LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: 03/22/22

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

400 years after extinction, beavers return to major city to combat flood concerns

By Mark Puleo, Accuweather.com
March 22

Beavers haven't roamed the streams and woods of London since the days of William Shakespeare. But after over 400 years of extinction, the rodents are being reintroduced to the United Kingdom capital in a "quite emotional" moment.

A pair of beavers, temporarily named Justin Beaver and Sigourney Beaver, were released into a designed enclosure on Forty Hall Farm in Enfield on March 17. The beavers are part of a two-year plan by Enfield Council to combat the increase in major flash floods that have plagued the city in recent years.

Officials in London hope this male beaver, nicknamed Justin Beaver, can help restore the city's wetland habitat and combat climate change. Photo courtesy of Ian Barnes Enfield Council

In February, Bob Ward, deputy chair of the London Climate Change Partnership, said the flood risks have turned life-threatening due to the city's outdated drainage system.

"There is now a real risk of people drowning, particularly in basement flats if a major flash flood occurred in the middle of the night," he told the Observer. "The problem is particularly worrying because we have no idea how many people live in basement properties in London."

In a city analysis from July 2021, a report from the London Councils taskforce found that the city was dealt more than a month's average rain on several different days. The month's enormous rainfall triggered the closures of major hospitals and underground train stations and caused flooding in over 1,000 homes.

The hope for the introduction of the beavers is that the natural engineers will build dams and restore habitats that help slow down and filter water in the city's wetlands. By cutting down trees and attracting other forms of wildlife, officials hope the restoration efforts lead to reduced downstream flooding.

"They're not just beautiful creatures, they're so good in the ecosystem, they encourage other animals and insects because of the ponds and dams they make," Ian Barnes, Enfield Council's deputy leader, told The Guardian.

Conversation leaders hope the pair will reproduce in the coming months as the organizations wait on the government to approve applications to release the animals into the wild.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan celebrated the release of the beavers into the enclosure with a video on Twitter.

Great to see @EnfieldCouncil welcome beavers to their wetlands as part of a series of projects designed to help rewild the area.

Surreal footage shows truck's encounter with an EF2 tornado

A young truck driver in Elgin, Texas, accidentally was treated to the ride of his life after he drove directly through the funnel of a damaging EF2 tornado on Monday.

Just before crossing the road, the tornado destroyed a mobile home, injuring one and sending debris and dust from the house up into the air and across the highway. As the twister churned toward the highway, little was in its path other than a lone red truck and its driver.

The truck, a red 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500, was quickly enveloped by the twisting winds of the tornado as it crossed the highway in front of storm chaser Brian Emfinger.

As power lines in the path of the tornado sparked and buckled due to the high winds, the truck was shoved over onto its side. With the truck fully on its side, the winds managed to spin the vehicle a full 360 before somehow flipping the truck back onto all four wheels, all while whipping around large debris from the mobile home, trees and power lines.

"I CANNOT believe they drove away like that," Emfinger tweeted, reacting to the dramatic footage he caught.

The driver, whom Emfinger estimated to be a 16- to 17-year-old boy, kept driving down the road after the unbelievably close encounter with the tornado, suffering just a cut on his arm. Emfinger did stop the truck and give the boy his phone so that he could call his parents, according to reporting from the Fort-Worth Star Telegram.

The truck appeared to survive the storm largely undamaged as well, as it was able to drive away with its headlights on even after the type of weather encounter its manufacturers may not have tested for.

The tornado that hit Elgin was part of a larger, ongoing tornado outbreak hitting the southern United States. At least 66 tornado warnings were issued from Monday afternoon into Tuesday morning. Nineteen out of the 20 tornado reports filed by the Storm Prediction Center on Monday and Monday night were from Texas, and there was one tornado report from Oklahoma.

More dangerous tornadoes were expected in parts of the South on Tuesday, especially in Louisiana and Mississippi, where the Storm Prediction Center issued a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms. This area covers a population of more than 2 million and includes cities such as Baton Rouge, La., and Jackson and Hattiesburg, Miss.

Putin keeps loyalty of Russian political elite despite outcry

By AFP
Published March 22, 2022

Stuart WILLIAMS

President Vladimir Putin is for now holding on to the public loyalty of Russia’s political elite, despite the international outcry over the invasion of Ukraine and unprecedented sanctions.

Russian artists and heavyweight media figures have spoken out against the war and even billionaire oligarchs have offered veiled criticism.

But after almost a month of fighting, there has been no apparent outbreak of dissent from within Putin’s inner circle or among political heavyweights inside the country.

“There has been no sign of a split” within the ruling class, said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the R.Politik political analysis firm.

“There is a full consensus, albeit possibly with differences on tactics,” she added.

She said a distinction had to be drawn between having reservations about the invasion and being ready to act.

“People are in shock and many believe this is a mistake. But no-one is able to act. Everyone is focused on their own survival.”

Western diplomatic sources say despite the crushing impact of sanctions on the Russian economy, there is no sign yet that this will translate into political change.

The main domestic criticism of the invasion, according to Stanovaya, comes from “peripheral” forces on the radical right who think it is not proceeding aggressively enough.

– ‘Cultivated a system’ –

Russian state television dominates the narrative, presenting what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine as a heroic mission against Western aggression.

The liberal opposition has evaporated, the parties represented in parliament almost always toe the Kremlin line on all issues and Putin’s most potent foe, Alexei Navalny, is in jail.

“It’s no real surprise that we haven’t yet seen dramatic, public splits within the ruling elite,” said Ben Noble, associate professor of Russian politics at University College London and co-author of a recent book “Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future?”.

“Vladimir Putin has cultivated a system in which he is surrounded by super-loyalists who share his world view of a West out to destroy Russia, or those who are too afraid to voice their dissent,” he said.

On February 21, three days before launching the invasion, Putin summoned the political leadership to the Kremlin for a security council to discuss recognising pro-Moscow breakaway regions in Ukraine as independent.

One by one, in a theatrical show of unity, the 12 men and one woman lined up to back the move to recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk regions as independent, a move now seen as heralding the war.

– ‘Fifth column’ –

Those present at the meeting included the three men who Western security sources believe make up Putin’s tightest inner circle — Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, National Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Federal Security Service (FSB) chief Alexander Bortnikov.

There has not been the slightest murmur of dissent from those who attended or even from more low-ranking officials.

Putin on March 16 issued a chilling warning against disobeying the Kremlin line, saying the West was betting “on a fifth column, on traitors to the nation” to weaken Russia.

Virtually the only current or former insider to have broken ranks is the former Kremlin aide and ex-deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich — also head of the main world chess body.

He came out against the war in a US magazine interview and stepped down from his post leading an entrepreneurship foundation.

From other liberal leaning ex-Kremlin figures — like the former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, who is now head of Russia’s audit chamber — there has simply been silence.

– ‘Decision-making’ –

There was speculation over the future of central bank head Elvira Nabiullina, an economist at the helm of the Bank Rossii since 2013.

She was photographed looking dejected at a Kremlin meeting and posted a cryptic video, in which she acknowledged the Russian economy was in an “extreme” situation and said, “We all very much would have liked this not to have happened.”

But Putin this week asked parliament to nominate her for another term, apparently scotching rumours she could resign in protest at the war.

There have been murmurs of concern from oligarchs who stand to lose massively from the invasion, such as the magnates Oleg Deripaska and Mikhail Fridman, who have both made cautious comments promoting peace.

On March 3, the board of Russia’s largest privately-owned energy company, oil giant Lukoil, also called for an end to the conflict.

Noble added that many members of the elite were shocked by the invasion, as the vast majority “had not been involved in the decision-making process” and believed Putin was planning brinkmanship rather than invasion.

“However, it’s one thing to call for peace; it’s quite another to criticise Putin directly,” he said.

How 'shock therapy' created Russian oligarchs and paved the path for Putin

March 22, 20226:30 AM ET
GREG ROSALSKY

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a meeting with Russian

oligarch Roman Abramovich (on the left, in the center) in 2010.

Alexei Nikolsky/AP

It's been a rough few weeks for Roman Abramovich.

The British government blocked him from entering the country and froze his assets, depriving him of a glittering collection of sports cars, his 15-bedroom mansion in central London, his penthouse overlooking the River Thames, and the Chelsea soccer club.

The European Union is also messing with his finances and banning him from traveling into its 27 member states. No more summering in Saint-Tropez or wintering in Chamonix.

In the United States, members of Congress are now calling on President Biden to sanction Abramovich, threatening his megamansion on the Upper East Side.

It's not just governments. Last week, a Pro-Ukraine activist in Spain chartered a boat and attempted to graffiti Abramovich's 458-foot superyacht, Solaris, which was docked in a Barcelona marina. Although the activist failed, Abramovich directed his two superyachts (he has another one) to head east for safety.

Abramovich, himself, has fled east for safety, back home to Russia, which seems to be one of the few nations where he's welcome these days.

All of this is a lot of unwanted publicity for a man with a reputation for shunning the spotlight. An orphan who grew up in the frozen tundra of Siberia, Abramovich rose from nothing to become a tycoon worth an estimated $13 billion. Younger than most in the first generation of Russian "oligarchs" — as the Russians would come to disparagingly call them — the boyish Abramovich became known as "the stealth oligarch" because, unlike many of his plutocratic contemporaries, he kept his head down.

In the 1990s, Abramovich became the protégé of Boris Berezovsky, who was probably the least stealthy oligarch. Berezovsky had a big mouth. In 2000, he made the mistake of openly challenging a new president by the name of Vladimir Putin, someone Berezovsky had played a big role in helping to get elected president. When Putin threw down the hammer, Berezovsky was forced to flee Russia — and Abramovich, a staunch (and tight-lipped) Putin loyalist, took over much of Berezovsky's oil and media empires. Berezovsky remained a vocal Putin critic after moving to London. He was found dead there in 2013, hanging from a noose in his bathroom. Investigators are divided on whether it was suicide or murder.

With the exception of Abramovich and a few other notables, the cast of characters comprising Russia's oligarchy has been largely replaced since the 1990s, after Putin began purging oligarchs and anointing his own oligarchs in an effort to fortify his reign. However, the power structure remains the same. It's a symbiotic relationship in which the oligarchs' economic power buttresses the political power of the Russian president, and the president's power buttresses the economic power of the oligarchs — like a medieval king getting tribute from his aristocracy in exchange for his protection. It's an arrangement that the West is now fighting to disrupt.

It's impossible to know what would have happened to Russia in an alternate universe, where the nation's transition to capitalism was handled more gradually and fairly, and the oligarchs had never taken the helm of Russia's economy. We do know, however, that their story is crucial to understanding the rise of Putin.

The Rise Of The Oligarchy

The Russian oligarchy arose out of the mayhem of rapid privatization in the 1990s. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian president Boris Yeltsin, a leader in the revolt against communism, had to figure out how to transition from a command-and-control economy to a market one. Yeltsin turned to the Russian economists Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais, who, with the aid of Western advisers, hammered out the details.

There were many economists — including even Gaidar and Chubais themselves before they became government officials — who believed that the transition to capitalism would best be handled gradually. They knew the transition would be complex and painful, and it made sense for Russia to first create the institutions that healthy, competitive markets need to flourish — like independent courts, functioning capital markets, and strong regulatory bodies.

But Yeltsin and his allies believed that time was not on their side. An attempted coup in August 1991 by Soviet hardliners against the reformers almost derailed the whole project. Entrenched Soviet industrialists and party insiders wanted a return to the old order. The Yeltsin administration decided that a program known as "shock therapy" — rapidly unleashing market forces — was the way to electrocute the old Soviet system and jolt Russia into embracing capitalism.

American advisors and global creditors, especially the International Monetary Fund, played a notable role advocating for shock therapy. But some influential shock therapists, like the economist Jeffrey Sachs, then at Harvard, believed such a radical program needed support. He proposed the United States and multilateral development agencies help Russian reformers succeed with a $30 billion aid package, akin to what America had provided Europe after WWII with the Marshall Plan. Sachs also called for the cancellation of Russia's debts. But these ideas were rejected by American leaders.

President Yeltsin delivered the first big shock to the Russian economy when he lifted price controls in December 1991. As the Soviet economy collapsed, however, the policy ended up unleashing hyperinflation. By 1994, consumer prices in Russia would skyrocket to almost 2000 times what they had been in 1990. That candy bar that had cost $1 now cost $2000. Hyperinflation devastated ordinary Russians.

Meanwhile, Chubais was tasked with overseeing mass privatization. That entailed transforming a nation whose almost entire economy consisted of state-controlled industries — manufacturing plants, oil refineries, mines, media outlets, biscuit factories, you name it — into private enterprises. It was, to date, surely the biggest transfer of state assets to private owners in world history.

Privatization was conducted in two waves. The first wave, which began in October 1992, had at least the veneer of being a fair and open process. Russia issued 148 million "privatization checks," or vouchers, to Russian citizens. These vouchers could be freely sold or traded. They could then be used to buy shares of state enterprises going private at public auctions around the nation. It was like the former Soviet Union was holding the world's largest garage sale and vouchers were the tickets to shop.

The people on their way to becoming Russia's first class of oligarchs scoured the nation, trying to buy as many vouchers as they could. Many of the oligarchs had come from nothing. They had initially gotten rich — but not quite buy-superyachts rich just yet — by hustling in the black market or through legitimate businesses when the Soviet Union first allowed private entrepreneurship in the late 1980s. For example, Roman Abramovich made his first pot of money selling rubber ducks and other random objects to Russians out of his Moscow apartment (seriously). He was also a mechanic. By the time privatization began, many soon-to-be oligarchs owned banks and had enough money to buy lots of vouchers.

The oligarchs went on a buying spree, purchasing hundreds of thousands of vouchers, each of which were worth 10,000 rubles, or about $40 or less back in the 1990s. Average Russians, who were struggling during hyperinflation, were often eager to sell. After amassing vouchers, the oligarchs — both come-up-from-nothing hustlers and former Soviet government insiders — used them at auctions to buy up stocks in newly private companies. By all accounts, many of these enterprises were shockingly undervalued — and those who were able to get large chunks of lucrative enterprises became fabulously wealthy in a very short period of time. Between 1992 and 1994, about 15,000 state-run enterprises went private under the program.

By 1994, when the voucher program ended, around 70 percent of the Russian economy had been privatized. But some of the biggest, most valuable industries remained in the government's hands. Chubais had plans to privatize these state enterprises and raise much needed funds for the government by selling them off for cash to the highest bidder in legitimate auctions. However, politics got in the way of the increasingly unpopular privatization drive — and even threatened to reverse it. That's when the Yeltsin administration resorted to a much shadier form of privatization.

The "Loans For Shares" Scheme

By 1995, Boris Yeltsin was very unpopular. Hyperinflation. The decline of law and order. The rise of the mafia and execution-style killings on the streets of Moscow. Russia's inability to pay government salaries and pensions. The sense that unscrupulous men in suits were the only ones winning in the new economy. Plus, Yeltsin was a notorious drunk with serious health problems. Just a year away from reelection, Yeltsin's approval rating fell to the low single digits, and he faced the specter of an increasingly popular Communist challenger who looked like he could win the 1996 presidential elections.

With privatization stalling, the government desperate for money, and a growing fear that Russia was about to slide back into communism, Chubais and the Yeltsin administration turned to a shady scheme known as "Loans For Shares." The secret plot basically worked like this: the richest oligarchs loaned the government billions of dollars in exchange for massive shares of Russia's most valuable state enterprises. When the government defaulted on paying back the loans, as the schemers expected they would, the oligarchs would walk away with the keys to Russia's most profitable corporations. In exchange, the government would get the money it needed to pay its bills, privatization would keep moving forward — and, most importantly, the oligarchs would do everything in their power to ensure Yeltsin was reelected.

Between November and December 1995, twelve of Russia's most profitable industrial enterprises were auctioned off to the oligarchs, including a mining company, two steel companies, two shipping companies, and five oil companies. The auctions were a complete farce. Chubais and his team had predetermined with the oligarchs who would get what and for roughly how much. And the prices the oligarchs paid for these corporations were a steal — almost literally. For example, Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, now well beyond his days of selling rubber ducks, got a large stake in the oil company Sibneft for about $200 million. In 2009, when Putin renationalized the company, Abramovich sold his stake back to the government for $11.9 billion. Talk about a payday.

"Chubais never advertised it publicly — he attempted to keep the goal obscure so as not to alarm the opposition— but loans for shares should really have been called 'tycoons for Yeltsin,'" writes David Hoffman, the former Moscow bureau chief for The Washington Post, in his book The Oligarchs: Wealth And Power In The New Russia. "Chubais was willing to hand over the property without competition, without openness, and, as it turned out, for a bargain price, but in a way that would keep the businessmen at Yeltsin's side in the 1996 reelection campaign."

Yeltsin Is Reelected With Oligarch Money

Holding up their end of the bargain, the oligarchs, who often fought with each other, united forces behind Yeltsin's reelection campaign. They donated millions of dollars to the effort. They hired the best political operatives they knew. They laundered government money with their banks, and fed it into the Yeltsin campaign machine. Two of the oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, controlled two of the three major Russian television networks — and they blanketed the airwaves with pro-Yeltsin propaganda. Fueled by the immense power of the oligarchs, Yeltsin conducted Russia's first American-style presidential campaign.

As the election approached, Yeltsin made a cynical move to placate critics of his privatization scheme, publicly firing his super unpopular privatization czar Chubais. "He sold off a big industry for next to nothing," Yeltsin told the press. "We cannot forgive this."

Despite waving the banner of free markets and democracy, the reformers of the 1990s — perhaps ironically — did much of their reforms undemocratically, often by presidential decrees that were hammered out through backroom deals with the rich and powerful. Thanks in no small part to the oligarchic beneficiaries of these deals, Yeltsin beat the odds and won reelection. Russian-style crony capitalism was here to stay.

Weeks after the victory, Boris Berezovsky bragged to The Financial Times that he and six other Russian oligarchs controlled half of Russia's economy. That number seems to have been significantly inflated. Nonetheless, by 1996, the world could see that Russia had a new class of industrialists and bankers who wielded enormous power. A class that made their fortunes not through society-improving ideas, consumer-pleasing products, or technological innovations — but rather through corruption, skullduggery, and the plunder of Russia's raw materials. Many Russians would come to resent the oligarchs and the liberal reformers who empowered them.

As Yeltsin's health continued to deteriorate in the late 1990s, the oligarchs began to worry about who would be his successor. The natural heir to Yeltsin would be whoever occupied the post of prime minister. If Yeltsin stepped down, the prime minister automatically became acting president and would have the advantage of incumbency during election time.

In 1999, Boris Yeltsin and his oligarchic allies agreed that an obscure former KGB officer named Vladimir Putin was the man to become Yeltsin's prime minister, and soon Russia's next president. He was a nobody, barely a public figure, but he had a reputation for loyalty. They trusted that, once in power, he would look after their interests. Little did they know that they were unleashing a monster they soon would be unable to control.

Republican Sen. Mike Braun says Supreme Court should leave decisions on interracial marriage, abortion to the states

The Indiana senator later said he ‘misunderstood’ a reporter’s question on the 1967 Supreme Court decision and condemned racism

By Mariana Alfaro
Today

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said Tuesday that he would be open to the Supreme Court overturning its 1967 ruling that legalized interracial marriage nationwide to allow states to independently decide the issue.

Braun — who made the comments during a conference call in which he discussed the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court — also said he’d welcome the rescinding of several key decisions made by the court in the past 70 years to pass the power to the states.

His remarks were first reported by local outlets NWI.com and WFYI Indianapolis.

Critical of activism from the bench, Braun cited a series of landmark decisions made by the court, including Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, and Loving v. Virginia, which legalized interracial marriage.

When asked by a reporter whether he would consider the Supreme Court potentially striking down Roe this year to be “judicial activism,” Braun said he thought what justices did in 1973 to pass Roe was “judicial activism.”

“That issue should have never been federalized, [it was] way out of sync I think with the contour of America then,” he said. “One side of the aisle wants to homogenize [issues] federally, [and that] is not the right way to do it.”

Individual states, he said, should be able to weigh in on these issues “through their own legislation, through their own court systems.”

The same reporter asked Braun whether he would apply the same judgment to Loving, and Braun said “yes.”

“I think that that’s something that if you’re not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you’re not going to be able to have your cake and eat it too,” he said. “I think that’s hypocritical.”

The reporter asked whether Braun would say the same about Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 Supreme Court decision that a state’s ban on the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy.

“You can list a whole host of issues,” Braun said. “When it comes down to whatever they are, I’m going to say that they’re not going to all make you happy within a given state, but that we’re better off having states manifest their points of view rather than homogenizing it across the country, as Roe v. Wade did.”

In a statement to The Washington Post after the conference call, Braun said he “misunderstood” the reporter’s questions on Loving and stressed that he opposes racism.

“I misunderstood a line of questioning that ended up being about interracial marriage,” Braun said. “Let me be clear on that issue — there is no question the Constitution prohibits discrimination of any kind based on race, that is not something that is even up for debate, and I condemn racism in any form, at all levels and by any states, entities, or individuals.”

Braun did not comment on whether he also misunderstood the line of questioning on Roe or Griswold.

Braun said that while Jackson seems qualified for a seat on the court, he said he expects her not to be an “activist” during her tenure.

“Stick with interpreting the law,” Braun said, according to WFYI. “Don’t legislate from the bench.”

As the Senate weighs Jackson’s nomination, some of Braun’s fellow Senate Republicans have questioned landmark Supreme Court decisions.

On Monday, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), during her questioning of Jackson, said she opposes Griswold, calling the decision “constitutionally unsound.”

Similarly, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) questioned Jackson on Tuesday on the court’s authority in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision that legalized marriage equality — which he called an “edict.”

“When the Supreme Court decides that something that is not even in the Constitution is a fundamental right and no state can pass any law that conflicts with the Supreme Court’s edict, particularly in an area where people have sincerely held religious beliefs, doesn’t that necessarily create a conflict between what people may believe as a matter of their religious doctrine or faith and what the federal government says is the law of the land?” Cornyn asked Jackson.

Jackson said that “is the nature of a right.”

“When there is a right, it means that there are limitations on regulation, even if people are regulating pursuant to their sincerely held religious beliefs,” Jackson said.

By Mariana Alfaro is a reporter for The Washington Post's breaking political news team. The El Salvador native joined The Post in 2019 as a researcher for the Daily 202, our flagship politics newsletter. Before that, Mariana interned at the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Insider, and The Texas Tribune. Twitter

GOP's Mike Braun scrambles to walk back claim that states should be able to ban interracial marriage

Brad Reed
March 22, 2022

Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) on Tuesday scrambled to backtrack after he said earlier in the day that he believed states should be allowed to ban interracial marriage.

In a statement provided to NBC News congressional reporter Julie Tsirkin, Braun claimed that he "misunderstood" a reporter's question about whether he'd be fine with the Supreme Court reversing its past precedent by leaving the issue of interracial marriage up to individual states.

"There is no question the Constitution prohibits discrimination of any kind based on race, that is not something that is even up for debate, and I condemn racism in any form," Braun said.

RELATED: Mike Braun ripped for suggesting states should be allowed to stop interracial marriage

However, the complete exchange between Braun and the reporter makes it hard to see how Braun could have possibly "misunderstood" the question.

"So you would be okay with the Supreme Court leaving the issue of interracial marriage to the states?" the reporter asked him.

"Yes," Braun replied. "I think that's something where if you are not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you are not going to be able to have your cake and eat it too."

Braun made the remarks about interracial marriage to defend his argument that states should be allowed to set their own abortion policies instead of having them set by the United States Supreme Court.

Legal expert accuses GOP senator of citing argument against interracial marriage in Judge Jackson hearing

Sarah K. Burris
March 22, 2022

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) used two main cases from the 1800s to ask about same-sex marriage, which was legalized by the Supreme Court in 2015. But many saw problems with his argument that were characterized as both racist and factually incorrect.

Cornyn, who was once the attorney general of Texas, asked Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson if she would agree that The Dred Scott case and Plessy v. Ferguson "were appropriately overruled by the Supreme Court." Dred Scott was never overturned by the Supreme Court, it was overturned by the 13th Amendment. At the time, March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution didn't give citizenship to those kidnapped in Africa and brought to the United States as slaves.

Addressing the line of questioning, legal analyst Elie Mystal lamented that the argument from Cornyn was making was about "substantive due process," which wasn't even invented during those cases.

He also remarked that the way that Cornyn was discussing marriage and using the argument of "inventing" new rights was the same argument made when racists protested interracial marriage. The idea of religious freedom, he seemed to argue, allows people to block marriages.

What same-sex marriage advocates effectively explained was that because people need a marriage license from the state or municipality, the government can't block those based on religious objections. Churches have the religious freedom to do whatever they want, but the state can't prioritize religion over the rights of individuals.

Cornyn began the conversation by "asking about some decisions that the Supreme Court has made recently" but both Plessy and Scott were from the 1800s.

See the video as well as Mystal's thread and annoyed experts agreeing with him below:

WATCH: Cornyn questions Jackson on marriage equality and freedom of religion

Family of slain journalist takes Taliban leaders to ICC

By Associated Press

Today at 6:20 a.m. EDT

FILE - In this July 17, 2021, file photo, journalists in New Delhi, India, light candles and pay tribute to Reuters photographer Danish Siddiqui, was killed in Afghanistan covering clashes between the Taliban and Afghan security forces. The family of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian photographer who was killed in Afghanistan last year Tuesday filed a formal complaint with the International Criminal Court to investigate his killing and bring to trial the Taliban’s top leadership for “committing war crimes.” (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri, File)

NEW DELHI — The family of a Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian photographer who was killed in Afghanistan last year filed a formal complaint with the International Criminal Court on Tuesday to investigate his killing and bring to trial the Taliban’s top leadership for “committing war crimes.”

Siddiqui worked for the Reuters news service and was embedded with Afghan special forces in July last year when he was killed as the commando unit battled for control of the Spin Boldak crossing, on the border between southern Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The family’s complaint cites several media reports, including from Reuters, that say Siddiqui was captured by the Taliban and later executed. The complaint also says his body was mutilated while in the custody of the group.

A Taliban spokesperson last year had denied that Siddiqui was killed by the group and that his body was mutilated in their custody

Lawyer Avi Singh, who is representing Siddiqui’s family, said the complaint seeks to bring to book at least six high-ranking Taliban leaders and high-level commanders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He said the complaint has been sent to ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan and its Victims and Witnesses Unit on behalf of Siddiqui’s parents.

“The Taliban targeted and killed Danish because he was a journalist and an Indian. That is an international crime. In the absence of rule of law in Afghanistan, the ICC has jurisdiction to investigate and try the perpetrators of Danish’s murder,” said Singh.

He said the family will also seek the Indian government’s support for an independent and impartial investigation into Siddiqui’s killing.

India is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court.

“It is important to look for justice,” said Omar Siddiqui, the slain journalist’s brother.

Siddiqui, 38, and his colleagues were honored with 2018 Pulitzer Prize for what the judges called “shocking photographs that exposed the world to the violence Rohingya refugees faced in fleeing Myanmar.”

Yemen peace talks may include representatives from all regions of the country

Officers from the north, south and Sanaa are expected to participate in Riyadh next week

Nayef Falah Al Hajraf, Secretary General of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), speaks in the Saudi capital Riyadh, where the latest talks on Yemen will take place. AFP

Mina Aldroubi
Mar 22, 2022

Talks to end the conflict in Yemen, to be held in Riyadh next week, may have representatives from across the country, including Sanaa, held by the Houthi rebels.

The Gulf Co-operation Council, or GCC, has invited members of Yemen's internationally recognised government and representatives of the Houthi rebels for discussions between March 29 and April 7 in Saudi Arabia's capital.

The aim is to drive forward the UN’s incentive to halt the eight-year civil war. The push by the GCC comes in response to the aspirations of the Yemeni people and the support of the international community in ending the war.

“The GCC has invited all components of Yemen and has not excluded anyone, this includes politicians, writers, military leaders, women, members of civil society and the youth,” an official of the council told Ashaq Al Awsat.

“The consultations will be held with who will be attending, they are for all of Yemen’s different components,” the newspaper quoted the person as saying.

The GCC has stressed that the solution to ending the war will have to be come from the Yemenis themselves.

More than 500 people have been invited to the talks next week, the GCC said. The initiative will support a comprehensive solution to peace in Yemen.

READ MORE
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UN welcomes GCC initiative to hold Yemen talks
GCC to host Yemen consultations in Riyadh

"The consultations must target everyone," the official said. "Everyone has the right to attend and we will see new faces in the consultations.”

The talks will aim to “unite ranks, heal rifts between Yemen’s different components, strengthen state institutions, and create an approach that pushes them to the consultations table".

The focus will be on six factors, including the military and security axis and the implementation of a ceasefire.

Hollywood actress and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie, left, sits with displaced Yemeni women and listens to their stories of struggle in Al Kandam, Yemen. AP

The political process will also feature high in the agenda, along with the strengthening of state institutions, administrative reforms and government as well as combating corruption.

The humanitarian factor will be taken into account, as also the axis of stability and economic recovery through urgent measures to stop the collapse of the Yemeni currency.

The talks will also focus on achieving stability and recovery for basic services to continue and receive direct support from donors.

SAUDI BACKED YEMEN GOVT FORCES

Yemeni army reinforcements arrive to join fighters loyal to Yemen's Saudi Arabia-backed government, on the southern front of Marib. AFP

Yemen has been in a state of stalemate for nearly eight years since the government was ousted by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in 2014.

Previous efforts to end the conflict failed due to a lack of trust between the warring sides.

The war in Yemen began when the Houthis took over the capital Sanaa in 2014, triggering a civil war that has created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Updated: March 22, 2022, 7:31 AM

NIGERIA

Looming Strike: Inspector-General Of Police To Address Personnel In Lagos, Ogun

The junior policemen queried why operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) receive much higher than they do.

BY SAHARAREPORTERS,

NEW YORK

MAR 22, 2022

As the proposed strike by policemen across the country appears to be gathering more momentum, the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, will on Tuesday lecture officers in Ogun and Lagos state commands.

Some aggrieved rank and file in the Nigeria Police Force had condemned their poor salary, lack of sophisticated weapons to fight crime, bad condition of their barracks, failure to provide uniforms and accoutrements, among others.

IGP Usman Baba Alkali

The junior policemen queried why operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) receive much higher than they do.

Though the force headquarters had announced the implementation of a new salary structure, provision of accoutrements, tax waiver and other measures to assuage the cops, they said they no longer trust their leaders, saying they have been pushed to the wall.

They demanded N100,000 (24.02 US Dollar) PER HOUR as the minimum wage, saying this would be the first condition to stop the strike slated for March 26, the same day the All Progressives Congress (APC) will hold its national convention.

Worried by the development, it was gathered that the presidency had summoned the Inspector-General, warning him that the nation could not endure a strike at a time like this.

Consequently, the IGP will today address his men in Lagos and Ogun States, it was learnt.

It was gathered that urgent messages were sent to police formations in the two states on Monday, asking them to prepare for the meeting with the police boss.

In Lagos, cops were instructed to gather at the police headquarters in Ikeja by 7am in their service dress.

The IGP will return to Ogun to speak with policemen, who were directed to have been seated at POWA Secretariat, Eleweran, Abeokuta by 10am.

It is expected that IGP Baba would sensitise officers on the measures being put in place to improve the welfare of the police and why they should not embark on any industrial action.

The Religious Roots of Our Free Enterprise System

Jacobus Arminius; John Calvin

Credit...From left: Universitaire Bibliotheken Leiden; Ipsumpix/Corbis, via Getty Images

By Alan Wolfe
Jan. 26, 2021

RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM
By Benjamin M. Friedman

What does an esoteric concept like Calvinist soteriology have to do with the rise of modern economics? Does laissez-faire have its roots in the arcane Quinquarticular Controversy? Can one find the origins of the welfare state in postmillennialist eschatology?

Questions like these, according to the Harvard economist Benjamin M. Friedman, are essential to understanding his discipline today. This is anything but self-evident; economists, especially of the mathematical sort, are unlikely to be transfixed by the writings of St. Augustine. But once theological questions are rendered into secular language, their relevance, and thus the importance of Friedman’s “Religion and the Rise of Capitalism,” becomes clear.

Soteriology refers to the question of salvation, and few thinkers made a greater contribution to it than John Calvin (1509-64), the founder of one of the stricter forms of Protestantism to emerge during the Reformation. Calvin’s theology is frequently summarized by the acronym TULIP. T reminds us that we are totally depraved. U stands for the fact that salvation is unconditional; God and God alone chooses the elect and we cannot influence his choice. Atonement, moreover, is limited; God saves only those so chosen. God’s grace, in addition, is irresistible; if he calls, we have no choice but to respond. Finally, the doctrine of the preservation of the saints reminds us that God is never whimsical; once he grants salvation, he grants it forever.

Calvin’s deterministic, and highly pessimistic, view of human nature, Friedman argues, was destined to give way before a science insisting on the centrality of markets could emerge. As it happens, Calvinism attracted numerous followers in Scotland, the same place in which Adam Smith wrote “The Wealth of Nations.” Smith himself was indifferent toward religion and his close friend, the philosopher David Hume, was actively hostile. Nonetheless, it was the religious atmosphere in which they wrote, Friedman believes, that would shape their ideas, even if mostly as a foil: Inherently depraved people whose fates are predetermined by a Supreme Being need no “invisible hand” to coordinate their behavior, while the citizens of newly emerging market economies do.

In contrast to Calvin, the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609) found strict Calvinism insulting to God. Like their rivals, Arminius and his followers summarized their positions in five points; hence the term Quinquarticular Controversy. The essence of those points held that God’s glory could not be fully appreciated if the people who worship him lack the freedom to choose him. If humans have free will, it follows, the concept of predestination must be modified and the idea of a limited elect be expanded. Naturally orthodox Calvinists fought back against what they considered outrageously heretical ideas.

The debates initiated by the Arminians were at first confined to Holland, but it was not long before they were exported to England and Scotland. Citing the writings of relatively unknown thinkers and hymnists, Friedman shows how Arminian thinking insisted on “the natural goodness of man in contrast to inborn depravity, the central role of free human choice and action in contrast to predestination and the design of the universe not solely for the glorification of God but to promote human happiness too.” Ultimately, Friedman concludes, the new science of economics secularized Arminian ideas, foreshadowing a world in which the market and other secular institutions would take over from God the task of improving human prospects.

Arminian theology made its most lasting mark in the United States. The Puritans adhered to the stricter varieties of Calvinism; no one could accuse them of holding an optimistic view of human nature. Perhaps for that reason, their theology increasingly came to seem obsolete to a vibrant new nation. As America expanded so did Arminianism, this time taking the form of Methodism and all the variants that came in its wake. By the mid-19th century, strict Calvinism had become mostly a memory.

Except among those who called themselves fundamentalist. Fundamentalism is associated with what theologians call a premillennial eschatology. (Eschatology concerns itself with the end times.) Jesus will initiate his Second Coming at some point, most Protestants agreed, but when and how is still a matter of considerable dispute. Premillennialists subscribe to the belief that our inherently sinful nature will lead us into a tumultuous epoch, only after which Jesus will make his appearance and whisk away the remnant of the truly righteous.

In a series of steps that seem to lead inevitably away from Calvinism, postmillennialists challenged such notions throughout the 19th and into the 20th centuries. They teach that human beings can win Jesus’ favor by carrying out social reforms like the abolition of slavery or improvements in working conditions. Inspired by their goodness, Jesus will postpone his arrival until a world resembling his social teachings has been created.

Liberal Protestantism emerged out of postmillennialism and had its own overlap with economics; Richard T. Ely (1854-1943), one of the founders of the American Economics Association, offers a leading example. Ely’s reformist inclinations played a major role in establishing the Social Gospel movement, which ultimately came to fruition during the New Deal. Friedman argues, correctly I believe, that although Social Gospel economics raised serious questions about the efficacy of laissez-faire, it was very much in line with the conception of human progress found in Smith and Hume.

This overview cannot even begin to pay homage to the prodigious research informing Friedman’s analysis. He covers not only the main thinkers in both economics and theology, but also the less-well-known ones who helped shape their thought. He can credibly discuss the philosophy of John Locke and the science of Isaac Newton. As one reads Friedman, words like “magisterial,” “masterpiece” and “magnificent” floated through my thoughts.

In the final analysis, however, such words do not quite hit the mark; let me settle on “major.” For all its brilliance, “Religion and the Rise of Capitalism” cannot be ranked with Max Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” (although it does surpass R. H. Tawney’s thin book from which Friedman borrowed his title).

For one thing, this book is mistitled; its overwhelming concentration is on only one religion, the Protestant one. You will not find a discussion here of the two great papal encyclicals, “Rerum Novarum” and “Quadragesimo Anno,” that form the basis of Catholic social teaching. By confining himself mostly to the Protestant countries of England, Scotland and Holland, Friedman, for all his range, narrows his focus too much.

What is more, economics and theology may have intertwined in the past, but they rarely do now. If anything, someone could write a contemporary work, surely shorter than this one, on atheism and the resurgence of free-market economics. The 19th-century economic thinkers Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner, both influenced more by Darwin than Calvin, were quite hostile to religion. The 20th century’s most widely read advocate for laissez-faire, Ayn Rand, was a militant nonbeliever. Milton Friedman, who needs no identification, was Jewish by birth but nonobservant. The story so brilliantly told by the author, it would seem, has reached its end.

Secular writers have begun to discover theology. Michael Massing, a journalist once concerned primarily with social problems, wrote a fascinating book, “Fatal Discord,” on Erasmus and Luther. Employed by a Catholic university, I found theology a far more humanistic discipline than political science. And if someone had told me that a former chairman of the Harvard economics department would write a major work on Calvinism and its influence, you would have had to consider me a skeptic. Nonetheless Benjamin M. Friedman has, and the result is an awakening all its own.

Alan Wolfe is the former director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.

RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM
By Benjamin M. Friedman
Illustrated. 560 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $37.50.
A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 31, 2021, Page 11 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Economic Pieties.

PDF THE ORIGINAL BY TAWNEY

tawney1922simil.pdf (free.fr)

Max Weber and the spirit of capitalism

Max Weber (1864- 1920) is perhaps best known of his work on the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. His views have been much debated but the key idea in Weber was that there was a link between the rise of capitalism and an ethos of self control associated with Protestant reformation. By stressing the cultural, rather than the economic, dimension Weber has often been seen as anti Marxist camp but things are more complicated than that, Weber was choosing to focus on the cultures we create rather than dismissing structural and other issues (see Giddens 1970 below if you want to carry this further ).

Weber is also much known for his later work on authority. Put briefly he identified three types of authority: rational (rule based); traditional and charismatic. All three were ideal types – or generalisations. In practice all aspects of authority were interrelated and dynamic, though there was a tendency towards rational authority in the modern state.

Weber has been hugely influential in our understanding of social theory but his work is difficult to categorise. You can find some self styled Weberian analyses (for example Bocock, 1971 below) but he offers more a way of thinking about social research rather than a particular method or methodology. Key to this perspective is a concern for what may today recognise as interdisciplinarity, criticality and and interest in the consequences of cultural beliefs.

References

Bocock, R. (1971) The Ismailis in Tanzania: A Weberian Analysis, The British Journal of Sociology, 22, 4, 365-380.

Giddens, A. (1970) Marx, Weber, and the development of capitalism, Sociology,4 , 3, 289–310.

Weber, M. (1922) Economy and society; an outline of interpretive sociology. (various editions or simply search Internet archive at archive org) https://archive.org/details/MaxWeberEconomyAndSociety

Weber, M. (1904 / 1905) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

https://archive.org/details/protestantethics00webe

And for a simplistic overview you could try

What the Anti-work Discourse Gets Wrong

Tech companies are offering spiritual care to make employees more productive, and it’s likely a sign of what’s to come in other industries.

By Carolyn Chen

If the American theocracy of work is to be dismantled, it won’t happen by just changing jobs or attitudes.

(Chaimae Studio)
MARCH 22, 2022, 2:29 PM ET

Lately, we’ve seen a proliferation of discussions about the end of work as we know it. In this third year of the coronavirus pandemic, Americans are burned out, quitting their jobs in record numbers, and reconsidering the place of work in their lives. According to pundits, the “Great Resignation” signals a new era: the end of ambition, the rise of anti-work sentiment, and the possibility that we’re entering a time when a job might just be a job. But I’m doubtful that any of this will change Americans’ collective worship of work. What these conversations don’t take into account is the invisible religion of work that’s become an unassailable part of our culture. At a time when religious-affiliation rates are at the lowest they’ve been in the past 73 years, we worship work—meaning we sacrifice for and surrender to it—because it gives us identity, belonging, and meaning, not to mention that it puts food on our tables. If the American theocracy of work is to be dismantled, it won’t happen by just changing jobs or attitudes. It will require a fundamental transformation in the social system that dictates which institutions we derive fulfillment from.

Contrary to the new wisdom, work does love us back. That’s what I found while researching my new book, Work Pray Code, a study of work and spirituality in Silicon Valley tech firms, which are sometimes seen as models for American work culture. Despite professionals benefiting in several ways from our jobs, many of us talk about work as extractive: We say that we sell our souls at work; we describe it as draining. But in Silicon Valley, work is where many people find their souls. Over the course of five years, I interviewed more than 100 tech-industry professionals who echoed this sentiment. One young engineer, a former evangelical Christian who moved from Georgia to join a San Francisco start-up, told me that he had transferred his fervor for religion onto work. His company became his new faith community, providing him with the belonging, meaning, and mission that he’d once found in his church back home. In the fellowship of his start-up, he developed the faith that their enterprise social-networking app would “change the world.” The engineer was one of many people who described themselves as becoming more “whole,” “spiritual,” or “connected” because of work.

Derek Thompson: The Great Resignation is accelerating

That’s not a coincidence. Professionals have devoted more of their time to work in the past few decades. At the same time, many of them have also withdrawn from their religious observation, civic organizations, and community groups, according to the political scientist Robert D. Putnam. Religious affiliation, in particular, is notably lower in knowledge-industry hubs such as San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston. Now many tech companies have taken up the task of spiritual care in order to make their workers more productive. Companies design the work experience so that their employees can “be that fulfilled person,” as one human-resources professional put it to me. Another HR professional told me that the job of a “great HR” is to “nourish peoples’ souls when they are working so hard.” That’s why places like Google and Salesforce, for example, bring in Buddhist teachers and have dedicated meditation rooms to give employees the time and space to connect with their authentic selves. They provide their senior leaders with executive coaches whom one manager described to me as “spiritual advisers.” All of these offerings help tech workers align the deepest parts of themselves with their work.

But these perks aren’t offered in order to better employees for their own sake, and many tech companies have been criticized for prizing productivity and profit over the well-being of their workers. Still, today’s firms realize the benefit of meeting the spiritual needs of their busy employees, and providing these services gives them a competitive advantage. For instance, it paid off when one start-up invested in one of their talented young engineers by paying for him to attend a mindfulness-meditation program and a spiritual retreat and to work with an executive coach. The young engineer, now bolstered with a sense of mission and purpose directed at work, quickly rose to be head engineer, the company’s CEO told me. Work became more fulfilling to him and the company profited from his growth.

Read: What you find when you leave your job

To be sure, the tech workers in my study are an extreme example of work fulfillment in America. The jobs of many Americans, especially those without college degrees, have been offshored and automated. For them, along with so many of today’s gig workers, work comes with fewer benefits and has become less available, less secure, and less meaningful. And yet in their attitudes toward work, many Americans are not so different from tech workers. According to a recent McKinsey survey, 70 percent of professionals said that their sense of purpose is defined by their work. Most Americans say that they’ve made close friends on the job. And many professionals describe a good job with words such as calling, mission, and purpose—terms that were once reserved for religion. The majority of companies aren’t offering consultations with Buddhist monks, but even traditional corporations such as Aetna and General Mills have brought spiritual practices like meditation and mindfulness into the office. Businesses are gradually positioning themselves as our new houses of worship, feeding people a gospel of divine purpose within the workplace. Silicon Valley is not an outlier but a harbinger for American professionals.

Even for those of us who have started looking elsewhere for fulfillment by starting a new hobby, taking a sabbatical, or securing a better, more meaningful job, all of these solutions leave the theocracy of work intact. These individual actions do nothing to change a system that concentrates all of its material, social, and spiritual rewards in the institution of work. The only way to reorient is by revitalizing and building shared “houses of worship” outside of work, changing the structures that organize our fulfillment. These houses of worship would have to claim our time, energy, and devotion like work does. We would have to sacrifice and submit to their demands, as we do for work. We would have to build communities of belonging, together seeking meaning and purpose outside of our productive labor. These houses of worship needn’t be only religious ones; they could also be our co-ops, neighborhoods, unions, reading groups, or political clubs—anything in the panoply of civic organizations that can help us visualize human flourishing that rises above a company’s bottom line.

David Foster Wallace wrote, “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism … Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” As pandemic restrictions ease, we are returning to our offices, our schools, and our town halls. This moment invites us to choose anew what we will worship, to whom we will belong, and what we will fill with meaning. The question is a collective one: What will we make sacred? If we don’t ask, and if we don’t change, we will only continue marching down a well-worn path that will leave us with work as the last meaningful institution standing.

Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion In Silicon Valley

CAROLYN CHEN, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Carolyn Chen is an associate professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley and a co-director of the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion.