Monday, February 27, 2023

Commentary: The American right has gone to war with 'woke capitalism.' Here's what they get wrong

Ron DeSantis, Florida's Republican governor and likely future presidential contender, has opened up a new front in his party's war on "woke capitalism." He is proposing to change the rules around how public bodies within Florida borrow from the markets by issuing bonds.

The proposal is that they would no longer be able to work with ratings agencies that value the bonds using the ESG (environmental, social and governance) sustainability criteria that have become commonplace in the world of finance in the past few years. Public bodies and companies with lower ESG scores can see this reflected in their borrowing costs, and some politicians on the right object to this "interference" with market valuations.

DeSantis already pledged in December to pull US$2 billion (£1.7 billion) of the state's investment from BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager and a key player in the ESG movement. This was after 19 Republican state attorneys-general told the asset manager in a letter: "Our states will not idly stand for our pensioners' retirements to be sacrificed for BlackRock's climate agenda."

Eighteen states have also either proposed or adopted legislation over the past two years restricting state business with financial institutions that use ESG criteria to limit funding to industries like fossil fuels.

According to Republican senator Kevin Cramer from North Dakota, banks and asset managers "should ignore calls for ESG and woke capitalism and stick to what they do best." Former vice president Mike Pence wants the the next Republican congress to work to "end the use of ESG principles nationwide."

What they get wrong

Newly in charge of a Congressional branch, Republicans are taking their quest to Washington, DC. Andy Barr, the new chair of the House financial services subcommittee responsible for financial institutions, claimed America's financial system had been "co-opted by the intolerant left that is intolerant of diversity." For the US to be economically competitive, he said "we need our financial system to provide equal access to capital to all kinds of businesses."

This revealed either a remarkable ignorance about financial markets and the financial risks posed by environmental and social challenges—or he was being cynically misleading to score political points.

The notion of equal access to capital flies in the face of one of the central tenets of capitalism. The ability of different organizations to borrow and the price they pay is never equal. It depends on the risk of the investment and how many investors will take that risk.

Consider mining. It inherently impacts the environment and surrounding communities. Communities can tie owners up in lawsuits or even block mining access if their concerns go unaddressed. This can affect the mine's profitability.

Researchers have shown how two gold mines with the same volumes of gold and extraction costs can be valued radically differently depending on local support. ESG ratings seek to capture such factors to enable investors to make better informed decisions.

For asset managers like BlackRock, it's also about customer demand. If investments that mitigate ESG risks offer a better risk-adjusted return and investors are increasingly shunning certain companies—be it gun manufacturers or fossil fuel producers—it will affect where money flows.

BlackRock's CEO, Larry Fink, recently said that his company lost about US$4 billion in assets from Republican-led states withdrawing money in 2022, but added US$400 billion overall. Nothing nefarious or political here, just capitalism at work.

Owners of dirty assets can still raise capital. It's just that the price may be higher. Look at the divergent coal strategies of mining giants Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Glencore.

Rio Tinto entirely exited coal in 2018. Anglo American has created a separate entity for these assets called Thungela, while Glencore still has coal in its portfolio and proposes to run it down responsibly over time. (Full disclosure: I hold the Rio Tinto Chair in Stakeholder Engagement at IMD, but the company has no influence over my research.)

Investors can choose between these strategies. At any moment, these companies' borrowing costs will reflect the consensus assessment of the underlying risk, including from ESG factors.

Glencore has not been cut off from capital markets and is doing quite well—reporting record 2022 profits fuelled largely by coal. Yet its share price has not outperformed its peers, reflecting investor concerns about the long-term strategy.

Woke capitalism?

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker magazine, recently said that for "conservatives now, wokeness is the root cause of everything negative." He interviewed linguist Tony Thorne, who traced the term to a 1971 Black liberationist play in which the main character says "I must stay woke."

Thorne explained that for today's progressives, particularly following Black Lives Matter, "woke" became synonymous with "socially aware" or "empathetic." But conservatives, he said, made this vague term a proxy for leftist self-righteousness, and so "anti-woke" became the rallying cry for any social change they oppose—just like "political correctness" a generation ago.

While US conservatives are particularly fixated on anti-wokeness—"Florida is where woke goes to die," intoned Governor DeSantis in his November victory speech—it is not just an American phenomenon. For instance, the Atlantic magazine's Thomas Chatterton Williams recently observed: "The French are in a panic about Le Wokisme." Europe's debate has not yet spilled into financial markets, though it may only be a matter of time.

By labeling ESG "woke," conservatives imply that large parts of the US$100 trillion global asset management industry have been hijacked by leftists. Having spent time with lots of asset managers, it's nonsense.

Of course, not all is well in ESG land. Greenwashing is rampant, and rating agencies and asset managers get criticized for insufficiently scrutinizing firms' actual ESG performances.

Most dramatically in May 2022, German prosecutors raided the offices of DWS, Deutsche Bank's asset management unit, following allegations that it had vastly overstated its ESG investments. Lawsuits are ongoing, and DWS denies it misled investors.

Yet the idea that a firm would dress up "normal" assets as ESG simply demonstrates the investor demand for these products. Equally, greenwashing is pilloried because it makes it harder for investors to assess the underlying risks to a firm's future profitability. These problems highlight the need for better standards and regulation, which is to be expected in a nascent field like this.

Despite conservative opposition, analysts expect ESG investment to almost double over the next three years to nearly US$34 trillion, representing one in every five dollars invested worldwide. This is not an aberration of free-market principles but a reflection of them. That U.S. Republicans are puzzled by this says more about them and the echo chambers in which they have been moving than about the state of ESG.

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

GOP vs. ESG: Why Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republicans are fighting 'woke' ESG investing

THE ORIGINAL'FALSE FLAG'

Chance or Nazi plot? Exhumation of 1933 Reichstag fire 'arsonist' could show Hitler orchestrated blaze to stay in power

27 February 2023

The Reichstag fire took place in 1933. Picture: Getty

On this day 90 years ago, flamed engulfed Germany's parliament building - the Reichstag - six days before a national election, which historians say helped Adolf Hitler secure re-election as chancellor.

Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe confessed to the attack and was sentenced to death, aged 24. Then, and for a longer time afterwards, he was considered the sole perpetrator of the fire.

There have been some debates among some historians over whether the fire was simple dumb luck, handing Hitler his re-election, or whether it was an orchestrated manoeuvre by the Nazi Party to regain power.

Now, nearly 100 years on, van der Lubbe's body has been exhumed in the hope of finding a more definitive answer.

The main purpose of his exhumation was to determine whether it was indeed van der Lubbe that had been buried in the Leipzig South Cemetery.

The fire took place on this day in 1933. Picture: Getty

But a pathologist is also examining his remains to see if there are any traces of toxins due to speculation that he had been given to confess to his crime, The Guardian reported.

There has been major support for the theory that it was solely van der Lubbe that committed the crime since Fritz Tobias published a book that argued the Reichstag fire was a "blind chance".

This theory argues that only one perpetrator could have carried out the attack as the Nazi party appeared surprised by the news, worrying that it was the beginning of a communist revolution.

Van der Lubbe was also the only person arrested in the building at the time of the fire and was the only person who confessed to the crime.

But others believe that the "thoroughly prepared" nature of the arson attack suggests a larger plan beyond the capabilities of a mere 24-year-old communist.

“When it comes to the question of whether Marinus van der Lubbe could have carried out the arson attack all by himself, the evidence is overwhelming,” Carter Hett told the publication.

“There is no way he could have set fire to the plenary chamber within the 15 to 20 minutes at his disposal. He would have needed a hydrocarbon accelerant.”

“It is true that we are lacking any evidence as to how a link-up between Van der Lubbe and the SA could have come about,” Carter Hett added.

“It does still seem insane that they would have picked this unstable, almost blind young man as the fall guy.”

"Blind chance, an error" or Nazi plot?

Adolf Hitler used the fire to seize power in Germany. Picture: Getty

Regardless of the cause of the fire, it is widely accepted that the chaos generated by the Reichstag fire helped Hitler to secure re-election as chancellor.

The fire, which was blamed on the "enemy within", took place just six days before the 1933 German federation.

Hitler was able to persuade Germany's president at the time to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending civil liberties in Germany.

A huge number of communists were arrested, including in the Reichstag, crippling communist participation in the election and helping Hitler to victory.

How the Nazis Exploited the Reichstag Fire to Launch a Reign of Terror

Ninety years ago today, a fire engulfed the Reichstag in Berlin. The arsonist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was hoping to inspire resistance to fascism, but the Nazis used the fire as a pretext to impose a regime of violent terror against the German left.

The Reichstag in flames, February 1933. (Wikimedia Commons)

BYALEX DE JONG

02.27.2023

Jacobin

Ninety years ago today, on February 27, 1933, a fire engulfed the German parliament, the Reichstag. The inferno came just weeks after the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Germany’s chancellor.

The Nazis had not yet established an untrammeled dictatorship, and they immediately used the Reichstag fire to strengthen their position. Claiming that the fire was meant to be the signal for a communist insurrection, they cracked down violently on their enemies — most of all the activists of the Communist Party (KPD).

Many people assumed that the Nazis must have been responsible for the fire, which came at such a convenient moment. Indeed, “Reichstag fire” still serves as a shorthand term for an act of terror used as an excuse to seize power.

However, the truth was simpler. The man responsible was a Dutch left-wing radical, Marinus van der Lubbe, who had been arrested inside the burning Reichstag. Van der Lubbe was a tragic figure whose actions contributed to the very outcome he wanted to prevent — a Nazi dictatorship that suppressed the organizations of the German working class.

A Political Maverick

Van der Lubbe was born on January 13, 1909, in the Dutch town of Leiden. He grew up in poverty. His father abandoned his mother and her seven children when Van der Lubbe was seven years old, and his mother died when he was just twelve. From that point on, Van der Lubbe was taken care of by his half sister and her husband. Both later described him as a sincere and selfless man.‘Reichstag fire’ still serves as a shorthand term for an act of terror used as an excuse to seize power.

Marinus — or Rinus as he was known — wanted to become a mason and started to work at a construction site. His fellow workers nicknamed him “Dempsey,” after the boxing champion Jack Dempsey, on account of his strength. It was at work that he encountered radical ideas, joining the Communist Youth Movement at the age of sixteen.

A work accident damaged his eyes, leaving him unable to work as a mason. He had to rely on a measly sum paid by social insurance and whatever jobs he could find. But he also became an activist, chairing meetings, putting up posters, selling the publications of the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN) in the street, and joining demonstrations.

Soon he engaged in his first confrontations with the police. The front page of the January 26, 1931 issue of the Dutch Communist Party newspaper De Tribune carried an article denouncing police violence against Van der Lubbe. It described him in glowing terms as a thoughtful comrade who was as strong as he was brave. In his hometown of Leiden, Van der Lubbe became a well-known figure among working-class radicals.

A headstrong, rebellious character, Van der Lubbe did not really fit in the CPN. He started doubting the party as it became increasingly rigid and top-down in the early 1930s. In 1932, Van der Lubbe and some of his comrades produced their own journal for unemployed workers called Werkloozenkrant. They insisted that the CPN’s rhetoric about “independent struggle from below” was no more than empty words.

In the late ’20s and early ’30s, while still a party member, Van der Lubbe traveled across Europe by walking and hitchhiking, working at farms in return for a meal and a place to stay for the night. After the Wall Street crash of 1929, there were many unemployed workers like him wandering Europe. Sometimes, Van der Lubbe traveled in company, but more often he preferred to go his own way. The party leadership did not appreciate the fact that he went on such travels on his own initiative.The council communists were a current of Marxists who rejected any role for political parties or trade unions in the emancipation struggle of the working class.

In 1931, Van der Lubbe left the CPN and joined the activities of the loosely organized council communist movement. The council communists were a current of Marxists who rejected any role for political parties or trade unions in the emancipation struggle of the working class. They put their hope in workers’ self-activity instead to form the workers’ councils that would reorganize society.

As Van der Lubbe and his comrades explained it in Werkloozenkrant:

Workers should unite, make decisions, and elect some of their own to implement those decisions under supervision of the others. This is what is called a workers’ council.
On a Knife’s Edge

In the early weeks of 1933, the situation in Germany was on a knife’s edge. The Nazis were approaching power, yet millions of workers were still organized in left-wing parties and trade unions opposing them.In the early weeks of 1933, the Nazis were approaching power, yet millions of workers were still organized opposing them.

Communist propaganda was a mixture of bravado and ominous warnings. On February 1, 1933, the KPD paper Rote Fahne carried the headline “Storm over Germany!” and claimed that the working class was in a state of feverish activity. However, there was no mass resistance when Hitler was appointed chancellor on January 30 and the Nazis began to install their dictatorship.

Van der Lubbe wanted to see the situation for himself and traveled to Berlin. He arrived in a country where the two main workers’ parties, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the KPD, were unable to organize effective resistance to the rise of Nazism. Both underestimated the danger posed by Hitler in power and both lacked an adequate analysis of fascism.

As the German socialist historian Wolfgang Abendroth later observed, the SPD “stuck its head under the sand while fascism grew,” comforting itself with the mantra ‘‘Germany is not Italy.” The party leadership believed that a possible Hitler dictatorship might follow the precedent of Otto von Bismarck’s anti-socialist laws in the nineteenth century, when the state had banned socialist publications but respected the immunity of SPD parliamentarians from prosecution and allowed individual socialists to run in elections.

Attempting to defend the Weimar Republic, the SPD increasingly abandoned the struggle for social and political rights. From 1930 onward, it gave toleration in the Reichstag to the government of Heinrich Brüning, who would otherwise have been unable to stay in power. This enabled Brüning to ignore parliament and rule by decree as he imposed deep cuts to public spending that worsened the current economic depression.In 1932, the SPD supported the right-wing nationalist Paul von Hindenburg in the presidential election.

In 1932, the SPD supported the right-wing nationalist Paul von Hindenburg in the presidential election. Hindenburg rewarded them for their votes by backing a coup that removed the Social Democrats from their stronghold in the regional government of Prussia. Shortly afterward, he appointed Hitler as chancellor.

The Social Democrats refused to join the KPD in a general strike against the coup in Prussia or in response to Hitler’s appointment. The SPD leadership declared it would not be the first to “leave the sphere of the constitution and legality” and instead filed a motion of distrust against Hitler. By doing so, the SPD leaders avoided a dangerous and bloody struggle against fascism, at the cost of much greater bloodshed a little further down the line.

Dissolving Like a Sugar Cube

For its part, the KPD was a determined opponent of the Nazis and prepared for a period of illegality. However, it also underestimated the terror that was to come. The KPD expected the Nazi movement to quickly fall apart because of the contradictory interests running through it. Leading Communists referred to Brüning’s rule as already representing “fascism,” which suggested that Hitler’s accession to power would make little difference.The KPD expected the Nazi movement to quickly fall apart because of the contradictory interests running through it.

The KPD’s attitude toward the SPD was based on Stalin’s concept of “social fascism,” according to which social democracy in a country like Germany played a similar role to Italian fascism by repressing the working class and ensuring the survival of capitalism. This false theory justified sectarian hostility to Social Democrats and stood in the way of joint action against Nazism.

Visiting Berlin in late 1932, the Argentinian revolutionary Hippolyte Etchebéhère described what he encountered:

Confusion, disarray, an utter lack of confidence in their party and in their leaders . . . And beneath our very eyes the formidable German Communist Party, Berlin’s premier party, the most powerful section of the Communist International, dissolved like a sugar-cube in water.

Van der Lubbe observed similar helplessness. He attended rallies organized by the SPD and the KPD that the police broke up without meeting resistance. Meanwhile, Nazi stormtroopers marched through the streets unhindered.

After his arrest in the Reichstag, Van der Lubbe explained what motivated him. The new German government, he stated, meant continuing oppression of the working class and war. He had seen already how the Nazis were limiting the freedoms of workers and their organizations, but he believed that the workers were not ready to act without approval from their leaders: “In my opinion, something needed to be done to protest against this system.” He decided to set fire to a building associated with the state.

Van der Lubbe insisted he had acted alone: “No one has helped me with this.” However, the Reichstag fire became the ideal pretext for the Nazis to tighten their grip on power. In addition to arresting Van der Lubbe, the police apprehended Ernst Torgler (the chairman of the KPD faction in the Reichstag) and three Bulgarian communists, Blagoy Popov, Vasil Tanev, and Georgi Dimitrov, accusing them of participating in a conspiracy to seize power by force.

The Nazis used the supposed threat of a communist revolution to justify the elimination of civil liberties. They arrested thousands of their opponents, most of whom were communists, and put them in concentration camps. Dozens were killed right away.

The Brown Book

Suspicions quickly arose that the Nazis had started the fire themselves. The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror appeared to confirm those suspicions. It was published in August 1933 by the World Committee for the Victims of German Fascism, a project of Willi Münzenberg, the brilliant propagandist of the Communist International.

The Brown Book mixed facts about the brutality of the Nazis with fiction about a Nazi conspiracy involving Van der Lubbe, adding a large dollop of character assassination to the mix. Van der Lubbe, according to the Brown Book, was a “tool” of the Nazis. It made him out to be a vain, attention-seeking figure and a habitual liar.The Brown Book mixed facts about the brutality of the Nazis with fiction about a Nazi conspiracy involving Marinus Van der Lubbe.

In a sentence that was omitted from the English-language version, the Brown Book described Van der Lubbe as a patsy who “at the latest in the final months of 1932, had succumbed to National Socialist temptations” and was manipulated by the Nazis to take the blame for arson committed by their stormtroopers.

Another passage left out of the English translation depicted Van der Lubbe as someone who was homosexual “in his whole essence”:

His character is feminine, his reserve and shyness in front of women is established by the testimony of many, his need for closeness and tenderness from men is notorious.

All versions of the Brown Book insisted that Van der Lubbe’s alleged sexuality provided the link with the Nazis.

It was well-known that Ernst Röhm, the head of the Sturmabteilung (SA) paramilitary squad, was homosexual. The Brown Book claimed that the Dutch council communist had been one of Röhm’s lovers. The German-language version labeled Van der Lubbe a Lustknape — a “pleasure boy.” The supposed proof of Van der Lubbe’s complicity and the role of the SA presented in the Brown Book and in the campaign that followed later turned out to be fake.

In the Netherlands, a small group of Van der Lubbe’s comrades came to his defense. They published a Roodboek that included statements from various radicals who had known Van der Lubbe, as well as his diary and letters. But their efforts could not match the Münzenberg propaganda machine.

“A Miserable Faustus”

Much was made of Van der Lubbe’s conduct during the trial. He was mostly silent, his head sunk onto his chest. He struck a pathetic figure, seemingly unable to wipe his nose.

Was he perhaps being drugged to prevent him from revealing the truth? Surely his behavior showed that he was at best a fool, unable to answer for his actions. So the speculation went from observers of the proceedings.

Van der Lubbe’s behavior also surprised his Dutch comrades, who had expected him to take the opportunity to explain what he had done. It contrasted strikingly with the conduct of Georgi Dimitrov. An experienced leader with a record as a parliamentarian and trade union organizer, Dimitrov eloquently defended himself. Following what was now the Comintern line, he also attacked Van der Lubbe as the tool of the Nazis, a “miserable Faustus.”A comrade who saw pictures of Van der Lubbe in court, with his silent, sunken head, remarked that this is what a defeated working class looks like.

However, when we take Van der Lubbe’s situation into account, his behavior was not so mysterious. On March 29, the Nazis introduced the Lex Lubbe — a law that imposed the death penalty for his action. Van der Lubbe had not been afraid of jail, but now he faced execution.

Meanwhile, as the months went by, it must have become clear to him that his action had resulted in no positive effect. Most of the Left abandoned him and he found himself attacked not only by the Nazis but also by his codefendants. A comrade who saw pictures of Van der Lubbe in court, with his silent, sunken head, remarked that this is what a defeated working class looks like.

Van der Lubbe’s silence was a refusal to participate in the charade. At times, confronted by what for him must have been incredible stories, Van der Lubbe broke out in laughter. When he did speak, he repeated the message that he alone had set the Reichstag on fire, insisting that his codefendants were innocent.

Despite all the attempts by the Nazis, there was no evidence to prove that Van der Lubbe was part of a conspiracy. The legal system had not yet been completely subordinated to the Nazi state at this point. On December 23, 1933, the court finally decided to acquit Torgler, Popov, Tanev, and Dimitrov. Only Van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death. Hitler was furious, feeling humiliated by Dimitrov and what he called “senile judges.” He would never permit a court to disobey his wishes again.

In the early morning of January 10, 1934, a silent, seemingly calm Van der Lubbe went to the guillotine. He would have turned twenty-five three days later.

Remembering Van der Lubbe

The controversy over Van der Lubbe’s role briefly resurged in 2019 when journalists reported a new finding that supposedly proved the existence of a Nazi conspiracy to burn down the Reichstag. In 1955, Hans-Martin Lennings, a former SA member, had filed a statement with a notary that he and several other stormtroopers had transported Van der Lubbe into a burning Reichstag.

In fact, people had known about this statement for decades. Over the years, several proponents of the theory that the Nazis were responsible for the fire had made oblique references to the statement, without publishing it or revealing the name of its author.

They obviously had doubts about the credibility of Lennings, who had suffered serious brain trauma in 1930 after a fight with communists. He tried to have himself committed to a mental hospital during the Third Reich and had difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction, according to his close relatives.

In any case, the statement was contradicted by witnesses who had seen Van der Lubbe loitering around the Reichstag before the fire. In his recent book The Hitler Conspiracies, historian Richard Evans went over the available evidence yet again, concluding that Van der Lubbe had indeed spoken the truth.

Van der Lubbe was mistaken in his assessment of the political situation in Germany at the beginning of 1933, and in his expectations of what might result from his action. But those mistakes surely pale in comparison to the abject stupidity of the KPD and SPD leaders who obstructed united action against the rise of Nazism.

The arson unquestionably played into the hands of the Nazis. However, if it had never happened, they would no doubt have found — or made — another excuse for imposing their dictatorship. Van der Lubbe’s sincerity led to his death. We can recognize his error while remembering him as a working-class revolutionary.

CONTRIBUTOR
Alex de Jong is editor of the socialist journal Grenzeloos and an activist in the Netherlands.

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MISSISSIPPI GODDAMN

Black residents of Jackson, Miss., blast plans by white-dominated Legislature for more state control

Timothy Norris is the owner of Mom’s Dream Kitchen, a soul food restaurant opened by his mother in Mississippi’s capital, Jackson, 35 years ago.

(Rogelio V. Solis / Associated Press)

BY EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
ASSOCIATED PRESSFEB. 27, 2023

JACKSON, Miss. —

Random gunfire, repeated break-ins and a decaying city water system are constant challenges at Mom’s Dream Kitchen, the soul food restaurant that Timothy Norris’ mother opened 35 years ago in Mississippi’s capital.

“I have some cousins that live in Ohio,” said Norris, 54, who now owns the restaurant. “They came last year. They hadn’t been here in 22 years. They were completely shocked at Jackson.”

Citing rising crime, Mississippi’s Republican-controlled House recently passed a bill expanding areas of Jackson patrolled by a state-run Capitol Police force and creating a new court system with appointed rather than elected judges. Both would give white state government officials more power over Jackson, which has the highest percentage of Black residents of any major U.S. city.

The state Senate also passed a bill to establish a regional governing board for Jackson’s long-troubled water system, with most members appointed by state officials. The system nearly collapsed last year and is now under control of a federally appointed manager.

The proposals for state control of city affairs have angered Jackson residents who don’t want their voices diminished, and are the latest example of the long-running tensions between the Republican-run state government and Democratic-run capital city.

“It’s really a stripping of power, and it’s happening in a predominantly Black city that has predominantly Black leadership,” said Sonya Williams-Barnes, a Democratic former state lawmaker who is now Mississippi policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund. “You don’t see this going on in other areas of the state” with majority-white populations and leadership.

A look at the water crisis in Mississippi’s capital and what led up to it
Sept. 2, 2022

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said the proposals reeked of apartheid and “plantation politics.”

“If we allow this type of legislation to stand in Jackson, Miss., it’s a matter of time before it will hit New Orleans, it’s a matter of time before it hits Detroit, or wherever we find our people,” Lumumba said.

The sponsor of the expanded police and court bill, Republican Rep. Trey Lamar, from a rural town 170 miles north of Jackson, insists that the proposal is aimed at making Mississippi’s capital safer and reducing a judicial backlog.

“There is no intent for the effect to be racial whatsoever,” said Lamar, who is white, in response to arguments that courts with appointed judges would disenfranchise Jackson voters, who select their area’s jurists.

OPINION
Granderson: Why Jackson, Miss., reminds me of Flint, Mich.
March 11, 2021

Black lawmakers say that creating courts with appointed judges would strip away voting rights in a state where older generations of Black people still remember the struggle for equal access to the ballot.

The appointed judges would not be required to live in Jackson or even the county where it’s located. They would be appointed by the chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court — a position currently held by a white conservative from outside Jackson.

About 83% of Jackson’s nearly 154,000 residents are Black, and about 25% live in poverty. The pace of white flight accelerated in the 1980s, about a decade after public schools integrated. Many middle-class and wealthy Black families have also left.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has campaigned on withholding state financial support that the city requested. During last year’s water crisis, Reeves, speaking elsewhere, said that it was “as always, a great day to not be in Jackson.”

Racism seen as root of water crisis in Mississippi capital
Sept. 17, 2022

Jackson residents have a longstanding distrust of their municipal water system; during crises in August, September and December, people waited in long lines for bottled water. But opponents of a regional water board note that state officials sought a role only after the federal government approved hundreds of millions of dollars for the troubled city system.

The state-run Capitol Police department has been involved in several violent incidents, including the shooting death of a Black man during a traffic stop and a crash that killed another Black man during a police chase.

At Mt. Helm Baptist Church, the Rev. CJ Rhodes said many people in his predominantly Black congregation strongly object to expanding Capitol Police territory and creating courts with appointed judges.

“They feel — viscerally feel — like this is taking us back to the 1950s and 1960s,” said Rhodes, the son of a civil rights attorney. “It feels like this sort of white paternalism: ‘We’re going to come in and do what we need to do, citizens of Jackson be damned.’”

Maati Jone Primm, who owns Marshall’s Music & Bookstore in a struggling Black downtown business district, said she’s not surprised by the majority-white Legislature’s attempts to control Jackson.

“It’s a way to disempower Jackson and its citizens,” said Primm, whose storefront window displays a handwritten sign: “Jim Crow Must Go” — a phrase on T-shirts that Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers had in his car the night a white supremacist assassinated him in Jackson in 1963.

The Capitol Police currently patrol state government buildings in and near downtown. The House bill would expand the territory to cover the city’s more affluent shopping and residential areas, as well as several neighborhoods that are predominantly white.

The House and Senate have exchanged bills for more debate. On Thursday, a Senate committee suggested having Capitol Police patrol the entire city.

Some white residents also object to a wider territory for the Capitol Police and new courts.

“It’s ridiculous. I think judges should be elected officials,” said Dan Piersol, a retired art museum curator who lives in a neighborhood that would be patrolled by Capitol Police and would sit in the new court district.

Mom’s Kitchen, located in the once-safe neighborhood where Norris grew up, is a casual place that serves baked chicken, turnip greens and candied sweet potatoes. The dining room has a broken window with cardboard taped over it, a vestige of earlier vandalism.

Norris said he often feels unsafe working there. A few months ago, he said, he was looking outside when “a guy just rolled by ... shooting in the air.”

“It scared me,” said Norris, who’s also a licensed therapist specializing in helping young Black men, including some who have had violent encounters with law enforcement officers.

Norris said he would like to see a more effective police presence in Jackson, but he believes the Capitol Police are not the answer.

“Policemen should be building a relationship with the community,” Norris said.

Study: Back-to-back hurricanes likely to come more often

BY SETH BORENSTEIN

Aiden Locobon, left, and Rogelio Paredes look through the remnants of their family's home destroyed by Hurricane Ida, Sept. 4, 2021, in Dulac, La. A new study says that back-to-back hurricanes that hit the same general place in the United States seem to be happening more often. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

What used to be a rare one-two punch of consecutive hurricanes hitting about the same place in the United States weeks apart seems to be happening more often, and a new study says climate change will make back-to-back storms more frequent and nastier in the future.

Using computer simulations, scientists at Princeton University calculate that the deadly storm duet that used to happen once every few decades could happen every two or three years as the world warms from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, according to a study in Monday’s Nature Climate Change.

Louisiana and Florida residents have already felt it.

In 2021, major Hurricane Ida blasted Louisiana with 150 mph winds. Just 15 days later a weakening Nicholas came nearby, close enough for its wind, rain and storm surge to add to the problems, said study co-author Ning Lin, a risk engineer and climate scientist at Princeton. Her study looked at not just the storms but the problems back-to-back hurricanes caused to people.

The Ida-Nicholas combo came after Louisiana was hit in 2020 by five hurricanes or tropical storms: Cristobal, Marco, Laura, Delta and Zeta. Laura was the biggest of those, packing 150-mph winds.

After Laura, relief workers had set up a giant recovery center in a parking lot of a damaged roofless church when Delta approached, so all the supplies had to be jammed against the building and battened down for the next storm, said United Way of Southwest Louisiana President Denise Durel.

“You can’t imagine. You’re dumbfounded. You think it can’t be happening to us again,” Durel recalled 2 1/2 years later from an area that is still recovering. “The other side of it is that you can’t wish it upon anyone else either.”

Florida in 2004 had four hurricanes in six weeks, prompting the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration to take note of a new nickname for the Sunshine State — “The Plywood State,” from all the boarded-up homes.

“We found a trend,” Lin said. “Those things are happening. They’re happening more often now than before.”

There’s a caveat to that trend. There haven’t been enough hurricanes and tropical storms since about 1950 – when good recordkeeping started – for a statistically significant trend, Lin said. So her team added computer simulations to see if they could establish such a trend and they did.

Lin’s team looked at nine U.S. storm-prone areas and found an increase in storm hazards for seven of them since 1949. Only Charleston, South Carolina, and Pensacola, Florida, didn’t see hazards increase.

The team then looked at what would happen in the future using a worst-case scenario of increasing carbon dioxide emissions and a more moderate scenario in line with current efforts worldwide to reduce greenhouse gases. In both situations, the frequency of back-to-back storms increased dramatically from current expectations.

The reason isn’t storm paths or anything like that. It’s based on storms getting wetter and stronger from climate change as numerous studies predict, along with sea levels rising. The study looked heavily at the impacts of storms more than just the storms themselves.

Studies are split on whether climate change means more or fewer storms overall, though. But Lin said it’s just the nastier nature and size that increases the likelihood of back-to-back storms hitting roughly the same area.

Any increased frequency in sequential storms in the past was likely due to a reduction in traditional air pollution rather than human-caused climate change; when Europe and the United States halved the amount of particles in the air since the mid-1990s it led to 33% more Atlantic storms, a NOAA study found last year. But any future increase will likely be more from greenhouse gases, said two scientists who weren’t part of the study.

“For people in harm’s way this is very bad news,” University of Albany hurricane scientist Kristen Corbosiero, who wasn’t part of the study, said in an email. “We (scientists) have been warning about the increase in heavy rain and significant storm surges with landfalling TCs (tropical cyclones) in a warming climate and the results of this study show this is the case.”

Corbosiero and four other hurricane experts who weren’t part of the study said it made sense. Some, including Corbosiero, say it is hard to say for sure that the back-to-back trend is already happening.

Colorado State University hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach said the emphasis on worsening effects on people was impressive, with storm surge from rising seas and an increase in rainfall from warmer and stronger major hurricanes.

“You have to have faith and be able to move forward. You’ve just got to be in constant motion,” Durel, the Louisiana United Way president, said. “Our neighbors mean much more than wallowing in aggravation.”

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POST MODERN FALSE FLAG

U.S. Energy Department believes lab leak was most likely the source of COVID, report says

The conclusion is due to new intelligence, but the department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report, The Wall St. Journal said.

By Olivia Konotey-Ahulu

Bloomberg
Mon., Feb. 27, 2023

A laboratory leak was the most likely origin of the COVID-19 virus, according to findings by the U.S. Energy Department, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A classified intelligence report provided to the White House and key members of Congress said the virus likely spread due to a mishap at a Chinese laboratory, The Journal reported on Sunday.

The Energy Department had previously been undecided on the source of the virus. The conclusion is due to new intelligence, but the department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report, The Journal said.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday there’s “a variety of views” in the U.S. intelligence community about whether the virus originated naturally or in a lab and he “can’t confirm or deny” the Wall Street Journal report.

President Joe Biden has asked the National Laboratories, which are part of the Energy Department, to be part of the assessment, Sullivan said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“And if we gain any further insight or information, we will share it with Congress and we will share it with the American people,” he said. “But, right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question.”

China has long hit back at any suggestion that the COVID-19 virus originated in a lab. The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular working hours.

China Must Be 'More Honest' on COVID Origins, Envoy Says

By Reuters
Feb. 27, 2023

Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns attends the World Peace Forum at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China July 4, 2022.

REUTERS/Yew Lun Tian

By Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) -China must be more honest about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. ambassador to China said on Monday, after reports that the U.S. Energy Department concluded the pandemic likely arose from a Chinese laboratory leak.

Nicholas Burns, speaking by video link at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event, said it was necessary to push China to take a more active role in the World Health Organization (WHO) if the U.N. health agency was to be strengthened.

China also needed to "be more honest about what happened three years ago in Wuhan with the origin of the COVID-19 crisis," Burns said, referring to the central Chinese city where the first human cases were reported in December 2019.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Sunday that the U.S. Energy Department had concluded the pandemic likely arose from a Chinese laboratory leak, an assessment Beijing denies.

The department made its judgment with "low confidence" in a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress, the Journal said, citing people who had read the intelligence report.

Four other U.S. agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that COVID-19 was likely the result of natural transmission, while two are undecided, the Journal reported.

The Energy Department did not respond to a request for comment.

President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Sunday there were a "variety of views in the intelligence community" on the pandemic's origins.

"A number of them have said they just don't have enough information," Sullivan told CNN.

Asked to comment on the report, which was confirmed by other U.S. media, China's foreign ministry referred to a WHO-China report that pointed toward a natural origin for the pandemic, likely from bats, rather than a lab leak.

"Certain parties should stop rehashing the 'lab leak' narrative, stop smearing China and stop politicizing the origins-tracing issue," foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.

'A LITTLE BIT ORWELLIAN'

Burns told the Chamber event that it was a difficult moment for U.S.-China relations, with Beijing seeking to deflect blame after the U.S. military this month downed an alleged Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the continental United States.

"We're now in this surreal moment where the Chinese, who I think lost the debate over the balloon globally, lost influence and credibility around the world because of what they've done - they're now blaming this on us," Burns said.

"It's a little bit Orwellian. And it's a little bit frustrating, because I think everybody knows the truth here."

China reacted angrily when the U.S. military downed the balloon on Feb. 4, saying it was for monitoring weather conditions and had blown off course.

Burns added that it was the obligation of the United States to maintain its military strength "in and around Taiwan" to ensure the self-governed island claimed by Beijing has the ability to deter any kind of "offensive action" by China.

"It's also ... our responsibility to galvanize the rest of the world to make sure that the Chinese cannot get away with coercion or intimidation against Taiwan itself," he said.

(Reporting by Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom in Washington and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Don Durfee and Alistair Bell)

China Responds to 'Politicized' Wuhan Lab Leak Theory

BY JOHN FENG ON 2/27/23

China said Monday that studies into the origins of COVID-19 "should not be politicized" after a new assessment led to fresh scrutiny into a possible laboratory accident in late 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, pointed to the March 2021 findings of a joint WHO-China report that called the lab leak theory "extremely unlikely." That verdict was "a science-based, authoritative conclusion," she said at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

"Certain parties should stop rehashing the 'lab leak' narrative, stop smearing China and stop politicizing origin tracing," Mao said after The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that the United States Department of Energy concluded, with "low confidence," that SARS-CoV-2 had emerged as a result of a lab mishap.

The DOE, which oversees U.S. national laboratories, was previously undecided about the virus's origins. It now joins the FBI's own "moderate confidence" assessment as only the second agency to side with the lab leak theory. Four other agencies still lean toward natural transmission as the most likely explanation for the initial outbreak, while two remain undecided.

This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China's central Hubei province on May 27, 2020. China has said that studies into the origins of COVID-19 "should not be politicized."

HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The WHO-China report published almost two years ago was the only authoritative assessment the United Nations health agency was able to produce about the start of the pandemic. Beijing appointed half the researchers on the mission, restricted the team's access to critical data, and blocked WHO attempts to conduct a phase-two study that included a review of Wuhan's surroundings.

Beijing's decisions went some way toward undermining the report's eventual findings, which were largely dismissed by American officials. As a result, the phase-one mission report lacked "extensive recognition from the international community," contrary to China's claim.

Four months after taking office, President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. intelligence community to determine the likely origins of the virus behind the disease that has now killed at least 6.8 million people worldwide, including upward of a million Americans. The report after 90 days was inconclusive, but the agencies judged the virus was not a biological weapon and wasn't released with Beijing's knowledge.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID, said at a press conference on February 15 that the unsuccessful phase-two plans later morphed into the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), a multinational panel that included Chinese experts, announced in October 2021.

"I think we need to be perfectly clear that WHO has not abandoned studying the origins of COVID-19. We have not and we will not," Van Kerkhove said in Geneva. "But let me also be very clear that we continue to ask for more cooperation and collaboration with our colleagues in China to advance studies that need to take place in China."

"We will follow the science. We will continue to ask for countries to depoliticize this work, but we need cooperation from our colleagues in China to advance this," she said.

"We will not stop until we understand the origins of this. And it is becoming increasingly difficult because the more time that passes, the more difficult it becomes to really understand what happened in those early stages of the pandemic."

Republicans React to Energy Department’s Reported Finding That COVID ‘Likely’ Leaked From Wuhan Lab

By Gary Bai
February 27, 2023

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) questions Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, former head of security at Twitter, during Senate Judiciary Committee on data security at Twitter, on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 13, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Republican lawmakers responded to a news report saying that the U.S. Energy Department had concluded the lab leak theory was “likely,” saying that the finding supports what many have long suspected.

A Wall Street Journal article on Feb. 26 reported that a classified intelligence report by the Energy Department said that the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“So the government caught up to what Real America knew all along,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote in a Twitter post on Sunday.

The responses came as GOP lawmakers ramp up investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and allegations of government-big tech censorship of the debate.

The Energy Department was previously undecided on the issue but now joins the FBI in corroborating the lab leak hypothesis, according to the report. Several people who have read the report said the Department’s judgment was made with “low confidence,” the Journal reported.

Responding to the report on Sunday, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN that the intelligence community does not have a “definitive answer” on the matter at this point.

Republican lawmakers have been vocal about the theory that the virus leaked from the Wuhan laboratory soon after the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Initially, some health professionals and legacy media outlets dismissed the theory, labeling the theory’s proponents as racist and conspiracy theorists.

Fauci

Some lawmakers also accused Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), of colluding with big tech companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, and censoring stories about the lab leak theory via what these companies describe as a crackdown on “misinformation.”

“Fauci knew this immediately but dismissed it because of funding for the Wuhan lab,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) wrote in another post. “We know what happened next — when Fauci spoke Big Tech censored. I exposed this collusion as AG and I’ll work to ensure this type of censorship never happens again.”

“Americans knew this from Day One,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “Unfortunately, Big Tech and Big Government silenced them.”

Republicans and critics of Fauci have raised concerns about the NIAID’s funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology via the non-governmental organization EcoHealth Alliance, including for research described by experts as gain-of-function. The NIAID issued about 3.4 million in grants to EcoHealth.

Gain-of-function research makes the virus more deadly by enhancing its pathogenicity, its ability to cause disease and harm the host, or transmissibility, how easily it spreads.

The NIH has denied that the grants were for gain-of-function research, while Fauci has defended the decision to issue the grants to EcoHealth.

“More evidence continues to mount that COVID came from the Wuhan lab. We’ve uncovered emails showing Dr. Fauci was warned that the virus looked man-made & came from a lab, but he may have acted to cover it up. Why? We need answers & accountability,” wrote the official Twitter account of the House Oversight Republican Committee.

Republicans on the committee previously disclosed internal NIH emails that showed Fauci was informed by senior scientists early in the pandemic that the theory that COVID-19 had a natural origin was “highly unlikely,” even while Fauci was publicly promoting the natural origin theory.

Additional Responses

Republican lawmakers such as Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) took issue with what he described as a lack of transparency in government investigations related to the origins of COVID-19.

“The American people deserve the full truth about #covid origins. No more whitewash. I will again introduce legislation to make the US government’s intelligence reports on covid open to the people,” Hawley wrote.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) echoed Hawley’s view.

“The elites and academics owe everyone who had legitimate questions and concerns about the origins of COVID an apology,” Buck wrote in a Twitter post. “The American people deserve to see all the information concerning the Chinese lab leak and the origins of COVID. This won’t be forgotten.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) says the United States should focus on the further implications of the report, namely, the need for the U.S. government to act to hold the Chinese regime accountable for the pandemic.

“Re. China’s lab leak, being proven right doesn’t matter,” Cotton wrote in a Twitter post. “What matters is holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable so this doesn’t happen again.”

The Epoch Times contacted the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy for comment.

From The Epoch Times

THERE'S AN ELECTION SOON
In an abrupt about-face, Erdoğan seeks forgiveness for earthquake response

ByTurkish Minute
February 27, 2023

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who until Monday had been defiant in the wake of widespread criticism of his government’s handling of an earthquake disaster, has asked for forgiveness for rescue delays in one of the provinces hit hardest by the earthquake, Agence France-Presse and Turkish media outlets reported.

Erdoğan, who is seeking another term as president after two decades in power, has received strong criticism from earthquake survivors, especially those in Adıyaman in the southeast.

In the last election in 2018, Erdoğan handily beat his secular opposition rival in that province.

“Due to the devastating effect of the earthquakes and the bad weather, we were not able to work the way we wanted in Adıyaman for the first few days. I apologize for this,” Erdoğan said.

The Feb. 6 quakes killed more than 44,000 people in Turkey and thousands more in neighboring Syria.

AFP reported on the locals’ anger with the government from Adıyaman on Feb. 10.

“I did not see anyone until 2:00 p.m. on the second day after the earthquake,” Adıyaman resident Mehmet Yıldırım told AFP at the time.

“No government, no state, no police, no soldiers. Shame on you! You left us on our own.”

Erdoğan’s apology has come in the wake of recent calls for his government’s resignation for failing to prepare the country against earthquakes given the fact that it lies on major fault lines and is frequently struck by deadly temblors.

The fans of two major İstanbul football clubs, Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş, over the weekend called Erdoğan’s government to resign, shouting slogans during their matches and putting responsibility for the tragedy on its shoulders.

The catastrophe struck just as Erdoğan was gaining momentum and starting to lift his approval numbers from a low suffered during a dire economic crisis that exploded last year.

Erdoğan’s government has come under growing pressure on social media for what his critics view as a slow response to Turkey’s biggest earthquake in nearly a century.

The government is mainly accused of failing to mobilize enough people for relief efforts and a lack of coordination among the teams, which resulted in civilians in some regions trying to pull their loved ones from under the rubble themselves and finding them frozen to death although they sustained no critical injuries in the collapse.

The government is also criticized for failing to provide safe shelter to the earthquake survivors and meeting their basic needs although there is an ongoing massive relief effort in Turkey and overseas for the earthquake survivors.

Although Erdoğan admitted at the beginning that there were some shortcomings in the search and rescue efforts, he was mostly defiant until adopting an apologetic tone on Monday.

Last week, he used harsh language against people who were criticizing his government for failing to distribute a sufficient number of tents to earthquake victims, referring to people asking about tents from Kızılay (Turkish Red Crescent) as “dishonest, immoral and vile.”

Erdoğan’s handling of the biggest natural disaster in his two-decade rule could prove crucial ahead of tightly contested parliamentary and presidential elections, which were to be held on May 14 but could be postponed to June due to the earthquakes.
Opposition not forgiving

Meanwhile, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) launched a hashtag on Twitter following Erdoğan’s remarks, saying they are not forgiving him for a number of reasons.

The party said it is not forgiving people who collected taxes for earthquake readiness but used them for other purposes, transferred millions of lira to the construction sector, caused thousands of people under the rubble to freeze to death, treated the Turkish Red Crescent and state disaster agency as their own backyard and issued construction amnesties to contractors violating the country’s building code.

In a similar move, opposition Deva Party leader Ali Babacan said Erdoğan cannot absolve himself of responsibility merely by asking for forgiveness.

“How many people lost their lives due to the delays in the first 48 hours [after the earthquakes],” Babacan asked.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment