Economic cost of new EU tech rules could top $100.5 billion, study says

By Foo Yun Chee

© Reuters/REUTERS FILE PHOTO FILE PHOTO: The logos of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's plan to rein in U.S. tech giants with new rules could cost the 27-country bloc as much as 85 billion euros ($100.5 billion) in economic growth, Brussels-based think tank ECIPE warned. Under the proposed rules, Facebook , Alphabet unit Google, Amazon and Apple could be forced to share data and banned from favouring their own services.

In a study sponsored by Google, due to be published this week and seen by Reuters, the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) said changing the regulatory approach could have a chilling effect on the EU economy.

"The economic impacts of shifting from ex-post to ex-ante in the online services sector as stipulated by the proposals of the Digital Services Act is to a loss of about 85 billion euros in gross domestic product and 101 billion euros in lost consumer welfare based on a baseline value of 2018," the think tank said.

"Also, it will reduce the labour force by 0.9%." The figure of 85 billion euros is equivalent to 0.5% of the bloc's GDP.

ECIPE said it looked into ex ante regulations of general-purpose technology, in particular the telecoms industry, and then replicated the results for online platforms to come up with the figures.

The study cited the risks of ex ante regulations where companies are told what to do before any competitive harm or market failure is proven.

"Ex ante approaches are poorly fitted for sectors that are rapidly evolving or to regulate low-risk general-purpose technologies," it said.

ECIPE said the EU legislative framework was not designed for rapid adjustments of rules nor was it clear what market failures the bloc wants to address with new rules or that these could not be resolved once harm is proven.

The European Commission will publish the rules on Dec. 2, after which it will need to be reconciled with proposals from EU countries and the European Parliament before they become legislation.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Google steps up campaign against EU push for tough new tech rules
By Foo Yun Chee

© Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann FILE PHOTO: Logo of Google is seen in Davos

Alphabet Inc unit Google has launched a 60-day strategy to counter the European Union's push for tough new tech rules by getting U.S. allies to push back against the EU's digital chief and spelling out the costs of new regulations, according to a Google internal document.

The European Commission will publish rules called the Digital Services Act (DSA) on December 2, after which they will need to be reconciled with proposals from EU countries and the European Parliament before they become legislation.

The proposal has triggered intense lobbying from U.S. tech giants and even some European tech peers worried about the impact on their business models.

The objective is to "remove from the Commission proposal unreasonable constraints to our business model, our ability to improve our products or roll out new features/services," the document, dated October and seen by Reuters, said.

When asked about the document, Google said new rules should take into account that people and companies are asking more from tech companies, rather than less.

"As we've made clear in our public and private communications, we have concerns about certain reported proposals that would prevent global technology companies from serving the growing needs of European users and businesses," Karan Bhatia, vice president, global government affairs and public policy, said.

The paper proposed increasing the pushback against European Commissioner for internal market Thierry Breton, who is in charge of the DSA, by reaching out to the U.S. government and embassies with the message that the new rules threaten transatlantic relations.

It also suggested playing on potential concerns at the Commission's competition unit by saying the DSA threatens its power. Another leg of the strategy is to spell out the costs to consumers and businesses.

The 18-page document also proposed enlisting as allies EU countries and European online companies such as Allegro, Trivago, booking.com, Zalando and REWE.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; edting by Edward Tobin)


BETA

Lawmakers ask if White House pressured FCC on social media rules

By David Shepardson  

© Reuters/POOL New FCC commissioners testify before U.S. Congress in Washington

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two key U.S. House Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday asked Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai if the White House was involved in his decision to move forward with new regulations limiting key social media legal protections.

Representatives Frank Pallone and Mike Doyle demanded Pai disclose if he had any contact with the White House or President Donald Trump's re-election campaign before his announcement.

Pai did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday but told reporters Tuesday he did not feel any pressure from the White House. He did not directly address a question from Reuters about whether he or his staff had any contact with the White House ahead of his announcement.

Pallone, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Doyle, who heads a panel overseeing the FCC, said "the American people deserve to know what conversations, if any, have transpired between you, your office and the White House to ensure the integrity of the FCC."

The lawmakers noted it "wasn’t until online platforms began fact-checking the President’s content that he and his administration began an aggressive campaign to persuade the FCC to dictate how online platforms moderate content."

Pai said on Oct. 15 he would move forward to set new rules after Trump had ordered the U.S. Commerce Department to file a petition with the FCC seeking to curb legal protections for social media companies over a provision known as "Section 230."

A U.S. Senate hearing on Wednesday focused on Section 230 and how to hold tech companies accountable for the way they moderate content. It turned quickly into a political scuffle, as lawmakers went after the companies but also attacked each other.

Pai on Tuesday declined to say when he might move forward and what new rules might look like.

Section 230, a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, shields social media companies from liability for content posted by their users and allows them to remove lawful but objectionable posts.

Many legal experts and internet companies argue the FCC has no authority to issue regulations under Section 230, while the FCC's general counsel said Pai does have authority.

The lawmakers noted Trump abruptly pulled his nomination of FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly for a new term after O'Rielly questioned whether the FCC had authority to issue new regulations covering social media companies.

Trump nominated a senior Commerce official, Nathan Simington, who worked on the social media petition, to fill O'Rielly's seat on the FCC and urged the Senate to quickly confirm him.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese and Tom Brown)

Thai student-protesters aim for ambitious political change

BANGKOK — He was only 7 when he saw his first military coup. He was 15 during the second. Now 21, he is among those at the front of Thailand's growing pro-democracy movement pushing for sweeping political reforms

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

And because of his activities, Bunkueanun Paothong has been charged with crimes that could see him jailed for the rest of his life.

“I took a stand I know that would be risky,” Bunkueanun said. “I stand firm in my principles and beliefs. Because it’s the right thing for me to do.”

Fed up with an archaic educational system and enraged by the military's efforts to keep control over their nation, the student-led campaign that began earlier this year has shaken Thailand’s ruling establishment with the most significant campaign for political change in years.

The protesters have three main demands: They want Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s resignation; changes to a constitution that was drafted under military rule; and, most controversially, reforms to the constitutional monarchy.

Political protest is nothing new in Thailand, and its past 15 years have been defined by it. Whether it was the red-shirted supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra or his yellow-shirted conservative opponents, some group could be counted on every few years to seize an airport, occupy a government building or blockade a key road in a bid to topple the government.

And like clockwork, the courts or the military could be counted on to intervene. Prayuth, a former general, first came to power in a 2014 coup.

But never before have protesters made such open calls for the reform of the monarchy in a country where reverence for the royal institution is inculcated from birth and protected by a law that makes defaming senior royals punishable by prison. The calls have infuriated some, resonated with others and most certainly complicated any solution to the latest crisis.

“We won’t back down, we won’t retreat and we won’t be open for talks until the government agrees on the three demands,” said Chonticha Changrew, who at 27 is one of the more senior protest organizers.

Many of those on the streets spent much of their lives living under military rule, and those old enough to vote got their first real chance last year. They flocked to a new party — Future Forward — whose smart and charismatic young leaders espoused a strong anti-military viewpoint.

The party shocked the establishment by winning the third-most seats. The military’s proxy party was able to cobble together a ruling coalition that put Prayuth back in the prime minister’s post. But Future Forward looked like it had room to grow.

Then in February, the constitutional Court ruled Future Forward had violated campaign finance laws, dissolved the party and banned its leaders from politics for 10 years.

The students, already upset at what they saw as an undemocratic constitution that shifted power away from elected politicians to appointed bodies aligned with the military, took to the streets.

“What motivates the student protesters is that they see the ‘game’ of politics as being fixed,” said Chris Ankersen, an associate professor at New York University's School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs, who previously worked with the U.N. in Bangkok.

The initial protests barely had time to spread before the coronavirus pandemic hit, and the students retreated. They returned in July, when the virus threat eased, and pushed their core demands of new elections, constitutional changes and an end to intimidation of activists.

The protests gathered steam and took a stunning turn in August, when a few students at a rally aired unprecedented criticism of the monarchy. Using direct language normally expressed in whispers if at all, the speakers criticized King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s wealth, his influence and that he spends much of his time in Germany. Among their calls were for greater oversight of royal budgets and an end to the practice of Thai monarchs endorsing military coups.

While shocking to many, it emboldened others.

Events escalated on Oct. 14 when protesters heckled a royal motorcade that unexpectedly passed nearby. Security personnel stood between the vehicles and the crowd, and there was no visible violence.

Nevertheless, Bunkueanun and two others were charged under an obscure criminal statute on committing violence against the queen, who was in one of the vehicles.

“I was numbed, dumbstruck, and feared for my life,” Bunkueanun recalled. He turned himself in to police the next day and spent a day in jail before his release on bail.

Prayuth and his government responded to the incident and the protests with their tested playbook, declaring a state of emergency for Bangkok that banned gatherings of more than four people and gave authorities other broad powers. That only led to even bigger protests and the government eventually removed the emergency decree to try to ease tensions.

Prayuth has said he is open to some changes but has maintained that the monarchy should remain off-limits.

“While I can listen to and acknowledge the demands of protesters, I cannot run the country based on protester or mob demands,” he said Monday, opening a special session of Parliament his government called to ease tensions.

The students’ questioning of Thailand’s social structure is rooted in their experiences at school, said Thak Chaloemtiarana, a historian who has also been an administrator at Bangkok’s Thammasat University and Cornell University in the U.S.

“The current movement, while led by a handful of university students, has attracted younger students who have become politicized through more news and information from the internet and social media, and spurred by how their teachers and school administrators suppress individualism and exercise authoritarian policies that control dress code, haircuts, gender choice, and ceremonies that are seen as originating from feudal times,” he said.

In addition to political injustices, Thak said, young people were spurred to action by what they saw as the king's accumulation of power and wealth with the acquiescence of the military, as well as the military’s needless expenditures during a pandemic-weakened economy.

The protesters' aim at the monarchy has led to counterprotests by royalists who allege the students are being used as pawns by unidentified powers behind the scenes.

Unlike previous protests, today's demonstrators are far younger and have no clear links to any group or party, making them appear untainted by past quarrels, said Allen Hicken, political science professor at the University of Michigan.

The government has so far seemed indecisive about how to deal with the protests, torn between trying to placate or punish those involved. Neither approach has lessened the ardour or number of protesters, who adroitly use social media to organize short, quickly announced events that don't require the infrastructure of past demonstrations.

Police use of water cannons and chemical irritants against the young protesters this month drew broad public outrage, so it's not clear if the government would push a more violent crackdown like those in 1973, 1976, 1992 and 2010.

Chonticha is aware history is not on the protesters' side, but she says in some ways they have already succeeded.

“Our movement has changed the perception of Thais toward the monarchy and military,” she said. “If we cannot win this time, we still have planted the seed of criticism of the ruling elite and monarchy in the people’s minds.”

___

Associated Press journalists Tassanee Vejpongsa and Busaba Sivasomboon contributed.

Grant Peck And Chris Blake, The Associated Press

'Someone ordered it': Robbers are raiding Dutch museums, targeting their Nazi memorabilia

National Post Staff 

Netherlands war museums have been hit by teams of raiders bent on stealing their Nazi artifacts, leading a number to beef up security

.

© Provided by National Post An undated picture shows German Nazi Chancellor Adolf Hitler attending a rally with high rank Nazi officials.

The Guardian reports that organized thieves are moving in on Dutch institutions that house Waffen-SS gear and other memorabilia linked to the Adolf Hitler regime — gear which appears to be in increasing demand worldwide. No arrests have been made over any of the raids.

In recent weeks an overnight burglary at the Oorlogsmuseum in Ossendrecht saw a trove of SS equipment taken, with one pilfered rifle worth almost $80,000. Jan de Jonge, the museum owner, told the Guardian:

“They drilled holes in the door to get the handle down from the inside. I didn’t hear anything while I was sleeping on the other side of the wall.

“SS uniforms, daggers, helmets, emblems, caps, parachutes, firearms, binoculars, you name it. There’s nothing left. The firearm is very rare, but I was able to display it in this museum.

He said the robbers had a target country in mind when they broke in.

“(It was all) German stuff, they didn’t take anything from the allies,” he said. “A French corner, English, Canadian: all intact. German material, especially clothing, is rare.”

“They took items that can be traded internationally. The collection was private property and not insured. At least 15 dressed mannequins with military uniforms were taken.”

Robbers targeted museums in a number of other Dutch cities, with museums moving, as a result, to take famous artefacts out of public view. In Loon op Zand, the local 1940-1945 War Museum put in a better security door, and took away cutlery once used by Hitler and Heinrich Himmler.

“Yesterday I took stuff from the Hitler Youth, and uniforms of the SS are also being removed,” Frans van Venrooij, owner of the museum, told the Guardian .

John Meulenbroeks of Hooge Mierde’s Museum De Bewogen Jaren, told the Guardian: “It seems like this is on request. Maybe (the items) are already with a collector who is wealthy.”

In August, the Guardian reports, some $2.3 million worth of items were robbed from Beek’s Eyewitness Museum. The men knew what they were after, the owner said; after the door was rammed in by a team of six, they made their way to certain artefacts, cutting away glass to get at the riches. Another museum in Limburg was also targeted.

“The collection consists only of original pieces and a number of masterpieces that are very rare and precious,” Wim Seelen said. “The only thing I can come up with is that someone ordered it. Many of the stolen items are so unique that you cannot sell them. Our world is a small one. As soon as something emerges from Beek or Ossendrecht, it will be immediately known.”

AMELIORATING CAPITALISM

Inequality in capital markets sector continues to hurt women, BIPOC and LGBTQ: report

COMPASSIONATE CAPITALISM

TORONTO — A culture of inequality continues to persist in Canada's capital markets sector and the brunt of it is felt by women and people who are racialized, Indigenous or identify as LGBTQ2S+, a new report says.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

According to a study of 600 Canadian finance workers conducted by Women in Capital Markets in 2019 and released Wednesday, only half of women believed they are treated equally and have the same access to opportunities as other genders at their firm and just one-third thought their company is free from gender bias and that the promotion process is fair and objective.

Nearly 60 per cent of men said their workplace was free from gender bias, a rate double that of women, and 75 per cent of men believed harassment wasn't an issue at their employer.

"For corporate Canada, we have a lot of work to do and the most frustrating point is how far we have to go with the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of colour), LGBTQ community and women more generally. We just have miles to go," said Camilla Sutton, the president and chief executive of Women in Capital Markets.

The study revealed that Black women were the least likely to say they were treated equally by their firm and manager, and the least likely to perceive they have equal career opportunities.

They were also most likely to report being afraid for their personal safety at work.

"I don't walk in these women's shoes in the capital market or finance sector, but this really concerns me and it should really concern leaders of such firms that Black women feel this way," said Paulette Senior, the president and chief executive of the Canadian Women’s Foundation.

Data also showed that more than half of people identifying as LGBTQ2S+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or two-spirited) in Canada's capital markets industry refrained from talking about their personal lives at work for fear of others making assumptions about them, and this group reported the lowest satisfaction with their employer's efforts to promote diversity and inclusion.

The report also revealed that concerns over pay disparities in the sector are ongoing.

Only 34 per cent of women surveyed believed they were paid equally to other genders, despite there being equal pay provisions in the Employment Act, Sutton said.

"When I talk to leaders, all of them really authentically guarantee to me that they are paying their women equally and are frustrated by that," she said.

"Maybe it's a perception gap. Maybe it's a realistic representation of the pay gap. Or maybe the truth is somewhere in between, (and) the people need to be much more transparent."

Her organization's report provides pages of suggestions for how companies can work toward fixing diversity and inclusion problems.

The recommendations include ensuring pay equity, requiring a diverse slate of candidates when hiring, establishing an ombudsperson office to deal with complaints of harassment and implementing representation targets with clear timelines.

Senior suggested that capital markets firms look at implementing better strategies to eradicate the pay gap, address child or elder care issues their workers face and deal with harassment at the office.

She says now is the time to act because she has heard of women leaving their careers because they're frustrated with a lack of action from companies turning a blind eye to problems.

"Just because you don't see the problem because you're not experiencing it, doesn't mean it does not exist," Senior said.

Sutton is crossing her fingers that these messages are heeded by companies in financial services, who often outperform other sectors when diversity is measured broadly but still have work to do.

She hopes the report will also dispel some myths about women's goals and needs.

The study found women and men are equally ambitious with 67 per cent of both genders saying they aspire to reach the executive level or C-Suite in their careers and 72 per cent of women and 63 per cent of men saying they expect a promotion in the next five years.

When asked to rank the importance in their careers of development opportunities, compensation, title, work/life balance and enjoying their job, 15 per cent of men and 14 per cent of women rank work/life balance as most important — an affront to the common perception that women value family responsibilities more than men.

The study also showed that more than half of men and three-quarters of women believe there are enough qualified women in the talent pool, but almost 25 per cent of men believe a lack of qualified women is the reason their workplace isn't gender balanced.

"I hear repeatedly that 'I'd love to hire women, BIPOC, but I just can't find talent' and I think that the line of thinking really doesn't hold water anymore and we need to push beyond that," she said.

"The talent might not be there but not in the same network as more traditional talent and this is not about lowering the barriers."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published October 28, 2020.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

Blowin' in the wind: Lost interviews hold new Dylan insights

For nearly half a century, they were blowin' in the wind: lost interviews that contained surprising new insights about celebrated singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Transcripts of the 1971 interviews with the late American blues artist Tony Glover — and letters the two friends exchanged — have surfaced at a Boston auction house. They reveal that Dylan had anti-Semitism on his mind when he changed his name and wrote “Lay Lady Lay” for singer and actress Barbra Streisand.

Some of the 37 typed pages contain handwritten notes in Dylan's own scrawl, said R.R. Auction, which is selling Glover's trove of Dylan archives. “My work is a moving thing," Dylan scribbled in one spot. Elsewhere, he used a blue marker to strike through passages he evidently didn't like.

“In many cases, the deletions are more telling than the additions," said Bobby Livingston, the auction house's executive vice-president.

Dylan, 79, was close friends with Glover, who died last year. The two men broke into music on the same Minneapolis coffeehouse scene. Glover's widow, Cynthia Nadler, put the documents up for auction, with online bidding to start Nov. 12 and run through Nov. 19.

The reclusive Dylan, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 2016 after giving the world “Blowin' in the Wind,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “The Times They Are a-Changin'” and other anthems of the '60s, was born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota. And his rambling chats with Glover help explain the name change.

A March 22, 1971, conversation began with Dylan joking: “I mean it wouldn’t've worked if I’d changed the name to Bob Levy. Or Bob Neuwirth. Or Bob Doughnut.”

But in handwritten additions, the tone became more serious as Dylan discussed his Jewish identity. “A lot of people are under the impression that Jews are just money lenders and merchants. A lot of people think that all Jews are like that. Well they used to be cause that’s all that was open to them. That’s all they were allowed to do," he wrote.

In the interviews, Dylan also recalled when he famously “went electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, where folk purists in the crowd booed him. “Yeah, it was a strange night,” he said.

There's also a letter Dylan penned in February 1962, a month before he released his debut album, in which he quoted folk legend Woody Guthrie: “Sometimes I feel like a piece of dirt walkin.’"

After visiting Guthrie in May of that year, Dylan penned these lyrics, which have never been made public:

“My eyes are cracked I think I been framed / I can’t seem to remember the sound of my name / What did he teach you I heard someone shout / Did he teach you to wheel & wind yourself out / Did he teach you to reveal, respect, and repent the blues / No Jack he taught me how to sleep in my shoes.”

“Lay Lady Lay” long was said to have been written for the 1969 Oscar-winning movie “Midnight Cowboy,” but Dylan told Glover he wrote it as a tune for Streisand. He didn't elaborate on the nature of their relationship.

The interviews originally were for an article Glover was writing for Esquire magazine, but Dylan lost interest and the piece never was completed, R.R. Auction said.

___

Follow AP New England editor Bill Kole on Twitter at http://twitter.com/billkole.

William J. Kole, The Associated Press

'Homeless Jesus' sculpture goes viral after 911 call

Kaitlin Wynia Baluk, PhD Candidate in Health and Society, McMaster University 


Recently, a life-size bronze sculpture of Jesus, called Homeless Jesus, went viral after someone made a 911 call about a homeless man on a bench. The bronze sculpture by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz depicts Jesus, identifiable by the wounds on his feet, sleeping on a street bench wrapped in a blanket.

© (Kaitlin Wynia Baluk) 'Homeless Jesus' at Newman College in Melbourne, Australia.

With replicas located in prominent urban locations, such as Buenos Aires, Capernaum, New York, Madrid, Melbourne, Rome and Singapore, Homeless Jesus now dots the globe. There are six replicas in Canada alone.

On Oct. 12, 20 minutes after a replica of the sculpture was installed at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Bay Village, Ohio, a community member called the emergency department, mistaking it for a person in need. Saturday Night Live lampooned this story in a skit on their Oct. 17 show.

© (Saturday Night Live) ‘Homeless Jesus’ 911 call appeared on ‘Saturday Night Live’ on Oct. 17, 2020.

But this is not the first time the statue made headlines.

In 2013, news outlets told a rags-to-riches story: how this sculpture was rejected by prominent churches, only to be requested and blessed by Pope Francis.

In 2018, news outlets covered its presence as it “stopped a runaway dump truck from crashing into pedestrians.”

I have spent the past two years looking at the news coverage of this religious public artwork to try and figure out why both faith-based organizations and secular media are fascinated by it. I examined interviews with faith leaders at organizations with a Homeless Jesus and online news articles that reference it.

Religious viewers

Regardless of one’s religiosity, viewers are captivated by the image of a Jesus as a homeless figure. For faith-based organizations, Homeless Jesus is a symbol that communicates and teaches viewers about core Christian beliefs.

Schmalz produced this sculpture as part of a series that visually depicts a passage from the Bible found in the Gospel of Matthew 25:35-45. Here, Jesus tells his followers that they are caring for him when they tend to the needs of those who are sick, poor, naked, hungry, thirsty, imprisoned and strangers.

For those familiar with the story of Jesus, the sculpture’s message may appear ostensibly obvious. Yet the sculpture asks them to take this message literally and to pay attention to the dignity of those less privileged.

Likewise, those on the margins of society may feel comforted by the notion that Jesus (considered by some to be the Son of God, and by others, a wise prophet) identifies with their situations.

Faith-based organizations that install a Homeless Jesus replica say they choose to do so because they want to make a bold public statement about their social convictions.

Secular viewers

Despite an unfamiliarity with or ambivalence toward the story of Jesus, Homeless Jesus may still resonate with secular and non-Christian viewers. The sculpture presents symbols with universal meanings: a street bench and a body trying to say warm, wrapped in blanket. These symbols say something about physical vulnerability in a public space. When combined, they become an icon of homelessness.

© (Kaitlin Wynia Baluk) ‘When I was Hungry and Thirsty’ by Timothy Schmalz at St. Stephen in the Fields in Kensington Market, Toronto, Ont.

Bronze sculptures are often reserved for historic monuments and statues of community heroes. When this medium is combined with an image of homelessness, it generates a clear and powerful message. The unusual combination asks viewers to see those who are homeless as people with dignity, worthy of being sculpted. At the very least: they are worthy of safe and affordable housing.

This sculpture is a challenge to the dominant tendency to ignore the needs and stories of people who are homeless. The homeless population is often perceived as “natural losers” in a competitive market economy. Capitalism justifies the presence of extreme poverty in affluent societies. Homeless Jesus presents an alternative narrative.
Religious art can communicate insight

Homeless Jesus, and its spot in the limelight, demonstrates how religious public art can play a role in promoting the ideas of an equitable society.

Back in the ‘70s, critical theorist, Herbert Marcuse, said art can oppose oppressive ways of thinking, behaving and speaking. As a scholar who left Germany shortly before the onset of the Second World War, Marcuse understood the horrors that arise when a population uncritically serves the interests of the elite.

According to Marcuse, art that offers alternative perspectives and challenges social norms, can create spaces where people can identify and question oppressive social systems.

Jürgen Habermas, another key critical theorist who is still active writing and theorising today, proposed that although religion can be prescriptive, it can also provide an alternative perspective on social reality. He said religious and secular citizens should be willing to learn from one another.

Habermas suggested that at formal levels of political decision making, religious individuals should work to translate their ideas into a language that their secular counterparts find accessible.

Homeless Jesus exemplifies how religious public art can communicate a religious belief in a manner that is respectful of and intelligible to a diverse secular audience. Religious public art can be an avenue for faith-based organizations to meaningfully contribute to the bettering of social life.

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

Kaitlin Wynia Baluk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Why all human rights depend on a healthy environment

David R Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights & environment and Associate Professor of Law, Policy and Sustainability, University of British Columbia 2 days ago

© (AP Photo/Jane Hahn) Rising sea levels are threatening homes on Diamniadio Island, Saloum Delta in Senegal. A child stands outside a home's former kitchen, surrounded by mangrove branches, in 2015.

Recent revelations about the speed and scale of nature’s decline are hard to truly comprehend. Not since the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago has the diversity and abundance of life on Earth plunged so precipitously.

For decades, governments have signed treaties and made pledges to halt the damage to our biosphere, notably the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. In retrospect, it’s an embarrassing litany of bold rhetoric, timid action and broken promises.

The recent Global Biodiversity Outlook-5 reveals that none of the 2010 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, which provided nations with the targets for the protection of species and habitats, were achieved by 2020.

Yet all human rights ultimately depend on a healthy biosphere. Among the human rights being threatened and violated by the ecosystem degradation and the decline of biodiversity are the rights to life, health, food, a healthy environment, water, an adequate standard of living and culture.

Healthy ecosystems save lives

Without functioning ecosystems, which depend on healthy biodiversity, there would be no clean air to breathe, safe water to drink or nutritious food to eat. Healthy ecosystems also regulate the Earth’s climate, filter air and water, recycle nutrients and mitigate the impact of natural disasters.

Read more: How our food choices cut into forests and put us closer to viruses

Perhaps the most conspicuous example is COVID-19, a pandemic that has caused more than one million deaths and is the latest emerging infectious disease to spill over into humans from another species. Evidence is mounting that the growing risk of these diseases is caused by human actions that damage ecosystems and biodiversity.

© (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) Cyclone Kenneth struck Ibo Island, Mozambique, in May 2019, flattening communities and contaminating drinking water wells.

Healthy ecosystems provide a buffer against emerging infectious diseases, safeguarding the right to health. Communities protected by healthy mangrove ecosystems are less likely to suffer deaths caused by cyclones, protecting the right to life. Insects, bats and birds pollinate more than 75 per cent of crops, essential for fulfilling the right to food.
The vital role for human rights

Scientists’ warnings have never been more dire or more clear. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services are calling for rapid, systemic and transformative changes to address the global environmental crisis.

That’s why there is a vital role for human rights. Historically, rights have served as catalysts for societal transformations, including the abolition of slavery, equality for women and the end of apartheid. Rights are being strategically employed by Indigenous peoples, LGBTQ+ individuals and persons with disabilities to reduce discrimination, increase opportunities and improve their quality of life. It’s never easy, but human rights undoubtedly have sparked positive transformative changes.

Rights are being used increasingly in efforts to address the planetary environmental emergency. Last year the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, in the Urgenda case, ruled that the Dutch government violated the rights of its citizens under the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to take sufficiently ambitious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The court ordered the government to make faster and deeper emissions cuts.

Read more: What a Dutch Supreme Court decision on climate change and human rights means for Canada

Similar cases are popping up all over the world. The Torres Strait Islanders filed a case against Australia with the UN Human Rights Committee, arguing that Australia’s abysmal record on climate change violates their rights to life, health and culture. Greta Thunberg and 15 other youths have filed a similar case at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, asserting that inadequate climate action violates their rights.
The right to a healthy environment

Another encouraging development is the emergence of the right to live in a healthy and sustainable environment. Portugal and Spain were the first countries to put this right in their constitutions, in 1976 and 1978 respectively. The right to a healthy environment first appeared in regional human rights treaties with the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights in 1981 and the San Salvador Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in 1988.

Today, the right to a healthy environment is recognized by more than 80 per cent of the UN’s member states (156 out of 193). Canada and the United States do not, although some of the provinces, territories and states recognize the right to a healthy environment in their legislation or constitutions.

In countries where the rule of law is in good shape, the right to a healthy environment has led to stronger environmental laws and policies, higher levels of public participation in environmental decision-making and most importantly, improved environmental performance.

© (AP Photo/Andre Penner) Land recently burned and deforested by cattle farmers stands empty near Canutama in Amazonas state, Brazil, Sept. 2, 2019.

The Supreme Court of Colombia issued a globally important decision that addresses both the climate emergency and the nature crisis. In response to a lawsuit filed by 25 children and youth, the court ruled that deforestation in the Colombian portion of the Amazon rainforest violates their right to a healthy environment. The court ordered the government to meet with the young people and leading scientists to develop a plan to rapidly end deforestation.
It’s not too late, but time is running out

With COVID-19, humanity is paying a terrible price for ignoring scientists’ warnings. We must not make the same mistake again.

States must take a rights-based approach to urgent action in four key and interrelated areas:

adopting carbon neutral and nature positive economic recovery plans,
targeting the key drivers of zoonotic diseases,

scaling-up measures to protect and conserve nature,

respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples, rural and local communities.

If we fail to employ a rights-based approach to protecting the biosphere, future generations will live in an ecologically impoverished world, deprived of nature’s critical contributions to human well-being, ravaged by increasingly frequent pandemics and riven by deepening environmental injustices.

If we place human rights and nature at the heart of sustainable development, humans could attain a just and sustainable future in which people live happy, healthy and fulfilling lives in harmony with nature on this beautiful but beleaguered blue-green planet.

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

David R Boyd receives funding from SSHRC, the Open Society Foundation, and the University of British Columbia. He is affiliated with the United Nations Human Rights Council, which appointed him as the Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment in 2018.

 

Domestic Violence Is About Power & Control

It’s Also A Tool Of Voter Suppression

As November 3 approaches, the calls for people to vote are reaching a crescendo. There’s a clear narrative around the importance of exercising your right to go to the polls, vote by mail, or even volunteer this election. And, with so many swing states in play, individual votes really do count, and the stakes are sky-high: We are fighting for nothing less than the preservation and expansion of the rights of the most marginalized communities in this country.

But blanket calls to “vote at all costs” often overlook important context: Not everyone can vote. There are many reasons, aside from legal ones, that people might be disenfranchised and therefore unable to exercise their right to vote. A major one that isn’t talked about nearly enough is the way that intimate partner violence can impact someone’s ability to vote in elections, both during the relationship and after it ends.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), one in four women will experience abuse at the hands of a partner, and The Network/La Red estimates that 25-33 percent of LGBTQ+ people will experience abuse by an intimate partner. At its foundation, domestic violence is about power and control: an abuser seeks to establish dominance over someone through tactics of physical, emotional, and/or sexual violence. That can extend into all areas of life, including one place where people can reliably demonstrate their agency: the voting booth.

“Voting is an act of power, which is why abusers often seek to interfere with victims exercising their right to vote,” says Adrienne Lawrence, an attorney and former domestic violence counselor who has also been a repeated election official. In particular, she says, that “women seeking to vote have faced retaliation for nearly a century where husbands objected to [them] exercising their right to vote.”

For someone who is currently in an abusive relationship, there are many complex reasons why they might not be able to vote — or even want to. They could be being actively controlled or monitored by their abuser, or simply disempowered from years of psychological abuse. Tactics used by abusers can include isolation, emotional abuse, gaslighting, and controlling behaviors. The way that can manifest around access to the democratic process can be an abuser withholding relevant information related to election dates or locations by throwing out mail, or berating their partner until they think they aren’t smart enough to vote. It can be not allowing them to leave the house to go vote or stranding them without access to transportation, or coercing them into voting the way their abuser wants them to.

Survivors who exist at multiple axes of oppression can find even more barriers to voting. For example, in communities with large numbers of immigrants, often with limited English proficiency like in the Asian-Pacific Islander community, “trying to get information about when and how to vote or who to vote for is much more easily monitored by an abuser, especially if an abuser speaks English and the survivor does not, and candidates haven’t done a good job of doing outreach in multiple languages,” Grace Huang, Director of Policy at the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, tells Refinery29.

Tawni Maisonneuve has experienced several of these barriers, telling Supermajority News that she “stopped registering to vote” during her first marriage because the emotional abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband made her “feel as if [she wasn’t] even intelligent enough to vote.” Maisonneuve said her partner controlled how she voted by telling poll workers she was “slow” so he needed to help her with her ballot. After leaving their abusers, many survivors may still not feel they have a right to show up to the polls, because the scars of abuse can last long after a relationship has ended.

But there are other, more concrete reasons for survivors not to vote: Many fear for their safety if they register. Registering to vote requires giving your address and personal information, which will then become a public record. If an abuser is someone who surveils, threatens, or stalks their victim after they have left the relationship, they could potentially look up their address in voter registration databases to find them.

“Fun fact: as a DV survivor I cannot register to vote because doing so makes my address public,” wrote Twitter user @IndigenousAI. “Anyone who is fleeing or hiding from an abuser is automatically disenfranchised from the political process and this is a feature, not a bug.”

In a state that requires someone to show up in person to vote, a survivor could be putting their safety at-risk by going to the polls. “Especially as we are hearing about people standing in line for hours on end, which poses another risk for people separated from their abusers,” says Huang. “We are hearing about counties where there is only one place to drop off ballots or only one polling place. The fact that you’re having to stand in line potentially puts people at risk who may be hiding from their abusers.”

Most states have Address Confidentiality Programs that allow survivors of intimate partner violence to keep their home address out of public records (Georgia, Michigan, and Hawaii are exceptions). However, there are a lot of hoops people have to jump through in order to qualify. For example, in New York state, there is a law that allows survivors to obtain a court order in the county where they are registered to vote to have their registration kept separate. This law also allows survivors who fear for their safety to be excused from going in person to their polling place, if they are worried their abuser might be waiting for them there. In order to apply for the exception, however, requires a court order to be acquired and brought to the Board of Elections.

Even more restrictive is the law in New Jersey, which only applies to people who have filed a restraining order and have documented proof of their abuse. There are countless reasons that victims choose not to file restraining orders against or call the police on their abusers, which include fear and threats.

“Some ways in which an abuser may obstruct or influence a victim’s right to vote would meet the definition of voter intimidation under 18 U.S.C. § 594,” says Lawrence. “Unfortunately, voter intimidation is unlikely to be charged because intimidation is often subtle and undocumented. Also, survivors often are reluctant to testify against their abusers, making prosecution even more difficult.”

When people are kept from exercising their right to vote because of fear of discrimination or abuse, it is a form of voter suppression. “The pandemic means we’re all in closer quarters, meaning abusers have more access and control over their victims,” Ruth Glenn, President of the NCADV, told Supermajority News. It has also meant an increase in domestic violence. “Given that domestic violence has increased during COVID-19, Black women face domestic violence at higher rates, and Black women are a strong voting bloc, you would think the candidates would do more to remove the voting barriers a number of Black domestic violence survivors face,” said Lawrence.

In order to mitigate some of those barriers to voting for survivors of domestic violence, Lawrence suggests policies that could help improve access, like statewide programs that preserve voter information privacy and remove barriers of entry to such programs; political information websites adding escape buttons to their webpages that enable prospective voters to close out of the webpage immediately and without detection; election official training on spotting voter intimidation and potential domestic violence situations; and voter registration programs at women’s centers and shelters.

What it comes down to is the fact that the system is failing survivors of intimate partner violence, thereby suppressing their ability to exercise their Constitutional right to vote. “When it comes to voting,” Lawrence admits, “domestic violence can create a host of hurdles imposed both by an abuser and by the system.”

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Behind The Racist History Of The Electoral College

How teachers' union activism helped shift the U.S. election debate on education 

AND IT'S IMPORTANCE IN CANADA

Rachel K. Brickner, Professor of Politics, Acadia University

In the fight for the U.S. presidency, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has positioned protecting students, educators and getting schools open safely with smaller classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic as “a national emergency.” On Sept. 2, he praised educators for their “grit,” and recognized their concerns for students

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© (AP Photo/ Matt Slocum) Teacher activism in the U.S. has helped pushed the Democratic party towards renewed investment in public education. Children listen as former president Barack Obama campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Oct. 21, 2020, in Philadelphia.

Biden’s praise reflects his kindergarten to Grade 12 education plan, which calls on the federal government to “provide educators the support and respect they need and deserve” to and “start investing in our children at birth.”

In both tone and content, Biden’s plan represents an evolution in the focus of American education policy and a departure from recent commitments of Democratic and Republican parties emphasizing school accountability through testing and expanding publicly funded, privately operated charter schools.

Read more: Charter schools: What you need to know about their anticipated growth in Alberta

In Canada, the challenges of reopening schools during COVID-19 have prompted suggestions that it’s time to think about “school choice” through charter schools or through school voucher programs. Voucher programs provide parents with government grants, normally taken out of the general public school budget, that they can use for tuition at a private school.

As I have argued, Canadians should not ignore American experiences of expanding such kinds of schooling.

Heavier federal role

In the U.S., states are primarily responsible for education policy. But the federal secretary of education establishes policies on federal financial aid for education and distributes and monitors related funds, as well as collecting data, disseminating research and ensuring schools from pre-kindergarten to post-graduate institutions “comply with federal … laws governing funding and discrimination.” The federal government began to play a role in kindergarten to Grade 12 education with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965.

The act provided federal funding to states to support school districts with concentrations of poor students. The ESEA has to be reauthorized every five years, and subsequent presidents have expanded its scope through changes: for instance, to provide resources for educating students with disabilities or to address perceived challenges like gaps in student achievement.

In the late 1980s, concerns over student achievement led to the emergence of an education reform movement. This movement emphasized standardized testing to hold schools accountable when students didn’t make adequate academic progress and the expansion of school choice through publicly funded, privately operated charter schools.
Fractures in U.S. ‘education reform’

Support for education reform was bipartisan in the U.S. Beginning in 1988, presidents used reauthorizations of the ESEA to emphasize greater accountability. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama went farthest to mandate testing and support charter schools.

Since the late ‘80s, presidents have been careful not to explicitly attack the teaching profession. But some state and local politicians (particularly Republicans) were quick to place the blame for so-called failing schools on teachers’ unions. Some media then followed suit, focusing coverage on “bad teachers.” This dismissal of professional educators’ expertise, combined with cuts to education budgets, created openings for philanthropists to influence policy

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© (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) Teachers, parents and students line up to protest for higher school funding and teacher pay in April 2018 in Phoenix before a teacher strike.

In the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Biden and other candidates distanced themselves from education reform priorities and called for renewed investment in public education after decades of austerity.

My research into their platforms shows explicit support for raising teachers’ salaries, collective bargaining and equitable educational opportunities for all students.

Biden and many Democratic candidates have close personal connections to public education: Jill Biden, for example, has a doctorate in education and teaches at a community college. But the shift among Democrats is also a response to the rise of education activism in the U.S. over the past decade, led by a more militant teachers’ union movement. It’s had some success refocusing public attention on what students and teachers need to succeed.

A decade of education activism

The Chicago Teachers’ Union’s (CTU) three-week strike in 2012 was a watershed moment. The CTU developed a bargaining platform, “The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve,” focused on student needs for a well-rounded curriculum, support services and fully funded schools.

To generate support for the platform and a possible strike, CTU leadership organized members and built relationships with parents, neighbourhood organizations and faith groups. Other teachers’ unions adopted CTU’s method of focusing demands on how schools ought to care for the whole student.

After the CTU strike, the movement against high-stakes standardized testing gained momentum. Critics drew attention to instructional time lost to testing, how testing narrowed the academic curriculum and problems using test scores to evaluate teachers and schools.

Moratorium on expanding charter schools

In 2016, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools until they were subject to the same regulations as traditional public schools. Despite criticism for this stance voiced by some education advocates in Black communities, the NAACP renewed this call in 2017.

Teachers’ activism reached a high point in 2018, when over 375,000 educators took part in work stoppages. Teachers went on strike in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado and North Carolina.

With broad public support, they demanded restoring funding to reverse declining wages and student resources and cuts to curriculum. When United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) went on strike in 2019 for “The Schools L.A. Children Deserve,” a major concern was the impact of charter schools on funding for traditional public school schools.

Among UTLA’s supporters were Senators Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — all eventual contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Why Canadians should care

Expanding charter schools and school vouchers, along with pressuring schools to accelerate standardized testing haven’t been a silver bullet for fixing problems in American public schools.

Rather, they contributed to the rise of a robust movement of educators, teachers’ unions and community and political allies who support a well-resourced public school system that both meets the needs of diverse students and values educators as professionals.

Read more: School funding is needed for student well-being, not only coronavirus safety rules

Canada has a long history of teachers’ union activism. Teachers in British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Ontario have engaged in job actions since 2014.

As COVID-19 pressures provinces to re-think schooling, and as teachers’ unions continue to underscore the perils of underfunding for both teacher and student health and wellness, we should watch to see if the activism of Canadian educators and allies becomes even more dynamic.

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

Rachel K. Brickner has received funding from the Harrison-McCain Foundation. She has been a member of Educators for Social Justice-Nova Scotia and is currently the Chair of Democrats Abroad-Atlantic Provinces.