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IF YOU WORRY about the polarization of intellectual life, youre certainly not the first. Consider Zera Yaicob, the Ethiopian philosopher who defended a form of intellectual freedom in his Hatata (Inquiry) of 1667. Zera Yaicob was torn between the religious sects that mingled in 17th-century East Africa. He engaged with Muslims, Coptic Christians, Jesuit missionaries, African Jews, and the local Oromo people, finding that they all said the same thing: My faith is right and those who believe in another faith believe in falsehood, and are the enemies of God. At once stimulated and bewildered, he wondered, Who would be the judge for such kind of an argument? [1]

It is easy to sympathize with Zera Yaicob when reading recent scholarship on the origins of modern science, which is riven by two orthodoxies in particular. One orthodoxy is that modern science was invented in early modern Europe. Important contributions came from other times and places, of course, but the decisive move toward modern science happened in Western Europe in the 17th century. The task of the historian of science is to understand how and why. If you disagree with this narrative, you may be accused of relativism, postmodernism, political correctness, or of not doing your job.

The second orthodoxy is that the first orthodoxy is wrong: science is global, not European. It took shape over many centuries, with the help of many cultures. To think otherwise is to buy into a myth about the inevitable rise of the West. The notion of the West is itself the product of recent geopolitics. The idea that science is Western is not just wrong, but wrong-headed. It is like a bad cold, or the Cold War. We just need to get over it.

Who would be the judge of such an argument? The two schools not only make different claims but make them in starkly different ways. The first school is old but cohesive. The second is young but diffuse, made up of many stories rather than one story. It is easy to see why. Writing a history of European science is hard enough, with five centuries to cover and many scientific disciplines to master. Writing a history that takes in the rest of the world is a political and methodological minefield. Doing this in a way that appeals to the general reader looks like a fools game.

James Poskett, a historian of science and technology, is no fool. His new book, Horizons, is superb. It runs from 1400 to 2000, from the construction of the Samarkand Observatory to the completion of the Human Genome Project. It covers the human sciences as well as the natural sciences, taking in medicine and engineering along the way and covering a great range of people, places, and predicaments. We learn about an Ottoman astronomer captured by pirates in the 16th century; a Tahitian chief charting the Pacific Ocean in the 18th century; a geneticist working to save his life in communist China. Inevitably, there are gaps: Australia, the Holy Roman Empire, economics, most of the earth sciences, experimental science before 1800, Africa after 1800. The book is under 400 pages after all (without footnotes), and so it does not purport to be complete, which would indeed be foolish.

Horizons is global not only in its geographical scope but also in its narrative technique. Poskett uses concrete examples to reveal connections and similarities between parts of the world that are usually studied separately. The Ottoman astronomer Taqi al-Din spent much of his youth bouncing around the Mediterranean Sea, from Cairo to Rome to Istanbul. He bounced around intellectually as well, translating Arabic works into Latin while he was in Rome and introducing European clocks to a new observatory in Istanbul. Some scientists stayed put, including Isaac Newton, a global mathematician who never left England. There he sat, spider-like, at the center of a web of travelers that stretched from Senegal to Peru. Other scientists were more like flies than spiders, trapped in global webs. The physicist Lev Landau made one of his most important theoretical breakthroughs while spending a year in one of Stalins prisons. The physician Graman Kwasi was equally remarkable. Born in West Africa around 1690, Kwasi discovered a treatment for malarial fever while working as a slave on a sugar plantation in the Dutch colony of Suriname.

But Horizons is not just a collection of global biographies. These are embedded in a grand narrative about the last 600 years of world history. First comes the expansion of Islamic empires in the vicinity of the Silk Road. Next comes European imperialism: the colonization of the Americas, the transatlantic slave trade, and the exploration of the great expanses of Siberia and the Pacific Ocean. European empires became industrial in the 19th century, fueling nationalistic wars in the process. The 20th century was the age of ideology: fascists, communists, and anticolonialists staked their claims in the first half of the century; and decolonization and the Cold War dominated the second half. The book ends in the present, with the world in the grip of a new Cold War between China and the United States. The war in Ukraine, which broke out while I was writing this review, adds a tragic twist to the narrative.

Poskett links these geopolitical developments to intellectual ones, and much of his books originality lies in these linkages. The chapter on 19th-century biology, for example, is not simply a survey of the global reception of Charles Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection. It is an argument for the connection between biology, war, and nationalism, a connection captured in the phrase struggle for existence. Biology was a battlefield, with naturalists using martial metaphors in their theories and gathering specimens in the course of military expeditions. This was true across the globe: in Napoleonic Egypt, in the newly independent Argentina, in a Japan wracked by civil war, and in modernizing China. The titles of other chapters hint at similar arguments: Newtons slaves, Industrial experiments, Genetic states, and so on. This is not just a history of science. It is a history of the modern world seen through the lens of science.

At the same time, it is the story of the scientists who have been written out of history, in Posketts words. Their excision was a product of the imperial history that drove so much of modern science. Overcoming this history means many things. It means writing the East into the history of modern science rather than consigning it to an ancient or medieval past. It means closing the gap between Islamic astronomers such as Taqi al-Din and European ones such as Nicolaus Copernicus. It means seeing that Cold War science was about Japan, Mexico, and Israel, not just about the USA and the USSR. It means realizing that imperial science was often done by the victims of empire, such as the Peruvian Indians whose labor helped to prove Newtons theory of universal gravitation. These people were barely distinguishable from beasts, according to the French astronomer Charles-Marie de la Condamine. Yet the Frenchman relied on the astronomical expertise of these beasts in some of the most precise measurements done in the 18th century.

Indigenous knowledge is a major part of the book, but Poskett is no relativist. He does not say that science is just one form of knowledge among many other forms of knowledge. By science he means canonical topics like universal gravitation, natural selection, botanical classification, and molecular biology. The point is that the canon itself is global. As a result, Poskett is not afraid to praise the canon. He writes in terms of discoveries, breakthroughs, ingenious instruments, and keen scientific minds. He does not shy away from comparative judgments. The Aztecs were particularly advanced among American peoples in precolonial times; Russia seemed stuck in the past in the 17th century. This is a celebration of science as well as a critique of empire.

All this makes for a good story. But is it true? Or is it just another myth? There is no simple answer to this question. Horizons has several lines of argument, some more convincing than others. Poskett certainly shows that modern science was made by many people outside Europe who are undervalued in existing histories. He also shows that world history and global exchange are an excellent framework for understanding past science.

But he sometimes goes further. He writes that the Eurocentric story told by past historians is a myth. He also charges these historians with European exceptionalism. This suggests that there was nothing exceptional about Europe in the history of modern science. A different thesis is that Europe was exceptional, but mainly because of the wealth and power brought about by empire. A third thesis is that science develops when cultures come together and not when they stay apart.

These are all comparative claims. They compare Europe with the rest of the world, empire with other historical phenomena, and cultural exchange with cultural separation. To evaluate these claims, we need to see both sides of the comparison. The problem is that Horizons only shows one side of each comparison.

Take the two chapters on the Enlightenment. These open with the statement that we can better understand Enlightenment science by thinking about the rise of European empires. There is ample evidence for this in the ensuing pages, which link Newtonian physics to the slave trade, the colonization of the Americas, and the exploration of the Pacific Ocean. But there is no evidence for the much stronger claim a few pages later: that the rise of European empires best explains the science of the Enlightenment. To defend this claim, Poskett would need to review all the other explanations for the growth of 18th-century science, from coffee houses to cameralism. But the other explanations are barely mentioned here.

The same goes for cultural exchange. There are many illuminating examples of cultural exchange in Horizons, often centered on artifacts such as maps, books, and instruments. This creates the impression that science thrives on interactions between diverse cultures. On closer inspection, many of these exchanges hint at long periods of separation. European astronomy and Incan astronomy did meet in 1736, when La Condamine and his team took their measurements in Peru. But for all we know, that was the first and last meeting between these two astronomical cultures. Moreover, the periods of separation may help to explain why the exchange was so fruitful. Cultural exchange works because cultures are different, and they are different partly because they develop separately.

Another one-sided comparison involves 17th-century Europe. Yes, there is a section called The Scientific Revolution, 14501700. But as far as Europe is concerned, the narrative leaps from 1543, when Copernicus declared that the Earth goes around the sun, to 1687, when Newton explained why it does. The most talked-about decades in the history of European science are passed over in near-total silence. The chapter on Renaissance astronomy has nothing to say about the invention of the telescope or the discovery that planets move in elliptical orbits, two milestones that feature in any ordinary history of Renaissance astronomy. This makes sense if the aim is to valorize non-European scientists. But it makes no sense if the aim is to show that Europe was unexceptional. Arguments against exceptionalism cant just ignore the alleged exceptions. And arguments for the link between science and empire cant ignore 17th-century Europe. On the received view, Europe already led the world scientifically in 1700, a century before it led the world in political or economic terms. The received view may be false, but it deserves a better falsification.

On current evidence, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Europe was exceptional after all. Chapter one of Horizons helps to explain why European natural history was distinctive: it was transformed by the new knowledge generated by the colonization of the Americas. Chapter two is a global survey of astronomy that contains many surprises, but nothing quite as novel as telescopes and elliptical orbits. The material on China does little to disturb the conventional view that Europe raced ahead of China in terms of scientific achievement after 1500, and that China has only just caught up. The chapters on the 19th and 20th centuries cover an amazingly diverse group of scientists who had one thing in common: they all or nearly all learned much of their science from institutions that were either in Europe or were modeled on institutions in Europe. Europe is a black hole in Horizons. It is barely visible, but everything seems to gravitate around it.

Why does this matter? Why do we feel the need to show that modern science owes as much to Tokyo and Timbuktu as it does to Paris and London? After all, there is no rush to show that all cultures have made equally important contributions to slavery, for example. This is presumably because we value science but not slavery. We assume that science is a mark of rationality and a source of material progress, a sort of IQ test for world cultures.

Horizons doesnt exactly support this assumption. It suggests that the main functions of science over the last 600 years have been to wage war, build empires, and rationalize racial prejudice. The book also suggests that any improvements that science has made to our understanding of the natural world are a historical accident. The narrative is driven by the interactions between individuals, nations, and empires. The narrative is not driven by the interactions between theory, experience, and mathematics. In the index there is a large entry on empire, but no entry on empiricism. Horizons has a lot to say about the politics of science, but little to say about the epistemology of science, and what it says about the former does not flatter science. This is a celebration of science that does not explain why science is worth celebrating.

Horizons shows the immense potential of global histories of science, but it also shows the continued need for other approaches. We need histories of science in Europe, because we need to know what happened inside the black hole. We need epistemic histories of science, because the value of science depends on its ability to understand the natural world. We also need relativist histories of science, because science is not the only way to be rational, and not always the best way. And we need national and regional histories, because cultural separation is as much a part of modern history as cultural exchange.

Let us remember Zera Yaicob. We need to decolonize history, but we also need to depolarize history. Only then will we get over the Cold War.

Michael Bycroft is an assistant professor in History of Science and Technology at the University of Warwick.

[1] Zera Yaicob, God, Faith, and the Nature of Knowledge, in African Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 457461, on 457. Quoted in Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, On Reason: Rationality in a World of Cultural Conflict and Racism (Duke University Press, 2008), 128.

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Arguing About the Origins of Science - lareviewofbooks

Isaac Saney is a university teaching fellow and director of Dals Transition Year Program.

January 15, 2022, marked the 230th anniversary of one of the most significant and dramatic chapters in the historic efforts of Africans in the Americas to reconnect with indeed, return to Africa. Indeed, it is the single largest "back to Africa' event in the history of the Americas. It was, also, and is a profound example of the active and conscious historical agency of the oppressed and exploited in their struggle to assert their democratic rights and achieve self-determination.

These courageous souls were part of the wave of the more than 3,500 of people of African descent the Black Loyalists who arrived in the Maritimes in the early 1780s in the wake of the American War of Independence. In return for their freedom, these former enslaved Africans had served with the British in military and other capacities.

In the wake of the British defeat, more than 30,000 refugees termed the Loyalists arrived in Nova Scotia, with the Black Loyalists accounting for approximately 10 per cent of that number. The Black Loyalists faced a series of broken promises around land, freedom, and economic security. Despite being highly skilled artisans and tradespeople, they were reduced to being a cheap pool of labour, paid at a quarter of the wages that white labourers received.

Coupled with this economic exploitation was the curtailment of their social and political rights. The July 26th, 1784, race riot in Shelburne often cited as the first recorded race riot in North America underscored their disenfranchisement and segregation.

After, petitioning Nova Scotia's colonial government to no avail, the various Black Loyalist communities decided to send a representative Thomas Peters to the British empire's epicenter to make their case. While in London, Peters met with members of the anti-slavery movement and learned of the Sierra Leone Company, which had established a refuge for Africans from the Trans-Atlantic Slave System in the then-British colony in west Africa. Peters petitioned the British government emphasising the "degrading and unjust prejudice against people of colour that even those who are acknowledged to be free . . . are refused the common rights and privileges of other inhabitants, not being permitted to vote at any elections nor serve on juries. Further, Peters argued eloquently that the series of broken promises and humiliation of the Black Loyalists constituted a breach of trust. Consequently, the Prime Minister at the time, William Pitt the Younger, committed to covering the transportation costs to Sierra Leone. Thus, Peters was presented with the possibility of the Black Loyalists leaving Nova Scotia and going to Sierra Leone, with promises of free passage and land grants.

Peters returned to Nova Scotia with John Clarkson, an abolitionist, and a leading figure of the Sierra Leone Company. While Clarkson led the mission, Thomas Peters was a key if not the key organizer of the emigration. Travelling from community to community, Clarkson, Peters, and other Black Loyalist leaders presented the proposal of leaving Nova Scotia for Sierra Leone. During these travels and meetings, Clarkson recorded many Black Loyalist personal histories in his journal, a rich and indispensable source for researchers.

Such was the importance of Black Loyalist labour to Nova Scotia that several obstacles were put in the path of the organizers by the colonial authorities. For example, disinformation was spread that the departing Black Loyalists would be re-enslaved in Africa, and proof was demanded that each emigrant was free of debt and not enslaved or indentured. This reflected the colonial concern to retain the services of skilled labourers at the lowest possible wage level. It is worth noting that Alexander Howe, a member of the Nova Scotia colonial Legislative Assembly, had described the Black Loyalists as the principal source of labour and improvement in an expanding colony.

In the end, the Black Loyalists voted with their feet." On January 15th, 1792, 15 ships departed from Halifax, Nova Scotia for Sierra Leone carrying 1,196 Black Nova Scotians, some 540 families.

In Sierra Leone, the Black Loyalists helped found the port city of Freetown, eventually becoming a significant component of Sierra Leone's society and history. This reverse exodus to Africa from Nova Scotia has resulted in distant but poignant family links. Family names such as Hamilton, Wright and Wyse reside on both sides of the Atlantic. Various initiatives and projects have been formed to maintain these living links.

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Remembering the Sierra Leone Migration, 230 years later - Dal News - Dal News

Attribution:

Fmr. Treasury Secretary: Inflation is big business answer to take back wage increases.

In his interview with Lawrence ODonnell, Larry Summers exposed the inconvenient truth about inflation and much more; It is shameful.

Watch Politics Done Right T.V. here.

The main engine of our form of capitalism is essentially neoliberalism. This exchange betweenLawrence ODonnelland former Treasury SecretaryLarry Summersexposes its draconian nature. But you must read between the lines. They are experts at shrowding its implementation of antiseptic slavery in terms that seem like a matter-of-fact of how the system must operate.

Here is a relevant part of the exchange below. Please watch the entire video because one sees how one can seem benevolent yet authoritative in presenting evil on the working and middle-class.

Lawrence ODonnell:What is happening to purchasing power this year. We know inflation, and you gave an early warning on inflation. You gave us an early warning on it. But what has happened to purchasing power and incomes along with inflation?

Larry Summers:Wages have come down. Thats the usual experience, [1]the usual experiences that past a certain point when you start seeing wage increases running above four and a half or 5%. It actually goes with decreasing real wages, decreasing purchasing power for workers. Thats why [2]its so unfortunate that the economy was overstimulated last year. Thats why its important that the Fed act strongly to bring down inflation. Now, weve caught a very bad break coming on top of the seven and a half percent inflation. We we have. [3]We now have extra inflationary pressure coming from oil prices and coming from wheat. And its something were going to need to really go after with policy.[4]That means strong monetary policy. And that means [5]sensible supply side policies where the government concentrates on procuring as inexpensively as possible, where we open up shipping to whoever the cheapest shipper is, rather than require that it be an American shipper. Carrying oil, for example, from Houston to the east coast of the United States, that we yes, absolutely. Look after child care, but we [6]focus on making sure that were doing as much as we can for children, not for child care providers.We can contain inflation, but it requires focusing on containing inflation.

The statements that I bolded and numbered above are crucial to understanding the evil nature of neoliberalism. The aggregate codifies working Americans as antiseptic slaves in our economic system.

Please do not believe the word salads from these quacks who continue to find ways for us to pay for their well-being. They are a type of parasite that attempts to justify their method.

My bookssupport (1) communication techniques & (2) our ability to continue delivering the progressive message:How to make America Utopia: Take away the economy from those who rigged it,""It'sWorth It: How to Talk To Your Right-Wing Relatives, Friends, and Neighbors" & "As I See It: Class Warfare: The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom."

Will yousubscribe to our YouTube Channelto help us get to 100,000 subscribers? It will help us deliver the progressive message widely. Would you mindjoining our YouTube channelnow?

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Fmr. Treasury Secretary: Inflation is big business' answer to take back wage increases. - Daily Kos

CLEVELAND, Ohio The Poor Peoples Campaign continued its quest toward a mass June rally in Washington on Monday night by demonstrating in downtown Cleveland, part of a broader initiative of 10 rallies aimed on publicizing its agenda.

The rally, organized by local advocates and national co-chairs Bishop William Barber and the Rev. Liz Theoharris led demonstrators from U.S. Bank Plaza to Trinity Cathedral, where they held the rally to focus on the struggles and policy needs of the impoverished and low-wage workers.

In an interview, Barber said the goal was to set about a third reconstruction for the American public the first reconstruction being the reset of the country during the end of slavery and the second during the 1950s and 1960s during the Civil Rights movement.

We live in a country that, to this day, has not raised the minimum wage in over nine years. And we know a living minimum wage would be well over $15 an hour, Barber said. We also deal with ecological devastation. Eighty-seven million people in this country prior to COVID were either uninsured or underinsured. We have a war economy. A national budget of over $700 billion for the war economy and $700 billion for everything else.

Barber said Ohio was indicative of the challenges poor people face across the nation, including voter suppression and politicians both Democrat and Republican who refuse to address wages.

Its tragic that in Ohio a person has to work 74 hours at a minimum wage job -- 74 hours a week -- just to afford a basic two-bedroom apartment, he said.

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The Poor Peoples Campaign rallies in Cleveland for better wages and a fairer economy - cleveland.com

Are we the slaves of the West? If not, why the hue and cry when the truth is told that we are not your slaves?

Are we the slaves of the West? If not, then why do they lament that we should not utter our souls and minds are free?

For indeed we are free, and should be free from our colonial past, those dark days of bowing down subordinate to our masters.

We live in a free world we are told. We are not your slaves.

We have the right to think independently. We are not your slaves.

We have the right to run our own country and our own foreign policy. We are not your slaves.

We have the right to make our economy prosper and make trade deals. We are not your slaves.

We have the right to defend our land against aggressors, who throw bombs our way and then claim it was a technical malfunction. We are not your slaves and we are no fools.

We have the right not to be dragged into wars where there can be no resolution, just turn and look at Afghanistan. We are no longer your slaves.

Pakistan is a sovereign country with independent foreign policy, which as Ayub Khan put it once about the superpowers, they are our Friends not Masters.

We endured slavery for 300 years under the British and today when a leader has come along and raised his voice, all the opposition parties cowardly sang from the same hymn sheet, pleading with the international forces that they are innocent. Please dont punish us. Please dont sanction our foreign properties, they cry in mitigation. Please dont freeze our foreign accounts. We will do whatever you desire just get Imran khan out of the way.

History reminds us when Oliver Cromwell took up and disbanded the British Parliament, the same noises were made in the UK too by the blood-sucking corrupt politicians.

But then again it doesnt take a group of politicians but one man to lead his country towards triumph and sovereignty.

When PTI formed the government, records came to light that revealed that the previous rulers had literally left the country on the verge of bankruptcy. The PTI government had to borrow firstly to service the previous loans and at the same time keep the economy afloat.

In the circumstances which he inherited, Imran Khan managed an incredible turnaround of the economy. Three years is not sufficient time for the economy to prosper fully. Yet, during PTI governance our foreign exchange reserves have increased substantially.

The Ehsas program is operating very successfully and helping the neediest. Kamyab Programme is lifting the youth and at the same time helping the unemployed graduates. Sehat programme, even in developed countries hard to find, is providing up to Rs1 million towards medical treatment costs. Foreign remittances are record high. Exports are a record high. The construction industry is booming. Overseas Pakistanis are being given 100% tax exemption on their investment. 100% tax exemption is being given to IT companies. Small Dams are being built all over the country which would benefit generations to come. What PM Khan had achieved through his courageous policies, no other person could have matched him in the same period.

There is a Lion in Pakistan and he roars fiercely and proudly, wrapped in our green flag with the stars and moon shining upon him. Let him wrap you Pakistanis, in this flag of hope, pride and victory, to never again be subordinate, never again be weak, never again be beggars, to rise and be bold. You see, we are not your slaves.

Why the disquiet? Why the fear? Why are the cowardly shrinking back into the colonial mindset of thinking they must acquiesce and appease their old rulers? The same rulers who tore up and divided and mismanaged a shoddy break up of lands, where Kashmir still bleeds from their inequitable meddling.

Why be afraid when Imran Khan, alone amongst all the recent leaders of this great Country, the only one brave enough to tell the truth and stand tall when he proclaims Pakistan will not be anyones slave? He tells a truth and tells it boldly and fiercely, those steely eyes as determined as to when he led Pakistan to its cricketing victory in 1992.

The world order is changing. Alliances are changing. There may be difficult times ahead, but who else will be able to meet these challenges with the noble dignity of our leader? The previous looters, who hide away in foreign lands, shielding their ill-gotten gains? Or perhaps their prodigy, fuelled by nothing other than revenge and greed in their broken Urdu or Hermes bags and Gucci shoes?

Is a diesel mullah who would call on his followers to wreak havoc and disturb this land, the man to lead Pakistan? Or those in opposition showing up at the police stations when no one had even bothered to arrest them? Are these the jokers you think will lead Pakistan to its great height?

There is something rotten in the state of Denmark said Hamlet, yet he could have been referring to the rotten core of the opposition establishment. Those who are scared of progress. Those who fear to uplift the poor and needy. Those who shy away from our great religion. Those who are apologists and lack the vision to make Pakistan a great country. We need to lead, not follow.

The biggest disservice PML(N) & PPP bestowed upon Pakistan was to keep the masses uneducated so that the common man who never have the knowledge nor courage to oppose the looting of the National wealth for over three decades. Despite the time when they were in power, they were incompetent to provide education to all young children, yet, out of power living in exile they were strong enough to send their own children to top schools and universities. Shame on such ruthless rulers who left the nation crippled, hands and legs chopped and their mindset hijacked.

I met Imran Khan in 1971 at Lords Cricket ground nets. That we had dinner together. I had an MG sports car and we drove around London. He was a young handsome man. From that day onwards, Alhamdulillah, I have had the great privilege and honour to have always walked side by side with him under his shadows, for the last 50 years. There is so much that I have learned in life from him. His influence on me has been significant. He guided me towards Islam, charity & humanity. I have travelled the world with him in connection with his charitable causes and witnessed first-hand that no human I have seen that is so massively respected and loved worldwide. The only man who has remained the national hero of Pakistan for over 45 years. He is caring & compassionate. He could not see the suffering of his people at the hands of rulers who were corrupt. Therefore 25 years ago he started to wage a war of freedom to untie his people from the shackles of the bondage of slavery. When Imran khan used the sentence Absolutely Not every single Pakistani politician went into hiding. Fearing the worst. Wondering if their looted foreign accounts will be frozen.

We are not your slaves. Pakistan is a sovereign country which has an independent foreign policy and the government will make decisions which are beneficial to us and safeguard our interests. Imran khan is a courageous leader. He did not mince his words. He simply stated the truth.

There is only one statesman. There is only one leader. There is only one Lion. Allah has bestowed a favour on Pakistan, so let the people open their eyes and lend their full support, for victory is achieved together. Let there be unity and peace in our blessed land and let the soil of Pakistan shoot its green foliage, so that we stand tall and proud as a nation, for we are not your slaves. Imran Khan spoke the truth and he spoke it courageously. This country needs him for he is irreplaceable.

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Imran Khan is not going to allow Pakistan to be anyone's slave - Pakistan Today

Michael Kazin, What it Took To Win: A History of the Democratic Party . Straus and Giroux, 2022. ISBN 9780374200237

It is not only a poetic coincidence that the Democratic Party was founded when the period known as The Era of Good Feelings came to an end. The circumstances of the partys birth and early years characterize its enduring political mission.

At the time of the partys founding in 1828, the democratic and egalitarian aspirations of the population, which had been unleashed by the power of the Revolution of 1776, were coming face-to-face with the hard reality of northern capitalist production and southern slave-mercantilism. In the teeming cities of the North and on the brutal slave plantations of the South, there was much to life that seemed to contradict the still-popular promise that all men are created equal. But while explosive economic growth greatly enriched the elites both North and South, it also gave birth to a new social forcethe working class, drawing its rank-and-file from the farms of America and the famine-stricken countryside of Europe.

The emergence of the Democratic Party was a historical necessity. What was necessary was a political party that could capture and confuse the democratic sentiment of this growing working population so that no threat to the accumulation of private wealth would arise in either North or South. What was necessary was a party that could exploit the vast American continent, and weaker neighbors such as Mexico, both to enrich financial speculators and to project outward domestic social tensions. What was necessary was a party that could transform the unprecedented racial and ethnic diversity of the American population into a tool of division in the hands of the oppressors.

Much has changed in 200 years, but these essential features of the Democratic Party have remained the same. Then as now, the Democratic Party is built on a lie: that it speaks for working class people.

Michael Kazins book What It Took To Win: A History of the Democratic Party is an effort to disguise the Democratic Partys past in the hope that it might be able to continue to serve its longstanding role by promoting reform from within. This is a harder and harder case to make. The books publication comes as the Democratic Party has broken with all past social reforms and has become the preferred party of finance capital.

The possibility of transforming the Democratic Party into a popular party is shown, Kazin says, by the partys longtime commitment to promoting moral capitalism, a system that mixes entrepreneurial freedom with the welfare of workers.

But Kazin never explains precisely how Democrats have made capitalism work morally for both capitalists and workers, an explanation that would be akin to trying to explain how one might make slavery right for both slave and owner, or feudalism equally beneficial to both lord and serf. Instead, he recapitulates the argument Arthur Schlesinger made with greater diligence and more imagination some sixty years ago. The argument goes: Despite the Democratic Partys roots as a party of slavery and for all its contemporary shortcomings, the people can once again pressure it to pick up the thread of economic populism that runs from Jefferson and Jackson through William Jennings Bryan and Franklin Roosevelt.

To accomplish this task, Kazins review of the history of the Democratic Party must be highly selective. He must treat indications of the partys economic progressivism with far greater prominence than the partys long rap sheet of social crimes.

For example, Kazin makes only passing references to the Democrats forced removal of the Native Americans in the 1820s and to the war to rob Mexico of half its territory, writing that events hurled the US into war in 1846 when in reality the Democratic administration of James K. Polk invaded Mexico on a made-up pretext to make way for the expansion of the slave-based cotton plantation system.

Kazin does not ignore the Democrats role under slavery, nor does he deny the partys visceral racism. But he presents this racism less as an ideology used to dupe workers and poor farmers, both North and South, and more as the reflection of a racism of white workers that seems to exist naturally among them. In one typical passage Kazin writes, The doctrine of racial supremacy also helped the party win over those white small farmers and wage earners who feared competition from Blacks, and later Chinese immigrants, too. In this upside-down presentation, the Democratic Party is the hapless victim of the ingrained racism of white workers, rather than the vehicle through which racist politics were promoted, North and South.

Kazins description of the Democratic Party in the Civil War is filled with half-truths. The Democrats faced a quandary during this time, Kazin writesan odd word to describe the political organization that launched secession, triggered the war, ruled the Confederacy as a one-party state, and many of whose partisans in the North opposed the war effort. Of the 1863 anti-draft race riots, Kazin writes that Democrats could not control the actions of plebian city dwellers but fails to explain that the riots took place in the context of longstanding demagogic agitation by Democratic leaders (including New York City Democratic Congressman Fernando Wood) against the war and Black Republicanism.

Kazin also offers no explanation for the rotten Compromise of 1877 by which the Democratic Party traded the presidency for ending Reconstruction. In a sin of omission, Kazin acknowledges only that the Democrats made no protest against the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. In fact, not only did Democrats make no protest, the Ku Klux Klan served as the Democratic Partys paramilitary in the South, targeting Republican workers and farmers, black as well as white.

The Democratic Party was also chiefly responsible for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1883, but Kazin musters only one sentence on this shameful episode.

Kazin argues that the pre-FDR Democratic Party was horrible, but asserts that it became more progressive in the early decades of the 20th century. He has in mind the modest social reformism of Franklin Delano Roosevelts New Deal. These reforms were made possible by the wealth of American capitalism, which had been accumulated through technical developments such as the assembly line, and, in no small part, by its exploitation of the semi-colonial masses in Latin America and Asia. This, in turn, hinged on Americas emergence as the leading imperialist power and all the crimes that that entailed.

Kazin would prefer readers not dwell on such things. After noting Woodrow Wilsons betrayal of his promise to keep us out of war, he apologizes for congressional Democrats who voted for the war declaration: Most voted aye more to show resolve in the face of renewed German U-boat attacks on American merchant ships than to signal support for warcold comfort to the 117,000 US soldiers who would be killed, or the many victims of the xenophobic 100% Americanism that the war unloosed. As for World War II, the words Japanese Internment, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, do not appear, though it was Democratic president Franklin Roosevelt who ordered the rounding up of Japanese Americans and the seizure of their property in 1942; and it was Democrat Harry Truman who ordered the incineration of the civilian populations of Japanese cities with no strategic value at the end of WWII, in a coldblooded demonstration that he was ready to use the atomic bomb for strategic ends.

As Kazin approaches the present, his own views more and more blot out historical reality. He acknowledges the right-wing shift carried out under the Clinton administration but, implausibly, presents the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the beginning of a re-birth of Democratic progressivism.

Kazin explains that he organized a group called Historians for Obama in 2008 and concludes by claiming that at the end of the Obama administration, the political left was again resurgent within the Democratic Party: It was [the progressive left] and not their centrist adversaries who were largely calling the partys ideological tune such that by 2020, the combined effort of these movements had nudged the policies of the party further to the left than at any time in the last half century.

This raises a puzzling question: What does Kazin mean by left? In 2009, Obama oversaw the largest transfer of wealth in history from the working class to the rich in the form of the bailout of Wall Street. Social conditions, wages, even life expectancy, stagnated and declined under Obama. Much else must be left out. Kazin fails to include the words drone, torture, Libya, Somalia, Syria, NSA, Assange, Snowden, bailout, deportation, or Guantanamo.

It will come as no surprise that Kazin crowns Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Democratic Socialists of America as the modern torchbearers of progressivisms long history of leading social opposition back into the Democratic Party. Referring to the DSA, Kazin writes, The wisest decision these freshly minted socialist politicians made was to run as DemocratsAbandoning the quixotic dream of a consequential third party made it possible to achieve something of unprecedented significance: to embed a dynamic social democratic movement inside the heart of one of the two major parties. Kazins claim that the Democratic Party can lead America back down the yellow brick road of New Deal social reform is just as much a dream as Dorothys visit to the Land of Oz. That brief period of reform was made possible only by Americas now-lost position as global hegemon. And it was motivated by ruling class fear of the Russian Revolution of 1917, which lived in recent memory. Under these very exceptional circumstance, for a brief window lasting from the 1930s through the 1960s, the Democratic Party arranged for certain limited social programs while tasking its lieutenants in the labor bureaucracy with overseeing the suppression of the class struggle.

In referencing Americas rising predominance as a major world superpower, Leon Trotsky wrote in May 1940, America is fat. This fat from the past permits Roosevelt his experiments, but this is only for a time. In the period of its decline as world hegemon, Trotsky wrote, American imperialism will no longer have room for either restraint in foreign policy or experiments in domestic social reform. In his critique of the draft program of the Sixth Congress of the Communist International, Trotsky explained, In the period of crisis the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than in the period of boom.

In an earlier period, the global position of American imperialism afforded the Democratic Party the space to experiment with social reform. This time has passed. In an earlier period, the Democratic Party also experimented with more serious appraisals of its own role in American history. Kazins poor book shows that this time has also passed.

from Mehring Books

The New York Times 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History

A left-wing, socialist critique of the 1619 Project with essays, lectures, and interviews with leading historians of American history. *Now available as an audio book from Audible!*

See the article here:

An unoriginal hagiography of the Democratic Party: Michael Kazin's What it Took to Win - WSWS

For years, D.C.s nannies, home care workers, housecleaners, and others who work in home settings have taken to the streets and councilmembers homes and offices to demand basic rights like protections against workplace discrimination and exploitation. Early last year, At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman vowed to introduce a D.C. Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. In December, when domestic workers and advocates called in her promise, Silverman said via email that her labor committee was working on the bill to introduce next year. Yesterday, the councilmember kept her word.

Silverman announced the Domestic Worker Employment Rights Amendment Act of 2022 during a Tuesday press conference outside the John A. Wilson Building. At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson, Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, and Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who had lost his voice, also addressed a crowd of ecstatic, sign-carrying members of the D.C. chapter of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. With five additional co-introducers, the bill enjoys enough early support to pass the full Council.

The bill would require anyone in the District who hires a domestic worker for more than five hours per month to provide a written contract that sets standards for work hours, pay, and responsibilities. Antonia Surco, who has worked for 18 years as a nanny and senior caregiver in the District, tells City Paper she was paid $20 for a full days work when she first arrived from Peru in 2004. She didnt realize until later that she, and other domestic workers who were paid even less, were being exploited.

Its not uncommon for employers to take advantage of recently arrived immigrants, particularly those lacking documentation. Verbal agreements are subject to change at any moment and go unchecked by employment law, leaving domestic workers subject to wage theft and piled-on responsibilities to which they never consented. Sucel Merida says she has heard that employers of domestic workers ask them to stay longer than their shifts without compensation.

Surco has had employers suddenly ask her to do cooking, cleaning, and laundrytasks squarely outside her role as nannywhile the children sleep. The requests come without additional compensation and put her and the children at risk, she says. Focusing on other tasks could mean she might not notice if something happens to a young child in the middle of the night.

Altagracia Kubinyi says when she arrived in the District in 2020 she believed this type of exploitation only happened in places similar to her home country, the Dominican Republic, where she once bussed to the city to work long days, only to have her employer pay her with a single meal.

When I came and encountered this realitythat we dont have basic employment guarantees, [or] protections in Washington, the seat of power in this countryI couldnt believe it, Kubinyi says.

She has heard horror stories from other child care workers of employers hiring someone to secretly follow them on the job for days. Kubinyi is fortunate to work for a family who treats her well, she says. But she still hasnt secured an employment contract, which causes uncomfortable moments when she has to remind her employers of verbally agreed-upon benefits like paid vacation and time off for federal holidays.

It feels like employers are doing us a huge favor instead of honoring our agreements, Kubinyi says. Like were at the mercy of their compassion instead of respect for the agreements weve made.

The bill would also reverse the exclusion of domestic workers in two critical employment laws: the D.C. Human Rights Act, which protects against workplace discrimination, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which would apply workplace safety provisions. The Districts estimated 9,000 domestic workers, mostly Black and Brown women, have been excluded from federal and local labor protections, a legacy of slavery in the U.S., Silverman says.

This bill would also make the city responsible for community outreach and public education and guidance around domestic workers rights and for supplying template agreements.

Merida, who had extensive experience in child care before immigrating to the District from Guatemala, got her Child Development Associate accreditation in D.C. years ago and has educated herself on rights of domestic workers. But she says this isnt the case for many. She teaches a course on domestic worker rights through NDWA and tends to be the go-to person among her circles of child care workers for questions about rights and resources. This bill, if passed, would shift some of that onus onto the city and employers of D.C.s domestic workers.

Ambar Castillo (tips? acastillo@washingtoncitypaper.com)

By Ambar Castillo (tips? acastillo@washingtoncitypaper.com)

Original post:

Bill Would Give DC Domestic Workers Legal Rights and Protections. - Washington City Paper

JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) You may have told someone youll be relocating to Mississippi, and you were met with, Why are moving there out of all places?! Or Theres nothing to do there!

Well, coming from a Mississippian, youre not crazy for deciding to breathe in the southern hospitality or to immerse yourself into a vastly different cultural experience, or to start a new chapter in your career, education, family or retiring.

Heres eight things to consider before packing your U-Haul to make Mississippi your new home:

CHA-CHING Mississippi has the lowest cost out of living of all 50 states! According to Business Insider, the median necessary living wage across the entire US is $67,690. The state with the lowest annual living wage is Mississippi, with$58,321. So as youre considering your move, know where you fall on the spectrum of affordability and how that aligns with your way of living.

Catfish is the leading aquaculture industry in the United States and guess what state is the top producer? MISSISSIPPI. According to the Mississippi State University Extension Services,the Delta region accounts for the majority of the total land area devoted to catfish in Mississippi. FUN FACT: There are a total of 205 catfish farms in the state.

Get your stomach and tastebuds ready to eat (and keep your running shoes near.).

Check out the top 10 Best Catfish Restaurants in Jackson. Curated by YELP

When you step foot in Mississippi, youll be greeted with a stare, a smile and a Hey, how are you? Now, any many areas of the country greeting strangers or having a conversation with a stranger is considered weird, but in Mississippi, its an act of courtesy. No matter who you are, youre going to receive a comforting smile and hello hence why the states nickname is The Hospitality State.

So, if youre spoken to, try not to cringe and return the kind gesture

From Black History to Native History to Mississippi History to Present Day History, Mississippi has a wide range of interesting history for all to learn. Though you may have heard more negative stories involving racism, slavery, crime rates and poverty, Mississippi comes with positive attributes, too. Just like anything, you have to try for yourself.

There are several historic places across the state that will allow you to learn about the past and present of Mississippi. Cities such as Jackson, Vicksburg, Meridian, Biloxi, and more.

To view an interactive map of the must-visit historical sites in Mississippi, click here.

After years of controversy surrounding Mississippis old state flag with the Confederate battle emblem, Governor Tate Reeves signed a new state flag in January 2021. Following several design revisions and votes from Mississippians and state lawmakers to replace the former flag, the new one features a magnolia and the phrase, In God We Trust.

Critics had long said the flag adopted in 1894 was a racist symbol that failed to represent a state with the largest percentage of Black residents in the nation.

Now, at every state building, public institutions, businesses (by choice), a Mississippi state flag can be seen waving in the southern breeze.

*Mississippians love all sports, but their favorite is football.

Three words. MISSISSIPPI. LOVES. FOOTBALL. Since theres no NFL team to claim in the state, Mississippians love on college football even more. Stadiums are filled with hardcore fans dipped in paint or dressed with their college paraphernalia. Tailgates on gameday are a must to experience. The parking lot is flooded with fans. Seasoning and spices, smoked ribs, pork, grilled chicken, and seafood are all smells that linger in the air. Dont ask a Mississippian who has the best tailgate, youll get a biased answer, just see for yourself.

Mississippi is home to 23 college football teams.

Mississippi is home to some of the nations most notable figures in the music industry. From pop to rap to jazz to Blues and all genres in between. Artists hailing from birthplace of Americas music include the King of Rock and Roll a.k.a Elvis Presley; the Father of Country Music a.k.a Jimmie Rodgers; the King of the Blues aka B.B. King; the Princess of Pop a.k.a Britney Spears. Keep in mind, these names are only a small portion of artists from Mississippi.

Other famous natives consists of Bo Diddley, Sam Cooke, Tammy Wynette, Snoop Dogg, Brandy Norwood, David Banner, Muddy Waters, Faith Hill, Rick Ross, Soulja Boy, Rae Sremmurd, and more.

Lets play Truth or Myth?

Theres nothing to do in Mississippi. MYTH!

While there may not be A LOT to do in Mississippi compared to other states, you can still make memories and have fun! Mississippians are living proof of the quote, Its the simple things, because it doesnt take much to have a good time. If youre a nature lover, gamer, history bug, or enjoy entertainment, the top attractions are listed by genre below:

Now, breathe, smile and enjoy the journey to the Magnolia State! *Clings glass of sweet tea*

Go here to see the original:

Eight things to know before moving to Mississippi - WJTV

Getty / Photo Illustration by Mike Kim

Back in the late nineties I owned a SID number (12218354) and an address in an Oregon state prison. For part of my biddy prison bidthe old heads said my time was short fore I got thereI worked as an orderly in a mental ward of the Oregon State Hospital. The official duties included sweeping and mopping the halls, changing sheets soiled with feces and/or soaked with urine, and making beds tucked with tight hospital corners.

The unofficial duties included learning to at least feign aplomb when residents tossed food trays, tantrumed to the point of restraint, or screeched refusals of their meds.

On the up and up, it wasnt a job I wouldve appreciated on the outs, but on the inside, I was a pair of praying handsand furthermore envied by no few fellow prisoners for being allowed to leave the confines of the farmhouse-turned-prison that held us captive. Never mind the pay was paltry, so little that I misremember my actual wage, though research affirms it was less than pennies on the dollar.

Research also attests that I was a slave at the time. And I aint speaking hyperbolically or philosophically but literally and officially here. As proof, I submit Article I, Section 34 of the Oregon State Constitution:

There shall be neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude in the State, otherwise than as punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.

If that excerpt from my home states charter sounds familiar, thats because its almost verbatim the infamous clause of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that banned slavery in all of the U.S., save one gaping-ass loophole: except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.

Following the Civil War, that clause, along with the bigoted laws that became the Black Codes, paved an oil-slicked road to an era of mass incarceration, and the language still figures into Americas first-in-the-world imprisonment rates.

In 2020, several recent Willamette University graduates founded an organization called Oregonians Against Slavery and Involuntary Servitude (OASIS), with the goal of centering the voices of the incarcerated in dismantling racist policies. OASIS partnered with a group of men incarcerated in the Oregon State Penitentiary to introduce a bill that seeks a formal ban of enslavement and involuntary servitude from the Oregon constitution. In addition to striking the language, it also proposes the addition of a new article:

(2) Upon conviction of a crime, an Oregon court or a probation or parole agency may order the convicted person to engage in education, counseling, treatment, community service or other alternatives to incarceration, as part of sentencing for the crime, in accordance with programs that have been in place historically or that may be developed in the future, to provide accountability, reformation, protection of society or rehabilitation.

The OASIS initiative (SJR10) will be voted on in the states November election as an amendment to the state constitution. (Can you believe we are still, in the twenty-first century, having to stage an effort to nix language that sanctions slavery?) Though the numbers point to the bill passing, does it surprise you that people have argued that slavery is dead, that the language has little bearing on peoples actual lived experience, and therefore why go through the formality of removing it?

We constantly get asked, Well, is this just a symbolic thing? says Riley Burton, an OASIS cofounder. And the question is, Is the amendment being used as just a symbolic thing? If the basis of your system is built on slavery, then it will have an effect. And if its not [built on slavery], then it wont.

When OASIS began its push, its most prominent opponent was a prolific Oregon legislator named Kevin Mannix. Mannix explained to me that at first he worried that SJR10 would create a challenge to the forty-hour workweek mandated for all Oregon prisoners by way of Measure 17a law he propelled to approval in 1994.

The enslavement-clause victory will be great, says Anthony Pickens, who helped OASIS work on the bill while incarcerated in the Oregon State Penitentiary. But until Measure 17 gets changed, prisoners are still mandated this forty-hour, almost-non-pay workweek. Were trying to get these walls broke down so that eventually we can get fair wages.

Pickens spent the ages of fifteen to thirty-nine in prison, was granted clemency last year by Governor Kate Brown, and now works as a paralegal. Its tough to square his critical view of prison work with Mannixs optimism. I think we should ask the prisoners themselves, says Mannix. Because they like the programs that we have. They are designed to give them job skills and help them engage in useful activity while they are incarcerated. I always ask folks, Do you want people to just sit in a prison cell with nothing to do?

Listening to Mannix tout the merits of prison labor, one might miss that his Measure 17on paper at leastdemands involuntary servitude from all prisoners. Listening to Mannix talk, youd never know that the amendment proposed by OASIS is part of a national movement, that there are nineteen other states with slavery language remaining in their constitution. Hearing Mannixalso the architect of legislation known as Measure 11, which sanctioned several of my peers with mandatory prison sentencespresent his arguments, one could lose sight of the billions reaped (Core Civic and GEO manage more than half the private correction contracts in the U.S. and in 2015 alone had combined revenues of $3.5 billion) from the racket that is private prisons. Mannixs spiel fails to mention that Arkansas, Texas, and Georgiais it a coincidence that they were all a part of the Confederacy?do not pay prisoners at all. That in Mississippis Parchman Farm and the former Louisiana plantation known as Angola Farm (Black prisoners make up 70 percent and 75 percent of their populations, respectively), the prisoners still work the fields, some picking actual cotton.

Mannix also lauds Oregons history as a free stateomitting the crucial fact that it was founded with a clause in its constitution that excluded Black people from residing in the state, a law endorsed by Peter Burnett, a member of the Oregon Provisional Governments seven-person council in the 1800s. Burnett went on to become the first elected governor of California, which I mention because both Oregon and California are known as bulwarks of liberalism.

But be not duped by their ultra-blue repute.

The Golden State pays its incarcerated workers eight to thirty-seven cents an hour for part-time work and twelve to fifty-six dollars per month for full-time work. And in what I see as emblematic of the states ethic on prison labor, Cal Fire uses incarcerated men and women to work as firefightersoften on the dangerous front linesand for decades, until just a couple years ago, barred them from being hired as firefighters once they were released or paroled, by reason of a rule against hiring felons.

True indeed, I never fought raging forest blazes nor picked cotton while I was down. Matter fact, the only other job I had during my biddy bid was washing dishes in the prison kitchen, a job for which I was also thankful. That gratitude, however, paled in comparison with what working outside the prison did for my spirits, with the feeling that I could be trusted with a measure of freedom, that I was still a contributing member of societythat in a place that made men wastrels, I was otherwise.

That the pay wouldnt turn my books into a bank vault was cool with me. In the moment, it felt like a fair trade-off. But, see, one of the harms of belonging to a marginalized group is having your oppression obscured.

How should I reconcile my previous appreciation for a holding a job outside the prison with what I now know about how my people became the grist for the prison-industrial complex? With what I now understand about the forces that made crackthe drug that landed me in prisonan epidemic in inner cities and not in suburbs, forces tied to those who made suburbs in the first damn place? With what Ive learned about the relationship between those inner cities and suburbs and the tax dollars that fund prime public schools? With whats been revealed about the links between draconian mandatory minimums, three-strikes laws, and the boom of private prisons?

How do I reconcile the prior boost to my morale with the knowledge that allowing enslavement language to endure in writ not only turns incarcerated humans into legal objects but aids ill-intentioned people in their abuses of them? How do I square believing my old job to be a form of benevolence with the truth that, by and large, people whose ancestors never stooped sunup to sundown over cash-crop tobacco and king cotton are profiting, profiting, prospering from all the above?

On July 7, 1998, breathing what mustve been the cleanest air that ever touched lungs and all but gliding beneath the clearest cerulean sky, I paroled from Santiam Correctional Institution. My parole conditions specified that I get a job, which I did, working as a construction laborer. Ive held several jobs since then, but not none working as a dishwasher or orderly. And what, reasonable people, does that say about the purported virtue of my prison work experience?

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Mass Incarceration Is A Form of Slavery - Mitchell S. Jackson On the 13th Amendment - Esquire

Seven-foot fencing topped with razor wire will be installed surrounding the U.S. Capitol this week, in advance of President Joe Bidens State of the Union on March 1. The wall is to keep out truckers who are heading to Washington, D.C., as part of the Freedom Convoy protesting COVID restrictions.

Instead of shutting the truckers out, Biden should be inviting them in to sit in the gallery during his speech and have a chat afterward. He invited Vladimir Putin to talk why not truckers who love America and say they want to restore our nations Constitution?

How Biden treats the truckers could be pivotal for his presidency and the Democratic Party. The people who truck our goods, serve us in restaurants and work with their hands are speaking out for American freedom.

If Scranton Joe were still at the top of his game, hed welcome the truckers and regale them with stories of his blue-collar past.

Visiting a Mack Truck plant last summer, Biden boasted, I used to drive an 18-wheeler. The boast wasnt true, though he once rode in a rig. The point is, Biden understood, even a year ago, the political payoff from treating working people with respect instead of greeting them with razor wire.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he hopes the truckers do come, adding, Civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in our country, from slavery to civil rights to you name it. Peaceful protest, clog things up, make people think about the mandates.

When thousands marched on Washington to protest George Floyds death, they werent met with razor wire. This is America.

Up north, Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a whopper of a political miscalculation by crushing the truckers peaceful protest without ever giving them a hearing. But Trudeau is a born-and-bred elite. Biden claims working class credentials.

Meanwhile, in unison, the mainstream media is dismissing the American truckers as right-wing.

Anti-science? Hardly. Science is proving the truckers right about the damaging impact of government lockdowns and mandates.

Johns Hopkins scientists see no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality, with the exception of locking down bars.

Lockdowns cost lives instead of saving them. Many are deaths of despair, likely linked to unemployment, economic desperation and social isolation, suggests University of Chicago professor Casey Mulligan.

At the height of the pandemic, more than 30 million Americans mostly wage workers were laid off or furloughed in a speculative attempt to curb the spread of the virus. Unemployment hit 14.7%.

Of course, government bureaucrats, journalists and professors didnt lose their jobs. Now the media is barely mentioning new findings that lockdowns didnt actually save lives.

Nor are they speaking up to question the continuation of government emergency powers.

When Biden notified Congress on Feb. 18 that he was extending his emergency powers, which were scheduled to expire, the media was mum. Likewise, when New York Gov. Kathy Hochul extended her emergency powers that week.

Its the truckers who are saying, Enough.

New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall dismisses the truckers and their allies as ignoramuses who lack the advanced education and top scores on aptitude tests to get ahead. Edsall argues that when the truck convoy arrives in D.C., Biden has to prove himself by maintaining order. That would be a rerun of Trudeaus mistake.

Truth is, these truckers speak for a large swath of America that is fed up with government closing businesses, mandating shots and forcing masks on their kids.

Biden routinely calls his agenda a blue-collar blueprint to build America. If he wants the country to believe hes a friend of working people, hell listen to the truckers, not smack them down.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and author of The Next Pandemic.

Read more:

McCaughey: Democrats are building a wall to keep out truckers - Boston Herald