Category Archives: Government Oppression

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MAE SOT, THAILAND In the lead up to the French Revolution a dogged group of scribblers, satirists, and cartoonists banded together to pillory the Versailles aristocracy. Despite facing massive censorship and attacks on the press, this group of journalists, writers, and artists conquered the streets of Paris with their words and images, often in the form of underground pamphlets. Over time, their efforts to undermine power combined with the sentiments of the broader public to bring down a tyrannical and oppressive regime.

Though sometimes it looks like the media world has been turned upside down by social media in the 21st century, todays media tactics being used in the fight against authoritarianism still convey satire and irony in words and images. In Myanmar, a country much of the world still knows as Burma, the media is determined to get the news out and, in doing so, make the iron-fisted military junta look cruel and ridiculous.

Myanmars latest revolution and the war of ideas it has engendered began in February, when the military junta ousted Aung San Suu Kyi and her civilian backers, who had been working with the military, but who were ultimately seeking to sideline its role in government. For several years before the de facto coup detat, the media had begun to flourish and adapt in an increasingly open environment characterized by free speech, access to wifi and mobile internet, and a public embrace of all things multimedia.

Yet, in the past year since the military takeover, the oppression of the media in Myanmar must be ranked as the worlds worst. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists noted last week that China and Myanmar together hold a full 25 percent of a global total of 293 media workers in detention. Thats not the most useful comparison since China, holding 50, is a country of over 1.4 billion and Myanmar, holding 26, has a population of under 55 million. (In that sense, Vietnams 23 media detainees in a country of 93 million provides a more useful comparison with Myanmar.)

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Inside Myanmar, as well as here on the Thai-Myanmar border and in India, Europe, and North America, Myanmars free media organizations strive daily to get the story out and avoid the censorship and oppressive arm of the junta. Indeed, the nations media workers manage this with a special humor, tenacity, and aplomb.

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Though Facebook has come under withering legal attacks for its unwillingness at times to tackle and remove the so-called hate speech that helped spark what the U.N. has called a military-led genocide against the Rohingya ethnic minority group starting in 2017, the U.S.-based media giant also has played a less direct but crucial role on an almost daily basis in helping Burmese media workers spread the word.

A New Approach to Reporting

In the case of the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), whose multimedia channel hosts livestreams daily on Facebook and on other platforms, this has led to some serious run-ins with the junta, which has used arrests, beatings, and significant jailtime to stifle its reporters and editors.

Though DVB is edited and managed outside of Myanmar, the media outlet, like many others in Myanmar, maintains dozens of reporters and stringers inside the country. Some of these have worked for over a decade with DVB, which was founded in 1992 with Norwegian assistance. Old and new reporters have been trained in the stealth art of reporting from inside the country. Presently, most of them work on the fly, often on motorbikes and with a cover, posing or doubling as delivery boys (and girls), taxi drivers, and street food servers.

Kyaw Maung Zaw* is an enterprising DVB reporter assigned to southern Myanmars thin strip of land bordering on the Andaman Sea in Myeik City. He was arrested this year after he videotaped soldiers looting homes and upending peoples belongings in an alleged effort to expose enemies of the state. Though Zaw videotaped the military home invasions from a distance, he followed up with lengthy interviews of residents who had been robbed by soldiers. This story, which Zaw documented carefully, infuriated the top commanders in charge of a key air force and army base in his region on the southern panhandle.

The story turned ugly for Zaw himself when a top major general sent some 200 soldiers in trucks to surround his home and take him into custody. In a videotape of the scene, which was streaming on Facebook Live at the time, soldiers can be seen shouting to Zaw to come down from his second-floor balcony while, at the same time, using slingshots to break his windows. The bizarre livestream from Zaw expertly exposed the militarys bumbling approach to stamping out free speech.

Zaw, who laughs now as he shows the video of the attack on his house, said he was astounded that the junta would send such a massive force to take down a single reporter. It was surreal: I was shouting at them, asking on what grounds they were attacking the free press, said Zaw, sitting now in a caf alongside the Moei River, which looks from Thailand into Myanmar. After that, they drove me around in a truck with a plastic bag over my head, beating me and threatening me with death if I did not unveil my editors and sources.

Zaw recounts his tale today as though the beatings and eight months of jail time didnt surprise him nearly as much as the excesses of that attack on his home. When he was finally released from jail, Zaw made a special effort, he says, to mine the Facebook account of the major general who had him arrested. Zaw eventually posted the pictures of the general fishing and drinking beer as Myanmar continued its descent into chaos. He is a ridiculous person and I wanted to make him look that way, he said, holding up one of the photos of the commander on his cell phone.

George Orwell, who would go on to write the classic 1984, which helped predict the strange and often oppressive world we live in today, also ridiculed slothful and incompetent British and Burmese colonial officials in his earlier book Burmese Days. But even Orwell couldnt imagine the designs and devices Big Brother a term he coined would go to in modern Myanmar to combat the free media and twist the truth.

Since the junta also has control and oversight of almost all the wifi and other modes of communication in Myanmar, it can muster these resources to spy on and attack the press. Journalists are often caught through their messages, even when they send them over encrypted platforms. The military, when it raids a home, makes a point to seize smartphones and gather files before they can be erased.

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But these tactics have backfired. Trust in the independent and free media has increased significantly with the crackdowns, but also because the junta-controlled media do not tell the truth, thus tarnishing the armed forces as the least respected institution in Burma, said Richard Mookerdum, a former U.N. media official whose family owned the legendary Smart & Mookerdum bookstore in Rangoon (todays Yangon) in the 19th and 20th centuries, which was mentioned by Orwell as a favorite venue.

The U.S. Treasury Department, in an acknowledgement of the juntas manipulation of information and fresh killings of civilians, slapped harsher sanctions on the military last week, stating that the junta was misusing technology to spy on the public and facilitate human rights abuses and repression.

Fighting to Keep the News Flowing

Than Win Htut, 52, DVBs director of current affairs, who worked closely with Zaw when he was inside Myanmar, said the young reporters ability to think on his feet may have saved his life and prevented him from spending more time in jail. When under attack that day, Zaw was able to quickly reset his phone to its blank factory settings when he was surrounded by soldiers, instantly deleting damning content that might have led to a longer sentence and further beatings.

Htut described the nuanced work of DVB in exile, which is now editing and producing content obtained inside Myanmar. As with other non-state news organizations, reporters send dispatches daily, often in the form of eyewitness accounts via hastily-made and narrated video clips, including from battle zones. Once the materials are collected, editors decide what they can package and use, and what they can try to livestream based on assessments of security and timeliness.

The methods of filing and distribution are changing daily. Undoubtedly, Myanmars proactive media certainly has more tools than we did during the uprising in 1988, which I covered for several U.S. media outlets, including the Washington Post and CBS News, from inside the country in August and September of that year. News stories, at that time, were sent out over antiquated telex lines, often with a telex machine operator agreeing to surreptitiously print out a telex tickertape in advance and destroy it immediately after sending as a way to erase any lasting record of the communications.

I was a student at that time and hundreds were gunned down in the streets, said Htut, a classic chain-smoking old school journalist, who sports a French beret reading So What!

After the 1988 crackdown, which left hundreds of dead in the streets of Rangoon (the English name was changed to Yangon by the junta the next year), an armed effort opposing Myanmars military sprung up in the jungle along the Thai-Myanmar border, just as it has done today.

Except that, this time, the armed effort and resistance is seriously bigger and has gone on nearly 10 months, said Htut. It is partly driven by the Gen Z kids, who understand the new tools of reporting and are it must be said extremely talented. They ride motorbikes to escape, switch out SIM cards often, and work in every region of the country.

That said, it is also increasingly difficult to cover this story because of the relative black outs and black holes, he added. There are more clashes now and there are more deaths in detention during interrogation. So many of these incidents are impossible for us to properly document since we require concrete evidence.

Even with that, Htut said the militarys systematic tactics to crush the voices of common citizens are often the same as in 1988. They use electric shock, beating, hot water and cigarettes among other devices to torture and interrogate reporters, said Htut, who lived briefly Paris in exile before returning to Yangon for the Myanmar Spring in the 2010s.

From February until May, most of the bodies, I mean corpses, were being released to families. Now, there is nothing coming out of the prisons. The junta will often say that so-and-so died of heart failure or an unexplained illness in jail.

The other distinct difference Htut sees between the 1988 uprising and 2021 is that this time, despite the mounting horrors, this brutality is not scaring Gen Z, whose members have popularized the three fingered salute of the Hunger Games movie series to demonstrate their defiance of military rule.

They have vowed to fight with words and guns until they take down the junta, he added.

* For reasons of personal security, the journalists name has been changed.

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Myanmar's Media Adapts to the World's Harshest Oppression - The Diplomat

International Brigade Against Apartheid: Secrets of the Peoples War That Liberated South AfricaEdited by Ronnie Kasrils with Muff Andersson and Oscar MarleynJacanda Media 16.95

THIS extraordinary book brings together an amazing range of inspiring stories of international solidarity.

This was the unshakeable bedrock of the struggle, in the words of ANC leader Oliver Tambo, international solidarity that so firmly rejected apartheid and race oppression.

This was solidarity as an act of unity between allies, part of wider struggles for liberation in every continent where humanity yearns for justice, freedom, equality and a safe, eco-friendly world.

As Ronnie Kasrils, retired struggle veteran and former government minister, explains, the title of this remarkable book consists of two independent entities: open advocacy entailing peaceful active solidarity; the other clandestine and linked to armed struggle.

Between them these sections offer a range of different accounts. But each contributes to the overall struggle, in their own way according to their own particular abilities and circumstances, the internationals who worked underground within apartheid South Africa and the internationals in the front-line states who provided them with essential back up, the anti-apartheid activists across the globe and those who supported them from within governments and the UN.

One of the particularly striking features of the book is its emphasis on the roles of Black Internationals. Their extraordinary contributions have been relatively less well recognisedin the past. But this was teamwork of the highest order. White and Black Internationals were mutually interdependent, even if they couldnt actually meet in person, for reasons of security.

The dangers were ever present, both inside South Africa and outside its borders, in the front-line states where black and white activists both risked being murdered by the forces of the apartheid state.

Part one goes on to provide 34 accounts of amazing courage and determination. Some of these stories may already be familiar to Morning Star readers, such as those of the London Recruits, who went into South Africa to support the African National Congress from the 1970s.

Some ended up in South African prisons as a result. Others were more fortunate, though, including those who organised the African Hinterland project, carrying weapons under a safari tourist vehicle travelling overland to South Africa.

There are so many lesser-known stories of heroism as well, people who risked their lives and liberties in solidarity with the struggle.

Part two moves on to explore the contributions of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain and a number of other countries. Campaigns to Stop the Sports Tours grabbed the headlines in 1970. Other may be less familiar.

Most significantwas the continuing support from the USSR and from the German Democratic Republic (which provided education and training). There was support from Cuba, including militarily defeating apartheid armies invading Angola at Cuito Cuanavale in 1988 and described as the turning point of the struggle.

Looking back on these experiences, activists reflect on the situation in South Africa today. There have been improvements in housing, health and education but a local elite with the assistance of the private sector has been creaming off a large slice of the countrys wealth through contract fixing, downright fraud and money laundering, says Oscar Marleyn.

But democratisation is, adds Marleyn an ongoing process in which citizens are continuously mobilised to maintain and realise their economic and political rights.

So were my efforts worth it? he asks. Well, Im waiting to see. Im a patient man.In the epilogue Ronnie Kasrils asks himself the same question: was it all worthwhile? He recognises the stench of corruption under Jacob Zumas crony capitalism along with widening inequality.

But the demise of apartheid was a turning point, not an end in itself in his view. It opened the way for the next stage of struggle and, as he concludes, the example of international solidarity is a powerful inspirational force for the future.

This book is a must for Morning Star readers, an inspiration for us all, and especially so for the next generation. A luta continua!

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The defeat of Apartheid holds valuable lessons for the present and the future - Morning Star Online

A BBC African Eye reporter and one of the faces behind the BBCs Black Axe Expos, Peter Nacjob has stated that the main motive behind the production is to get the Nigerian government to act in combating these cults.

Its not necessarily a secret that we have violent cult groups in Nigeria. The problem is that at no point has anyone made any effort to literally unpack it, and the reason is because of the fear of reprisal.

So, we are hoping that this investigation gets the Nigerian government to act, he told hosts of the Super Morning Show, on Thursday, December 16, 2021.

Mr. Macjob noted that prosecution of members of cult groups is difficult due to their affiliation with some police officers and other high-ranking members of society.

Its gotten to the point where the police have been overrun but what makes it more complicated is that in the course of the investigation there are accusations that members of the Judiciary, Clergy, the Police, military, are all members of this group, he said.

And because there are no police, ordinary civilians form themselves into vigilante groups, he added.

He explained that though they are other cult groups in Nigeria, the focus of the BBC African Eye investigation was on the Black Axe because the group has become a global syndicate operating in countries across the globe.

Black Axe is a cult group that mainly operates in Nigeria but has affiliations in some parts of West Africa. It is notorious for international scams, human trafficking, and prostitution rings.

The cult was initially created to break chains of oppression in society, to relieve the citizenry of hardships as well as seek better livelihoods for citizens in Nigeria. These, however, cannot be said of cult groups in the country since there has been a diversion from their initial motive. TheBBC African Eye reporthas more.

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Black Axe Expos: We're hoping this investigation gets the Nigerian government to act - BBC African Eye reporter - Myjoyonline

On paper, Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to profess, practise and propagate their religion. This is subject to two kinds of restrictions the laws regulating or restricting the secular aspects of religious practices, and the state regulating the religious practices themselves in the interests of public order, morality, health, and specific to Hindus, social welfare and reform.

Constitutionally, one can choose ones religion or choose none at any point of time in ones life. The Constitution doesnt say one is free to practise only ones birth religion (or worse, only one state-mandated religion). So where do anti-conversion laws such as the one currently being contemplated by the Karnataka government fit in?

Anti-conversion laws in India are not particularly new. Their history goes back to even pre-Independence days but post-Independence, Odisha had the first in 1967. The motivation behind this law was to check Christian missionaries in states with large tribal populations. Somewhat ironically titled the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967, the law prohibited forcible conversion and also mandated that anyone choosing to convert out of the faith they had been born in had to inform the district magistrate.

The Orissa law was challenged in the court and the Orissa High Court in Yulitha Hyde v State of Orissa (1972) struck it down as being contrary to Article 25 of the Constitution and also for the reason that the law was made on a subject which was beyond the State Legislatures power to pass the law. While the court agreed that forcible conversions could be banned, it found that the word inducement in the law was too wide and vague, and could be understood to have banned all proselytising activity.

Also Read | Karnataka anti-conversion bill will also cover 'Love Jihad', says Home Minister Jnanendra

However, when the matter was taken in appeal to the Supreme Court (and heard along with a challenge to the Madhya Pradesh law), the SC in Rev Ft Stanislaus v State of MP (1977) upheldsuch laws on the grounds that what was being prohibited was forcible conversion and therefore justified on the grounds of public order. Since it was a law related to public order, the SC also held that the State Legislature had power to pass such a law.

The Fr Stanislaus judgement is not without its problems. It accepts at face value the claim of the state government that forcible conversions cause law and order problems without asking for any material to justify it. It does not at all deal with the clause which mandates prior intimation to the district magistrate before conversion and does not engage seriously with the argument about the width of the acts which have been criminalised under the law. Though delivered by a Constitution bench, its reasoning is shoddy and incomplete.

More recently, the Himachal HC struck down parts of the Himachal Pradesh Religion Act, 2006, which imposed criminal sanctions on those who converted without intimating the government. It did this while upholding provisions similar to those upheld in the Fr Stanislaus case.

Marriage and conversion

However, a fresh set of changes took place to anti-conversion laws in the recent past attempting to bring even marriage as a forbidden reason for conversion. While the Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh laws in this front have been challenged and are pending in the Supreme Court, the Gujarat HC has stayed the operation of the amendment made by Gujarat to bring marriage into the purview of anti-conversion laws.

The fate of these laws might depend on the interpretation and application of the Supreme Courts nine-judge bench decision in Justice (Retd) Puttaswamy v Union of India (2017) where the scope of the right to privacy was dramatically expanded to include the right to make important life decisions such as marriage, choice of food, et al.

As things stand, if the Karnataka government introduces the anti-conversion bill and passes it into law, it will be the ninth state to pass such a law. Yet, one must ask for what purpose such anti-conversion laws? Demographic data shows little, if any, evidence of any mass conversions. Any public order issues are usually the result of Hindutva groups attacking churches and priests gathering peacefully and using conversion as a cloak to justify their violence. So, what is this anti-conversion law really trying to do?

Also Read | Will not allow BJP govt to pass anti-conversion bill in Assembly: Congress leader Siddaramaiah

If one has to be cynical, perhaps the most successful anti-conversion law isnt even about conversion or religion. It is the 1950 Scheduled Castes Order of the Union government which directs that non-Hindu Dalits would not be considered Scheduled Castes for the purposes of reservations and benefits. This has since been amended to include Sikh and Buddhist Dalits within the fold of Scheduled Castes."

The unfortunate part of this is that Christian and Muslim Dalits continue to face discrimination and oppression as a result of their caste location. Even though Christian and Islamic doctrine do not recognise caste among the followers of their respective religions, it is a fact that caste practices and untouchability are common among Muslims and Christians in India.

Even though they suffer caste atrocities at the hands of their upper caste co-religionists, Christian and Dalit Muslims do not enjoy the protections of the SC/ST Atrocities Act a fact which was brought into stark relief during the caste violence perpetrated by Christian Okkaligas on Christian Dalits in Harobele village in 2015.

What's the issue?

If the chance to escape caste oppression or get the benefits of affirmative action isnt really forthcoming from conversion, what particular problem then is the anti-conversion law trying to solve?

Applying the constitutional framework to try and understand the proposed anti-conversion law in Karnataka is, however, misleading. The Constitution assumes that laws are made for the purposes of public welfare or to promote a social, economic and cultural agenda which is in tune with the constitutional ethos. However, law-making can also have a sinister purpose that has nothing to do with the Constitution or rights. Laws can be made simply to promote and condone state-sponsored violence against vulnerable groups of people.

There is no credible basis for the claims of forcible conversion repeatedly made by a section of Hindus in Karnataka. Even the state governments surveys and reports have failed to throw up any credible evidence of such practices in Karnataka. The people alleged to have been forcibly converted, if at all, turned out to have converted voluntarily.Yet the claim is vociferously and vigorously repeated and never substantiated. The new attempt is to stretch it to include anyone who says that their religion is better than others a leap of logic, which if applied elsewhere would make every advertiser a fraud and every politician guilty of a corrupt practice. What existing and real-world harm anti-conversion laws are attempting to address is not obvious.

One sees this pattern not just in the context of anti-conversion laws but also in laws which seek to ban cow-slaughter and love-jihad. None of these laws are intended to be applied by the state machinery or secular institutions.

The purpose of such laws is to give state protection for perpetrators of violence in society. An anti-love jihad law gives cover to the girls family and caste members to separate a consenting couple by putting the man in jail until the girl is pressurised to give up the relationship. The purpose of these laws is not to actually obtain convictions and punish criminals. The purpose is served at the point of filing the FIR and making the arrest. The purpose is to grind down vulnerable people through the use of state machinery.

The obvious target of Karnatakas anti-conversion law is therefore any Christian in the state. The purpose is to create an Other who can be demonised and targeted for the ends of political Hindutva. No doubt, if and when the bill becomes law and is challenged in court, constitutional principles will be used to decide its validity or otherwise. However, this exercise will completely miss the purpose of such laws.

(The writeris Co-Founder and Lead, The Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy)

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Myth and rhetoric: Dissecting the anti-conversion law - Deccan Herald

OPINION

BY LEN CABRERA

Just like the equity bait-and-switch Alachua County pulled with the charter amendment last November, advocates of critical race theory (CRT) use flowery language, misrepresentations, and intimidation to dismiss the true purpose and philosophical heritage of their radical agenda.

According to Education Week, CRT is just about how racism has shaped public policy since the nations founding. This is the language CRT proponents use to claim those who oppose CRT want to ignore the nations history of slavery and racial tensions. For example, after the State Board of Education banned CRT, Alachua County Education Association president Carmen Ward said CRT opponents are trying to whitewash history and added, The State Board of Education needs to have more respect for our educations [sic] that are teaching students to think critically and to also understand our racial narrative in our country.

The American Bar Association (reported by WCJB) claims CRT critiques how the social construction of race and institutionalized racism perpetuate a racial caste system that relegates people of color to the bottom tiers. That statement is pure garbage. People of color have served as U.S. President, U.S. Vice President, department secretaries, and in countless positions at the top of our national and state governments. Alachua County has a black sheriff, a black Supervisor of Elections, a black county commissioner, and two black school board members. The City of Gainesville has a black police chief and a black city commissioner (there were two black commissioners before Gail Johnson resigned). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a little over 20% of Alachua Countys residents are black. If this is a racial caste system, our nation and county must not be doing it right.

This overblown rhetoric about a racial caste system should warn people that CRT may not be what proponents claim it is. One of the original (and most incoherent) proponents of CRT is Derrick Bell. In a 1995 article in the University of Illinois Law Review, he claimed there is no objective truth, just privileged choice. He also said CRT cannot be criticized or understood by those who say CRTs arguments are ineffective. So CRT cannot be true, criticized, or understood, but it must be implemented in classrooms.

The four cornerstones of CRT

To get an honest description of CRT (and know why its not appropriate for grade school students), you have to understand what CRT is built on. According to Delano Squires, there are four cornerstones: Karl Marxs conflict theory, Antonio Gramscis theory of cultural hegemony, the Frankfurt Schools critical theory, and Derrick Bells critical legal studies.

At its core, CRT artificially divides history into white and black (as is done in classes like African-American history at Newberry High School). CRT is pseudo-scholarship that is purposely political and dispenses with the idea of rights because it blames all inequalities of outcome on what its adherents say is pervasive racism (Jonathan Butcher and Mike Gonzalez). It takes brave, intellectually honest teachers to stand up against CRT because anyone who sees though the lazy arguments of CRT proponents is accused of being racist.

Decades ago, when students at George Mason University demanded a new course on black economics, the faculty took it seriously until Walter Williams, the only black professor in the department, asked, Which direction does a demand curve slope in Africa? He was disgusted that the school even considered such a ridiculous suggestion because economic principles hold true regardless of race. Walter Williams was not shy about his views on the misrepresentation of black history, either.

CRTs true purpose: activism and transformation

The key component of CRT that proponents always hide in these discussions is the true purpose: activism and transformation. In their book, Critical Race Theory (2017), Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic wrote, Unlike some academic disciplines, critical race theory contains an activist dimension. It tries not only to understand our social situation but to change it. CRT is just another tool in the progressive toolbox to destroy our nations founding principles. So when people claim elementary schools are not teaching CRT, they are partially correct. The schools are not teaching CRT academically, but they are implementing the CRT worldview to indoctrinate students, just like Derrick Bell suggested in 1995.

CRT proponents like to present themselves as ground-breaking, forward-thinking progressives, but the incoherent thinking behind their politics of envy dates back to Cain and Abel. In more modern times, their thinking comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseaus Discourse on Inequality (1755), which described two kinds of inequality: natural (physical) and moral (political). Rousseau wrote that political inequality comes from a king or is otherwise authorized by the consent of men. These inequalitiesremember, according to Rousseau, these things only come about because one class oppresses other classesinclude things like wealth, honor, and different privileges. (That same language is regurgitated today.)

If it seems CRT activists are determined to destroy our way of life, theyre simply following Rousseaus guidance. He said his imagined political inequality would continue until new revolutions completely dissolve the government or bring it nearer to a legitimate institution. Of course, Rousseau never defined what a legitimate institution is.

The Declaration of Independence is based on individual rights

Our founders did not hesitate to define legitimate government in our Declaration of Independence as one that has the consent of the governed for the purpose of protecting individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Note that they listed individual rights, not group rights. They were against redistributionist policies because the pursuit of happiness was known to include the right to property as an extension of ones own faculties and labor. For example, James Madison, the primary author of the U.S. Constitution, wrote: Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own. (See his essay Property from 1792.)

That is clearly not the philosophical lineage of CRT proponents. They do not talk about individual rights but group power dynamics. They echo Rousseau, as do our city and county commissioners and school board members. Thats why they had a tyrannical COVID-19 response, determined to create new classes (masked and unmasked, vaccinated and unvaccinated) and why they are more concerned with the rights of people who dont speak English or who are temporary residents of our area than with the people who have lived here for a lifetime and find themselves unable to afford rising GRU rates and property taxes.

Over time, Rousseaus ramblings were further twisted by Georg Hegel (1820) to effectively deify the State (The state as a completed reality is the ethical whole and the actualization of freedom.) A couple decades later (1848), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels imagined a fictitious war between the haves and have-nots. As with Rousseau, their proposed solution was a revolution to dissolve the status quo. Also like Rousseau, they do not define the conditions for their end-state workers paradise. (Similarly, COVID-19 lockdown proponents refuse to clearly define objective criteria to end their totalitarian policies.)

Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto feeds directly into CRT: But these Socialist and Communist publications contain also a critical element. They attack every principle of existing society. The point is to tear down existing society to make way for their unspecified utopia.

Recruiting minority groups to create a revolution

These dead white guys are the philosophical ancestors of todays proponents of equity and CRT. For them, the cause effectively becomes the reason for existence. They are true believers who share the collective fantasy of the infinite perfectibility of human nature that by changing mans environment and by perfecting a technique of soul forming, a society can be wrought that is wholly new and unprecedented (Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, 1951).

The current manifestation of the envy crusade is directly descended from Herbert Marcuse, whose pseudo-intellectual gibberish in the 1960s failed to explain why there had been no Marxist uprising in the U.S. He butchered the language and redefined words to provide the illusion of academic rigor. Heres a sample of his thinking from the 1965 essay, Repressive Tolerance:

This essay examines the idea of tolerance in our advanced industrial society. The conclusion reached is that the realization of the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions, and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or suppressed Conversely, what is proclaimed and practiced as tolerance today, is in many of its most effective manifestations serving the cause of oppression.

By the 1970s, Marcuse decided to recruit oppressed social minorities and the womens liberation movement to fulfill Marxs fanciful revolution, and critical theory was born. Like other types of Marxist analyses of society, critical theory is all about creating categories of oppressors and oppressed.

CRT questions the very foundations of the liberal order

In Critical Race Theory, Delgado and Stefancic described CRT as a collection of activists and scholars engaged in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power [CRT] questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

Like Marx, the ultimate goal of CRT is to justify redistributive policies to reach some utopian equality of outcome. Delgado and Stefancic complained that under our system of government, rights are almost always procedural (for example, to a fair process) rather than substantive (for example, to food, housing, or education). This is the same negative vs. positive liberty debate thats been going on for years. Even Barack Obama admitted that positive liberty is a violation of the U.S. Constitution, which prevents the government from doing things to us (negative liberty) but does not require or permit it to do stuff for us (positive liberty).

Also like Marx, CRT is inherently racist because it deals with group stereotypes and prejudices. CRT uses race rather than class and property ownership to create oppressor/oppressed groups. Derivative versions of CRT also include gender and ethnicity to bring more groups into the revolution. Lindsay Perez Huber, for example, pushes Latina/o Critical Race Theory (LATCRIT). In a 2010 article in Educational Foundations, she wrote: Racism is defined as, the assigning of values to real or imagined differences in order to justify white supremacy, to the benefit of whites and at the expense of People of Color, and thereby defend the right of whites to dominance (italics in the original). This is exactly what CRT does: it assumes all disparities in outcome are caused by race, so by Hubers own definition, it is racist.

Emphasizing differences instead of similarities takes us in the wrong direction

Delano Squires says CRT is a Marxist framework that causes racism and teaches people to judge each other based on skin color. Squires relates more to Frederick Douglas than Ibram X. Kendi and likens the attitudes of CRT and antiracists to slave traders who treated blacks as property rather than people, writing that [The respective conceptions of racist slave traders and antiracism advocates] have different starting points but they both reach the same conclusionabsent benevolent interventions, the American Negro is without agency, direction or purpose, a vessel of melanated chaos driven by historical trauma and extant oppression. Both groups see black people as incapable of moral reasoning and bearing no responsibility for our own actions.

Heres what Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, former chief of staff to Martin Luther King, Jr, wrote in 2015: Today, too many remedies such as Critical Race Theory, the increasingly fashionable post-Marxist/postmodernist approach that analyzes society as institutional group power structures rather than on a spiritual or one-to-one human level are taking us in the wrong direction: separating even elementary school children into explicit racial groups, and emphasizing differences instead of similarities.

More colorful and entertaining responses to CRT can be found on YouTube from angry parents like Ty Smith, who agreed with Walkers assessment and said CRT is absolutely doing the complete reverse of what Martin Luther King, Jr, argued for. This Colorado Springs father said that he is not oppressed and his kids are only victims of their own ignorance, their own laziness, and their own poor decision-making.

Our own ignorance, laziness, and poor decision-making empower our corrupt educational establishment to push CRT and present dishonest, incomplete accounts of our nations founding and history for the purpose of indoctrinating future radicals. Dont trust the rehearsed talking points of CRT advocates. Read the original sources for yourself: Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado, Kimberle Crenshaw, Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, Nikole Hannah-Jones, etc. You can find excerpts of many of them in Mark Levins book American Marxism. Compare their ramblings to the governing philosophy espoused by our Founding Fathers in The Federalist Papers or search other original works at the Online Library of Liberty.

Its also important to be aware that nice-sounding terms like diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, culturally-responsive teaching, and social-emotional learning are all related to CRT and are used to gain support from people who want everyone to have an opportunity to succeed. But all of these policies focus on equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity and actually implement the systemic racism that CRT proponents claim to oppose.

CRT is inherently racist and goes against the founding principles of our nation and the civil rights movement. Rather than being some new enlightenment movement, it continues a dark philosophical heritage that is shared by China, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. Its just rebranded Marxist ideology that always leaves suffering in its wake.

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CRT is just rebranded Marxist ideology, and yes, it's in our schools - Alachua Chronicle

Alexander Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994, earning the epithet Europes last dictator along the way. Now, after his suppression of local opposition protests, one can add more descriptions: last blood-soaked dictator and last antisemitic dictator because people with such twisted ideas havent held power in Europe since World War II.

After winning the 2020 elections through massive fraud, Lukashenko launched a terror campaign against his country and his people. Some 10 people have been killed during demonstrations; hundreds have fled abroad and over 4,000 political prisoners are being held. They include popular blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky, who was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. The authorities placed him under lock and key the moment they saw him as a realistic candidate for the presidency. In that same trial, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, which the regime refuses to register, was sentenced to 14 years in prison, while two other bloggers were given 15 years each.

One can understand how hated the dictator is based on estimates that Tikhanovskys wife Sviatlana, who submitted her candidacy in his stead, received 80 percent of the votes in the election.

Lukashenko, who seized control of the country where Marc Chagall, Isaac Asimov, Chaim Weizmann and Menachem Begin were born, has a track record as an antisemite. He shocked the world when he compared Bobruisk, a predominantly Jewish city, to a pigsty. After all, it is a Jewish city, and the Jews do not take care of the place where they live, he said. In 2015, he called on the head of his administration to keep all the Jews under control.

Regime propagandists are attacking Jews to explain the mass demonstrations against the man they venerate, describing them as part of the mythic Jewish conspiracy and as attempts to overthrow the legitimate government.

A few days ago, Lukashenko outdid himself when a female member of parliament representing the government, Lilia Ananich, submitted a draft law titled On the Genocide of the Belarusian People, a bill many see as damaging to the memory of the Holocaust, if not outright denial of it. With the wave of a hand, the Jews were included among the Belarusian people, just like the Turkmen, Gypsies, Russians and other Soviet citizens who lived on Belarusian territory and were murdered by the Nazis.

The bills author forgot that the Jews contrary to the Belarusians, for example were murdered only because they were Jews. However, there is not a word about the Holocaust in Lukashenkos Belarus. Even when it comes to the Maly Trostenets extermination camp, one of the biggest in Europe, in which the Jews of the Minsk ghetto were murdered, the dictators representatives do not speak of the Jews but rather the Belarusian people.

Lukashenkos Belarus has no property restitution law and never will. Contrary to many countries, the property of Jews murdered there will never be returned to anyone. It is only possible to try things such as bringing back into use old synagogues, if they are currently not in use as public buildings.

The dictator uses Jews, and indirectly Israel, at every opportunity to explain the protests against him. In other words, he is promoting a simple antisemitic idea: anything bad merits searching for the hand of Israel, the Jewish lobby, the Mossad; evil always wears a Star of David around its neck. Schlimazels and schnorrers read a subheadline in an article by the state press attacking historian Alexander Friedman, who can express himself freely because he was deported from his native Belarus and lives in Germany.

A few days ago security forces broke into the home of an Israeli citizen, software engineer Daniel (Dzmitry) Plashchynski, after learning he had visited extremist Telegram channels and corresponded with their editors. As proof of his malicious deeds, they published on the Administration Responsible for the Fight against Organized Crime and Corruptions official Telegram channel a photo of Plashchynskis valid and expired Israeli passports against the background of the Belarusian oppositions red and white flag. They placed a rifle next to them, sending a clear message: See, the Jews are preparing the revolution.

Belarusian state television recently broadcast a film, Killing of the President, in which Jewish circles are behind a fictitious assassination attempt of Lukashenko and his son. Need more? The state-run newspaper Belarus Segodnya added snatches of Hatikva to a clip about refugees trying to cross the Belarusian border into Poland, deleting the music only after it caused an uproar.

In another incident, Israeli Alexander Fruman, who was in Minsk on vacation, was detained for three days by security forces even though he didnt participate in protests. They beat him and threatened to give him another circumcision, he said. His confiscated passport was lost. Two other Israeli citizens were detained at that time, and to the best of my knowledge none of them received assistance from the Israeli consulate. And thats not all. Israels Foreign Ministry, which is ready to dispute Polish authorities, sent its ambassador to Belarus to present his credentials to the dictator an act that Western ambassadors avoid.

The presence of Israels ambassador gives very little help to Belarusian Jews, who live in an atmosphere of state-sponsored antisemitism, or to others who identify with them. After Zinaida Timashuk, the chairwoman of a Belarusian language society, laid flowers at the place in Slutsk where the Nazis destroyed the Jewish ghetto, she was arrested for three days and fined the relatively high amount of about $500. The reason for the fine? Organizing an unauthorized demonstration.

Israel was founded partly as a refuge for Jews suffering oppression abroad. My roots are Belarusian, as is the case with many other Israelis. I observe daily how a confused dictator, who holds onto power with the polices help, plays the antisemitism card. Although this behavior endangers Jewish lives, we see and hear no response at all from the Israeli government or Foreign Ministry. Israel stubbornly refuses to join Western nations in condemning the dictator and his dictatorship. Its shameful. Perhaps its worth remembering that any attempt to appease antisemitic dictators has ended badly for the Jews.

Leonid Nevzlin owns 25 percent of Haaretz and is a member of its board.

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The silence over Lukashenkos antisemitism - Haaretz

It is a total myth and falsehood that the United States won the Cold War when the Soviet Union unexpectedly collapsed, and Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved it on December 25, 1991. During the remainder of the 1990s the Washington elite, American academic specialists and especially the inept U.S. intelligence agencies completely failed to anticipate, and predict the rapid rise of Communist China at the turn of the century as a possible military AND economic superpower.The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) has now become a much more potential dangerous adversary in 2021 than when the Soviet Union opposed the United States during the Cold War from 1945 to 1991.

One of the PRCs long term goals in its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative is not only the domination of the South China Sea and reunification of Taiwan along with neutralizing much of the western Pacific Ocean, but the semi-encirclement of India through the indirect control of Nepal and Bhutan along with Sri Lanka, Pakistan and perhaps Bangladesh.

Their recent desire to establish a naval base in Bata, Equatorial Guinea on Africas Atlantic coast is a further indication that PRCs plans to establish itself as a dominant military and economic superpower before 2049 in addition to its three existing naval bases in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, Gwadar, Pakistanand Doraleh, Djibouti. I would not be surprised before 2030 that the PRC also attempts to establish another naval base in either Cuba or a country in the eastern Caribbean located between Puerto Rico and Trinidad. That especially includes Barbados and possibly Venezuela.

Washingtons failed economic policy since January 1993 of encouraging the corporate investment of trillions of dollars and the wholesale exportation of five million American manufacturing jobs to mainland China as advocated by Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama has completely failed to produce any liberal multi-party or semi-democratic reform resembling Gorbachevs 1986 policy of glasnost within the PRC.

Communist China under President Xi Jinping has no intention of liberalizing or reforming his countrys political system let alone apologizing for the Chinese Communist Partys mass murder of forty-five million Chinese citizens, who died during the Great Leap Forward (1958-62), and another million executed under Mao during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) or its shameless de facto military alliance with despotic and totalitarian North Korea under Kim Jong-un. This also includes the PRCs violation of the 1997 Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong in 2019, the continued oppression (Sinonization) and enslavement of the Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang province in far northwestern China, and the cultural genocide or brutal assimilation (Sinonization) of Tibet since 1950.

The Ukraine must not join NATO because the United States needs to befriend and improve diplomatic relations with Putins Russia and an eventual post-Putin Russia as a future counterweight to the PRC. While some critics might mistakenly call this diplomatic approach as appeasement I call it simple pragmatism or realpolitik.

Vladimir Putin is not Adolf Hitler with Machiavellian grandiose plans of western military expansion and the occupation of eastern Europe because the former KGB lieutenant colonel has much more common sense and intelligence than the drug-addled and eloquent ranting Hitler. In order for the United States to improve diplomatic relations with Russia, the Ukraine must not join NATO in order to lessen any potential military tensions between the United States, which is essentially NATO, and Russia for many different reasons.

Many Americans, Canadians and western Europeans fail to understand that Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine and cradle of Eastern Slavic civilization along the strategic Dnieper River, has always held a special historical, commercial and cultural significance to the Russian national psyche. It was in Kiev where Vladimir the Great, the ruler of the Kievan Rus and Eastern Slavs composed of both modern day Ukrainians and Russians, first accepted Eastern Orthodox Christianity in 988.

Through the subsequent centuries Kiev became the foundation or springboard for the creation of modern Russia itself ultimately ruled by Muscovy or Moscow, which regarded itself as the Third Rome after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and increasingly superseded the city of Kiev with the Russians becoming the most dominant ethnic group among the Eastern Slavs.

The special relationship existing between the Ukraine and Russia is somewhat analogous to the special relationship between the United Kingdom and United States, but one that is much stronger and more enduring because of a shared 1,426 mile border, identical religions (Eastern Orthodoxy) and most especially length of time: over 1,000 years for both good and bad. If the Russians often regard the Serbs as their little brothers in the Balkans, the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine often resembles an argumentative middle aged or elderly husband and wife. And Russia believes that divorce is not an option.

If the Ukraine were to join NATO, it would be the geographical equivalent of either Canada or Mexico joining a military alliance led by the PRC. The United States would naturally find this scenario both totally unacceptable and intolerable especially if there was a Communist Chinese naval base located along the Pacific coast of either Acapulco, Mexico or Vancouver, Canada.

The United States must pragmatically recognize that the Ukraine is clearly within the Russian sphere of orbit similar to how either Central America or the Caribbean is to the United States according to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. To think otherwise would clearly be not only stupid, but also a sign of Pax Americanas imperial overreach, which replaced Pax Britannica in 1945. Plus, the last time I looked at the map of Europe, Kiev is approximately 1500 miles from London or the English Channel unless some government official or bureaucrat in Washington or Brussels preposterously considers the Black Sea to be a far eastern extension of the Atlantic Ocean! Good luck with the illogical reasoning that Kiev or Odessa is geographically near the north Atlantic Ocean.

The future inclusion of the Ukraine into NATO from a Russian perspective most definitely would make NATO appear to be much more of an offensive than a defensive military alliance. Whether Russia is paranoid of another land invasion or pretends to be is subject to much speculation.

I highly suspect that Russias paranoia is somewhere between the former and the latter similar to the Krajina (Croatian) Serbs justified paranoia from 1991-95 toward Nazi Germanys and fascist Italys former ally Croatia led by Ante Pavelic from 1941-45. However, Russia unlike the United States has had a long history of at least twelve invasions, occupations and foreign interventions beginning with the brutal Mongol Golden Horde (1223-1473), Teutonic Knights (1240-42), Ottoman Turkey (1571), Poland (1605-18), Sweden (1610-17; 1707), France (1812), the Crimean War (1853-56), Japan (1905), Germany and Austria (1914-18), its former World War I allies and Japan (1918-22, Japan (1938) and most destructively Nazi Germany (1941-45) resulting in the death of at least twenty million Soviet soldiers and civilians.

Considering Russias long history of repeated invasions and fear of another one it has no desire in a worst case scenario to be conquered and permanently dismantled, and suffer the same tragic fate as the former Yugoslavia, and end up like a landlocked Serbia in a semi-Arctic truncated territory located to the west and east of the remote Ural Mountains with the possible loss of much of eastern Siberia to an expansionist Asian country.

Their paranoia does indeed have a rational basis considering their long history of invasions from the east, south and west, and NATO seems to be either totally oblivious of this fact or most likely completely indifferent. From a Russian perspective I can honestly understand why 100,000 or more Russian troops are currently massing along Ukraines southeastern border or the Donbas, and I am neither a Russophile nor a Russophobe.

As far as I am concerned the Russian occupation of Crimea in February 2014 is a fait accompli, which historically had been a part of Tsarist and Soviet Russia for over two centuries until 1991, and not worth the lives of any American or NATO soldiers despite the death of at least four million Ukrainians by the terror famine during the catastrophic Holodomor (death by hunger) in 1932-33 under Joseph Stalins Soviet Union. This is strictly a Ukrainian-Russian concern, which frankly is not worth the start of World War III.

The best future diplomatic solution for the Ukraine (along with Georgia) is to become a neutral country like Switzerland, Austria, Sweden or Finland, which would pose no offensive military threat to Russia. A second possible solution may be to emulate Serbia, which would like to become a member of the European Union, and not a member of NATO. A third possible solution is to follow the example of Belarus, and remain a non-offensive military threat.

The Ukraine must realize that neither the United States nor any other NATO country will most likely go to war against Russia for their occupation of the Crimea or the southeastern part of the Ukraine near Donetsk. Plus, there are clear limitations to American military power, which the Pentagon completely fails to understand, and the Ukraine is a clear example. Endless wars will not produce endless peace.

The United States and NATO can sell the Ukraine all the military weapons they require such as the shoulder-fired FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank/helicopter missiles and launchers along with other non-lethal assistance, but Putin realizes that it is highly doubtful that a western country is going to risk World War III in order to defend the Ukraine. Ironically, Russia does not presently consider the three Baltic non-Slavic NATO countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania much of a military threat. The same could be said for Norway, which is also a NATO country and shares a 121.6 mile border with Russia.

In the final analysis the Ukrainians will have to defend themselves if necessary without NATO and American troops on their soil. However, I think that the Ukraine must not join NATO because it will make their lives much easier in living peacefully as a neutral country with Russia, and improve their standard of living due to less military spending for the remainder of the twenty-first century and beyond. Both countries must also mutually reconcile.

If a confused President Joseph Biden or NATO political leader were to militarily intervene in the Ukraine, this would be an extremely serious and foolhardy mistake, which could optimistically result in massive Russian retaliatory cyberattacks (and counterstrikes), disastrous economic disruption during a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, and an inevitable slowdown or complete disruption of Russian natural gas flowing to much of Europe despite being possibly cut off from the international banking system.

The United States and Russia do not need to be involved in either a second cold war reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 or a nuclear conflict, which could unimaginably be much worse.

Robert L. Maronic / Roanoke

December 18, 2021

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Should The Ukraine Join NATO? - The Roanoke Star

The Associated Students of the University of Oregon, the university's student government, is proposing that every student be required to take a course on critical race theory in order to graduate.

During the University of Oregon Board of Trustees meeting on Wednesday, Associated Students of the University of Oregon President Isaiah Boyd said that the goal of the "Critical Race Theory" project is to "implement the primary teachings of CRT into the curriculum track for all undergraduates."

Boyd said that the Associated Students of the University of Oregon will be working with university administration members to incorporate the critical race theory course requirement into the bachelor's degree track.

"Racism and the social power structures that have enabled and continue to manifest the inequalities that many marginalized identities groups face must be continuously addressed and studied," Boyd said.

An even mix of proponents and opponents to teaching Critical Race Theory are in attendance as the Placentia Yorba Linda School Board in Orange County, California, discusses a proposed resolution to ban it from being taught in schools. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

WHAT IS CRITICAL RACE THEORY?

Boyd defines critical race theory as a "framework used to examine power and oppression dynamics between racialized groups."

"Increasing awareness of systemic racial inequities creates opportunity for people in power to engage in socially conscious action and decision-making within higher education," Boyd added.

Boyd said that the "Critical Race Theory" project is among student leaders' "highest priority" within the Associated Students of the University of Oregon.

The University of Oregon Office of the Provost indicated to Fox News in a statement that they are open to discussing the proposal.

CRITICAL RACE THEORY TAUGHT AT MANY OF AMERICAS 50 MOST ELITE PRIVATE K-12 SCHOOLS, ACCORDING TO NEW STUDY

"Recently, the university went through an extensive process to update its undergraduate Core Educationrequirement focused onissues of race and inequality. The Office of the Provost is happy to continue the dialogue with student leadership around core curriculum requirementsin conjunction with the University Senate and its curriculum committees, which now have student representation for the first time in several years, thanks to the ASUO," the statement read.

University of Oregon students walk across campus in Eugene, Ore. (Andy Nelson/The Register-Guard via AP)

The office added that "diversity of background, thought, and perspective is an absolute necessity for building academic excellence."

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Currently, students are required to take one course which covers US: Difference, Inequality and Agency, and one course relating to Global Perspectives.

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Oregon university student government wants critical race theory graduation 'requirement' - Fox News

Accusing the BJP of using coercive tactics to put pressure on former DSGMC Manjinder Singh Sirsa to join the party, Sukhbir Singh Badal Thursday said the Shiromani Akali Dal chief was ready to face any challenge thrown by the saffron party.

This is BJPs revenge against us for standing by our principles, breaking the alliance with them and quitting the cabinet to stand by farmers. But we have no regrets whatsoever. In fact, we are very proud of what we did then. We are ready for repression, oppression and conspiracies and will defeat them, said Sukhbir. Sirsa, a prominent face of the Akali Dal in Delhi and a strong supporter of the farmers protests against the three contentious farm laws, joined the BJP Wednesday. Sukhbir said that the BJP-led government at the Centre was stooping to a new low in abusing power to deal with democratic opposition. The SAD president also showed some WhatsApp message that he had reportedly received from Sirsa. Sirsa on WhatsApp told me that they will put him in jail and harass his family if he (Sirsa) did not join the BJP, said Sukhbir.

You suppress the DSGMC president, slap cases and then point a gun on his head telling either you leave (SAD) or you will be sent behind the barsBut I am disappointed and sad that instead of being true to the traditions of his religion against repression, Sirsa chose to bow down. This was disgraceful, especially coming from someone on whom the Sikh qaum (community) and the SAD have bestowed so much honour, Badal said. He said Punjab is a border state and his party is an example of mutual brotherhood. If the Centre thinks it will weaken the SAD, they will not succeed, he said. Sukhbir said this new attack is a continuation of the old tactics of mixing repression, oppression and conspiracy to break the spirit of the Sikh qaum.

Let them try everything. Repression cannot break us. The Mughals tried it. The British tried it. The Congress rulers including Indira Gandhi tried it. The whole world knows what the outcome was then. It will be no different this time, he said. Sukhbir said that Sirsa leaving SAD will not impact them as he has no following in the state. Everybody in Punjab knows that he has no roots here, he added,

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Ready for BJPs repression, oppression, conspiracies, says Sukhbir - The Indian Express

Last Sunday, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in Sri Lanka held a successful online public meeting attended by almost 100 people, including students and workers from across Sri Lanka, as well as India and the Middle East. Entitled, How to fight the Rajapakse governments austerity budget? the video has so far been viewed by over 1,000 people and shared more than 300 times.

Chairing the meeting, SEP Assistant National Secretary Deepal Jayasekara pointed out that the main challenge for workers fighting the governments brutal social measures was to arm themselves with a socialist political perspective.

SEP Political Committee member Saman Gunadasa delivered the main report. He said that while the principal concern of all Sri Lankan capitalist parties was how to impose the burden of the economic crisis on the masses, the SEP meeting was called to discuss how working people could fight for their own interests.

The speaker referred to Finance Minister Basil Rajapakses budget speech declaration that the government faced historys most challenging period but was equipped with all the necessary strengths to manage the economy and overcome such challenges.

This statement, Gunadasa said, meant that Colombo was unleashing a ruthless attack on the jobs and living conditions of working class and the oppressed in order to secure the profit interests of big business. This involved tax holidays for capitalists but a wage freeze for workers, along with cuts in allocations for public healthcare, samurdhi (limited welfare allowances for the poor), water supply, women and child development, and rural housing.

Similar class war attacks, he said, were being imposed by ruling elites all over the world in response to the worsening economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gunadasa noted that Sri Lankas debt-ridden economy now ranked alongside Ethiopia, Iraq and Tunisia.

The budget proposes to impose this crisis on working people. It will certainly involve a massive attack on the working class for the government to reduce the budget deficit, which exceeded 14.7 percent of GDP in 2020, to 8.8 percent of GDP in the next year, he said.

The governments main target was the public sector, Gunadasa continued, citing the finance ministers declaration that the sector was an unbearable burden. Colombos response was for large state sector budget cuts and a sweeping privatisation program.

To boost dollar reserves, export-manufacturing plants continued to operate, even though thousands of factory workers were being infected with COVID-19. Sri Lankans working abroad also had been neglected by Colombo in order to maintain the inflow of remittances, the speaker said.

Gunadasa posed a question: What has happened to the bourgeoisie, including the corporations and big business [during the pandemic], while the working class faced such vicious attacks?

He answered by detailing how President Rajapakse had directed the Central Bank to provide massive concessionary funds to big businesses, as well as more tax cuts and other concessions. The capitalist companies were granted the social wealth extracted from the workers, he said.

Gunadasa said the international working class was not willing to accept these austerity attacks. He referenced the eruption of strikes and protests in Sri Lanka and around the world. Rajapakse, in line with his global counterparts, was responding to the rising social opposition by turning to dictatorial forms of rule.

Gunadasa analysed the role of Sri Lankas opposition parties. At first glance, these parties seem to be criticising the government, but if you look closely at what is being said, they are advising the government on better ways to carry out the governments program.

The main opposition parties, the Samagi Jana Balawewaya and the United National Party, were calling on the government to seek more loans from the International Monetary Fund.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna covered up the fact that the root of the problem is the capitalist system by falsely claiming the crisis was a result of government corruption and fraud.

The pseudo-left Frontline Socialist Party was setting a political trap for the working class by calling for a broad left front, which included the bourgeois parties.

All these groups are based on a reactionary nationalist program, the speaker said. Workers could only defend their rights and win their demands by fighting for the unification of the international working class.

To initiate such a struggle, Gunadasa said, workers in every workplace, regardless of their employment categories or other artificial divisions, had to organise rank-and-file committees independent of the trade union bureaucracies and fight for a workers and peasants government based on socialist policies.

Such a government will put an end to capitalist exploitation. Working people should use the achievements of their labour directly for social necessity, not private profit, he stressed. The resources of society should belong to the working people.

Concluding his speech, Gunadasa invited audience members to join the struggle led by the International Committee of the Fourth international (ICFI) and support the Global Workers Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic initiated by the World Socialist Web Site .

The meeting concluded with a question-and-answer session. Answering a question about the unification of farmers struggles in India and Sri Lanka, Gunadasa explained the need for a unified independent movement of Indian and Sri Lankan workers based on socialist and internationalist policies to rally poor farmers in both countries.

Nationalist trade unions in India and Sri Lanka, including those led by Indian Stalinist parties, he said, were hostile to the development of such a unified movement. The Trotskyist SEP was the only party in the South Asian region fighting for this perspective.

Jayasekera, the meeting chair, responded to a question from a listener in South India about the role of caste-based parties. The main role of these parties, Jayasekara explained, was to divide workers while securing the privileges for a tiny elite in the relevant castes, at the expense of the vast majority of workers and oppressed masses.

The pro-imperialist bourgeoisie in the backward capitalist countries, including India, he continued, are incapable in overcoming the unresolved problems of democratic revolution, such as the agrarian questions and caste oppression. These problems could be solved only by the working class, rallying all other oppressed masses and fighting for socialist policies.

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SEP meeting discusses the socialist policies needed to fight Sri Lankan government's budget - WSWS