GUN FETISH PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

U.S. on pace to easily surpass last year's gun violence toll on children

Thousands of pairs of shoes were placed on the U.S. Capitol lawn on March 13, 2018, to memorialize the children who lost their lives to gun violence following the 2012 Sandy Hook school shootings. 

File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 11 (UPI) -- The United States is well on its way to surpassing last year's total for deaths and injuries among children and teens due to gun violence, updated figures showed Monday.

Some 4,472 children aged 17 and younger have been killed or injured across the country so far during 2021, according to the nonprofit research group Gun Violence Archive.

Those figures put the United States on pace for a year-end total of more than 5,700 deaths and injuries -- a mark that would easily surpass last year's total of 5,141, a UPI analysis found.

This year's grim toll includes the deaths of 940 teens between the ages of 12 and 17 and 239 children of 11 and under. Some 2,686 teens and 607 younger children have been injured from gun violence so far this year, the group reported.

The updated figures came just days after the release of an FBI report showing that overall homicide in the United States rates were up a record 29.4% in 2020 over 2019.

There were more than 21,500 reported homicides last year, according to the figures, including around 1,600 in which the victims were 19 or younger.

Still, the homicide rate at 6.5 per 100,000 people was about 40% below the peak in the 1980s and the 1990s, the FBI's data showed.

Meanwhile, data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics last week showed the homicide rate for the United States rose 30% between 2019 and 2020 -- the biggest increase in modern history.

Students march in Washington to protest gun violence

A young woman shouts with "Don't Shoot" written on her palms as students from the Washington, D.C., area protest gun violence.

Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo

Chemicals in plastic containers, cosmetics linked to risk for earlier death in study


Chemicals found in plastic food containers and cosmetics may cause early death in older adults, according to a new study. Photo by harrydona/Pixabay

Oct. 12 (UPI) -- Daily exposure to chemicals used in the manufacture of plastic food containers and cosmetics may cause up to 100,000 premature deaths among older people in the United States annually, a study published Tuesday by Environmental Pollution found.

Of more than 5,000 adults ages 55 to 64, those with the highest concentrations of chemicals called phthalates in their urine were more likely to die of heart disease than those with lower exposure, the data showed.

In addition, people in this high-exposure group were more likely to die from any cause than those in low-exposure groups, the researchers said.

However, high levels of the toxic chemicals in urine did not appear to increase risk for death from cancer, they said.

RELATED Exposure to chemicals in plastic may increase postpartum depression risk

"Our research suggests that the toll of this chemical on society is much greater than we first thought," study co-author Dr. Leonardo Trasande said in a press release.

"The evidence is undeniably clear that limiting exposure to toxic phthalates can help safeguard Americans' physical and financial well-being," said Trasande, who is director of the Center for the Investigation of Environmental Hazards at NYU Langone Health in New York City.

Deaths caused by high levels of exposure to phthalates generates up to $47 billion in healthcare costs and lost productivity, according to Trasande and his colleagues.

RELATED Study: Chemicals in food, clothing, cosmetics increase ADHD risk in kids

Phthalates pose a potential danger to human health because the chemicals can interfere with the function of hormones, signaling compounds made in glands that circulate to influence processes in the body, research has found.

Exposure is believed to occur through buildup of these toxins as consumer products break down and are ingested, with exposure linked to obesity, diabetes and heart disease as well as mental health disorders, studies suggest.

For this study, Trasande and his colleagues analyzed data on phthalate levels found in urine samples obtained from adults who participated in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Survey from 2001 to 2010, an ongoing assessment of health led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

RELATED Chemicals in cosmetics, other products linked to autism traits in boys

The researchers also used data from the CDC's Wonder database, the U.S. Census Bureau and models from earlier studies to estimate the economic cost of early death in adults ages 55 to 64, a group they said is particularly vulnerable to phthalate exposure.

The findings, however, do not establish a direct cause and effect association between phthalate exposure and early death, in part because the specific biological mechanism that would account for the connection remains unclear, they said.

The researchers said they plan to further study the role these chemicals may play in hormone regulation and inflammation in the body.

"Our findings reveal that increased phthalate exposure is linked to early death, particularly due to heart disease," Trasande said.

"Until now, we have understood that the chemicals connect to heart disease, and heart disease in turn is a leading cause of death, but we had not yet tied the chemicals themselves to death," he said.

Bookchin M. Our Synthetic Environment - Libcom
https://libcom.org/files/Bookchin M. Our Synthetic Environment.pdf · PDF file

Our Synthetic Environment Murray Bookchin 1962 Table of contents Chapter 1: THE PROBLEM Chapter 2: AGRICULTURE AND HEALTH Chapter 3: URBAN LIFE AND HEALTH Chapter 4: THE PROBLEM OF CHEMICALS IN FOOD Chapter 5: ENVIRONMENT AND CANCER Chapter 6: RADIATION AND HUMAN HEALTH Chapter 7: HUMAN ECOLOGY Chapter 8: HEALTH AND SOCIETY Appendixes

US Economy: Record 4.3 Million Workers Quit In August Amid Mass Exodus From Retail, Food Service Sectors

By Ashley Palya
10/12/21 AT 1:02 PM

The Labor Department reported Tuesday that job openings and hiring rapidly declined in August, along with the largest number of workers quitting their jobs in more than two decades.

A total of 4.3 million workers left their jobs, an increase of 242,000 as about 4 million people left the workforce in July. The latest figures include 892,000 food-service workers, 721,000 retail workers and 534,000 healthcare and social assistance workers.

Surveys have shown that workers are confident they can find a new job amid a labor shortage.

Employment vacancies decreased to 10.44 million during August, according to the department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

Many economists have noted that U.S. labor issues are due to low wages and benefits.

“There’s simply no labor shortage when you’re talking about finding house cleaners for a hotel — there is a shortage of workers who want to work at what you’re offering,” Sylvia Allegretto, a UC Berkeley labor economist, told the Los Angeles Times in July.

DHS to end worksite immigration raids, focus on employers

Undocumented workers who report abusive employers could be shielded from deportation

Immigration activists march in front of the Capitol in May.

 (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)

By Suzanne Monyak

Posted October 12, 2021

The Biden administration will halt massive worksite immigration raids while it prepares policies offering deportation protection to undocumented immigrants who report their employers for labor abuses, according to an agency memo released Tuesday.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in his memo that immigration agents would no longer conduct immigration sweeps at work sites, where hundreds of people suspected of working without authorization can be arrested at once.

These raids are “not focused on the most pernicious aspect of our country's unauthorized employment challenge: exploitative employers,” Mayorkas wrote in a memo to the leaders of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

These types of enforcement actions can also chill or even be used “as a tool of retaliation” for undocumented workers who cooperate with labor investigations against their employers, he said.

Mayorkas also instructed immigration agency officials to, within 60 days, develop proposals to encourage witnesses and victims of labor trafficking to come forward and cooperate with law enforcement. These plans should “provide for the consideration of deferred action, continued presence, parole, and other available relief for noncitizens” who report abuses, a reference to various forms of legal protections from deportation.

The agencies should also consider ways to ensure that undocumented immigrants are not placed into deportation proceedings while investigations continue, Mayorkas said.

“We will not tolerate unscrupulous employers who exploit unauthorized workers, conduct illegal activities, or impose unsafe working conditions.  Employers engaged in illegal acts compel the focus of our enforcement resources,” Mayorkas said in a Tuesday statement.

The memo is part of the administration’s stated effort to crack down on employers who violate U.S. labor law.

President Joe Biden has for years been a vocal supporter of labor movements and unions. He issued a stark pro-union statement during the unsuccessful union drive among Amazon workers in Alabama and nominated former Boston mayor and union leader Marty Walsh to lead the Department of Labor.

The memo also signals a departure from the immigration enforcement priorities of the Trump administration, which ramped up the use of worksite immigration raids, particularly in the Southeast.

In 2019, under the prior administration, ICE conducted the largest raid in the agency’s history when it arrested nearly 700 workers at poultry processing plants across Mississippi in a single day.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the Homeland Security Committee chair whose home state was targeted in those immigration raids, praised Tuesday's action.

“The previous Administration too often carried out raids that tore apart communities but allowed employers to continue exploiting workers,” Thompson said in a statement. “Refocusing resources to counter exploitative employers is a necessary step in protecting the American labor market and workers.”

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., a key player in congressional immigration talks, called the memo “an important step in safeguarding the safety and well-being of undocumented workers" and stressed the contributions of undocumented essential employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The memo comes less than a month after ICE released its final guidance narrowing enforcement priorities to focus resources on migrants who recently crossed the border and on immigrants who threaten national security or public safety.

That Sept. 30 guidance also prohibited immigration enforcement from being used to retaliate against noncitizens exercising workplace or tenant rights, previewing Tuesday’s memo.

Marielena Hincapié, the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, praised the changes as “a paradigm shift away from targeting undocumented workers to holding accountable the unscrupulous employers.” Hincapié previously co-chaired the immigration unit of the Biden-Sanders unity task force.

The announcement “signals pivotal changes ahead that will make workplaces across the country safer and more equitable for all workers and finally puts an end to deeply harmful worksite raids,” she said in a statement.

Caroline Simon contributed to this report.

 Radio waves from distant stars indicate hidden planets

This discovery is an important step for radio astronomy.

BYAMIT MALEWAR

OCTOBER 12, 2021

 

SPACE

Image: Pixabay

Using the world’s most powerful radio telescope Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), Dr. Benjamin Pope from the University of Queensland and colleagues at the Dutch national observatory ASTRON have searched for planets. Recently, the team has discovered radio waves blasting out from distant stars, indicating the presence of hidden planets.

Scientists have discovered radio signals from 19 distant red dwarf stars. Four out of them are best explained by the existence of planets orbiting them.

Dr. Pope said, “We’ve long known that the planets of our solar system emit powerful radio waves as their magnetic fields interact with the solar wind, but radio signals from planets outside our solar system had yet to be picked up.”

“This discovery is an important step for radio astronomy. It could potentially lead to the discovery of planets throughout the galaxy.”

Scientists focused on red dwarf stars that have intense magnetic activity. The magnetic activity from these stars drives stellar flares and radio emissions. But some old, magnetically inactive stars also showed up, challenging conventional understanding.

Dr. Joseph Callingham at Leiden University, ASTRON, and lead author of the discovery, said that “the team is confident these signals are coming from the magnetic connection of the stars and unseen orbiting planets, similar to the interaction between them. Jupiter and its moon, Io.”

“Our own Earth has aurorae, commonly recognized here as the northern and southern lights, that also emit powerful radio waves – this is from the interaction of the planet’s magnetic field with the solar wind.”

“But in the case of aurorae from Jupiter, they’re much stronger as its volcanic moon Io is blasting material out into space, filling Jupiter’s environment with particles that drive unusually powerful aurorae.”

“Our model for this radio emission from our stars is a scaled-up version of Jupiter and Io, with a planet enveloped in the magnetic field of a star, feeding material into vast currents that similarly power bright aurorae.”

“It’s a spectacle that has attracted our attention from lightyears away.”

Dr. Pope said, “We can’t be 100 percent sure that the four stars we think have planets are indeed planet hosts, but we can say that a planet-star interaction is the best explanation for what we’re seeing.”

“Follow-up observations have ruled out planets more massive than Earth, but there’s nothing to say that a smaller planet wouldn’t do this.”

This work exhibits that radio space science is on the cusp of altering our comprehension of planets outside our Solar System.

Journal Reference:

1. Callingham, J.R., Vedantham, H.K., Shimwell, T.W. et al. The population of M dwarfs observed at low radio frequencies. Nat Astron (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-021-01483-0
2. Benjamin J. S. Pope et al. The TESS View of LOFAR Radio-emitting Stars. DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac230c

Barbarians at the gate stand down: KKR private equity barons Henry Kravis and George Roberts quit as co-chief execs after 45 years

By HUGO DUNCAN FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED 12 October 2021

Two of the world's most powerful private equity tycoons have stepped down as co-chief executives of buyout firm KKR after 45 years of dealmaking.

Billionaires Henry Kravis and George Roberts – cousins who set up the business in New York with the late Jerome Kohlberg in 1976 – handed over to long-term co-presidents Scott Nuttall and Joe Bae.

The shake-up marks a changing of the guard in an industry that has long attracted fierce criticism for debt-fuelled buyouts they pioneered.

Dealmakers: Henry Kravis (left), George Roberts have stepped down as co-chief executives of their buyout firm KKR

Kravis, 77, and Roberts, 78, will stay on as executive chairmen. Kohlberg died aged 90 in 2015 having left the firm in 1987.

KKR shot to fame in 1988 when it pulled off what was then the largest leveraged buyout in history with the £18billion takeover of food and tobacco giant RJR Nabisco.

As the bidding war raged, Time magazine said the 'invisible line that separates reasonable conduct from anarchy' had been crossed, adding: 'Seldom since the robber barons of the 19th century has corporate behaviour been so open to question.'

The deal was immortalised in the best-selling book Barbarians At The Gate and a film starring James Garner as Nabisco boss F Ross Johnson and Jonathan Pryce as Kravis.

Kravis and Roberts have since grown KKR into a global titan with nearly 2,000 staff and £315bn of assets. Current investments include ride-sharing start-up Lyft and media group Axel Springer.

Earlier this year, the company set up a team of dealmakers to target British firms amid a tsunami of takeover bids in the UK.

It has offices in Hanover Square in Mayfair, central London. According to business magazine Forbes, Kravis has a fortune of £6.3billion while Roberts is worth £6.7billion.

The duo worked together at investment bank Bear Stearns before departing with their mentor, Kohlberg, to set up KKR.

Nuttall, 48, and Bae, 49, have long been seen as successors having risen through the ranks after joining KKR in their twenties in 1996.

KKR pointed out that its share price has tripled and assets under management doubled since the pair became co-presidents and co-chief operating officers in July 2017.

But they face a stiff challenge to replicate the success of Kravis and Roberts, who have maintained a tight grip on the firm for almost half a century.

In a statement announcing the shake-up, Kravis and Roberts said: 'Whether reflecting on the business, our mission or the team that undertakes it, we are proud of what we have built to support companies and serve our clients over the last four and a half decades.

Joe and Scott – over the last 25 years – have played a significant role in that endeavour and in shaping the firm, its culture, and our market leading businesses into what they are today.

'We could not be more excited about this moment in time.

'There is such a huge need for private capital to support businesses, and KKR still has so much potential even 45 years later.'

Anarchy of production - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_of_Production

In Marxist theory, anarchy of production is a characteristic feature of all commodity production based on private property, which is the primary mode of production in the capitalist market economy. The term is often used as a criticism of market economies, emphasizing their chaotic and volatile nature in contrast to the stable nature of planned economies, as proposed by Marxists.

Sally Rooney rejects Israeli translation offer in support of BDS

Irish author turns down bid by publishing company Modan to translate, Beautiful World, Where Are You, into Hebrew.

Beautiful World, Where Are You, is Sally Rooney's third novel, following Normal People, and, Conversations with Friends

 [File: Henry Nicholls/Reuters]

12 Oct 2021

Irish author Sally Rooney has rejected a bid by an Israeli publishing company to translate her latest novel into Hebrew due to her stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Rooney, 31, said in a statement on Tuesday that her decision to turn down Modan’s offer for the translation rights to, Beautiful World, Where Are You, was taken in support of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

BDS calls for a full cultural, economic and academic boycott of Israel for its illegal repression of Palestinian rights.

“For the moment, I have chosen not to sell these translation rights to an Israeli-based publishing house,” Rooney said.

“I understand that not everyone will agree with my decision, but I simply do not feel it would be right for me under the present circumstances to accept a new contract with an Israeli company that does not publicly distance itself from apartheid and support the UN-stipulated rights of the Palestinian people.”

Rooney cited “damning” reports this year by global Human Rights Watch and Israel’s leading human rights group, B’Tselem, that exposed “Israel’s system of racial domination and segregation against Palestinians” as motivating factors in her decision.

After some social media users reacted with anger to early media reports of her decision, Rooney clarified that she is not against her book being translated into Hebrew.

“The Hebrew-language translation rights to my new novel are still available, and if I can find a way to sell these rights that is compliant with the BDS movement’s institutional boycott guidelines, I will be very pleased and proud to do so,” Rooney said.

Rooney said she was “very proud” her two hugely successful previous novels – Normal People, and, Conversations with Friends – were translated into Hebrew.

Rooney, 31, has received four book awards in the UK including the 2018 Costa Book award

 [File: Vickie Flores/EPA]

‘No business-as-usual’

Palestinian campaigners welcomed the author’s move.

“There should be no business-as-usual with an apartheid state and institutions complicit in it,” the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) said in a post on Twitter.

Hil Aked, an independent researcher and activist, said Rooney’s move was a “principled act of solidarity”.

“She joins an ever-growing list of cultural figures showing practical support for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality,” Aked told Al Jazeera.

“Though the Israeli government – and many other governments – are seeking to repress the BDS movement, it continues to grow.”

But a senior Israeli official rejected the Irish author’s move as “anti-Semitism in a new guise”.

“The cultural boycott of Israel … is a certificate of poor conduct for her and others who behave like her,” Diaspora Minister Nachman Shai tweeted.

Israel has long denounced the BDS movement as anti-Jewish and rejects any comparison between its treatment of Palestinians and apartheid as inaccurate.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

HUBRIS

Brazil’s Bolsonaro says he is ‘bored’ with COVID deaths questions

Far-right president’s comment comes just days after Brazil surpassed 600,000 coronavirus deaths, spurring public anger.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has faced mass protests and calls for his impeachment over his government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic 

[File: Evaristo Sa/AFP]

11 Oct 2021

Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has said he did not want to be “bored” with questions about the country’s coronavirus death toll, just days after Brazil became the second country in the world to surpass 600,000 fatalities.

Bolsonaro – a COVID-19 sceptic who has downplayed the severity of the virus – was surrounded by supporters at the beach in Guaruja, in Sao Paulo state, on Monday when a journalist asked him about the death toll.
KEEP READING‘Out Bolsonaro!’: More protests in Brazil over COVID crisisBrazil chief justice says top court ‘will not tolerate threats’Brazil’s Bolsonaro complains about gas prices as inflation soars‘Horrific milestone’: Brazil surpasses 600,000 COVID deaths

“In which country did people not die? Tell me!” he responded. “Look, I didn’t come here to be bored.”

Brazil surpassed 600,000 coronavirus deaths on Friday, the country’s health ministry announced, spurring more public anger against Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic.

For months, the president has rejected calls to impose restrictions such as lockdowns to stem the spread of the virus, while public health officials have slammed his government for failing to quickly secure COVID-19 vaccines.

Thousands have taken to the streets to demand Bolsonaro’s impeachment over the pandemic as well as corruption allegations, but he has remained defiant and continues to reject public health measures.

On Sunday, Bolsonaro claimed that COVID-19 protocols at soccer matches had prevented him from attending a Brazilian championship football match in the city of Santos.

“Why a vaccine passport? I wanted to watch Santos now and they said I needed to be vaccinated. Why should that be?” Bolsonaro told journalists. Santos said Bolsonaro had not asked to attend the match, however.

Authorities this week allowed clubs to fill 30 percent of available seats in Brazilian championship games, but the protocol agreed to by the Brazilian soccer confederation says all people inside stadiums must be vaccinated and recently tested.

Meanwhile, a Brazilian Senate committee that in April launched an investigation into Bolsonaro’s pandemic policies is expected to release a final report in the coming weeks.

That could heap more pressure on the president ahead of elections scheduled for next year.

While Brazil’s former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has not formally announced he will run, polls show Lula would easily defeat Bolsonaro.

On Friday, Brazilian non-profit Rio de Paz hung 600 white scarves on Rio de Janeiro’s famous Copacabana beach in honour of all those who died during the pandemic.

“The president discouraged sanitary standards, challenged mask use, condemned social distancing, was against mass vaccination – because of that we have these bitter numbers,” said the group’s president, Antonio Costa.

“These are thousands of grieving families,” he said, referring to the scarves dotting the beach. “One day, we’ll know how many of those have died, lost their lives, because they heard the denying speech of some of our main public authorities.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

WAR  IN THE CONGO
In Pictures

Bambari: A mirror of the crisis in the Central African Republic

A perpetual cycle of violence has led to a catastrophic humanitarian situation for the CAR’s civilian population.

In August, 17-year-old Sallet Abdoulay returned from herding cows outside the town when an armed man on a motorbike suddenly stopped and fired shots at him, leaving him bleeding on the floor. A friend later managed to get the young man to the MSF-supported hospital in Bambari, where doctors were able to remove a bullet from his abdomen and stabilise him. But the damage to Sallet’s spine was so severe that MSF had to transfer him by plane to the capital, Bangui, to get specialist treatment. 

[Lys Arango/MSF]

5 Oct 2021

Bambari, Central African Republic – Civilians who have been repeatedly forced to flee attacks; health facilities that are regularly targeted; war orphans surviving in the streets and women who are forced to deliver babies in extreme conditions.

The town of Bambari has been hugely marked by the effect of violence that has long plagued the Central African Republic (CAR).

Renewed fighting swept over CAR after a December 2020 presidential election once again brought the country to a breaking point. Clashes between non-state armed groups and government forces backed by foreign troops restarted, leading to the highest level of displacement since 2014. Violence against civilians is widespread, and access for humanitarian organisations has shrunk in many areas, exacerbating the already extreme vulnerability of hundreds of thousands of people.

In the summer of 2021, photojournalist Lys Arango visited the country to document the suffering of ordinary people caught up in the conflict. She accompanied teams from the medical humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF) in Bambari, CAR’s fourth largest city and one of the areas hit hardest by the latest wave of violence.

The conflict in CAR has forced more than 1.4 million people of a population of less than five million to flee their homes, while essential health services are extremely limited. 

[Lys Arango/MSF]

Amina braids her granddaughter's hair in the compound of the central mosque in Bambari, while her daughter prepares food a few metres away.

 [Lys Arango/MSF]

'I am 10 years old and I live in the centre of Bambari with my mother and my little brother, who is five. When my father was killed my mother fell into deep sadness. She spent the day crying, she doesn't do anything else. So, it was my turn to get out and work,' said Iddrisa Adraman. 'I sell a fruit called cola on the street. I walk all day, from seven in the morning until seven in the afternoon. I can earn between 150 CFA ($0.27) up to 1,500 CFA ($2.7) on a good day, like on weekends. The best place to sell is near the bars, where the men drink beer. Until last year I was attending school at the École communautaire de la paix, but it has closed. All the teachers have left Bambari because of the conflict and it makes me sad because I know that if I don't learn I won't be able to become a great man in life. I would like to become a doctor, to be able to heal people. War means blood, means death.' 

[Lys Arango/MSF]

Sale Shaoudou: 'I am 12 years old and have seven siblings. One of them is Adamou and we work together on the street selling cola. Our father was a tall and strong man, he was the leader of the Peul [Falani] community, so he was respected by everyone. He worked as a teacher in the Quranic school and I remember that when he lived, we did not lack anything. We ate every day and never went barefoot. The rebels murdered him in Liwa, our town, which is 10km (six miles) from Bambari. They arrived and started shooting. I was with him when a bullet went through his head. I went to his aid and tried to make him wake up, but my mother grabbed my arm and we ran to take refuge in the forest. 'I never saw him again, neither my village. Those men set fire to the houses, even an entire family died charred inside. It was a massacre. Those of us who were able to save ourselves came walking through the forest to Bambari. It took us about 10 or 12 hours. 'We first settled in with a Peul family from Bambari, but they were very poor and did not have enough to feed us all. So my brother Adamou and I went to work and with the money we earn, we support our family. 'I hate this job because we spend the day in the sun. I would also like to study. My dream is to become the president of the Central African Republic, but for that I have to read a lot. If I became president, I would give money to poor people so that they could earn a living from trade and not from arms. 'What is war? Hell.'

 [Lys Arango/MSF]

Aisatou Abdoulay, 46: 'We came to Elevage camp in 2016 and for the time it lasted we were very happy. Now my husband is sick and it is increasingly difficult for me to find the strength to get up every day. I'm getting older and living in these conditions, with so many people in the school classroom, is very hard. We thought at first that we would only be here two or three days, until we could be relocated elsewhere. But the days have turned into weeks and the weeks into months. Before, the relationship with the local population was good, but now there is more tension every day. They want their mosque and school back for their children. We are occupying it to live and we feel bad. We understand their claims, but we have nowhere else to go.' [Lys Arango/MSF]

Forty-year-old Hawa has nine children and they all sleep together in a corner of the classroom inside a mosque in Bambari. There are two other families with whom they share the space. 'We were shepherds and had 30 cows. In 2016, an armed group surrounded our town and when the shooting started, we grabbed a saucepan, a mat and a blanket and we ran away with the children and my husband. We walked to the centre of Dimby, but we soon realised that we weren't safe there either, so with the little money we had left we paid the transport to get to Bambari. We spent five years in the Elevage camp and finally in 2020 we were given land to farm. We were happy, we worked, the children went to school. It was a simple life and we thought we had achieved stability. But when they burned the camp in June, our dream collapsed. Neither my husband nor I have gone out of the mosque in the last two months. We are afraid of being arrested for not having an identity card. So, our children are the ones in charged to go out to find firewood and food. Something that worries me is that, of my nine children, only one is a boy, the rest are girls and almost all of them are minors. When they leave the mosque, I think a lot and worry. I think that something could happen to them, that maybe they won't come back, that someone steals them from me ... We have heard stories like this and I'm afraid that something will happen to them too.' [Lys Arango/MSF]
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Youmusa Aguida, 55: 'This is the fifth time we had to migrate and only the first one was voluntary. I was born in Boali in a family of shepherds, but I wanted to improve the lives of my children and my wife, so we decided to move to Bangui. In the capital it was easy to find work. I worked in stores, in markets and the most stable job and the last one I had was as a guardian. In 2013, with the war between the armed groups, life got complicated. We lived in fear because we heard about massacres against Muslims, destruction of mosques. But the turning point was when we saw our neighbours being killed. We fled to Kuango, where we managed to settle in a camp for some time, but after a year the conflict escalated in this area, so we fled again. This time to Ippi, where we lasted two years until things got bad again and in 2016, we finally made it to Bambari to live at the IDP camp Elevage. It´s been five years and now, after the burning of the camp we have to start from zero once again. But where? How? I still don't have the answers. These days I am very sad. My mother died. She has not been able to take one more change. Since we got kicked out from Elevage, she refused to eat, she didn't sleep and hardly spoke. She died last week and we buried her in the Bambari cemetery, a long way from her homeland.'

 [Lys Arango/MSF]

During the rainy season the displaced people living in the compound of the central mosque in Bambari cannot sleep, as they only have mats in the floor. The women cannot even cook because the firewood gets wet. [Lys Arango/MSF]

K-pop fans vs Duterte’s Philippines: Why young voters want change

Purple Romero
10 Oct 2021

Just as Filipino K-pop fans mobilise to vote in contests for their favourite artists, they have organised for typhoon relief efforts and can mobilise for voter education

 [File: AFP/Ted Aljibe]

Filipino K-pop fans are more politically discerning than you might think.

Our capacity to mobilise, strategise and mount campaigns are crucial for sparking voter education and triggering discussions to help young people realise how much power they hold in influencing not just the outcome of the 2022 presidential election, but also the future of the Philippines.

Just as K-pop stans (super fans) like myself mobilise to vote for our favourite idols – be they solo artists or members of a group – to win music contests, we can also marshal other stans to register and vote.

As one 22-year-old Filipino graphic artist and K-pop fan tweeted in early September: “If you can vote for your idols, you should also vote for your country too.”

She had participated in an online voter education session which I co-organised to discuss with young people why they should vote and convince others to vote in the May 2022 election.

Mayora, my co-organiser, and I call these sessions #Eleksyonisms, a term which combines the Filipino word for elections (eleksyon) and the suffix -isms, used by Filipino millennials as a playful way to describe a state of mind, circumstance or situation.

We believe that it makes sense to enlist fans in voter education. Today, more than half of registered voters are young and K-pop stans tend to be young.

The online presence of Filipino stans is significant – the Philippines ranked fifth for unique users discussing K-pop on Twitter in 2020 and fourth when it came to tweet volume, after Indonesia, South Korea, Japan and the United States, where K-pop stans claimed to have hijacked a Donald Trump campaign rally in 2020 to engineer a low turnout.

If fans in the US were able to do that, then in the Philippines, fury and discontent with the poor response of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s government to the coronavirus pandemic and the brutal crackdown against his critics in different sectors should push K-pop fans and young people to vote.

It was in November last year when I first saw the potential of K-pop fandoms to generate real change on the ground.

At that time, Typhoon Vamco had wreaked havoc in the Philippines. As a journalist who reports on natural and man-made disasters as well as climate change, I was glued to Twitter for updates – I monitored the number of casualties, the extent of the damage, announcements by government officials.

But then something unusual on my timeline caught my eye.

It was a callout by Reveluvs, fans of the K-pop girl group Red Velvet, for donations. It wasn’t only Reveluvs who were doing this – other K-pop fan communities such as ARMY, fans of the most famous K-pop group BTS, and Blinks, Blackpink stans, were also doing their own donation drives.

More recently, in April, K-pop fandoms organised community pantries to help people who lost their sources of income during the pandemic.

They did this even as they risked being red-tagged – suspected by the authorities as well as Duterte’s supporters of being members of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

These displays of civic mobilisation made me see K-pop fandoms in a different light – as communities aware of society’s problems and doing something about them. K-pop fans in different parts of the world have conducted similar activities, but for Filipino stans, there is a common, general sentiment that in the absence of government support, they must step in instead.

Seeing how they were able to translate online callouts to assistance on the ground, with money and donations collected and delivered, made me realise the capacity of fandoms to move in a very strategic manner for causes they believe in. It showed their potential to catalyse voter education for the 2022 elections.

When Twitter Spaces for live conversations started and became a hit this May among K-pop fans, I floated the idea to other stan accounts. That is how I met Mayora, a pseudonym, which means female mayor in Filipino.

She got the name among stans because she conducted online activities for Sones, fans of the group Girls’ Generation.

But Mayora, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, is also an angry Filipina. She is on a mission – she wants a government that will uphold the rule of law.

Unlike other stans I’ve interacted with in our voter discussions, close friends of hers were killed during Oplan Tokhang, Duterte’s state-funded “war on drugs” that led to the killing of more than 6,000 people, according to the numbers provided by the government, although human rights groups say the deaths could be closer to 30,000. This crackdown is now the subject of an investigation authorised by the International Criminal Court into alleged crimes against humanity.

I, on the other hand, have experienced how journalists have been dismissed as enemies of the state. Reports, including mine, that were critical of the current government have been labelled by online netizens as “fake news,” a term that authoritarians have bandied around, contributing to an environment of distrust towards mainstream media.

My search for other ways to inform the Filipino audience – especially young people – about political issues, and Mayora’s anger at the Tokhang operations, led us to start #Eleksyonisms.

On September 12, Mayora and I held the first #Eleksyonisms. The discussion, which lasted for more than two hours, centred on the importance of registering as a voter and concerns about the election itself – how can it be conducted when COVID-19 cases continue to be high in the Philippines and social distancing should be observed? There are also fears that cheating could take place. Some also asked what qualities they should look for in candidates.

One listener told us they needed discussions like this especially because of the shrinking sources of information on mainstream media following the decision of Congress in July 2020 not to renew the franchise of ABS-CBN and force the closure of the country’s biggest broadcast network.

Different K-pop fan Twitter accounts have also started their own voter education campaigns.

ARMY BAYANIHAN⁷, for example, which has more than 6,000 followers, first posted a campaign earlier this year on voter registration in partnership with iUplift Philippines, a student-led humanitarian response initiative. Project 0613PH, which helps ARMYs understand or navigate the mobile voter registration app, started in June.

Both accounts share details about voter registration and help fellow ARMYs who need guidance about the process. They plan to conduct online discussions.

Neither will endorse any particular candidate or political group. The same goes for Mayora and me.

The filing of candidacies ran until October 8, and Duterte, who retracted an earlier statement that he will run for vice president, is now retiring from politics. His longtime personal assistant, Christopher “Bong” Go, filed his candidacy for the same post instead.

Mayora and I want to help voters know more about the weight of their vote. We will help them understand how the government works – the president’s powers, the lawmaking processes, and the priorities for fund allocation in relation to the pandemic response.

While we do not plan to hijack campaign rallies, spurring Filipino K-pop stans to go out and vote is our way of disrupting the status quo and empowering voters. Our anger counts – and we can turn our anger into action.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Purple Romero is a Filipina multimedia journalist who has written about climate change, gender issues, foreign affairs and labour rights for local and international news organisations.