries have signed it, said Shigemitsu Tanaka, president of the Nagasaki Atomic-bomb Survivors Council. We want to get the public become familiar with the treaty so we can join forces in applying pressure on the government.

Fifty-nine countries and territories have ratified the treaty.

But the nuclear powers as well as Japan, which is protected under the U.S. nuclear umbrella for its defense purposes, have refrained from doing so.

According to the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs,627 assemblies, or 35 percent, of the 1,788 local governments, including those at the prefectural level, had adopted a resolution as of Jan. 12 calling on the Japanese government to sign and ratify the treaty.

The figure included 90 or so local governments that adopted the resolution after the treaty went into force in 2021.

The resolution adopted by local governments reflects public opinion and thus is more visible, saidShiro Maekawa, an official of the council who tracks the trend among local governments on the issue. The Japanese government should hear what the public says.

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Call for Japan to join nuclear ban treaty on 1st anniversary | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis - Asahi Shimbun