Sunday, April 16, 2023

Secular organizers say interfaith spaces should include atheists, nonbelievers

It is perplexing, some say, when interfaith leaders refer to the religious freedom movement as 'radically inclusive' while 'one of the biggest sections of society' is left out of the conversation.

David Mercer, top, a former minister, talks about rethinking the way people relate to and interact with believers while speaking in Polk County in central Florida. Photo courtesy of Atheist Community of Polk County

April 10, 2023

Alejandra Molina

(RNS) — Six years ago this month, when Arizona State Representative Athena Salman, an atheist, delivered the invocation to open the day’s legislative session, it started an odd culture war, with faith leaders on one side supporting her and Republican lawmakers rebuking the Tempe Democrat for failing to appeal to a higher power.

Instead, Salman invoked humanity. “Remember the humanity that resides within each and every person here,” she said, “and each and every person in the city, and in all people in the nation and world as a whole.” Her prayer was found to have violated House rules.

Christians and Muslims were part of an interfaith group of clergy who stood in solidarity with Salman at a “Standing for Our First Freedom” gathering at the Arizona State Capitol as they read aloud Salman’s invocation.

Looking back on those events, Evan Clark, an atheist and humanist who helped organize the demonstration, said it was an example of how interfaith networks can “stand with our community when a small or large attack happens.”

Now Clark, the executive director for Los Angeles-based Atheists United, is among a handful of secular groups challenging interfaith organizations that include people of different religious and spiritual backgrounds to make space for those who espouse no faith at all, including atheist and secular networks.

“I’ve never found an interfaith group who wants to exist to just talk about faith,” said Clark, adding that interfaith spaces exist “to get a diverse, pluralistic group of people working together to make change in their community or society.”

In the U.S. and across the globe, interfaith leaders have denounced the violence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, advocated against President Joe Biden’s plans to restrict asylum, organized to elect “gun sense” candidates and held vigils and rallies advocating for racial justice.

To leave out the secular community from these efforts, Clark said, “is to discriminate against the largest and fastest growing religious demographic in the United States today.”

Since 2009, the number of Americans identifying as atheist has doubled, from 2% to 4%, and the number of agnostics rose from 3% to 5%, according to Pew Research.

In 2020, American Atheists — a national civil rights organization that seeks to achieve religious equality for all Americans — published its own findings about the community and showed that “nonreligious young people are the fastest growing segment of the nonreligious community.” Their claim to attract American youth tracks with Pew findings that the average nonbeliever is 34 years old.

The Rev. Zachary Hoover, left, is with LA Voice, a multiracial and multifaith organization that planned the May 31, 2020, evening vigil in remembrance of George Floyd in Los Angeles. RNS photo by Alejandra Molina

The American Atheist report found that nonreligious people care about maintaining secular public schools, oppose religious exemptions that allow for discrimination, believe in access to abortion and contraception and support protecting the environment and addressing climate change, among other things. But when it comes to advocating for their positions, they are often stigmatized.

When atheist and secular groups held their first meeting with Biden White House officials two years ago, Melissa Rogers, executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, welcomed the opportunity to cooperate with nonreligious groups along with faith organizations.

Some religious activists, such as Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, found the meeting problematic, saying that if the Biden administration was “going to manipulate the founding purpose of faith-based initiatives by welcoming the advice of militant secularists, it would do us all a favor and simply trash this office.”

But secular leaders say fears about including nonreligious individuals is the result of misinformation and misunderstanding.

On April 4, Clark joined Sarah Levin, founder of Secular Strategies; Debbie Goddard, who serves as vice president of programs for American Atheists; and Vanessa Gomez Brake, a humanist chaplain and associate dean of religious life for the University of Southern California, for an online discussion about the challenges that occur when secular people engage in interfaith work.

“Having ‘Faith’ in Reason: Being Secular in the Interfaith Movement,” was a collaboration with Atheists United and the United Religions Initiative of North America “to promote stronger alliances for the work of peace, justice, and healing.”

The discussion highlighted suggestions on how organizers could be more inclusive in interfaith spaces, which included, building relationships with secular leaders, avoiding prayer or including a secular ritual, sharing the stage, and challenging religious privilege.

Melissa Rogers, bottom left, executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, speaks during a meeting with atheist and secular groups, Friday, May 14, 2021. Video screengrab

Tahil Sharma, with the United Religions Initiative of North America, said it is perplexing to see interfaith leaders refer to the religious freedom movement as “radically inclusive” while “one of the biggest sections of society” is left out of the conversation.

“A lot of communities are behaving as if interfaith cooperation is the goal of society, when in reality, the goal of society should be justice and equity, and the lens at which we do everything is interfaith cooperation,” said Sharma, who is Sikh and Hindu.

Sharma, an interfaith activist in Southern California, said of the more than 50 people who registered for the Having ‘Faith’ event, about half were people of faith. He saw the event as a bridge for people of faith and those who are secular, helping them to realize that “it’s very possible for us to work together.”

Levin noted the importance of dispelling the stereotype that secularists’ aim was to eliminate religion. While a loud minority of the community is anti-theist, Levin said, “most people we work with are not interested in ‘deconverting people.’”

“We have a moral base. Atheists and humanists, secular people, think a lot about what we believe in. That absence of a higher power … leads us to think a lot about it,” Levin said. “People who believe that there’s only one life, and one world, are really motivated to make this one life count and to be good stewards of this one planet that we have.

“We have a lot in common around values and making the world a better place,” she added.

Gomez Brake has seen atheist, agnostic and humanist students lead efforts to have dialogue about religion with other religious students and organizations. “It was in service of greater understanding between the two,” she said.

Because organized religion comes with institutions, networks and buildings, Gomez Brake added, it makes sense for atheist communities to partner with groups with established resources to put “values into action.”

“You can easily pop in to the food bank at the church and lend a helping hand because it’s already an existing program in your neighborhood,” she said.

Gomez Brake said it’s a move “just to be in community with folks who want to do good in the world, irrespective of whether they share the same beliefs.”

Adelle M. Banks and Heather Greene contributed to this report.

SATANISM IS ANOTHER FORM OF LIBERTARIAN ATHEISM

BUDDHIMISM IS ALSO A FORM OF ATHEISM

After unrest at Al-Aqsa Mosque, Israel curtails freedom of worship for Christians

Negotiations between church officials and the Israeli police have broken down.

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III, center left, holds candles for Christian pilgrims during the ceremony of the Holy Fire at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the Old City of Jerusalem, May 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

April 13, 2023

Daoud Kuttab

(RNS) — The Israeli government, already criticized the world over for its brutal handling of Muslim worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, appears to be bent on proving that it is an equal opportunity violator of religious freedom. The Netanyahu administration is now being accused of violating the Christian faithful’s right of worship.

Three major faiths’ holy days of Ramadan, Passover and Western Christianity’s Easter overlapped in Jerusalem this spring. Easter for the Orthodox Christian church, which follows the old Julian calendar, is on Sunday (April 16). But the Israeli authorities are imposing restrictions on how many Palestinian Christians, a large number of whom are Orthodox, can attend the annual Holy Fire ceremony held on Saturday

Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that on the Saturday before Easter, a miraculous flame appears inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of Jesus’ tomb. The Orthodox patriarch enters the Holy Edicule, a chamber built over the tomb, and emerges with two lighted candles. He passes the flame among thousands of people holding candles, gradually illuminating the walls of the darkened basilica.

A week ago, however, the Israeli army unilaterally rescinded travel permits it had approved for 739 Palestinian Christians from the Gaza Strip. This might lead one to conclude that it is wary after Islamic Hamas fired a number of rockets at Israel from Gaza following the attacks on Muslim worshippers earlier this month.

But there was no attempt by Israel to blame Gazan Christians for the Hamas rockets, and the rationale the Israeli authorities gave for the clampdown was that they want to prevent a repeat of a 2021 disaster that left 45 people dead after a crowd stampeded at a packed Jewish holy site.

As with most Israeli meddling with rights guaranteed under the status quo agreement, supposed safety concerns look to many like a cover for depriving minority faiths of their freedom to worship. This decision in particular comes as anti-Christian attacks have seen an uptick under the Netanyahu regime, the most right-wing Israeli government in living memory.

In recent months an Anglican cemetery has been vandalized, church statues have been toppled and Jewish radicals have attempted to torch the Church of Gethsemane. Christian clergymen in Palestine have been under attack since the beginning of the year, with about 80 physical and verbal assaults being recorded in the first three months of 2023.

In February, the United Nations Security Council was moved to adopt a presidential statement that for the first time in a U.N. document cited Christianophobia along with antisemitism and Islamophobia.

The president of the council, a United Arab Emirates diplomat named Lana Nusseibeh, comes from a Muslim family in Jerusalem that has held the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for over 850 years, with the consent of Christians, in order to overcome the differences between Christian churches.

The Orthodox Church has called the restrictions on Christian worshippers “heavy-handed,” and Christian leaders point out there’s no need to alter a ceremony that has been held for centuries without problems. They note that the stampede occurred when a makeshift wooden stage collapsed. The entire area of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its yards are made of stones.

The status quo is a 19th-century Ottoman agreement regulating the administration of Christian holy sites by determining the powers and rights of various denominations in these places. The most important of these decrees was an 1852 firman by the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmejid I, which preserved the possession and division of Christian holy sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem and forbade any alterations to the status of these sites.

Jordan, whose royal Hashemite family is accepted regionally as the custodian of Christian and Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, is supported in its responsibility by the Palestinian government and church leaders.

But negotiations between church officials and the Israeli police have broken down. “After many attempts made in goodwill,” Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem said, “all efforts at reaching an agreement with the Israeli police have failed,” adding that the “unreasonable restrictions will limit access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and to the Holy Light ceremony.”

Police officials acknowledged that they will block some routes into the Old City and that attendance will be limited in the ancient church and courtyard. But in a conference call with reporters, officials said the attendance limits — 1,800 people inside the church, which Greek Orthodox officials said was a fraction of previous years — were set by the church.

Freedom of religion and its practice are rights guaranteed by international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention regulates how an occupying power must behave, namely that it respect the status quo.

(Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian Christian from Jerusalem. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Holy Land Christians say attacks rising in far-right Israel

The uptick in anti-Christian incidents comes as the Israeli settler movement, galvanized by its allies in government, appears to have seized the moment to expand its enterprise in the contested capital.

FILE - Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa leads the Easter Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Sunday, April 9, 2023. Since the rise of Israel's most right-wing government in history, church leaders say the 2,000-year-old Christian community in Jerusalem has come under increasing attack, with an uptick in harassment of clergy and vandalism of religious properties. Several church leaders, including the head of the Roman Catholic Church in the region, told The Associated Press they fear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ultranationalist coalition has empowered extremists. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean, File)

April 14, 2023

Isabel Debre

JERUSALEM (AP) — The head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land has warned in an interview that the rise of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government has made life worse for Christians in the birthplace of Christianity.

The influential Vatican-appointed Latin Patriarch, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, told The Associated Press that the region’s 2,000-year-old Christian community has come under increasing attack, with the most right-wing government in Israel’s history emboldening extremists who have harassed clergy and vandalized religious property at a quickening pace.

The uptick in anti-Christian incidents comes as the Israeli settler movement, galvanized by its allies in government, appears to have seized the moment to expand its enterprise in the contested capital.

“The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new,” Pizzaballa said during Easter week from his office, tucked in the limestone passageways of the Old City’s Christian Quarter. “These people feel they are protected … that the cultural and political atmosphere now can justify, or tolerate, actions against Christians.”

Pizzaballa’s concerns appear to undercut Israel’s stated commitment to freedom of worship, enshrined in the declaration that marked its founding 75 years ago. The Israeli government stressed it prioritizes religious freedom and relations with the churches, which have powerful links abroad.

“Israel’s commitment to freedom of religion has been important to us forever,” said Tania Berg-Rafaeli, the director of the world religions department at the Israeli Foreign Ministry. “It’s the case for all religions and all minorities that have free access to holy sites.”

But Christians say they feel authorities don’t protect their sites from targeted attacks. And tensions have surged after an Israeli police raid on the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque compound set off outrage among Muslims, and a regional confrontation last week.

For Christians, Jerusalem is where Jesus was crucified and resurrected. For Jews, it’s the ancient capital, home to two biblical Jewish temples. For Muslims, it’s where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

The scorn heaped upon minority Christians is nothing new in the teeming Old City, a crucible of tension that the Israeli government annexed in 1967. Many Christians feel squeezed between Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians.

But now Netanyahu’s far-right government includes settler leaders in key roles — such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who holds criminal convictions from 2007 for incitement of anti-Arab racism and support for a Jewish militant group.

Their influence has empowered Israeli settlers seeking to entrench Jewish control of the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, alarming church leaders who see such efforts — including government plans to create a national park on the Mount of Olives — as a threat to the Christian presence in the holy city. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for state.

“The right-wing elements are out to Judaize the Old City and the other lands, and we feel nothing is holding them back now,” said Father Don Binder, a pastor at St. George’s Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem. “Churches have been the major stumbling block.”

The roughly 15,000 Christians in Jerusalem today, the majority of them Palestinians, were once 27,000 — before hardships that followed the 1967 Mideast war spurred many in the traditionally prosperous group to emigrate.

Now, 2023 is shaping up to be the worst year for Christians in a decade, according to Yusef Daher from the Inter-Church Center, a group that coordinates between the denominations.

Physical assaults and harassment of clergy often go unreported, the center said. It has documented at least seven serious cases of vandalism of church properties from January to mid-March — a sharp increase from six anti-Christian cases recorded in all of 2022. Church leaders blame Israeli extremists for most of the incidents, and say they fear an even greater surge.

“This escalation will bring more and more violence,” Pizzaballa said. “It will create a situation that will be very difficult to correct.”

In March, a pair of Israelis burst into the basilica beside the Garden of Gethsemane, where the Virgin Mary is said to have been buried. They pounced on a priest with a metal rod before being arrested.

In February, a religious American Jew yanked a 10-foot rendering of Christ from its pedestal and smashed it onto the floor, striking its face with a hammer a dozen times at the Church of the Flagellation on the Via Dolorosa, along which it’s believed Jesus hauled his cross toward his crucifixion. “No idols in the holy city of Jerusalem!” he yelled.

Armenians found hateful graffiti on the walls of their convent. Priests of all denominations say they’ve been stalked, spat on and beaten during their walks to church. In January, religious Jews knocked over and vandalized 30 graves marked with stone crosses at a historic Christian cemetery in the city. Two teenagers were arrested and charged with causing damage and insulting religion.

But Christians allege that Israeli police haven’t taken most attacks seriously. In one case, 25-year-old George Kahkejian said he was the one beaten, arrested and detained for 17 hours after a mob of Jewish settlers scaled his Armenian Christian convent to tear down its flag earlier this year. The police had no immediate comment.

“We see that most incidents in our quarter have gone unpunished,” complained Father Aghan Gogchian, chancellor of the Armenian Patriarchate. He expressed disappointment with how authorities frequently insist cases of desecration and harassment hinge not on religious hatred but on mental illness.

The Israeli police said they have “thoroughly investigated (incidents) regardless of background or religion” and made “speedy arrests.” The Jerusalem municipality is boosting security at upcoming Orthodox Easter processions and creating a new police department to handle religiously motivated threats, said Jerusalem deputy mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum.

Most top Israeli officials have stayed quiet on the vandalism, while government moves — including the introduction of a law criminalizing Christian proselytizing and the promotion of plans to turn the Mount of Olives into a national park — have stoked outrage in the Holy Land and beyond.

Netanyahu vowed to block the bill from moving forward, following pressure from outraged evangelical Christians in the United States. Among the strongest backers of Israel, evangelicals view a Jewish state as the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy.

Meanwhile Jerusalem officials confirmed that they’re pressing on with the contentious zoning plan for the Mount of Olives — a holy pilgrimage site with some dozen historic churches. Christian leaders fear the park could stem their growth and encroach on their lands. Jewish settlements home to over 200,000 Israelis already encircle the Old City.

The Israeli National Parks Authority promised buy-in from churches and said it hopes the park will “preserve valuable areas as open areas.”

Pizzaballa pushed back. “It’s a kind of confiscation,” he said.

Simmering tensions in the community came to a head over Orthodox Easter rituals as Israeli police announced strict quotas on the thousands of pilgrims seeking to attend the rite of the “Holy Fire” at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Citing safety concerns over lit torches being thrust through massive crowds in the church, authorities capped Saturday’s ceremony at 1,800 people. Priests who saw police open gates wide for Jews celebrating Passover, which coincided this year with Easter, alleged religious discrimination on Wednesday.

These days, Bishop Sani Ibrahim Azar of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jerusalem said he struggles for answers when his congregants ask why they should even bear the bitter price of living in the Holy Land.

“There are things that make us worry about our very existence,” he said. “But without hope, more and more of us will leave.”

___

Associated Press writer Maria Grazia Murru in Rome contributed to this report.

Saturday, April 15, 2023

Abortion pill rulings undermine religious freedom, interfaith leaders say

Multiple faith groups object to Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s ruling on mifepristone, saying it is motivated by a sectarian version of Christianity that tramples over their beliefs.

People march in front of the J. Marvin Jones Federal Building and Mary Lou Robinson United States Courthouse to protest a lawsuit to ban the abortion drug mifepristone, Feb. 11, 2023, in Amarillo, Texas. (AP Photo/Justin Rex)

April 14, 2023
By Yonat Shimron

(RNS) — Beginning Saturday, abortion rights groups are assembling a series of rallies and protests in defense of mifepristone, an abortion pill a federal judge in Texas sought to suspend.

Leading the charge are notable religious coalitions of Jews, Catholics and Hindus, as well as many ecumenical Christians.

These faith groups insist that Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s ruling last week — like the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson last year — is motivated by a sectarian version of Christianity that tramples over their beliefs that abortion is religiously permitted.

“The idea that a court would determine when life begins reflects a narrow view of one religion and imposes Christian nationalism on all of us,” said Shannon Russell, policy director for Catholics for Choice, an abortion-rights advocacy group that dissents from the Catholic Church’s official position on abortion.

Catholics for Choice members will be among those rallying in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., Saturday, as well as in cities across the nation, as part of a weekend of action around abortion rights.

Most immediately, these religious groups are protesting Kacsmaryk’s ruling, which invalidated the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone more than 20 years ago. On Friday (April 14), the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily restored full access to the abortion medication and may review the case before its summer recess. (A federal appeals panel earlier this week limited the distribution and access to the abortion pill.)

U.S. Catholic Bishops in a written statement said they hoped for a final resolution that “will result in removal of chemical abortion from the market altogether.” The Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics arm also hailed Kacsmaryk’s ruling.

RELATED: Poll: Support for abortion rights is strong, even among most religious groups

“As Christians, our advocacy must continue until every preborn life is safe from annihilation and every mother is protected from a predatory abortion industry,” Brent Leatherwood, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said in a statement.

Twenty-one states have had abortion restrictions or bans introduced in their legislatures this year in the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion. Twenty states have passed protections for abortion.

FILE – Boxes of the drug mifepristone sit on a shelf at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on March 16, 2022. Danco Laboratories is asking the Supreme Court to preserve access to its abortion pill free from restrictions imposed by lower court rulings, while a legal fight continues. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed, File)

Still, nearly two-thirds of all Americans (64%) believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to polling from the Public Religion Research Institute.

Religious groups advocating for abortion rights point out that though they may not represent the majority of Christian evangelicals, they do represent the majority of Americans.

“This idea that to be a person of faith means you’re anti-abortion is a narrative constructed for political gain,” said the Rev. Katey Zeh, CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. “It’s something we have to challenge. It’s not going to end here.”

These groups are pushing back against the prevailing view that abortion is religiously forbidden. Judaism, for example, does not believe the fetus is considered a person with full human rights until it is born. Other people of faith also interpret their sacred teachings differently.

Not only are the plaintiffs in the abortion pill case Christian — the case was filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian legal advocacy group — so is the judge.

Abortion rights groups pointed out that the language in Kacsmaryk’s ruling is infused with tropes used by anti-abortion Christians. Instead of using the more neutral and scientific terms “embryo,” or “fetus,” the ruling uses “unborn children” and “unborn humans.” It refers to abortion providers as “abortionists,” and to the medication as “chemical abortion.”

Kacsmaryk recently served as a board member of Christian Homes and Family Services, which provides housing for unwed pregnant women, The Washington Post reported.

He also worked for the First Liberty Institute, a conservative Christian legal activist group, before former President Donald Trump appointed him to the bench in 2019. While at the Liberty Institute, Kacsmaryk wrote critically about Roe v. Wade.

“This is part of a much larger political agenda to dismantle our democracy in the name of Christianity,” Zeh said.

On Monday, interfaith groups for abortion rights will be in Tallahassee, Florida, to protest a new law that bans abortion after six weeks. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the legislation on Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning, D-N.C., was on the National Council of Jewish Women’s webinar this week urging the group to continue its work.

“This is an extremist view of when life begins that is not part of our particular religion,” said Manning, who is Jewish. “So I think it’s important for us to advocate because we’re good at it and because it’s part of our values.”

SATANIC TEMPLE ADVOCATES FOR THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE

American billionaires almost a third richer today than when pandemic hit: report

EVEN AFTER LOSING BILLIONS

Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams
April 15, 2023

As the deadline for Americans to file federal income tax returns fast approaches, Oxfam America on Friday renewed calls for taxing the ultrarich while publishing an analysis showing America's growing number of billionaires saw their wealth increase by nearly one-third since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and by nearly 90% over the past decade.

"Wealth inequality in the U.S. is more extreme and dangerous than income inequality; and we need to change our approach, so we effectively tax wealth as well as income," the charity said in an introduction to the report, Tax Wealth, Tackle Inequality.

Based on Forbes data, the report found that "U.S. billionaires are almost a third richer (over a trillion dollars, in real terms) than they were at the onset of the pandemic in 2020," while overall U.S. billionaire wealth has soared 86% since 2013.

The number of U.S. billionaires—of which there are now more than 700—is also nearly 60% higher than it was a decade ago, according to the analysis.

As the report notes:
At the same time, our country has a "permanent underclass" of working families who are denied their economic rights, trapped in poverty, and unable to accumulate wealth no matter how hard they work. Oxfam data shows that almost a third of the U.S. labor force earns less than $15 an hour; half of all working women of color earn less than $15.14. The racial wealth gap is actually growing wider since the 1980s, and today is close to what it was in 1950. The average Black American household currently has only about 12 cents in wealth for every dollar of the average white American household.
And while the gender pay gap has barely budged in two decades, the gender wealth gap is much wider. One study found a raw gender wealth gap of women owning 32 cents for every dollar of male wealth. For women of color, the gap is even more profound.

"At a time when the ultrawealthy are amassing historic and dangerous levels of wealth, a federal wealth tax offers a vital and necessary tool for directly redressing extreme wealth inequality, as well as advancing racial justice, tackling the climate crisis, and protecting democracy," Oxfam argued. "It also offers a reminder that today's debt ceiling gridlock is a consequence of giving tax breaks to the ultrawealthy."

\u201cJeff Bezos is worth $122 BILLION, while a market trader selling rice in Uganda makes $80 monthly.\n\nGuess which one is taxed at 40%?\n\nJoin the global call to tax the mega-rich now.\n#TaxBillionaires\n\nhttps://t.co/DtdocnOHik\u201d

— Mark Ruffalo (@Mark Ruffalo) 1681425400

Oxfam urges Congress and the Biden administration to enact legislation like Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, which would impose a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts exceeding $50 million, plus a 1% annual surtax on billionaires.

According to an analysis by University of California, Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the tax would bring in at least $3 trillion in revenue over 10 years without raising taxes on 99.95% of American households worth less than $50 million.

Citing figures from the Institute for Policy Studies and Patriotic Millionaires, Oxfam's analysis showed that:

The wealth tax proposed by Sen. Warren, based on taxing U.S. billionaires alone, would raise $114 billion annually—more than enough to pay for reinstating the Child Tax Credit;

An annual net wealth tax could raise over half a trillion dollars ($582.6 billion) each year, by taxing more than only billionaires and using marginally higher rates: 2% for wealth above $5 million, 3% above $50 million, and 5% above $1 billion; and
If there had been a net wealth tax of 6.9% since 2013, it would have kept billionaire wealth simply constant.

"Tax Day is a reminder that the tax system isn't working for ordinary Americans. It's built to favor the richest in our society," said Nabil Ahmed, Oxfam America's director of economic justice. "The ultrawealthy are sitting on mountains of wealth that remain largely untouched by taxes, and their wild riches are in no small part a result of intentional public policy."

"We need to implement strategic wealth taxes if we want to stand any chance at reining in this kind of Gilded-Era wealth inequality that allows the super-rich to have a stranglehold over our economy," Ahmed continued.

"Taxing the ultrawealthy is essential to tackle extreme wealth inequality and protect our democracy from the threat of oligarchy—but it is also central to advancing racial and climate justice, connections that we must pay more attention to," he added. "It's also clear that political gridlock around the debt ceiling is a consequence of tax cuts on the richest."

Robert Reich: Will Fox News be detoxed?

Robert Reich, AlterNet
April 14, 2023

CEO and founder of News Corporation Rupert Murdoch

The $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News — which starts Monday, with jury selection tomorrow — has uncovered a trove of damning text messages and emails showing that Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham knowingly lied to their viewers about false claims of voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election.

A few weeks ago, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis ruled that the evidence made it “CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” and that the statements from Fox News that are challenged by Dominion constitute defamation “per se.”

Yesterday, Judge Davis said he was imposing a sanction on Fox News and would very likely start an investigation into whether Fox’s legal team had deliberately withheld evidence, scolding the lawyers for not being “straightforward” with him. The rebuke came after lawyers for Dominion revealed a number of instances in which Fox’s lawyers had not turned over evidence in a timely manner. The judge also said he would likely appoint a special master to investigate Fox’s handling of discovery of documents and the question of whether Fox had inappropriately withheld details about Rupert Murdoch’s role as a corporate officer of Fox News.

Doesn’t look good for Fox.

But one key group of people haven’t heard the revelations about Fox News: Fox News viewers. There’s been a near-total blackout of the story on Fox News, and Fox host Howard Kurtz has confirmed that Fox higher-ups have issued orders to ignore the story. Fox has even rejected paid ads that would have alerted viewers about the lawsuit. Other Rupert Murdoch-owned properties, like the New York Post, are also keeping their readers in the dark. Fox News has even filed a motion arguing that the court should maintain the confidentiality of discovery material already redacted by the network, shielding it from the public.

So today’s Office Hours question: If the court finds that Fox News defamed Dominion, will Fox viewers ever know the network knowingly lied to them about the 2020 presidential election? And will the judgment force Fox News (and other news media) to change the way they cover the news in the future?

What do you think?

My two cents:

IMHO, most of you nailed it. As long as there’s big money to be made by selling lies, weaponizing Trump viciousness, and peddling conspiracy theories, Fox News will continue to do it. The network will appeal any verdict that goes against it, and even if it ultimately loses on the law it will negotiate damages lower than $1.6 billion — and quickly make it up in future revenue. Rupert Murdoch doesn’t give a fig about the public interest or even the opinion of most of the public as long as he can continue to inject profitable toxins into the brains of his viewers (and readers). And he has rounded up sufficiently venal and unprincipled hosts — Tucker Carlson et al — who will also sell dangerous lies as long as they make big bucks doing so.

Advertisers don’t care, either, as long as Fox News viewers continue to watch the network’s appalling content.

I very much like Marilyn Anderson’s idea that, if Dominion wins the lawsuit, part of any settlement should specify that Fox News makes a statement of transparency about the litigation they lost and why.

But the basic question here is whether lawmakers are willing — and courts are willing to let them — impose any special responsibilities on cable networks, as they did with the old “fairness doctrine” as once applied to broadcasters who utilized the public spectrum. I doubt it.

Wish I could be more optimistic about this, but profiting off of dangerous lies has become a big business in America. This is one of the core challenges to the future of democracy.

The rightwing movement is weaponizing victimhood to create a parallel economy

The Conversation
April 14, 2023

A man hiding money in his suit (Shutterstock.com)

The last few years have seen the west swept by political polarisation, much of which has played out online. Debates around race, gender and freedom of speech have splintered democracies, spread conspiracy theories and sparked a series of culture wars. One byproduct of this is a rightwing movement in the tech and economic spaces, known as the “parallel economy”.

The parallel economy is a system of financial services, e-commerce websites and social media targeting communities with rightwing political values, mainly in the US and Europe. Boasting taglines like “America’s first credit card for Conservatives” and “Save America, stop funding woke corporations”, these services aim to circumvent or compete with mainstream financial institutions and tech.

Historically, the term parallel economy has been used alongside concepts like the “shadow” or “underground” economy, referring to an unsanctioned economic sector operating outside of official channels and eluding GDP estimates.

But now, both in the US and Europe, the term has become a catchall to describe a resistance movement against what some sections of the political right view as the “woke” economy. In other words, business and financial systems that prioritise progressive social causes and are often associated with the political left.

In our research into the parallel economy platforms BitChute and Gab, we found that users of these platforms feel a duty and responsibility to expose the “uncensored truth”. They see themselves as a counter-voice to mainstream sites, working to ensure free and unrestricted speech.

Advocates for the parallel economy view mainstream media and tech firms as oppressors of conservative voices. In response, they are creating and supporting alternative platforms that align with their conservative values. These include e-commerce, social media, credit cards and even dating apps.

This phenomenon is not exclusive to the US. The video platform BitChute was founded in the UK, and other examples have emerged in Ireland, Switzerland, Germany and elsewhere.

Financial preppers (people who take proactive measures to prepare for financial crises), small business owners and other internet entrepreneurs have joined the movement to promote their own products and services. While it is difficult to measure the full reach of the parallel economy, data suggests that alternative social media alone is attracting tens of millions of users.

Deplatformed and demonetised

The parallel economy provides a perceived “safe haven” and offers new monetisation opportunities for content creators who have felt silenced – or been sanctioned – on mainstream platforms.

Like all content creators, conservative influencers rely on social media to remain relevant, influential and profitable. This can be through subscription revenue, viewer donations, ads or selling merchandise.

Some platforms, such as YouTube, provide a formal infrastructure to help creators monetise. The YouTube Partner Programme has been a vital revenue source for content creators, including some conspiracy theorists and extremists.

Under intense pressure from regulators and advertisers, YouTube has begun demonetising problematic videos. This means banning users from the ad revenue sharing programme altogether, although demonetised creators and their content may still be visible to users. Some platforms, including YouTube, have also stepped up efforts to remove content creators entirely for violating rules around sexual content, harassment or misinformation.

This is where “alt-tech” platforms come in. Self-proclaimed free speech advocates have launched a number of alternative platforms, providing refuge to the deplatformed. If someone is banned from YouTube, they can now turn to Rumble or BitChute.

Rumble, a Canadian company, has become home to numerous “mega influencers” considered controversial or who have been deplatformed by major social media platforms. These include former US president Donald Trump and misogyny influencer Andrew Tate.

American Conservative commentator Stew Peters used Rumble to release his viral COVID-19 “documentary” Died Suddenly. The hour-long video, which has nearly 18 million views, links unexpected deaths to vaccinations and promotes a number of debunked conspiracy theories.

Making money in the parallel economy

As alt-tech platforms grow in popularity, established technology companies have increasingly denied them access to their services (app stores, payment processors). This is a process known as “deplatformisation”. PayPal has deplatformed several conservative alt-tech platforms including Gab, known as the free speech Twitter alternative. In response, Gab launched its own payment processor, GabPay, to enable financial transactions with and between users.

Platforms such as BitChute and Gab encourage users to support their content creators through donations or tipping. Rumble has also acquired Locals, an online service that allows creators to generate subscription-based income.

Content creators and users can also promote and sell products, such as health supplements and alternative medicine, on many alt-tech platforms. Gab has established an in-platform marketplace for this purpose. These opportunities provide content creators with a source of income, while also allowing users to support the creators and products they believe in, outside of mainstream corporate influence.

American conservative political commentator Jeremy Boreing is a vocal advocate for the parallel economy. As the co-founder of Conservative news website The Daily Wire, Boreing encouraged his readers to spend money not just on his online media, but on “anti-woke” shaving products and chocolate.

The parallel economy capitalises on a sense of ideological victimhood that many on the political right are feeling. This message is at the heart of Boreing’s plea to readers: “Stop giving your money to corporations that hate you.”

Jing Zeng, Assistant Professor of Digital Methods and Critical Data Studies, Utrecht University and Daniela Mahl, PhD student at the Department of Communication and Media Research (IKMZ), University of Zurich

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

Cyclone Ilsa just broke an Australian wind speed record. An expert explains why the science behind this is so complex

The Conversation
April 15, 2023

An anemometer. Wattanasit Chunopas/Shutterstock

Tropical cyclone Ilsa has been downgraded to a category-three cyclone as it moves southeast through Western Australia. The storm first made landfall as a category-five cyclone, passing near Port Hedland around midnight.

Ilsa smashed into the largely uninhabited Pilbara region (the country’s most cyclone-prone region) at record-breaking speeds. It has delivered Australia’s highest ten-minute sustained wind speed record at landfall: about 218 kilometers per hour. The previous record of 194km per hour came from tropical cyclone George in 2007.

So, does this new speed make Ilsa a particularly menacing disaster? The science of reporting on cyclone wind speeds is highly complex – and it can be easy to misconstrue the figures without some context.

Record-breaking sustained wind speeds

As Ilsa continues to move inland, it looks likely the storm will be further downgraded before it passes into the Northern Territory – and potentially over Alice Springs – later today and tomorrow.

Ilsa made landfall about 100km north of Port Hedland, which hosts the world’s largest export site for iron ore. But a red alert prompted most vessels to be moved farther west in advance, so it only caused minor destruction.

This Bureau of Meteorology satellite image shows Ilsa at 10:30am AEST, on Thursday. BoM

Analysis by James Knight at Aon’s Reinsurance Solutions expects in general it will cause only minor damage due to the remoteness of where it has hit.

Apart from the ten-minute sustained record mentioned above, Ilsa had a one-minute sustained record of 240km per hour, and a three-second sustained record of 295km per hour.

It’s usually the latter, more intense gusts, that cause the most damage in tropical cyclone events. When it comes to making potential damage assessment for insurance purposes, firms will often model damage associated with a three-second sustained wind speed.

But there are several challenges that come with recording and making predictions about cyclone wind speeds.

How are tropical cyclone winds recorded?

The Bureau of Meteorology maintains a national wind recording database, which uses instruments called anemometers. These measure wind speeds at locations across the country, and are often placed in flat areas, such as near airports.

Their specific placement is very important, because wind can change form as it moves over and through certain types of terrain.

Generally, when we report wind speed we’re referring to atmospheric wind gust, or wind speeds at least ten meters off the ground, which we also call “open terrain” wind speed.

However, wind passing closer to the ground, where the topography varies, will often be higher than winds passing directly above. Wind will speed up, for instance, if it’s squeezed between two hills.

We know from post-cyclone damage surveys that wind speeds can vary significantly from one side of a hill to another. So aspect and slope are very important.

As far as disaster modeling goes, this is no small issue as it can skew recordings. It’s quite possible there would have been wind gusts from Ilsa that exceeded what has been reported so far.

Australia lacks a sufficiently dense network of anemometers set up for long-term testing. If we want to gain insight into the frequency and intensity of extreme cyclone wind speeds over time, we’ll need a national quality-controlled network that has better spatial coverage.

The equipment we have, although it’s designed to withstand extreme conditions, can get knocked around and thrown offline – introducing data gaps in the time series.

Accurate and consistent data points are crucial if we want to record and predict the kinds of extreme winds we might experience during future tropical cyclones. And while the efforts of independent storm chasers and university groups do go some way, taking measurements from different sources can introduce a lot of uncertainty in the overall process.

Cyclone intensity will increase

Since 1975, there have been 48 category-five tropical cyclones to hit Australia – an average of about one per year. Shile Ilsa sets a new record for the strongest sustained wind gust at landfall, category-five tropical cyclones have been occurring with some regularity overall.

It’s worth mentioning Ilsa formed pretty late in the cyclone season. Although the Bureau of Meteorology says cyclones can form any time of the year, its very rare for this to happen outside of April.

Historical trends and climate change projections suggest the number of landfalling cyclones in our region will decrease over time. This has been consistent with real-world data, and puts Australia at odds with other regions of the world, where cyclone frequency is increasing.

However, most climate models also predict a greater proportion of these cyclones will be of a higher strength. The current scientific consensus is we’ll experience these events less often, but when we do, they will be more intense.

Thomas Mortlock, Adjunct Fellow, UNSW Sydney

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

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

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