Category Archives: Government Oppression

It isnt often that the Senate Rules Committee kicks up the drama. But today, sparks are flying as the panel debates S1, the Democrats signature voting-reform package. | Brendan Smialowski/Pool via AP

SOME BIG MEDIA NEWS THIS MORNING

WAPO PARLOR GAME COMES TO AN END Sally Buzbee of the Associated Press named executive editor of The Washington Post, the first woman to lead the newsroom, WaPo: [SALLY] BUZBEE, currently APs executive editor and senior vice president, will take over leadership of The Posts nearly 1,000-person newsroom next month, said publisher FRED RYAN, who made the announcement to the newspapers staff on Tuesday.

Buzbee, 55, has headed APs news operations since 2017, and has been with the organization since she began her career as a journalist in 1988. Buzbees experience overseeing international newsgathering made her an attractive candidate as The Post expands its operations abroad, said Ryan. The newspaper has announced plans to open news hubs in London and Seoul this year that will enable its newsroom to report stories around-the-clock. It will also open new bureaus in Sydney and Bogot, expanding its total to 26 outside the U.S.

AS WE AT POLITICO LIKE TO SAY: WOMEN RULE WaPos Paul Farhi noted on Twitter that Buzbee joins an ever-growing number of women leading newsrooms at places like CBS News, ABC News, NPR, MSNBC, Reuters, Financial Times, Guardian, the Economist, POLITICO, HuffPost, BBC, PBS and many more. The fact that this is not a big deal is kind of a big deal.

MEANWHILE, OVER ON THE HILL

SCHUMER-MCCONNELL GO AT IT OVER VOTING REFORM It isnt often that the Senate Rules Committee kicks up the drama. But today, sparks are flying as the panel debates S1, the Democrats signature voting-reform package. Consider this a preview of whats to come when the bill moves to the chamber floor, where it will likely die due not only to GOP opposition but because Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) has also expressed reservations.

The debate in committee is a microcosm of the fight raging nationwide over GOP-led changes to election laws, as Marianne LeVine and Zach Montellaro report. In dueling remarks, [Senate Majority Leader] CHUCK SCHUMER and [Senate Republican Leader] MITCH MCCONNELL each accused the others party of trying to weaponize voting laws to expand its political power. Democrats say they must act soon to rein in laws pushed by GOP-controlled state legislatures they warn are designed to disenfranchise voters.

Schumer used his testimony to raise the stakes of a battle against state-level voting laws that he said carry the stench of oppression. He implored the GOP: Are you going to stamp it out or are you going to allow it to be spread? I plead with my Republicans, think twice. I plead with Leader McConnell: think twice.

McConnell retorted that Democrats wrote their elections bill in response to the results of the 2016 election and that their supposed rationales [for it] have changed constantly. Our democracy is not in crisis, and were not going to let one party take over our democracy under the false pretense of saving it, the Senate GOP leader said. The Democratic Party wants to rewrite the ground rules of American politics for partisan benefit. Read the full story

BIDEN MAKING THE ROUNDS WITH CENTRISTS President JOE BIDEN is meeting with Sen. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.) at the White House today to discuss the American Jobs Act and the ongoing negotiations in Congress about investing in our infrastructure, per WaPos Matt Viser, todays White House pooler.

The meeting comes just a day after Biden huddled with Manchin on the same topic a sign that Biden is employing a charm offensive to woo the two moderates who have expressed reluctance about using reconciliation to pass infrastructure spending. Perhaps the president is trying to butter them up before making the pivot to a Democrats-only strategy? Remember: Due to the Senates 50-50 split, the Dems cant do much of anything without both Sinema and Manchin on board.

ON-THE-GO JOE Biden will travel to Dearborn, Mich., to visit Ford Motor Companys Rouge Electric Vehicle Center home of the all-electric F-150 on Tuesday, May 18, the White House announced today.

FYI: The Senate voted to confirm ANDREA PALM to be deputy HHS secretary by a 61-37 vote.

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THE JUICE Trump family members got inappropriately close to Secret Service agents, book claims, The Guardian: Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, by the Washington Post reporter CAROL LEONNIG, is published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy. [S]he writes that Secret Service agents reported that VANESSA TRUMP, the wife of the presidents oldest son, DONALD TRUMP JR., started dating one of the agents who had been assigned to her family.

Leonnig also writes that TIFFANY TRUMP, DONALD TRUMPs daughter with his second wife, MARLA MAPLES, broke up with a boyfriend and began spending an unusual amount of time alone with a Secret Service agent on her detail. Both Tiffany Trump and the agent said nothing untoward was happening, Leonnig writes, and pointed out the nature of the agents job meant spending time alone with his charge. The agent was subsequently reassigned.

Also, this little nugget: The president did repeatedly seek to remove Secret Service staff he deemed to be overweight or too short for the job. I want these fat guys off my detail, Trump is reported to have said, possibly confusing office-based personnel with active agents. How are they going to protect me and my family if they cant run down the street?

GAETZ-GATE LATEST Federal investigators press for cooperation from two key witnesses in Gaetz probe, CNN: Federal investigators scrutinizing Rep. MATT GAETZ are seeking the cooperation of a former Capitol Hill intern who was once a girlfriend of the Florida Republican, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

Investigators could also soon gain the formal cooperation of a second key witness, former Florida county tax collector JOEL GREENBERG, who is approaching a deadline this week to strike a plea agreement with the government on more than two dozen charges he's facing. The pursuit of the cooperation comes as investigators are nearly finished collecting evidence, one source said.

CALL HIM MR. DIPLOMATIC Rahm Emanuel to be appointed U.S. ambassador to Japan, Financial Times: Joe Biden has chosen RAHM EMANUEL, a former congressman and Chicago mayor, to be U.S. ambassador to Japan, according to eight people familiar with personnel discussions inside the White House. The U.S. president will name Emanuel, who was chief of staff to Barack Obama and has close ties to Biden, this month in a big package of ambassadorship nominations, several of the people said.

PIPELINE HACK LATEST EPA moves to boost gasoline availability in mid-Atlantic states after Colonial cyberattack, by Alex Guilln: EPA on Tuesday moved to make more gasoline available for sale in three mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia to ease potential fuel shortages related to the Colonial fuel pipeline shutdown as the Biden administration seeks to mitigate the impact of the cyberattack. The waiver covers Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and D.C. through May 18.

AWFUL NEW NUMBERS FOR JENNER Opposition to Newsom recall grows as Caitlyn Jenner, GOP generate little support, poll finds, LA Times: The surveys results were especially bleak for retired Olympic gold medalist [CAITLYN] JENNER, as just 6% of Californians who took part in the survey said they would vote to have her replace [Gov. GAVIN] NEWSOM

Slightly over half of California registered voters, 52%, approve of the job Newsom has been doing as governor. [J]ust 36% of registered voters in the state said they would vote to recall Newsom In comparison, 49% of voters oppose removing the governor from office.

IMMIGRATION FILES Migrant children held in mass shelters with little oversight, AP: The Biden administration is holding tens of thousands of asylum-seeking children in an opaque network of some 200 facilities that The Associated Press has learned spans two dozen states and includes five shelters with more than 1,000 children packed inside.

Confidential data obtained by the AP shows the number of migrant children in government custody more than doubled in the past two months, and this week the federal government was housing around 21,000 kids, from toddlers to teens. A facility at Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army post in El Paso, Texas, had more than 4,500 children as of Monday.

EXPANDING AID Biden ends Trump ban on pandemic aid for undocumented college students, by Michael Stratford: The Biden administration is reversing a Trump-era policy that barred undocumented college students and others from receiving federal relief grants meant to help pay for expenses like food, housing, and child care during the coronavirus pandemic.

The policy change was unveiled on Tuesday as the Education Department announced it would begin distributing $36 billion in federal relief funding for higher education, part of the $1.9 trillion Covid relief package that President Joe Biden signed in March. Colleges and universities will each receive an allocation of the funding under a formula spelled out in that law, based in part on the share of Pell grant recipients enrolled at each school.

NEED A LIFT? Uber, Lyft to Provide Free Rides to Covid-19 Vaccine Sites Until July 4, WSJ: The White House will announce a new partnership with ride-sharing companies Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. to make all rides to and from vaccination sites free until July 4, according to administration officials.

White House Covid-19 coordinator JEFF ZIENTS will detail the new steps in a Tuesday call with governors as part of the Biden administrations effort to meet a target of 70% of the U.S. adult population getting at least one vaccine dose by July 4. The administration will provide data on about 80,000 vaccination sites to Lyft and Uber as part of the transportation partnership, a senior administration official said.

THE VACCINE DISTRIBUTION CHALLENGE To Vaccinate Younger Teens, States and Cities Look to Schools, Camps, Even Beaches, NYT: The F.D.A.s decision, announced Monday afternoon, presents a bright new opportunity in the push for broad immunity against the coronavirus in the United States, but the challenges are more daunting than for immunizing older, more independent teenagers.

A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundations Vaccine Monitor found that many parents even those who eagerly got their own Covid shots are reluctant to vaccinate pubescent children. Yet doing so will be critical for further reducing transmission of the virus, smoothly reopening middle and high schools and regaining some sense of national normalcy.

CASHING IN Pfizer head Albert Bourla writing book about COVID vaccine, AP

FOR THOSE KEEPING TRACK White House says Biden will release updated health information this year, WaPo: The nations oldest president in history has yet to get a checkup or release an update to the three-page medical summary that was last provided to the public some 17 months ago. The White House has said more up-to-date information will be released soon and, when pressed, said he would do so by the end of the year.

ABOUT THAT MCCARTHY-LUNTZ RENTAL AGREEMENT: Rental to Rep. Kevin McCarthy violated condo bylaws: Last week, The Fact Checker revealed that the room that McCarthy rented from prominent pollster FRANK LUNTZ for at least two months was in a 7,000-square-foot space a combination of four penthouse apartments. It turns out that the bylaws of the condo building, Clara Barton at Penn Quarter, specifically prohibit condo owners from renting anything less than the entire space and for not less than six months. The bylaws also specify that all leases shall be in writing and say that all leases must be promptly forwarded to the buildings board of directors.

BIDEN TAKES A BIG RENEWABLES STEP Final Approval Expected for Nations First Major Offshore Wind Farm, NYT: The Biden administration on Tuesday will announce its final approval of the nations first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, a major step toward President Bidens goal of expanding renewable energy production across the United States, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The Vineyard Wind project calls for up to 84 turbines to be installed in the Atlantic Ocean about 12 nautical miles off the coast of Marthas Vineyard, Mass. Together, they could generate about 800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 400,000 homes.

MUCK READ Biden Wants To Take On The Fossil-Fuel Industry. Dozens Of His Officials Are Invested In It, Forbes: On the campaign trail, Joe Biden tried to distance himself from oil, gas and coal companies, pledging not to accept money from fossil-fuel firms. Dozens of those now serving in his administration, however, were less rigid about separating themselves from energy giants.

In fact, at least 74 Biden administration officials and nominees disclosed interests in the fossil-fuel sector, according to a review of federal disclosures by Forbes and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation.

THE NUCLEAR OPTION Decision on Minuteman to shape U.S. nuclear policy for decades, AP: For 50 years the Minuteman missile has been armed and ready, day and night, for nuclear war on a moments notice. It has never been launched into combat from its underground silo, but this year it became the prime target in a wider political battle over the condition and cost of the nations nuclear arsenal.

Minuteman was not intended to last half a century, so its overdue to be replaced or refurbished. Some see this as a moment to push for scrapping it altogether, abandoning one leg of the traditional nuclear triad weapons that can be launched from land, sea and air. Most in Congress favor keeping the land-based leg by replacing Minuteman with a new missile; President Joe Bidens position is not yet clear.

REPORT CARD State Department Covid review blasts 'void of U.S. international leadership' under Trump and Pompeo, by Betsy Woodruff Swan: Portions of a draft report, obtained by POLITICO, cited former President Donald Trumps decision to withdraw the U.S. from international forums as weakening U.S. global leadership.

The findings are detailed in a draft of the State Departments wide-ranging Covid-19 Interim Review, a report laying out what the Department learned in the first year of the global pandemic. POLITICO reviewed excerpts of a draft of the report, which has not been finalized. The draft notes deep frustrations that career State Department officials harbored regarding the past administrations pandemic response.

CLICKER Americans Up and Moved During the Pandemic. Heres Where They Went, WSJ: Washington lost residents the net loss from the nations capital nearly doubled from the previous year. A big portion went to nearby suburbs.

THE BRAVE NEW WORLD Army of fake fans boosts Chinas messaging on Twitter, AP: A seven-month investigation by the Associated Press and the Oxford Internet Institute found that Chinas rise on Twitter has been powered by an army of fake accounts that have retweeted Chinese diplomats and state media tens of thousands of times, covertly amplifying propaganda that can reach hundreds of millions of people often without disclosing the fact that the content is government-sponsored.

MEDIAWATCH Katherine Foley is now an FDA reporter at POLITICO. She previously was a health and science reporter at Quartz. David Lim will now author POLITICOs Prescription Pulse with Lauren Gardner. He currently is an FDA reporter.

SPOTTED: Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and his wife, Susan, in the Delta Sky Club in Detroit on Tuesday before the days first flight to Washington. Pic

TRUMP ALUMNI Christopher Gray is now VP in the office of strategic engagement at the American Bankers Association. He previously was deputy COS at the Small Business Administration.

TRANSITIONS James Rubin has been appointed diplomatic counsellor to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Developments incoming Secretary General Mathias Cormann. He currently is a partner at Ballard Partners. Elizabeth Stanley is now a principal at Resolution Public Affairs. She previously was COS for Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.).

Dan Gottlieb is now senior comms adviser for the Democratic Party of Georgia. He previously was comms director for Sima Ladjevardian, the Democratic nominee for Congress in Texas 2nd District. Michael Allen, Jonathan Burks, Kristen Silverberg, Eric Lorber and Roger Zakheim have started the Forum for American Leadership, focusing on free trade, defense, the U.S. intel budget and advocating for an assertive foreign policy around the world. Gabriel Noronha, who worked on Iran policy at the State Department in the Trump administration, is the executive director.

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POLITICO Playbook PM: Schumer and McConnell scuffle over election reform and WaPo makes historic hire - POLITICO - Politico

TEHRAN - A human rights activist says that most Arab monarchies are betraying the Palestinian cause witnessing continuous Israeli oppression against the Palestinians.

"The majority of Arab regimes are betraying the Palestinian cause, and they have all witnessed years of continuous oppression and hate crimes against the Palestinians," Firas Al Najim, head of Canadian Defenders for Human Rights, tells Tehran Times.

Israel has normalized diplomatic relations with some Arab countries such as the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan. Israel tries to portray normalization deals with these countries as an alliance with the Arab countries against Iran.

But the big problem is that Arab people disagree with this move supposing normalization of ties with the Zionist regime as a betrayal to Arab identity.

"In reality, they are truly betraying the Arab identity they claim to represent and care about, especially when many are normalizing with the enemies of Arabs, Muslims, Christians and all of humanity," Al Najim emphasizes.

"Most Arab regimes are installed by the UK colonial system that helped establish the illegitimate Zionist regime inside the Middle East (West Asia) and holy lands."

Following is the text of the interview:

Q: What is the position and importance of Palestine in the Islamic world?

A: Holy Palestine has the first Qibla meaning the first direction where all Muslims prayed towards. It is the al Aqsa mosque and the unique land where prophet Muhammad the divine messenger of Islam, ascended to the heavens, a special event named the Isra and Mi'raj. It is the land where many prophets were born, lived, and also buried, such as the father of all prophets Ibrahim and Jesus that Muslims hold very highly and are also waiting for his reappearance at the end of times when the world is full of oppression and corruption alongside a descendant of the prophet Muhammad named Imam Mahdi. Palestine is a very holy land for all Muslims from all different sects, and they all feel the oppression and the occupation of that beloved land, and they all feel a necessity to assist in liberating that land.

Q: How do you assess Arab regimes' performance when it comes to Palestine?

A: The majority of Arab regimes are betraying the Palestinian cause, and they have all witnessed years of continuous oppression and hate crimes against the Palestinians. In reality, they are genuinely betraying the Arab identity they claim to represent and care about, especially when many are normalizing with the enemies of Arabs, Muslims, Christians, and all of humanity. Most Arab regimes are installed by the UK colonial system that helped establish the illegitimate Zionist regime inside the Middle East (West Asia) and holy lands.

Q: How do you see Western powers' attitude towards Palestine?

A: The western powers, unfortunately, continue to play the double standard role or fully support the Zionist occupiers of Palestine. They claim to care and fight for human rights, justice, equality and international law but Israel violated and continues to violate all international laws and principles that the western systems promote, and Canada is included in this hypocrisy, unfortunately. The western systems have been exposed to the Palestinian cause as the problems in that land are constantly developing, and the war crimes are apparent, and nothing is indeed done to punish the perpetrators and criminals in the UN or elsewhere.

Q: How is Palestine news reflected in Western media?

A: Western media and mainstream media rarely cover detailed stories about Palestine or the actual pain and sufferings the Palestinian people live under with this 73-year-old brutal occupation. Many times, the media paints the Israeli occupiers as a victim and affected side. This is also why Western nations have been silent overall towards their governments' weak stands towards this longstanding conflict. Otherwise, the western nations would have held their government officials responsible for not doing enough to help the Palestinian people reclaim their fundamental rights and sovereignty.

Q: What are the roots of Islamophobia in the West?

A: Islam phobia in the west is mainly from the mainstream media that assisted in painting a defamed picture of Muslims that Always affiliated them with terrorist attacks or extremist groups such as al Qaeda or ISIS, and these are all Wahhabi indoctrinated groups that roots back to the Wahhabi Saudi regime that was established by the British colonialists and helped spread this deviant ideology in the name of Islam that spreads hate and intolerance. This was an old plan as they always feared Islamic influence that could spread and affect the world as valid and pure Islam is based on logic and proof, and this they found could destabilize their control of the world.

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The majority of Arab regimes are betraying the Palestinian cause: human rights activist - Tehran Times

Washington, D.C., May 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Bahai International Community is concerned that a recent intensification of the persecution of the Bahais in Iran appears to be underway, signaling the implementation of a larger plan by the Iranian government to increase the persecution of the community, the largest non-Muslim religious minority in the country.

A campaign of raids on Bahai homes and baseless arrests of Bahais is currently unfolding across Iran. So far, dozens of Baha'i homes have been raided by authorities in Baharestan, Isfahan, and Shiraz, resulting in the detention of over 20 Bahais and more who can be called to prison at any time. These raids and arrests are the latest in a long list of recent incidents of persecution, including the confiscation Bahai-owned properties in the village of Ivel in Mazandaran Province, a confidential directive from the Commission on Ethnicities, Sects and Religions in the town of Sari in Mazandaran Province to monitor and suppress Bahais, and the banning of the Bahais of Tehran from burying their loved ones in land previously allocated to them in Tehrans Khavaran cemetery. Such incidents are nothing less than an extensive government campaign, the aim of which is the systematic eradication of the Bahai community as a viable entity.

Waves of courageous domestic and international support for the Bahais in Iran has generated a global outcry in solidarity for the most basic human rights of Iranian citizens. As a result, one facet of the Governments campaign was reversed, as the Bahais of Tehran have now been able to bury five of their dead in Tehran's Khavaran cemetery, returning the situation to the previous arrangement which had been made for the community.

The recent events have proven that unity and solidarity are at the center of the achievement of human rights for all Iranians, said Diane Alai, representative to the United Nations of the Bahai International Community in Geneva, This support and solidarity is now essential in responding to the intensification of the persecution of the Bahais in Iran that is currently underway.

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Iran's oppression of Baha'is is unfolding with greater intensity - GlobeNewswire

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday added his voice to a growing chorus of political figures in the United States and around the world who have expressed alarm about Israeli forces' violence against Palestinian protesters in occupied East Jerusalem and deadly airstrikes on Gaza, along with retaliatory rocket fire from Palestinians.

"Palestinian children should not have to grow up under the constant violence and oppression of occupation, as so many do, and have done."Sen. Bernie Sanders

"I am extremely concerned by the growing conflict in Israel and Palestine," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. "Once again we are seeing how the irresponsible actions of government-allied right-wing extremists in Jerusalem can escalate quickly into devastating war."

In a message to the Biden administration, he added: "The United States must call for an immediate cease-fire and an end to provocative and illegal settlement activity. And we must also recommit to working with Israelis and Palestinians to finally end this conflict."

"Israeli children should not have to spend the night scared in bomb shelters, as many are doing tonight," he said. "Palestinian children should not have to grow up under the constant violence and oppression of occupation, as so many do, and have done."

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has repeatedly spoken out about recent Israeli actions and the Biden administration's response to conditions in the region, also shared a message about Palestinian children:

Palestinian children deserve advocates for their humanity, safety and security. No exceptions.

Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) May 11, 2021

The escalating violence on Tuesdayincluding an airstrike that destroyed a 13-story apartment building in Gazafollowed crackdowns on protests against attempts by Israeli forces and settler colonists to force Palestinians from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem.

Political leaders and human rights experts the world over condemned the violence and noted that the takeovers of Palestinian homes are violations of international law.

U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) urged the Biden administration to pressure Israel to "move away from annexation" and said that Congress should condition military aid to the country on whether the Israeli government is abiding by international law.

To protect lives, the Biden Administration must demand that Israel end these acts and move away from annexation and towards a two-state solution.

U.S. funding shouldn't be used to further human rights abuses.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) May 11, 2021

Should the Israeli government continue these actions and illegally annex territory, Congress must quickly and forcefully respondwith all options on the table. This includes the conditioning of military funding to Israel until the Israeli government abides by international laws.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) May 11, 2021

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"We cannot ignore the ongoing violence in Jerusalem and beyond as the Israeli government uses excessive force on worshippers at the Al-Aqsa mosque," U.S. Rep. Ral Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said Tuesday. "We need to have serious conversations about U.S. taxpayer dollars funding actions like these."

Some advocates for peace went further. In an email Tuesday, the U.S.-based anti-war group CodePink said:

What is happening in Palestine is heartbreaking and people around the world are taking to the streets demanding a just and lasting end to the root cause of the violence: Israeli apartheid. This week marks 73 years since hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were violently displaced from their homes to make way for the Zionist project. We have the obligation to be loudly and proudly in solidarity with Palestine and Palestinians, so that not one more family will lose their homes or loved ones to Israeli attacks.

In a tweet, CodePink slammed U.S. military aid to Israel and promoted a petition calling on President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to "stop funding Israeli apartheid and violence."

The US government has Palestinian blood on its hands! By continuing to send Israel $3.8 billion in "aid" every year, the US has made itself complicit in the horrific violence against the Palestinian people. Sign the petition to @POTUS & @SecBlinken!https://t.co/eUNrMYJG45

CODEPINK (@codepink) May 11, 2021

According to Jewish Voice for Peace, activists and members of Congress on Tuesday delivered another petition to the U.S. State Department calling for the Israeli government and settlers to stop ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah.

Critics of Israeli settler colonialism also protested in New York City and outside the State Department in Washington, D.C.:

As of Tuesday evening, according to the New York Times, at least 30 Palestinians, including 10 children, had been killed and another 203 others were injured in recent days, while three people had been killed in Israel and at least 100 were wounded.

During a press briefing on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the president's support for "Israel's security, for its legitimate right to defend itself and its people, is fundamental and will never waver."

"Jerusalem, a city of such importance to people of faith around the world, must be a place of co-existence," said Psaki. She added that evictions of Palestinian families "work against our common interests in achieving a solution to the conflict."

This post has been updated with comment from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

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Sanders Says US Must Call for Cease-Fire and End to 'Provocative and Illegal Settlement Activity' by Israel - Common Dreams

On March 30th, the French Senate voted in favour of legislation which, if passed, will ban girls under the age of 18 from wearing hijabs in public spaces. This change is not yet in effect and must first be approved by the National Assembly. The proposed legislation will impose the prohibition in the public space of any conspicuous religious sign by minors and of any dress or clothing which would signify an interiorizationof women over men, including a ban on burkinis (full-coverage swimsuits) in public pools. Hijab-wearing mothers may also be disallowed from accompanying their children on school trips.These laws, which are part of the proposed Separatism Bill, violently target the more than five million Muslims living in France.

The controversial bill against separatism appears to validate and legalize Frances rising anti-Muslim sentiment. For many, additional amendments have confirmed fears that the French state is using the bill to attack Muslims and specifically, Muslim women for their faith. One of the more common criticisms is that French girls are considered above the age of sexual majority at 15. A 15-year-old girl under this legislation would be allowed to legally consent to sexual relations, but she would not have the right to freely wear a symbol of her faith.

Frances History with the Veil

France has long had a fractious relationship with the veil. The latest drive to ban minors from wearing the hijab stems from a movement that has targeted women wearing the burqa and the niqab since 9/11.

In February 2004, the National Assembly began debating a bill which would prohibit religious symbols in schools, including Muslim headscarves, Jewish skullcaps, and large Christian crosses. The state has often argued that religious symbols like veils conflict with European principles of individualism and enlightenment.

A few years later, in 2011, France would pass a law prohibiting women from wearing the niqab. This ban was the first of its kind and clearly demonstrated how far France would go to further marginalize Muslim women. Right-wing parties, including the Republicans led by Nicolas Sarkozy and the National Rally led by Marine Le Pen, affirmed Frances Christian heritage. A national debate on the place of Muslims in France followed.

The European Courts upheld the ban in 2014, claiming their decision represented the preservation of national integrity. In 2016, several coastal towns introduced the burkini ban.

History shows that the new Separatism Bill is not a recent phenomenon. France has gradually introduced and enforced draconian and discriminative policies against Muslims in the name of national integrity.

Hijab Oppression or Liberation?

The French governments vision of the hijab as an oppressive tool is a prime example of the orientalist gaze. Palestinian-American researcher Edward Said introduced the concept of orientalism in his 1978 book by the same name. According to Said, the West continues to perceive and uphold the perception of the East as backwards and less developed. Indeed, it is still easy to find orientalist ideas in Western medias representation of Muslim women.

From a Western perspective, the veil is exotic and threatening. A Muslim womans veil is a sign of her oppression. Since the emergence of second-wave feminism, a womans autonomy over her own body has been represented in the West as her being able to dress how she wants, show as much skin as she wants, and have sex when she wants. But if women have the right to make decisions about their bodies and how those bodies are exposed, why is the French government choosing to strip Muslim girls of their right to dress modestly?

Researcher and journalist Rafia Zakira has argued that white feminism has limited feminist liberation to sexual liberation. Zakira points to a shift from a deep and complex movement to a movement centred around the consumption of sex. Within this movement, its biggest casualty is the stereotyping and exclusion of Muslim feminists, who struggle against terror, obscurantism and the weight of patriarchal domination, all relegated to a position of inferiority, based on their refusal to affirm that freedom essential means the freedom to have sex, she writes.

Feminist movements in the West are often defined and led by white women, who focus on issues within their own societies that centre their own concerns. This approach leaves behind those with other experiences and fails to take into account the ways even common issues may be filtered through different racial or cultural lenses.

Thus, the feminist movement, particularly as the media presents it, focuses on sexual liberation and a womans right to nakedness on her own terms. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that the French government has used mainstream assumptions about the hijab to justify the ban as a means to empower women.

The Western lens does not view the hijab, or other religious coverings Muslim women wear, as empowering. But for many of the people who choose to wear a headscarf, the hijab represents thousands of years of culture and tradition. The choice to wear the hijab or not to wear the hijab is a matter of personal autonomy. It is not for the French government or any other to tell Muslim women what they should or should not wear.

The idea that Muslim women must be freed from a life of oppression, and that said freedom must be accomplished by imposing arbitrary bans, is deeply rooted in both a white savior complex and the colonial mindset. Dictating how minority ethnic women should act and what they should wear under the assumption that they need to be saved is the complete opposite of empowerment.

The Western perception of empowerment is not the only one. The way to truly empower women is to create safe and welcoming environments where they can feel included, irrespective of what they choose to wear. To be truly liberated, a woman must have the right to choose what she wears without society or the government prescribing for her.

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#HandsOffMyHijab: Women Cannot Be Empowered By Taking Away Their Autonomy - The Organization for World Peace

The proposed bill would aim to restrict Zimbabweans from criticising the country abroad

Zimbabwe is planning to introduce a law to punish people who are deemed "unpatriotic" because they criticise the country when abroad - and it has left activists feeling nervous.

Constitutional lawyer and opposition politician Lovemore Madhuku calls the proposal "dangerous", saying that "no state can define patriotism".

People seen as unpatriotic for allegedly undermining the national interest abroad could face criminal charges if the measures being considered are passed.

The move is part of a plan to improve the government's international reputation but campaigners and opposition parties argue it is another "vehicle for oppression", in the words of Dr Madhuku.

"Activists travel - we are the voice of the voiceless and speak the truth," says campaigner Rita Nyampinga, who spent years in the trade union movement.

"The government has always tried to persuade its citizens to behave in a patriotic way to maintain unity"", Source: Pupurai Togarepi , Source description: Zanu-PF Chief Whip, Image: Pupurai Togarepi

But those who back the proposed Patriotic Bill, as it has been called, say that it is about national cohesion.

"The government has always tried to persuade its citizens to behave in a patriotic way to maintain unity," Chief Whip for the governing Zanu-PF party Pupurai Togarepi told the BBC.

"But after the coming in of opposition parties [in 1999] many agendas came to the fore and it led to a situation where you are at war as a country.

"It is difficult to manage behaviour and you cannot arbitrarily arrest people without a law to back that."

The MP, who seconded a motion in parliament in March calling for the law, said the measures should also apply to the media and NGOs.

The reputations of both Zanu-PF and the government have been damaged over the past two decades.

Controversial policies, such as the seizure of white-owned farms, economic mismanagement and alleged human rights abuses, including the killing of opposition activists, have led to its pariah status among Western nations.

The US and EU imposed economic and travel sanctions on party officials, military figures and companies over the alleged abuses and also election irregularities.

Story continues

The government, however, believes the sanctions were a result of pressure from opposition activists and civil society groups.

Opposition supporters and police clashed in the wake of 2018's disputed election results

For years the government has accused the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, of getting too close to Western diplomats. It says that its representations to US congressional hearings as well as other foreign meetings have tarnished the image of the country.

Those who back the measure think that a patriotism law would address this negative portrayal, which they say has discouraged foreign investment.

Outlining the proposals, government official Virginia Mabhiza told the state-owned Sunday Mail newspaper that "conniving with hostile foreign governments and nationals to inflict harm on the country and its citizens will be criminalised".

"In the event of a conviction, stiff penalties will be imposed," the Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs permanent secretary added.

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This has had a chilling impact on people like Ms Nyampinga, the 63-year-old veteran campaigner.

She has been arrested a number of times over the past 40 years and was left traumatised by her last detention in May 2019.

Talking to the BBC about the debate in parliament over the plans for a Patriotic Bill, she broke down and cried remembering her arrest, along with six others, after returning from a peace-building workshop in the Maldives.

They were charged with subverting the government and accused of undergoing insurgency and weapons training.

"Even those who live in the diaspora, when they speak about their experiences in Zimbabwe it does not mean they are not being patriotic"", Source: Rita Nyampinga, Source description: Civil society activist, Image: Rita Nyampinga

Though released on remand, after 15 months the charges still hang over her and she believes a new law could shrink civil liberties further, restricting freedom of expression.

"If I cross the border and people ask me why I am shopping in South Africa and I say these items are not there in Zimbabwe, am I being unpatriotic?" she asks, suggesting that people could be unfairly targeted.

"Even those who live in the diaspora, when they speak about their experiences [in Zimbabwe] it does not mean they are not being patriotic."

Zanu-PF MP Mr Togarepi denies that the law will be used to stifle criticism, but acknowledges that people will be expected to express those views in Zimbabwe only.

"We are not saying we are not going to be criticised but we cannot allow a Zimbabwean to go and meet those who are hostile to us You can criticise me here in Zimbabwe, just don't go there and do it," he says.

An increase in arrests in Zimbabwe, though, seems to contradict the view that people are free to speak out at home.

Hopewell Chin'ono was arrested last year after he was accused of tarnishing the reputation of the president's family

Over the last year, more than a dozen journalists, civil society activists and opposition members have been detained.

Neither have private citizens been spared, according to the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. It says it has represented a number of people charged for criticising President Emmerson Mnangagwa using a law which criminalises "undermining the president".

The government has said there is international precedent for the Patriotic Bill, citing the US Logan Act.

This is a rarely invoked measure enacted in 1799 aimed at preventing private citizens from conducting foreign affairs without the permission or involvement of the US government.

Several people have been accused of violating the law, including Reverend Jesse Jackson for travelling to the Kremlin in the 1980s. None of the accusations led to prosecutions.

"Look at [Julian] Assange. Why is he being arrested and taken to America? It is because he has violated their interests," Mr Togarepi says.

It is not clear when the proposed bill will be brought before parliament, but presidential spokesman George Charamba has said that it is next on the legislative agenda.

If it is passed, lawyer Dr Madhuku says it will be challenged in court, where he feels it would be deemed unconstitutional. He wonders why the government and MPs are even considering this.

"It is unnecessary, undesirable and dangerous," he adds.

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The Zimbabwe bill that could outlaw 'unpatriotic acts' - Yahoo News

RALEIGH According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans of Filipino descent had a median household income of just over $100,000 in 2019. The median household income of white Americans that year was about $66,000.

Based on these two facts, should we conclude that our society is pervasively biased in favor of Filipino immigrants, or of Americans whose ancestors once immigrated from the Philippines? Should we draw the same conclusion about Americans with ancestral ties to India (their median household income is $136,000), China ($85,000), or Nigeria ($69,000)?

No, we shouldnt. That would be an exercise in bad math and faulty logic. Differences in household incomes or other measures among ethnic groups have many potential explanations. Cultures, traditions, and family structures vary. Educational levels and labor-force participation rates vary. Settlement patterns vary. Preferences vary.

If youre with me so far, then you likely dont agree with a key tenet of critical race theory. Pieced together in the 1980s and 1990s out of disparate strands of Marxist and postmodernist thought, critical race theory seeks to explain gaps in income, wealth, education attainment, and other measures as primarily the product of discriminatory social structures rather than individual choices.

Its parent idea, critical theory, was concocted by Marxist intellectuals of the mid-20th century in the aftermath of disillusionment with revolutionary socialism as actually practiced behind the Iron Curtain. Some scholars and activists began applying their new ideas to the judicial system, yielding critical legal studies. Others concluded that prior Marxist analysis had focused too much on class at the expense of other structures of oppression, devising critical race theory (and even more narrow and esoteric applications) not only as an approach to radical scholarship but also as a guide to radical political action.

What does all this have to do with the public-policy conversation in North Carolina? Plenty unfortunately.

Do you believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion? So do I, at least when the terms are properly defined. Surrounding yourself with people of differing views and backgrounds is often good for you. It can make organizations and teams stronger. I also think people ought to be treated fairly, that they shouldnt be discriminated against based on race, ethnicity, or other characteristics that have nothing to do with performing a job well. And I think its best to include, not exclude. Dont you agree?

These beliefs are, alas, not what the current Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion movement is all about. Much of it is just critical race theory rigorously and sometimes ruthlessly applied to workplaces, government, philanthropy, and the social sector. It assumes statistical disparities must be the product of discriminatory practices and attitudes deeply embedded in our social structures. Therefore, it embraces the use of discriminatory practices and attitudes as the only proper response.

Let me explain that latter point more clearly. If disparities of outcomes are a sufficient proof of systemic racism and other forms of structural oppression, then the only way to know if the oppression has been dismantled would be for those disparities to go away. The logical goal must be an equality of results, not just an equality of opportunity. If that requires ongoing discrimination against privileged groups racial and ethnic preferences in hiring, contracting, and higher education, for example so be it.

Its all utter nonsense. Its based on simplistic and easily discredited analysis, and employs crude tools such as implicit bias tests that are both methodologically unsound and highly destructive of real human relationships.

Still, Id pay little attention to critical race theorists if they confined their nonsense to scarcely read journals and sparsely attended classes. In a free society, we all have an equal right to be very, very wrong.

But critical race theory has now spread far beyond the cloister. Its advocates seek to transform corporate governance, our justice system, and the curriculum of our public schools. Its assumptions are incompatible with freedom, liberal education, and equality under the law. Those assumptions must be fully revealed, clearly understood, and relentlessly opposed.

John Hood is a Carolina Journal columnist and author of the forthcoming novel Mountain Folk, a historical fantasy set during the American Revolution (MountainFolkBook.com).

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John Hood | Race theory is dangerous nonsense - Richmond County Daily Journal

Mahantha Thakur, one of the two chairs of the Janata Samajbadi Party, has refused to be part of the new government formation.

Issuing a statement on Monday midnight, Thakur said that his partys priority is getting its agendas addressed rather than government formation or being part of any government.

The statement followed President Bidya Devi Bhandaris call to parties to stake claim to a new government by Thursday 9pm after Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli had lost the confidence of the House on Monday evening.

Thakurs statement also contradicts the view of Upendra Yadav, the other chair of the Janata Samajbadi, who is willing to support the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) to form a coalition government.

Thakurs assertion makes the government formation process even trickier.

That the Janata Samajbadi Party, which has 32 votes, is vertically divided was also evident in the House during Monday's voting.

Fifteen lawmakers from the Thakur faction stayed neutral, as the leader had announced while addressing the House.

The Yadav factions 15 lawmakers, however, voted against Olis confidence motion.

The Congress and the Maoist Centre, which jointly have 110 seats, need 26 votes more to reach the magic number of 136 to form a coalition government.

Without the entire Janata Samajbadi support, the new government formation does not look likely. One of the ways the Congress and the Maoist Centre can form a coalition government, with the support of 15 lawmakers of the Yadav faction of the Janata Samajbadi, is if lawmakers from the Madhav Nepal-Jhala Nath Khanal faction resign.

The 28 Nepal-Khanal faction lawmakers were absent in Mondays House meeting and they did not vote.

Thakur in his statement has said that it has been in public knowledge that for the last few weeks the party has been holding talks with the Oli government in order to address the demands of Madhesis, Janajatis, Adivasis, Tharus, Muslims, women and other marginalised communities.

The other demands include withdrawing cases and releasing party cadres and leaders, amendments to the constitution and making public a report prepared by a commission that studied oppression during the Madhes movement, according to the statement.

So as a responsible political party, the Janata Samajbadi Party will continuously work and struggle for Madhesis, Janajatais, Adivasis, Tharus, Muslims, women and other marginalised communities, said Thakur in the statement. It is against our party's objective and the spirit of the Madhes movement to be involved in participating in any government or getting involved in forming any alternative government. Such activities will sure create instability and affect our efforts to get our demands fulfilled.

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Janata Samajbadi's Thakur not to support government formation process - The Kathmandu Post

The New York Times

When the government ordered women in her mostly Muslim community to be fitted with contraceptive devices, Qelbinur Sedik pleaded for an exemption. She was nearly 50 years old, she told officials in Xinjiang. She had obeyed the governments birth limits and had only one child. It was no use. The workers threatened to take her to the police if she continued resisting, she said. She gave in and went to a government clinic where a doctor, using metal forceps, inserted an intrauterine device to prevent pregnancy. She wept through the procedure. I felt like I was no longer a normal woman, Sedik said, choking up as she described the 2017 ordeal. Like I was missing something. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Across much of China, authorities are encouraging women to have more children, as they try to stave off a demographic crisis from a declining birthrate. But in the far western region of Xinjiang, they are forcing them to have fewer, as they tighten their grip on Muslim ethnic minorities. It is part of a vast and repressive social reengineering campaign by a Communist Party determined to eliminate any perceived challenge to its rule, in this case, ethnic separatism. Over the past few years, the party, under its top leader, Xi Jinping, has moved aggressively to subdue Uyghurs and other Central Asian minorities in Xinjiang, putting hundreds of thousands into internment camps and prisons. Authorities have placed the region under tight surveillance, sent residents to work in factories and placed children in boarding schools. By targeting Muslim women, the authorities are going even further, attempting to orchestrate a demographic shift that will affect the population for generations. Birthrates in the region have already plunged in recent years, as the use of invasive birth control procedures has risen, findings that were previously documented by a researcher, Adrian Zenz, with The Associated Press. While authorities have said the procedures are voluntary, interviews with more than a dozen Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim women and men from Xinjiang, as well as a review of official statistics, government notices and reports in the state-run media, depict a coercive effort by the Chinese Communist Party to control the communitys reproductive rights. Authorities pressured women to use IUDs or get sterilized. As they recuperated at home, government officials were sent to live with them to watch for signs of discontent. One woman described having to endure her minders groping. If they had too many children or refused contraceptive procedures, they faced steep fines or, worse, detention in an internment camp. In the camps, the women were at risk of even more abuse. Some former detainees say they were made to take drugs that stopped their menstrual cycles. One woman said she had been raped in a camp. To rights advocates and Western officials, the governments repression in Xinjiang is tantamount to crimes against humanity and genocide, in large part because of the efforts to stem the population growth of Muslim minorities. The Trump administration in January was the first government to declare the crackdown a genocide, with reproductive oppression as a leading reason. The Biden administration affirmed the label in March. Sediks experience, reported in The Guardian and elsewhere, helped form the basis for the decision by the U.S. government. It was one of the most detailed and compelling first-person accounts we had, said Kelley E. Currie, a former U.S. ambassador who was involved in the governments discussions. It helped to put a face on the horrifying statistics we were seeing. Beijing has accused its critics of pushing an anti-China agenda. The recent declines in the regions birthrates, the government has said, were the result of authorities fully enforcing long-standing birth restrictions. The sterilizations and contraceptive procedures, it said, freed women from backward attitudes about procreation and religion. Whether to have birth control or what contraceptive method they choose are completely their own wishes, Xu Guixiang, a Xinjiang government spokesman, said at a news conference in March. No one nor any agency shall interfere. To women in Xinjiang, the orders from the government were clear: They did not have a choice. Last year, a community worker in Urumqi, the regional capital, where Sedik had lived, sent messages saying women between 18 and 59 had to submit to pregnancy and birth control inspections. If you fight with us at the door and if you refuse to cooperate with us, you will be taken to the police station, the worker wrote, according to screenshots of the WeChat messages that Sedik shared with The New York Times. Do not gamble with your life, one message read, dont even try. I Lost All Hope in Myself All her life, Sedik, an ethnic Uzbek, had thought of herself as a model citizen. After she graduated from college, she married and threw herself into her work, teaching Chinese to Uyghur elementary school students. Mindful of the rules, Sedik did not get pregnant until she had gotten approval from her employer. She had only one child, a daughter, in 1993. Sedik could have had two children. The rules at the time allowed ethnic minorities to have slightly bigger families than those of the majority Han Chinese ethnic group, particularly in the countryside. The government even awarded Sedik a certificate of honor for staying within the limits. Then, in 2017, everything changed. As the government corralled Uyghurs and Kazakhs into mass internment camps, it moved in tandem to ramp up enforcement of birth controls. Sterilization rates in Xinjiang surged by almost sixfold from 2015 to 2018, to just over 60,000 procedures, even as they plummeted around the country, according to calculations by Zenz. The campaign in Xinjiang is at odds with a broader push by the government since 2015 to encourage births, including by providing tax subsidies and free IUD removals. But from 2015 to 2018, Xinjiangs share of the countrys total new IUD insertions increased, even as use of the devices fell nationwide. The contraception campaign appeared to work. Birthrates in minority-dominated counties in the region plummeted from 2015 to 2018, based on Zenzs calculations. Several of these counties have stopped publishing population data, but Zenz calculated that the birthrates in minority areas probably continued to fall in 2019 by just over 50% from 2018, based on figures from other counties. The sharp drop in birthrates in the region was shocking and clearly in part a result of the campaign to tighten enforcement of birth control policies, said Wang Feng, a professor of sociology and an expert in Chinese population policies at the University of California, Irvine. But other factors could include a fall in the number of women of childbearing age, later marriages and postponed births, he said. As the government pushes back against growing criticism, it has withheld some key statistics, including annually published county-level data on birthrates and birth control use for 2019. Other official data for the region as a whole showed a steep drop in IUD insertions and sterilizations that year, though the number of sterilizations was still mostly higher than before the campaign began. In Beijings depiction, the campaign is a victory for the region's Muslim women. In the process of deradicalization, some womens minds have also been liberated, a January report by a Xinjiang government research center read. They have avoided the pain of being trapped by extremism and being turned into reproductive tools. Women like Sedik, who had obeyed the rules, were not spared. After the IUD procedure, Sedik suffered from heavy bleeding and headaches. She later had the device secretly removed, then reinserted. In 2019, she decided to be sterilized. The government had become so strict, and I could no longer take the IUD, said Sedik, who now lives in the Netherlands after fleeing China in 2019. I lost all hope in myself. The Women of Xinjiang Are in Danger The penalties for not obeying the government were steep. A Han Chinese woman who violated the birth regulations would face a fine, while a Uyghur or Kazakh woman would face possible detention. When Gulnar Omirzakh had her third child in 2015, officials in her northern village registered the birth. But three years later, they said she had violated birth limits and owed $2,700 in fines. Officials said they would detain Omirzakh and her two daughters if she did not pay. She borrowed money from her relatives. Later, she fled to Kazakhstan. The women of Xinjiang are in danger, Omirzakh said in a telephone interview. The government wants to replace our people. The threat of detention was real. Three women told The Times they had met other detainees in internment camps who had been locked up for violating birth restrictions. Dina Nurdybay, a Kazakh woman, said she helped one woman write a letter to the authorities in which she blamed herself for being ignorant and having too many children. Such accounts are corroborated by a 137-page government document leaked last year from Karakax County, in southwestern Xinjiang, which revealed that one of the most common reasons cited for detention was violating birth planning policies. Those who refused to terminate illegal pregnancies or pay fines would be referred to the internment camps, according to one government notice from a county in Ili, unearthed by Zenz, the researcher. Once women disappeared into the regions internment camps facilities operated under secrecy many were subjected to interrogations. For some, the ordeal was worse. Tursunay Ziyawudun was detained in a camp in Ili prefecture for 10 months for traveling to Kazakhstan. She said that on three occasions, she was taken to a dark cell where two to three masked men raped her and used electric batons to forcibly penetrate her. You become their toy, Ziyawudun said in a telephone interview from the United States, where she now lives, as she broke down sobbing. You just want to die at the time, but unfortunately you dont. Gulbahar Jalilova, the third former detainee, said in an interview that she had been beaten in a camp and that a guard exposed himself during an interrogation and wanted her to perform oral sex. The three former detainees, along with two others who spoke to The Times, also described being regularly forced to take unidentified pills or receive injections of medication that caused nausea and fatigue. Eventually, a few of them said, they stopped menstruating. The former detainees accounts could not be independently verified because tight restrictions in Xinjiang make unfettered access to the camps impossible. The Chinese government has forcefully denied all allegations of abuse in the facilities. The sexual assault and torture cannot exist, said Xu, the regional spokesman, at a news briefing in February. Beijing has sought to undermine the credibility of the women who have spoken out, accusing them of lying and of poor morals, all while claiming to be a champion of womens rights. We Are All Chinese Even in their homes, the women did not feel safe. Uninvited Chinese Communist Party cadres would show up and had to be let in. The party sends out more than a million workers to regularly visit, and sometimes stay in, the homes of Muslims, as part of a campaign called Pair Up and Become Family. To many Uyghurs, the cadres were little different from spies. The cadres were tasked with reporting on whether the families they visited showed signs of extremist behavior. For women, this included any resentment they might have felt about state-mandated contraceptive procedures. When the party cadres came to stay in 2018, Zumret Dawut had just been forcibly sterilized. Four Han cadres visited her in Urumqi, bringing yogurt and eggs to help with the recovery, she recalled. They were also armed with questions: Did she have any issues with the sterilization operation? Was she dissatisfied with the governments policy? I was so scared that if I said the wrong thing they would send me back to the camps, said Dawut, a mother of three. So I just told them, We are all Chinese people and we have to do what the Chinese law says. But the officials unwelcome gaze settled also on Dawuts 11-year-old daughter, she said. One cadre, a 19-year-old man who was assigned to watch the child, would sometimes call Dawut and suggest taking her daughter to his home. She was able to rebuff him with excuses that the child was sick, she said. Other women reported having to fend off advances even in the company of their husbands. Sedik, the Uzbek teacher, was still recovering from a sterilization procedure when her relative her husbands boss showed up. She was expected to cook, clean and entertain him even though she was in pain from the operation. Worse, he would ask to hold her hand or to kiss and hug her, she said. Mostly, Sedik agreed to his requests, terrified that if she refused, he would tell the government that she was an extremist. She rejected him only once: when he asked to sleep with her. It went on like this every month or so for two years until she left the country. He would say, Dont you like me? Dont you love me? she recalled. If you refuse me, you are refusing the government. I felt so humiliated, oppressed and angry, she said. But there was nothing I could do. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 2021 The New York Times Company

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Fewer hurricanes expected in Pacific ocean this year - Yahoo News

Storm the NIH ACT UP Action, May 1990 / Image: NIH History Office

Sarah Schulmans new history of AIDS activism group ACT UP NY is a definitive and instructive history of how outsiders forced the government to accept that they mattered.

Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 19871993

Sarah Schulman

Let the Record Show, Sarah Schulmans monumental new history of ACT UP New York, is a war chronicle in which the teller is both scribe and veteran. Schulman joined the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) a few months after it was founded in 1987. At that point, six years into the crisis, there were an estimated 500,000 people living with HIV in the United States alone, there were still no effective medical treatments, and the U.S. governments anemic response to the pandemic was a toxic cocktail of homophobia and hysteria.

ACT UP was most effective when it had the broadest coalition of members. As such, its story cannot be accurately told in a traditional narrative format that focused on a few heroes and their journey.

ACT UP burst onto this scene determined to confront apathy and create change on every level, from getting new drugs approved to creating alternative media through which to disseminate accurate information about the crisis. As the founding chapter, ACT UP New York was the mother ship, but 148 other chapters, all acting autonomously, have since sprung up around the globe. Unquestionably, they have been one of the most effective activist movements in modern U.S. historythough as Schulman chronicles, their successes did not come without great costs. In fact, Let the Record Show is in part a grand accounting, tallying up what was won, what was lost, and the process through which those battles were fought. Only by this kind of rigorous analysis can the lessons of ACT UP be passed on to current and future activists.

By the time she joined ACT UP, Schulman had already been writing about AIDS for four years, and it has remained a focus of her work ever since. Prior to Let the Record Show, she published several other nonfiction books that significantly dealt with AIDS, and four novels as well. In 2001, with fellow ACT UP member Jim Hubbard, she created the ACT UP Oral History Project, through which they conducted long-form video interviews with 188 members of ACT UP NY over the course of seventeen years.

Let the Record Show is a work of considerable formal daring composed almost entirely of quotes taken from those oral histories, woven together with summaries and interstitials that cohere those voices into a narrative. As Schulman writes in her preface, this is a book in which all people with AIDS are equally important. This isnt hollow rhetoric: one of Schulmans overarching themes is that ACT UP was most effective when it had the broadest coalition of members, and that even its narrowest successesthe ones that seemed to stem from or give benefit to just a small section of the groupwere only possible because of the power of the broader collective. As such, the story of ACT UP could not be accurately told in a traditional narrative format that focused on a few heroes and their journey. Unfortunately, as Schulman points out, this is all too often how ACT UP has been historicized, particularly in films like How to Survive a Plague (2012), which focused on a small group of white cisgender gay men who worked with the government to develop new drug treatments.

Let the Record Show resists this narrow framing, and instead uses a choral structure, weaving together many voices and letting none dominate. Schulman doesnt replace one set of heroes with another; rather, she destroys the idea of singular heroes at all. This is a political choice that creates a more honest representation of ACT UP, and it is a strength of the bookbut like all strengths, it contains its own weakness. To make room for these voices, Let the Record Show weighs in at over 700 pages. It at times can get repetitive, and the equal weighting of every voice can flatten their particulars, making it easy to lose the thread of who is speaking at any given moment. Let the Record Show is a powerful resource: no one will henceforth write about ACT UP without referencing it, but it is a book few are likely to read straight through. For this reason, Schulman has divided the text into four major thematic sections, and includes an introductory note on how to read it.

However, despite its many voices, Let the Record Show is unquestionably the product of Schulmans unique vision. Readers familiar with her work will see her fingerprints everywhere: in the analysis of the ways in which disagreements among allies can morph into projections of enemies (Conflict Is Not Abuse, 2016); in the examination of the psychic toll of homophobia, marginalization, and family rejection (Ties that Bind, 2009); and in her nuanced understanding of political tactics (Israel/Palestine and the Queer International, 2012), to name just a few.

But this is no retreading of familiar ground. Instead, it feels like the capstone of a career. Fighting AIDS helped Schulman to understand everything: politics, family, poverty, power, gender, race, sexuality, theater, narrative structure, and the world. Now she is bringing the resulting revelations back to bear on the fight against AIDS itself, and we are all the richer for it.

Schulman imparts many lessons in Let the Record Show, but reading it as the world was engulfed in another global pandemic, one rose to the top: activist movements must set their priorities from the bottomfrom those who have the least; those who need the mostor their success will always be partial. The most salient thread we can draw from Let the Record Show is an understanding of how mass movements can succeed and fail, all at the same time, depending on which part of the mass youre in.

Let the Record Show is a political history, and todays activists will find it instructive. It examines concrete strategies, why they appealed to (or were only possible for) certain groups, and how those strategies changed both their targets and the activists who undertook them.

Schulman describes Let the Record Show as a political history, and the books opening section, Political Foundations, analyzes the strategies through which, as she succinctly puts it, change is made. This section is deeply practical, and todays activistswhether in the Movement for Black Lives or the fight for trans rightswill find it instructive. Schulman examines concrete strategies, why they appealed to (or were only possible for) certain groups, and how those strategies changed both their targets and the activists who undertook them.

The only requirement for an ACT UP action, Schulman writes, was that it was direct action, with a goal related to ending the AIDS crisis. She makes clear that symbolic actions, or protesting for protestings sake, is only an option for those who have time to waste. ACT UP actions always had specific, tangible results in mind, and their targets were chosen because they had real power. Because they and their friends were dying terrible imminent deaths, ACT UP embraced simultaneity, freeing each member to work on actions that mattered to them, in the way that made most sense given the material reality of their lives. There was no formal approval process for actions. People proposed ideas at ACT UPs Monday night meeting, and others joined if they wanted.

For instance, when they wanted to draw attention to the pathetic speed of approvals for new medications, ACT UP went en masse to the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration, which oversaw the approval process. Within this larger protest, small clusters of friendscalled affinity groupsplanned their own actions, from storming the building to connecting media outlets with AIDS activists in their home regions.

This multipronged approach enabled ACT UP to quickly wrack up wins on many different issues, including design[ing] a fast-track system in which sick people could access unapproved experimental drugs and making needle exchange programs legal in New York.

Using diverse tactics to achieve diverse goals was a strategy that drew on the unique strength that came with being an organization rooted in queer life, as Schulman elucidates in the third section of Let the Record Show, Creating the World You Need to Survive.

Queerness is not a vertical identity. It hopscotches across communities, blessing only some of us. Thus, the membership of ACT UP was incredibly diverse, yet still united by the extreme marginalization of being queer people and people with AIDS. Shared oppression doesnt automatically create solidarity among people from different backgrounds, but it does create moments of overlap, echoes of experience that provide potential foundations from which to build. This was key to the success of ACT UPthe ability to imagine a shared, better worldand it is a reminder for activists today that to create change, a building up must always accompany a tearing down. As Schulman writes:

Having been excluded and ignored by straight power for generations, deep undergrounds of queer opposition were built in which our needs and realities could be reflected and expressed and in which our authentic concerns could be engaged.

These deep undergrounds facilitated the creation of alternative health collectives, alternative research practices, and alternative mediaa whole parallel society, really. Underpinning all of it was a set of alternative valuesradical solidarity, empathy, honesty, celebration of difference, and a refusal to be passive in the face of injusticewhich were developed from (and necessary for) the experience of being connected to a diverse yet marginalized community.

What gave this subculture its manic energy and urgency was, of course, the ticking clock of AIDS:

The emergency forced those who took responsibility to try to create solutions, at great levels of commitment and effort. Because we wanted to win, which meant to live, ACT UP had to rise to reality and create solutions to problems created by government indifference and incompetence, while continuing to insist that this work was the responsibility of the government and private industry. It was a simultaneous approach of literally designing change while escalating pressure on the society at large to step up and be accountable.

Here again, however, is the double-sided coin of strength and weakness: urgency fueled ACT UPs embrace of simultaneity, which empowered them to make change. But at the same time, simultaneity allowed some factions to race off in their own direction, inadvertently hobbling the organization as a whole, even as they achieved laudable goals.

In particular, the Treatment and Data (T&D) committee of ACT UP NY (which was mostly, but not entirely, cis white gay men with class privilegethe people often treated as the heroes of ACT UP) cohered around a highly effective strategy of working with the government to get more drugs approved. Since these men had health insurance and financial security, a lack of approved drugs was the critical limitation that condemned them to die agonizing early deaths. And because they resembled the people in power in critical ways, negotiating with them was a viable strategy. Government authorities would take their meetings, and these mens immediate needs could be met without overturning capitalism, tearing down our system of mass incarceration, or rejecting the United States corporate approach to health insurance. In other words: their preexisting proximity to power meant powerful people would listen to them, and that their issues could be addressed without fundamentally altering the powers that be.

Schulman makes clear the long-term limitations of the strategy pursued by the men who planned Storm the NIH: as their demands were accepted by those in power, these men removed themselves from the diverse community that made that change possible.

During the six years that Schulman was a member of ACT UP NY, the gap between what levels of access different activist constituencies had was growing, and in many ways, determining group consciousness. This deepening division eventually led to the groups fracturing in 1992. Schulman outlines this traumatic break in the final section of her book, Desperation, tracing it to the famous May 21, 1990,action called Storm the NIH.

The National Institute of Health (NIH) was located in Bethesda, Maryland, and getting ACT UP NY down there required a massive mobilization, with months of planning and over $60,000 in expenses. The official demands for the action included testing all potential treatments immediately and devoting more research to opportunistic infections. In reality, however, the men of T&D had a narrower goal: to get their members placed on government committees, where they would have more direct power to affect long-term change. But, as Schulman notes, this was not made explicit to the group as a whole, and as she interviewed ACT UP members for the Oral History Project, almost no one could tell me . . . what the demands were for this action.

Afterward, because most participants had no clear understanding of, or agreement with, the goals, there was little feeling of shared success. As Schulman explains:

The manipulating, the false fronts and puppet mastering, even just the difficulties with emotional communication, i.e., the method used by some of these men, represented values and created a feeling of unease among some of the membership. It telegraphed a feeling of superiority and disrespect. . . . Perhaps the membership of ACT UP, those who normally occupied the Outside role, would have supported the same goals, had the goals for the NIH action been honestly stated, but they certainly would have demanded a more varied group of individuals represented at the table.

Even if that had been the outcome, however, Schulman astutely notes that those government committees might well have just ignored the dykes, street queens, and women of color that joined, as none of the above were represented in government, media, or pharma already.

It is in this complicated space, where success and failure comingle, that Schulmans complex understanding of activism shines. She never shames the men of T&D for embracing their power, nor does she minimize their incredible achievements in overhauling the governments approach to HIV medications. Perhaps what they gained through the Storm the NIH action could not have been gained in any other way; that is unknowable. Schulman is not interested in condemning the choices ACT UP members made, but in analyzing them honestly, in order to gain understanding that can be used by future movements. This spirit of open reflection is also part of the legacy of ACT UP, and helped make the ACT UP Oral History Project so powerful: in the course of conducting 188 interviews, no one, in seventeen years, refused to answer a question.

But Schulman also makes clear the long-term limitations of this insider strategy: as they effectuated change, these men removed themselves from the diverse community that made that change possible (literally: T&D formed a new organization, the Treatment Action Group, in 1992). These insiders could not have achieved the results they did without the outsider activists who worked against, not with, the government. But as their need for treatments got met, these relatively prosperous white gay men were no longer in the same place as other activists who did not have health care, or were imprisoned, or suffered the systemic devaluation of racism, or were women whose illnesses did not even qualify as AIDS in the eyes of the medical establishment. Although many of the men in T&D continued to be activists long after their own disease was considered a chronic manageable condition, AIDS activisms most radical and socially revolutionary vision evolved when those white men were in the same boat as everybody else who had AIDS: desperate. This wasnt because these white men were somehow more critical to making change; rather, everyone was critical, and the narrower the coalition of the desperate, the less they could achieve.

A few hundred dying people battled the United States, and often they won.

The men who successfully led the Storm the NIH action were indeed appointed to government committees, where they created new practices that are still the gold standard in AIDS research today. However, in these new roles, they also held cordial meetings with the same officials that the women of ACT UP were protesting for refusing to acknowledge that women had AIDSa refusal that blocked them from treatment and was often a death sentence. Sometimes these meetings and protests were literally on the same day, undercutting the strength of the outsiders for the benefit of those now on the inside.

The men of T&D were people with AIDS, desperate for new treatments, Schulman writes empathetically, and yet so were other people.

Strategies and what-ifs can be debated endlessly, but results are results. Perhaps the most damning assessment of the cost of this fissure is a simple fact that Schulman notes in her preface: By 2001 almost every HIV-positive woman in ACT UP New York, except for one confirmed survivor, had died.

ACT UPs members achieved incredible wins, against impossible odds, while watching their world crumble around them. They made mistakes and kept going, literally carrying each other when necessary. A few hundred dying people battled the United States, and often they won. Reading Let the Record Show made me wonder what they could have done with more bodies on the line; more help; more hands; more heart; more anger. Unfortunately, most people do not participate in making change, Schulman notes. Only tiny vanguards actually take the actions necessary, and even fewer do this with a commitment to being effective.

Many of ACT UPs womenand men, and nonbinary peoplefought effectively to their dying breath. Others survived and are still fighting. They succeeded in changing the definition of AIDS to include women. They brought HIV services into detention centers. They made films about the crisis. They are still making films about the crisis. They are writing histories that tell their successes and failures with clear eyes, to enable us to make better choices in the future.

But this story is inherently unfinished; AIDS is still a crisis; activists are still fighting today. ACT UP New York meets every Monday at 7:00 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center in Manhattan.

Everyone is invited.

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When Queers Fought the State and Won - Boston Review