CLOSING THE BARN DOOR

After four year delay, bill to require sexual assault training for judges nears passage

THIS IS THE RESULT OF RED NECK JUDGES IN ALBERTA

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Provided by National Post Justice Minister David Lametti listens as former Conservative MP Rona Ambrose speaks about a bill on sexual assault law training for judges, Feb. 4, 2020 on Parliament Hill.

OTTAWA — Four years after it was first introduced in Parliament, a bill that requires sexual assault training for federally appointed judges is getting close to passage after emerging from the Senate legal affairs committee on Thursday without amendment.

Potential amendments were voted down over the protests of some Conservative senators who wanted to add in language around domestic and intimate partner violence.

Bill C-3 still needs to pass a final vote in the full Senate chamber, but the committee vote is a strong sign the bill won’t see any other major changes that could potentially delay it. The current legislation is the third version of the bill after two previous versions died on the order paper — once because of an election call and once because of prorogation.

Former Conservative Party leader Rona Ambrose, who introduced the original version of the bill in 2017, appeared before the committee Wednesday evening to urge senators to keep the legislation moving along.

“I admit I am a bit saddened and frustrated to be appearing before this committee again on similar legislation,” Ambrose said. “To just put it into perspective, when I first introduced my original bill, Donald Trump had just been inaugurated and the Me Too movement hadn’t even happened yet. But here we are again.”

On Thursday, Conservative senators pushed to amend the bill to have the training specifically include matters of domestic violence. But other senators pushed back on this, saying the training would already include this as a component and that further amending the bill — which would then require a response from the House of Commons — risked causing delay.

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With the possibility of a snap election call any week, some senators warned that the bill could die on the order paper for a third time.

“I understand the spirit behind this amendment but I come to the conclusion it is not strictly speaking necessary, and that it will unnecessarily jeopardize the adoption of this bill,” said Sen. Pierre Dalphond, a former Quebec judge who sits in the Progressive Senate Group.

“We’re in a minority parliament and in the middle of a pandemic,” said Sen. Marc Gold, the government representative in the Senate, noting that COVID-19 bills and the upcoming budget will take priority in the legislative process. “If we want to jeopardize this legislation, the easiest way to do that is to amend it … Could it do more? Probably? Do I wish it could do more? Sure. But my view right now is that we need to get this done.”

Conservative Sen. Claude Carignan, speaking in French, called these arguments “embarrassing” and “fearmongering.” He said there’s no reason that a bill with all-party support in the Commons would need to be delayed if the Senate amends it.

But Ambrose, speaking the previous night, had also urged senators to not make further changes to the bill.

“I wish that this bill could be a catch-all for many things,” Ambrose said. “There’s many issues that have come up over the four years that we wish we could do more on. But this is a bill focused on the Judge’s Act. It’s been very carefully negotiated by the Attorney General Canada and others … I am concerned that if we amend it, it will take more time, because it will. It may not pass because it’ll have to go back to the House.”

Instead of amending the bill, the Senate added observations to it in the hopes that its concerns will be addressed by the courts and judicial organizations on their own.

One reason why the bill has been delayed so long is because of concerns around its constitutionality for intruding on judicial independence. Critics point out that judges already have sexual assault law training as part of their continuing education, and worry the bill will open the door to politicians venturing into all kinds of other topics for judicial training.

But supporters argue this bill is simply Parliament signalling that more must be done to protect the rights of sexual assault complainants and avoid basic legal errors. They note that judicial organizations are still responsible for creating the actual training content.

Still, the original version of the bill was substantially scaled back in the Senate in 2019 to make it less intrusive on judicial independence. That bill then fell victim to political manoeuvring related to other bills, and died on the order paper when the election was called. A new version was introduced by Justice Minister David Lametti in February 2020, but that bill also perished when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament in August.

The current version of the legislation amends the Judge’s Act to require judges “undertake to participate in continuing education” on sexual assault and social context, and requires that the Canadian Judicial Council develop the training “with persons, groups or organizations the Council considers appropriate, such as sexual assault survivors and groups and organizations that support them.” It requires the Council to report to Parliament on when the seminars were given and how many judges attended.

The bill was also amended by the House of Commons last fall to specify that social context includes “systemic racism and systemic discrimination.”

Brian Platt 2021-04-01
• Email: bplatt@postmedia.com | Twitter: btaplatt

NOT ENOUGH TO SAVE BEE'S

Canada to limit uses of two crop chemicals on concerns about water insects
By Rod Nickel 

 2021-03-31

©

 Reuters/CHRIS HELGREN FILE PHOTO: 

Corn ripens near a barn adorned with a Canadian flag on a farm near Minesing

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Canada's Health Ministry said on Wednesday it would limit the use of two types of crop chemicals that have been linked to deaths of aquatic insects that are food for fish and birds.

Health Canada's multi-year review of clothianidin, made by Bayer AG, and thiamethoxam, a Syngenta Corp product, found that some applications pose risks to the insects. The ministry restricted some uses for onion, lettuce, blueberry and potato crops.

Neonicotinoids are a class of pesticides that farmers have sprayed on crops since the 1990s.

Health Canada made an initial decision in 2018 to ban all outdoor uses of clothianidin and thiamethoxam, before carrying out further consultations.

It has since determined that some uses are not risky, provided that farmers take other precautions, such as reducing application rates and increasing buffer zones around sensitive areas, said Scott Kirby, director-general of environmental assessment of Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency.

The compromise fails to protect wildlife and ecosystems, environmental groups said.

"It is outrageous that Canada’s pesticide regulator is not delivering on its own proposed ban," said Beatrice Olivastri, Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth Canada, adding that European countries have stopped using the chemicals.

Companies that register the chemicals have two years to adjust directions on labels.

The changes are similar to those under consideration by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Kirby said.

Canada previously imposed restrictions on neonicotinoids to protect bees in 2019.

Growers of corn and soybeans can keep using the products with additional limits on applications. Health Canada did not impose significant changes for western canola growers, Kirby said.

A Bayer spokeswoman said the company needed time to review the decision. Syngenta could not be reached.

Health Canada is reviewing a third neonicotinoid approved for agricultural use. It intends to release its decision on imidacloprid, which Bayer also produces, later this year.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Editing by Leslie Adler, Peter Cooney and David Gregorio)

 I SAY WATSON;
The shift in power away from Cuba's Raul Castro is finally afoot.

THE IMPERIALIST PRESS VIEW

© ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/AFP via Getty Images Raul Castro and Miguel Diaz Canel in Havana, on May 1, 2016.

The country's Communist Party hierarchy on Monday selected Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel to the powerful position of First Secretary, replacing Raul Castro after he announced his retirement last week.

As head of state and leader of the only political party permitted by law on the island, Diaz-Canel must chart the course forward for the Cuban revolution, now that the guerrilla comandantes who seized power in 1959 have all died or aged.

"Comrade Raul will be consulted on the most important strategic decisions of greatest weight for the destiny of our nation. He will always be present," Diaz-Canal said of Castro, as he accepted the new position.

Born in 1960, the same year the Castro family nationalized all US-owned property in Cuba, Diaz-Canel exudes neither Fidel's charisma nor Raul's authority. While he did a three-year stint in the army, unlike the Castros, Diaz-Canel is a pencil-pushing bureaucrat rather than an olive-green-uniformed revolutionary. That said, he will make history as the first Cuban at the helm of the government and communist party not named Castro.

And knowing how to navigate Cuba's dysfunctional bureaucracy may prove to be a more vital skill than commanding a battalion as even many of Raul Castro's signature proposals—remaking the port of Mariel into a manufacturing hub and unifying Cuba's two currencies—became ensnared in the bog of red tape that seems to plague every endeavor pursued by the Cuban government.

The new Cuban leader has made climbing the ranks in the communist-run system his life work, while enjoying Raul Castro's enduring full-throated support.

"Diaz-Canel is not the fruit of improvisation but a thought-out selection of a young revolutionary with the conditions to be promoted to superior offices," Castro said in his speech on Friday at the Communist Party Congress, which was convened to select the aging revolutionary's replacement.

The Castro legacy

Since taking over the Cuban presidency in 2018, Diaz-Canel has put forward the image of a younger, more dynamic leader‚ one who posts messages on social media and reads from a tablet at government meetings. His policies, however, have been as conservative if not more so than Raul Castro's. It's a strategy bent on assuring the elder generation still occupying key political positions that he will not undermine their revolution.

He will need that political backing to address widespread discontent over a slumping economy, increased US sanctions and increasingly tech-savvy anti-government dissident groups.

Addressing opposition activists who he called "mercenary lumpen," Diaz-Called warned that "the patience of the people has limits."

Some critics of the Cuban government say the transition is really a smokescreen.

"The Castro regime is trying to fool the international community by saying, 'Oh now the Castros are not in power anymore, now a new guy has the reins of the country and is really going to run the country in a different fashion. BS!" said Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), a Cuban-American Congresswoman who won her seat in 2020 promising harsher sanctions on Cuba.

"The Castros are still in power," she said.

Even if no members of their family hold top leadership positions, there is little doubt the Castros will continue to wield great influence as long as the communist-run government and powerful military they built remains intact.

On Monday, General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, son-in-law to Raul Castro, who heads a sprawling military company that controls state-owned hotels, marinas and infrastructure projects, was for the first time named to the Politburo, the executive committee of the Cuban communist party.

A retirement years in the works

Raul Castro has said for years his retirement was in the works.

Unlike his older brother Fidel, who was head of state for 49 years and planned to stay in office until he died, Raul Castro implemented measures to restrict Cuban presidents to two five-year terms and require them to be under age 60 at the start of their first term.

He will turn 90 in June, the same age of his older brother and mentor Fidel Castro when he died in 2016.

After a mystery illness forced Fidel Castro from power in 2008, he continued to write articles and weigh in on current events. By contrast, Raul Castro is expected to keep a low profile in retirement.

Since stepping down from the presidency in 2018, Raul Castro has made few public appearances. During those with Miguel Diaz-Canel, he lets his successor do the talking.

He spends more of his time in a large well-guarded house, in what had been an upper-class neighborhood before the Cuban revolution, in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, close to where Fidel Castro is buried.

When CNN visited Santiago in 2020, residents of the city referred to the house as "punto cero" or "point zero," the same nickname given to the head of state's residence, where Fidel Castro lived his final years in Havana.

While funeral plans for Fidel Castro were, before his death, a state secret, Raul Castro has already erected a tomb in his name beside the grave of his wife Vilma Espín, a fellow guerrilla fighter who died in 2007, in a pantheon to the revolutionaries who fought alongside them.

Raul Castro, rarely giving lengthy speeches his brother once did, gave an uncharacteristically long speech on Friday that lasted more than two hours.

"I will continue soldiering on as one more revolutionary combatant, " he said. "Ready to make my modest contribution until the end of my life."

NATIONALIZE LTC

COVID-19 horrors in Ontario LTCs leave nurses with severe trauma and post-traumatic stress: Report

Margarita Maltceva

POPSTMEDIA

 2021-03-31

Working in Ontario long-term care (LTC) facilities affected by COVID-19 during the first wave has left many first responders deeply traumatized as 60 per cent of nurses reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other serious mental distresses

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© Provided by National Post According to the Ontario Nurses' Association survey, nearly 60 per cent of respondents in long-term care reported PTSD symptoms after working in nursing facilities hit by COVID-19 outbreaks.

The survey was conducted by the Ontario Nurses’ Association between September and October 2020 and asked 3,300 Ontario nurses about their experiences working in long-term care homes during the first months of the pandemic. Of the surveyed members, 1,951 responded, some partially, to the survey questions on several issues, including access to personal protective equipment (PPE), low staffing and personal strain.

The findings concluded that 50.7 per cent of the respondents had experienced PTSD symptoms after working in nursing homes that were hit by the COVID-19 crisis. The percentage increases to 60.8 per cent in settings with a larger outbreak.

“This wasn’t like anything they’d ever seen; they felt like they were on a battleground,” said Vicki McKenna, a registered nurse and ONA CEO.

“The death of so many residents was and still is totally overwhelming. You walk into rooms where there are three or four people, desperately ill and struggling to breathe. And there was nobody else to help.” 

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The National Post also interviewed three nurses on their experiences working in homes during the pandemic. On the condition of anonymity for fear of job reprisal, they reiterated the issues highlighted in the report and described how the high strain of working in homes during COVID-19 outbreaks left them traumatized and suffering from PTSD-symptoms.

Two of the three nurses said they also contracted COVID-19 at their workplaces, which further exacerbated the personal impact of the pandemic.

According to the survey results, 30 per cent of respondents reported supply issues with N95 masks in facilities without outbreaks, while 49 per cent of nurses in homes with outbreaks said the same.

In addition, 20 per cent indicated they were prevented from using PPE and 35 per cent of nurses were told to wear the same mask while caring for both healthy and ill residents.

“At the provincial tables, I asked, ‘What is the pandemic supply like? Is it regularly inspected? What is the situation?’ And the government replied, ‘We have a supply and we’re working on it.’ And that was my first clue when I started to feel very uneasy. https://t.co/xdhdbgKeBo pic.twitter.com/ftA52OcDsW— Ontario Nurses' Association (@ontarionurses) March 24, 2021

“There was still a big fight though to get proper equipment,” a registered nurse from Ottawa said.

“We had paper gowns that were disposable and did not cover us properly. We also didn’t have proper goggles or visors. And the masks they gave us were the surgical ones but not the N95s that were special for airborne particles that we needed for protection.”

The report found that outbreaks in the long-term care facilities and, particularly, uncontained outbreaks of more than five residents were linked to higher rates of inadequate supply of N95 masks.

Without proper PPE, many nurses fell sick and had to stay home, leaving facilities largely understaffed.

Half of the survey’s respondents noted that staffing levels in their homes decreased during the pandemic. Nearly a third reported short-staffing issues that occurred several times a week, the ONA report states.

“We had many, many staff and more residents becoming ill and a lot of deaths. I had four (personal support workers) who died because of COVID… We had 160 residents when (the pandemic) started last year,and we were down to 92,” the nurse from Ottawa said.

In May, she also contracted the virus and was hospitalized for a month, staying in ICU for at least two weeks.

Being so close to the edge of death, she said, severely worsened her mental health, resulting in several PTSD symptoms.

“I do have insomnia at times, wake up in a cold sweat, and have flashbacks from the ICU when I get tired. And when I have (occasional) headaches I always think, ‘oh my gosh, I hope I’m not going into COVID again.’ So, the stress of going to work every day and coming home hoping I didn’t bring it to my family still weighs on me. That’s all post-traumatic – you get anxiety because you think you’re getting sick again,” the nurse said.

The severe staff shortages meant that the few remaining nurses had to work ‘crazy overtime hours’ and daily ‘double shifts’ to look after residents and co-workers, McKenna said.

“One of the nurses said to me, ‘some of these residents I’ve known for years and they were dying in front of me. And I had two others in the room dying in front of me,and I couldn’t hold all of their hands at the same time,’” she added.

© Peter J. Thompson An elderly person walks near the crosses placed at the Camilla Care Community long-term care home, which has lost dozens of people due to COVID-19.

A registered practical nurse from southwest Ontario said she was deployed to a retirement home, which was left understaffed after it was hit by a large outbreak last November.

“There was nobody. There were some people that came from (different hospitals), but nobody that worked at the facility at that time was actually there. That’s why we didn’t know where to find anything – we were all new to the facility and I’ve never worked there before,” she said.

After only three night shifts of providing personal and medical care to residents during the “worst of the crisis”, she said she began experiencing PTSD symptoms. She was diagnosed with it three weeks ago and says the impact has been so severe that she could not return to that facility.

“I couldn’t stop crying after being there, knowing what had happened to those people… I was struggling to live with it,” the nurse said. “I don’t feel rested because I have a hard time not thinking about it. I tried to distract myself by doing something, but it’s hard: I watch TV or read but I can’t focus.

She had also contracted COVID-19 resulting in a post-COVID-19 syndrome in which patients experience persistent symptoms post-recovery.

The syndrome has left her with strong fatigue that she “has never experienced before,” as well as headaches and persistent shortness of breath, the nurse said.

“I have to stop what I’m doing and kind of hold on to something to try to catch my breath. And then, this chest pain, it won’t go away. We’ve tried a ton of medications to try to get rid of it… But nothing really stops this pain, and it feels like there’s a belt that keeps tightening around my chest, and it’s burning. And sometimes, it goes into my back,” the nurse said.

A registered nurse from the GTA said she had treated COVID-19 patients in several homes hit by outbreaks and compared her experience to working in a “humanitarian crisis.”

“I have never worked more during this pandemic than ever before,” she said. “I don’t think my colleagues and I have cried more than we ever have.”

Emotionally exhausted, she applied for another job but opted to stay in the nursing sector out of loyalty to her residents and colleagues. “I couldn’t abandon them during a pandemic… I like my patients and working with seniors, and I’ve worked in this sector for 15-20 years,” she said.

© iStockphoto A nurse from Ottawa says she and her colleagues feel tragedy for having lost so many long-term care residents in a short period of time as they have known them for years

Long-standing issues

Insufficient staffing in Ontario nursing homes has been a “long-standing issue” and “existed before COVID,” McKenna said.

“We have been hearing from nurses in long-term care about the struggles that they were having with short staffing even before COVID started. So, we believe – and have been for some time – that there’ve been real, real problems and gaps in the delivery of care in nursing homes,” she added.

McKenna confirmed that the staffing shortages have not been solved and remained an issue even during the second wave of COVID-19. She also said that the LTC nurses are still denied the use of N95 masks.


“We also continue to see nursing homes denying or restricting nurses’ access to N95 respirators, claiming that they are not needed in long-term care, despite the fact that elderly residents experience respiratory behaviours and symptoms that generate aerosols and the high rate of infections among health-care workers,” she wrote in an email.

ONA sent the survey results to Ontario’s Long Term Care COVID-19 Commission, as well as their recommendations of what needs to be changed in the long-term care facilities, including increased funding, staffing, and proper PPE that can protect from airborne viruses.

The commission, in a statement to the National Post, refused to comment on the survey and its recommendations as it is currently writing its own report on the state of long-term care facilities in the province.

Actions to support the Ontario long-term care

According to the Ontario Long-Term Care Clinicians (OLTCC) report released on March 25, the total number of cases in long-term care homes has grown from 3,274 to 15,017 between September 15, 2020, and March 24, 2021. More than 3,892 staff and residents have died during that time as a result of the outbreaks.

However, OLTCC indicated that the infection rate among seniors in LTC is “negligible” and “continues to flatten.”

© OLTCC COVID-19 update Ontario Long-Term Care Clinicians provided the data, comparing the total cases of COVID-19 in LTC homes from September 2020 to March 2021.

To support the Ontario long-term care homes, the province has contributed $16.3 billion since the beginning of the pandemic, along with an additional $650 million to improve long‑term care in 2021 and 2022.

The funds, along with other investments, will upgrade the “staffing strategy” needed to “improve working conditions for staff in long-term care homes” and “accelerate and expand education” in the Ontario recruitment and training program.

Over $121 million will be sent to “accelerate the training of nearly 9,000 personal support workers.”

In addition to that, the province is investing $175 million more in 2021-2022 for mental health and addictions services, as well as contributing $8.4 million over three years to place mental health workers in Ontario Provincial Police communications to support those with mental health issues.

Krystle Caputo, the press secretary of the Ministry of Long-Term Care, wrote in an email to the National Post that the ministry is collaborating with the Mental Health and Addiction Centre of Excellence at Ontario Health, along with a number of hospitals, to design services for frontline health-care workers that they will be able to access in their daily lives.

“Improving working conditions is crucial to addressing issues of staff retention and improving the conditions of care for residents,” she wrote.

“Our government is fixing a broken system and making long-term care a better place for residents to live, and a better place for staff to work,” Caputo added.

Ontario is also spending more than $1 billion to assist the administration, distribution and allocation of the province’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

With the vaccine rollout, there is a hope that the burden on nursing homes will be eased, said the Ottawa nurse.

“I’m really positive about the COVID vaccine, killing this disease and stopping it from spreading. I think with the big immunization clinics, I don’t think we should have a big third wave.”

However, the nursing population is worried that these “promises,” including increased staffing, will not be implemented as the LTC workers have been asking for them for “decades,” said the nurse from the GTA.

The nurse from southwest Ontario said that the province should take extra steps to improve mental health programs for first responders as the available programs are short-term and target mainly depression and anxiety, while trauma and PTSD-related counsellings are not widely accessible.

“What worries me is that not enough people know about PTSD and how it’s going to affect first responders, which also include nurses,” she said.

“There is going to be a tsunami of PTSD, depression and anxiety in the healthcare system when this is over because people don’t have enough time to do self-care, and we’re not taking care of each other. And I don’t think that there’s enough mental health support out there right now.

 cbc.ca

Time to replace Alberta’s health minister, says NDP critic David Shepherd

Duration: 02:28 2021-03-31

Doctors refusal to endorse a new deal with the Alberta government is a sign of the lack of trust the province’s physicians have in Health Minister Tyler Shandro, says the NDP

 Global News

Black students speak out about racism in Lethbridge schools

Duration: 02:08 2021-03-31

Black students are speaking out about their experiences with racism in Lethbridge schools. Taz Dhaliwal has more on the impact students say it’s having on them and what the school divisions are trying to do about it.

AOC Says Referring To Migrants As A “Surge” Is Invoking White Supremacy

During a Tuesday Q&A, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez challenged the language used around immigration, particularly as outlets and prominent Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz continue to discuss and emphasize a “surge” of migration.

© Provided by Refinery29 

DURHAM, NEW HAMPSHIRE – FEBRUARY 10: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, (D-N.Y) speaks before introducing Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to the stage during his campaign event at the Whittemore Center Arena on February 10, 2020 in Durham, New Hampshire. The state’s Democratic primary is tomorrow. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Lydia Wang 2021-04-01

Refinery29 

“This is not a surge. These are children, and they are not insurgents and we are not being invaded, which by the way, is a white supremacist idea,” she said in an Instagram Story, adding that the word “surge” is often used to invoke a militaristic way of looking at immigrants. “The idea that if an other is coming in the population, that this is like an invasion of who we are.”

These comments came after a follower asked why Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t been “addressing the border crisis” as much as she used to. She proceeded to break down the myriad ways other issues relate to the situation at the U.S. border. “Well, we’re talking about it, they just don’t like how we’re talking about it. Because it’s not a border crisis. It’s an imperialism crisis, it’s a climate crisis, it’s a trade crisis,” the congresswoman explained. “Also, it’s a carceral crisis. Because as I have already said, even during this term and this president, our immigration system is based and designed on our carceral system.”

Ocasio-Cortez has been an outspoken critic of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s approaches to immigration and incarceration. “This is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay – no matter the administration or party,” she wrote on Twitter after The Washington Post reported that a migrant facility had been opened under the Biden administration. “Our immigration system is built on a carceral framework. It’s no accident that challenging how we approach both these issues are considered ‘controversial’ stances.”

However, many Republicans have shown outrage at the state of immigration under Biden — for opposite reasons. A group of a dozen GOP senators recently visited a facility in Texas, and although Cruz also drew attention to the inhumane living conditions, he denounced the “influx of migrant crossings” and described the people he encountered as smugglers and cartel members. Biden has responded to claims about increased migration, arguing that the “significant increase in the number of people coming to the border… happens every year.”

Ocasio-Cortez says, however, says that if Republicans are really concerned about immigrants, they should consider that this topic is multipronged. Take the issue of climate change. “The U.S. has disproportionately contributed to the total amount of emissions that is causing a planetary climate crisis right now,” she said on Tuesday. “It’s South Asia, it’s Latin America that are gonna be experiencing the floods, wildfires, and droughts in a disproportionate way, which ding ding ding, has already started a migration crisis.”

Instead of creating fear-mongering around migration, we should focus on fixing these issues. Ocasio-Cortez has also created, along with Rep. Pramila Jayapal and several others, an immigration reform resolution called the Roadmap to Freedom. The proposal calls for a fair immigration process with a path to citizenship, policies that protect communities living at the border, and modernized laws with humane, community-based alternatives to detention centers.

“Sometimes I see people respond to our current immigration policy with, ‘Well, what else can we do?'” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in February. “There’s a lot we can do.”

 

THE NECESSITY OF DISMANTLING THE U.S.: A CONVERSATION WITH AJAMU BARAKA

By Kollibri terre Sonnenblume
https://www.hamptonthink.org
March 31, 2021

On February 26th, I interviewed Ajamu Baraka for my podcast. Baraka is a veteran grassroots organizer whose roots are in the Black Liberation Movement and anti-apartheid and Central American solidarity struggles. He is an internationally recognized leader of the emerging human rights movement in the U.S. and has been at the forefront of efforts to apply the international human rights framework to social justice advocacy in the U.S. for more than 25 years. He is a National Organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace, whose activities we discussed.

Baraka has taught political science at various universities and has been a guest lecturer at academic institutions in the U.S. and abroad. He has appeared on a wide-range of media outlets including CNN, BBC, Telemundo, ABC, RT, the Black Commentator, the Washington Post and the New York Times. He is currently an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and a writer for Counterpunch.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation, edited for clarity. You can listen to the entire interview here.



Kollibri terre Sonnenblume: [In terms of foreign policy], it seems like this last election was just Trump or not-Trump and so there was no discussion about how a Biden administration might be different.

Ajamu Baraka: There really wasn’t. Within the context of the bourgeois press, during the so-called debates, the number of minutes devoted to foreign policy was less than one hour, total. But yet you see that once the Biden administration takes power, some of the first initiatives that they engage in have foreign policy implications. So it’s really incredible that, because of the weight of responsibility that the executive has, that there was so little conversation around foreign policy…

The result was that basically Biden got a pass and there was no real discussion in the campaign and even among civil society. There was an assumption that you just had to get rid of Trump and everything would be just fine. It would be a return to normal. No one talked about what did normal look like and whether what was so-called normal was really in the best interests of not only the people of the US but the people in the global south, who find themselves constantly in the cross-hairs of aggressive US policies.



Sonnenblume: It seems like one untouchable topic these days, both in politics and in civil society, is the US military budget, which as we know takes up over 50% of discretionary spending. It’s obscene. It’s ten times as much as Russia’s is. It’s more than the next ten countries combined. When the conversation comes up of, “How do we pay for Medicare for All?” that’s the perfect opportunity to be like, “Let’s cut that military budget” but then it never comes up…

Baraka: One reason people are not talking about it is because, again, there seems to be bipartisan consensus that the military would get not only what it wants, but even more so. When Donald Trump came into office, that first budget he submitted to Congress included a $54 billion increase in military spending. It’s very interesting because Donald Trump just didn’t know how to filter himself so every once in a while he would say something that was brutally honest, so be blurted out that he thought that that $54 billion was in fact crazy. At first, even Democrats were raising questions about the increase, until a couple months later, I guess they got the memo, and all of a sudden it went quiet. And not only did they give Donald Trump $54 billion increase, they increased it by almost another $30 billion that first year. So that’s been a bipartisan consensus…

The issue we have, as the people, is to make that an issue. To in fact demand that our resources are redeployed to address the objective human rights needs of the people. Because who is benefiting from this 750 billion, or really, over a trillion dollars, spent on defense? It’s the fat cats making the money. These military-industrial complex executives. Everybody’s making money off of this but the people. The people are the ones suffering, so we have to demand that they reduce the spending, that they close down these over 800 military bases worldwide, transfer those resources back to the people. Back to providing housing. Back to providing some decent healthcare. Cleaning up the environment. Creating a first class educational experience for our young people.

But as long as the interests of the rulers prevails, then you’re going to have this obscene behavior, this obscene budget…

We are trying to make people aware of the fact that we have this [global military] basing system, these command structure, and we’re asking a very simple question: Whose interests are being carried out with this enormous expenditure of the public funds? To have these troops, to have these bases that are being built in various parts of the world. Is that helping your family to get a better education? Is that helping you to have some healthcare? A rec center in your community? Do you have access to more capital if you want to start a business? Where is the emphasis? And see, those questions—if the Democrats had been raising those kinds of questions, or pursuing policies that were more in alignment with working class people and the lower elements of the middle class (what we call the petite bourgeoisie)—perhaps the conditions would not have been in place that would have allowed Trump to win the presidency.

These basic questions of whose interests are being served by these policies are the kind of questions that have to be raised on the liberal part of the equation. Because they’re being raised among the radical right and you see a radicalization taking place that culminated in terms of behavior on Jan. 6th.

So there’s a real disadvantage on the part of liberals because they have surrendered their political positions to the neoliberal bourgeoisie and they have disarmed themselves politically and ideologically. As a consequence, they have ceded significant ideological space to the radical right. They’re playing a game that’s very dangerous. Not only are they losing, but all of us are losing as a consequence.



Sonnenblume: You made a reference to neoliberalism being a form or expression of neofascism. I heard you speak about this recently, I believe it was on Black Agenda Radio, and this was new for me to think of it this way. [See Black Agenda Radio 1/25/21.]

Baraka: …What you see is this dangerous coalition of forces, of ruling class forces—Silicon Valley, the military industrial complex, the corporate media companies that control 90% of news and entertainment, and elements of the state: the intelligence agencies—you see the foundation there. We already have the dictatorship of capital. If we want to think about the liberal bourgeois process, it provides a shell for the dictatorship of capital. The shell is not becoming almost an impediment for the neoliberal bourgeoisie. So they are slowly conditioning the US population to accept open fascistic kinds of rule. That’s why they flaunt democracy. That’s why Biden can talk about how he wants to center democracy and human rights, but then turn around and support fascism in Haiti or right-wing elements that are trying to take power in Venezuela.

So not only do I talk about neofascism as having a neoliberal character, it’s important to understand that within the context of the global system, for many years this fascism that we have in the US has been disguised. Because you can have forms of democracy, of democratic practice, at the center, while the connected economies and societies that the empire was connected to, are basically fascism.

When we look at these relationships from the point of view of the oppressed, of the colonized, we say: “Someone explain to us how we didn’t have fascism.”

So for me, I’m hoping that people are alerted to this friendly fascism that’s being developed because in many ways it’s more insidious because it’s not being recognized. So for four years they had us fixated on the theatrics of Donald Trump with his incoherent and clownish behavior, while they were systematically tightening up the national security state, the conditioning of the population to accept an Orwellian-Big-Brother-doublespeak-newspeak kind of environment. It’s very troubling what’s unfolding now because elements who you think would be hip to it, and in opposition, they’ve been helping to go along with it. Just yesterday, the Nation jumped on this whole Facebook thing and called Mark Zuckerberg a danger to democracy. Why? Because they want to engage in even more censorship. To me, it’s kind of crazy.



Sonnenblume: You’ve made a point about this particular topic of social media before, where you’ve talked about how our public space has been privatized.

Baraka: Exactly. It’s been privatized. It’s been colonized. And as a consequence it’s becoming more and more difficult for alternative information to be disseminated. Look, they’ve been wanting to do this for quite some time. Ever since they saw the possibilities and the dangers of the internet and social media. You might recall that at one point, they were attacking what people were referring to as “citizen journalists.” That they weren’t authoritative. That they were just making things up, blah blah blah. It’s always been a concern that information not approved by the authorities would be disseminated and be the source of real political opposition in this country and throughout the entire West. But they never had the nerve to engage in open censorship. But with Russiagate, they had that opportunity to begin laying the ideological foundation and they did it and they did it with a vengeance. So now, four years later, you can have the Nation calling for censorship and no one bats an eye.



Sonnenblume: Within the context of decolonization, do we need to dismantle the United States?

Baraka: Well the short answer is, yes.

Because the United States is a settler-colonial project, a settler-colonial state. It’s had a continuity since 1791, once the new constitutional process was finalized, and that process just basically resulted in the consolidation of the power of the colonists that were on the land since 1619. Even with the Civil War, there’s been continuity, because the US national state won that conflict with the Confederacy. The very fact that the material basis of the US was the conquering of this land and then the confinement of Native peoples to concentration camps that we refer to as “reservations,” provides not only a moral critique but it provides a moral foundation for how a just resolution has to look.

That is, we can’t just be saying, “I’m sorry” and that’s it, or even reparations whatever that’s supposed to be, but it in fact has to be a dismantling of this power, a dismantling of the settler-colonial state.

And that process of dismantling the settler-colonial state and the colonial system requires a decolonization of one’s consciousness. It goes hand-in-hand. That process of decolonizing one’s consciousness is a process in which you root out the ideological foundations of white supremacy. In this society—in this white supremacist, settler-colonial society—everyone who was born—no matter what your ethnicity, nationality or race or whatever—you are subjected to it, and become in essence a white supremacist. It’s part and parcel of the DNA of the US experience. You are taught white supremacy from the very first moments… It’s so pervasive, it’s not even recognized. It becomes just common sense.

So you have to go through a process of purging oneself. Of not seeing Europe as the apex of civilizational development, of understanding that there are other people on this planet who have civilizations, who should be recognized and respected, who have value just as much as the lives of Europeans. You have to rid yourself of Euro-centrism because it’s so pervasive you can’t even see it. So the process of decolonization structurally requires a simultaneous process—maybe even a prior process—of decolonizing one’s consciousness, decolonizing knowledge, decolonizing the very basis of being.

That is the simultaneous process we need to engage in, in this country, and throughout the Western world, because the very notion of modernity, of what is human development, has to be re-thought. Part of that re-thinking is part of the decolonization process. De-centering Europe. De-centering the entire process of modernity.



Sonnenblume: So this makes me wonder: To what degree is the modern technological and industrial state dependent on white supremacy then? Because the wealth that makes it happen comes from these structures. We look at our phones and our other technologies and it’s a colonial and white supremacist process that’s extracting those materials. We know about the child slave labor that’s happening in Africa. Is it even possible to have modern life without it? Can we make a cell phone without colonialism, I guess I’m asking?

Baraka: That’s a very important and profound question. The relationships of colonialism are such that they when they are separate, there has to be a change in what we consume, how we consume, how we relate to nature. That’s part of the process. Now we can’t turn back the hands of time. We have these industrial processes, but right now those industrial processes and the technologies being developed are such that they are almost instruments against collective humanity.

So part of the decolonization process is to take hold of those technological innovations and industrial processes, and reorganize them in a way that makes more sense, that helps to elevate life, and to protect life. And that means a lot of profound changes. For example, what that might mean for these megacities that we have? Can we continue to afford these megacities? When we take hold of the industrial base, maybe we will be able to reorganize agriculture in a different way that will allow people to leave these cities and go back to the countryside and engage in small plot farming, for local and national markets.

The whole logic and rationale of capitalist society has to be looked at in a new way. There are a number of movements that are in fact doing that. That make an argument that we’ve got to completely reorganize every aspect of society if we’re going to be able to survive, because one of the obvious contradictions and consequences of the industrial processes we have is that we’re basically destroying the ability of human beings to sustain themselves on this planet. Mother Earth is going to survive. She might be altered in many ways, but we are the ones who are going to destroy our ability to live on this planet.

So until we’re able to seize power from this minority of the human population that is invested in production processes and social relations that force all of to have to work for them, that put profit over the planet, and over people, then that kind of irrational production will continue, to our detriment. So we have a vested interest in a global revolutionary process.

The major contradiction that Marx identified was between the capitalists and the workers. And that’s a continuing contradiction, but at this stage of monopoly global capital and the irrationality of these processes, the major contradiction today, in my opinion, is between capitalism—the capitalist class—and collective humanity. We have to take power from these maniacs if we’re going to survive. So there’s an objective, material need for us to recognize that we have an interest in taking power back from the capitalist class if we want to survive for ourselves and for our children.

These are the kinds of things we have to look at. When we take power, what kind of societies do we build? That is the other part of the conversation, because you have some people that will argue that there’s some models being developed that represent how a post-capitalist society might look. Well, maybe. But there’s some things in some of these models that some of us don’t want to follow. So what would be created remains to be seen.

But we’ve got to find a new kind of ethical framework, a framework that is based on cooperation, based on equality, based on rationality and decency. I think we will collectively be able to figure out how to reorganize society in ways that will ensure we can survive and live as decent human beings in a new kind of world. I think we can do that.

Listen to the entire interview here.

150 ANNIVERSARY OF THE PARIS COMMUNE

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Indigenous woman Joyce Echaquan posthumously awarded Rosa Parks prize in Quebec

An Indigenous woman who died in a Quebec hospital last September shortly after she livestreamed degrading comments from hospital workers has been awarded a prize recognizing people who foster inclusion and social justice.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Joyce Echaquan's death gained international attention and prompted a call for action as a result of the video filmed from her hospital bed, showing her in distress as two staff members disregarded her calls for help.

Echaquan’s husband, Carol Dube, accepted the prize, named after U.S. civil rights activist Rosa Parks, from a Quebec group that works to build solidarity with Africa.

Dube noted in an April 14 thank-you letter that he takes comfort in knowing his wife's actions fuelled a desire for social justice, saying he and the couple's children were deeply moved to have Echaquan’s name associated with Parks.

Echaquan, who was from the Atikamekw community of Manawan north of Montreal, was the fifth recipient of the prize awarded by the Union des Africains du Quebec et amis solidaires de l'Afrique.

The group's president, Ali Dahan, said Echaquan was an obvious choice, as she had the courage to document systemic racism from her hospital bed, raising awareness of Indigenous issues in Quebec and around the world.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on April 19, 2021.

The Canadian Press