The National Resistance Front of Afghanistan registers in the United States as foreign agent

10:30, today

Author: Asia-Plus

National Resistance Front filed paperwork under the Foreign Agents Registration Act on October 26; photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images.

The United States’ news website Axios reported yesterday that the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan has registered to lobby U.S. policymakers, signaling it recognizes the need to win over key officials in Washington.

A newly formed U.S. nonprofit arm, incorporated in D.C. last week, reportedly filed paperwork under the Foreign Agents Registration Act on October 26.

It told the Justice Department it anticipates "lobbying the government, international organizations and other political entities."

The National Resistance Front reportedly seeks to be "the protector of America's 20-year investment in Afghanistan and the force to rid the country of intolerance and terrorism."

The registration comes about six weeks after the National Resistance Front enlisted the Sonoran Policy Group to "provide strategic advisory services."

Axios notes that U.S. financial and military aid could be crucial to efforts to oppose Taliban rule in Afghanistan. But opposition forces must convince the Biden administration to stay engaged to some degree in a conflict from which the president is determined to extricate the United States, the website says.

According to Axios, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) had earlier called on President Biden to recognize Ahmad Massoud, as well as fellow National Resistance Front co-founder Amrullah Saleh, as "the legitimate government representatives of Afghanistan."

The Biden administration has shown no signs it will do so.

Anti-Taliban National Resistance Front of Afghanistan reportedly opens its office in Dushanbe
15:01, october 29

Author: Asia-Plus

Afghanistan NRFleader Ahmad assoud; photo / TOLONews.

Some Tajik experts have confirmed that the Anti-Taliban National Resistance Front of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan opened its office in Dushanbe. Meanwhile, Tajik Foreign Ministry says it does not have such information.

Several local experts told Asia-Plus that the National Resistance Front of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan opened its office in Dushanbe.

Director of the Analytical Center at the Russian Political Scientists’ Society, Andrey Serenko, noted in his telegram-Channel on October 23 that the Anti-Taliban National Resistance Front of Afghanistan “has opened its official representation in Tajikistan (Dushanbe).”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan says it does not have such information

Recall, the United States’ news website Axios reported on October 28 that the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan has registered to lobby U.S. policymakers, signaling it recognizes the need to win over key officials in Washington.

A newly formed U.S. nonprofit arm reportedly filed paperwork under the Foreign Agents Registration Act on October 26.

It told the Justice Department it anticipates "lobbying the government, international organizations and other political entities."

The National Resistance Front reportedly seeks to be "the protector of America's 20-year investment in Afghanistan and the force to rid the country of intolerance and terrorism."

The registration comes about six weeks after the National Resistance Front enlisted the Sonoran Policy Group to "provide strategic advisory services."

Biden Admin Makes 2nd Attempt to End Trump-Era ‘Remain-In-Mexico' Asylum Policy

By Annika Kim Constantino, CNBC

Jose Torres | Reuters
Migrants, mostly Haitians, wait for asylum processing by Mexico’s Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) outside a soccer stadium, in Tapachula, Mexico October 12, 2021.

The Biden administration announced its second attempt to terminate a Trump-era border policy that forces asylum seekers to stay in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court date.
It comes to weeks after the administration complied with a Texas federal judge's order to reinstate the policy, known as "Remain in Mexico," by mid-November.
The termination of the policy will only go into effect if the the order is lifted by the federal judge who issued it or an appellate court.

The Biden administration on Friday announced its second attempt to terminate a Trump-era border policy that forces asylum seekers to stay in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court date.

This comes two weeks after the administration complied with a Texas federal judge's order to reinstate the policy, known as "Remain in Mexico," by mid-November.

While the administration is carrying out the order to reimplement the policy, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced his intentions to end "Remain in Mexico" if the order is lifted by the federal judge who issued it or an appellate court.

He issued a first memo in June that terminated the program until the federal judge's order thwarted his plan.

The "Remain in Mexico" policy, officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP, was first implemented in 2019 by former President Donald Trump amid an increase of Central American families crossing the southwest border.

In the memo, Mayorkas conceded that MPP likely reduced unauthorized migration to the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump administration. But he said it imposed "substantial and unjustifiable human costs" on the thousands of migrants who waited in Mexico, which demonstrates a need to end the program.

"The benefits of MPP are far outweighed by the costs of continuing to use the program on a programmatic basis, in whatever form," Mayorkas said in the new, four-page memo.

"MPP not only undercuts the Administration's ability to implement critically needed and foundational changes to the immigration system, but it also fails to provide the fair process and humanitarian protections that all persons deserve," he said.

President Joe Biden suspended MPP on his first day in office, calling it inhumane due to the violence migrants faced while waiting in Mexico.

This prompted the Republican-led states of Texas and Missouri to sue the Biden administration in April over ending the policy. In August, a federal judge for the Northern District of Texas sided with the states and ordered the administration to reinstate the policy pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

The Supreme Court also declined the administration's request to block the judge's order in August.

In the Friday memo, Mayorkas outlined the Biden administration's justification for ending MPP in an effort to address the federal judge's concerns.

For instance, he noted that the Mexican government said it will not accept migrants that return to Mexico under MPP unless "substantial improvements" are made to the program.

But such improvements would pull resources and personnel away from other "productive efforts" to address the root causes of migration and fight transnational criminal and smuggling networks, according to Mayorkas.

"I have concluded that there are inherent problems with the program that no amount of resources can sufficiently fix," he said in the memo.

Mayorkas also noted that migrants sent to Mexico under MPP were subject to "extreme violence and insecurity" at the hands of transnational criminal organizations.

An estimated 70,000 migrants were returned to Mexico under MPP since 2019, according to the American Immigration Council. Migrants subject to the policy often waited months, if not years, to see an immigration judge.

While waiting in Mexico, they also faced threats of extortion, sexual assault and kidnapping, according to Human Rights First. There have been at least 1,544 reported cases of rape, kidnapping and assault, among other crimes, committed against migrants sent back under the Trump-era policy through February 2021.

Mayorkas said the Biden administration can decrease migration to the southern border and provide protection to migrants who qualify for asylum through other policies being developed. This includes a fast-tracked immigration court program and a proposed rule that would allow asylums officers to "produce timely and fair decision-making" about asylums claims.

"Once fully implemented, these policies will address migratory flows more effectively than MPP, while holding true to our nation's values," the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

The Biden administration's latest attempt to end the policy was supported by some Democrats, who have argued against reinstating it.

"The Remain in Mexico policy is one of the most destructive vestiges of Trump's anti-immigrant legacy, and should be permanently discarded along with the many other remaining Trump admin policies willfully designed to punish & deter refugees from legally seeking safety in the US," Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said in a Twitter post.

The problem with the Halloween ‘hag’ witch – and what you need to know about real-life witchcraft

October 29, 2021 7.05am EDT

For many witches, the internet offers a community and the opportunity to practice with like-minded people. Pexels/mikhail nilov


Halloween is here once again with supermarkets displaying devil and monster costumes. In my neighbourhood, I will see a mob of wart-ridden, green-faced witch children, terrorising neighbours with the threat of a trick if they are not treated with sweets.

Witches are synonymous with this time of year and most often they are presented as old, ugly and evil – and as something to avoid.

Erdman Palmore, a medical sociologist, has previously written about how the older, more forthright and more outspoken a woman is, the more she is considered a threat. In this way, the caricature of the witch, which stereotypes women as evil and dangerous, helps to silence a woman’s power. It also manipulates and controls societies’ perception of older women, by presenting them as being untrustworthy or mad.

Read more: Hag, temptress or feminist icon? The witch in popular culture

And in this sense, the hag-witch identity has what sociologists refer to as symbolic violence, which is an unconscious mode of cultural or social domination. In other words, the hag witch stereotype, which is imposed upon women, is a form of non-physical violence.

So it’s important to understand that beyond the fairy tales, mythical stories and stereotypes, there are many different ways to be a witch.
The modern witch

As part of my PHD research I interviewed 13 UK based self-identified witches and analysed hundreds of different witch identities on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. I have seen how people use social media as a platform to teach, learn and practice witchcraft and as a space to promote their witch-selves.

Many of the witches I interviewed and came across on social media spoke about the importance of online spaces because of the lack of local Pagan communities. They also said that the internet offers a community and the opportunity to practice with like-minded people.

Modern-day witches are reclaiming witchcraft’s dark history.

  YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV/Shutterstock

It seems being a witch is not something people tend to be initiated into, as with Christianity. More they become a witch (often as a teenager) after realising that the philosophies of witchcraft – such as goddess worship, the moon cycle and positive affirmations – resonate. I’ve seen witches describe how they “came out of the broom closet” and started to present themselves as a witch via the use of memes and images on social media.

I have found though that the stereotypical image of a witch – as an evil, angry woman or an ugly wart-ridden hag – is used often by these groups as a way of reclaiming power. People use the hag or evil witch stereotype to fight the patriarchy. Often using the meme: “We are the granddaughters of the witches you couldn’t burn”.


In this way, the modern witch identity is not about creating fear. It’s about sharing wisdom with the next generation. And my research has found that the modern witch identity is empowering women to stand loud and proud within a patriarchal society.
Halloween or Samhain?

Many trick or treaters may also not be aware that Halloween originates from Samhain, a three-day ancient Celtic pagan festival. Samhain marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the “darker-half” of the year and it’s significant to witches.

It falls on the 31 of October – the same day as Halloween – and is one of the eight festivals (Sabbats) within the witch’s year. Samhain is marked with candles, music, bonfires and food. Historically it marked the change of the season but more recently it’s also a time to celebrate life and remember those who’ve died.

The stereotypical Halloween hag. Ian Good/Shutterstock

For many witches, 31 October is a spiritual festival. It celebrates harvest bounty and an opportunity to provide offerings of thanks to the god of the Sun and others. It is not about creating mischief or evil or eating children, as the stereotype would have us believe. So while Halloween may seem like just a bit of fun, it’s also problematic in that it reinforces stereotypes that cause confusion.

This is why I would like Samhain to be acknowledged and respected as a faith-based autumn festival similar to Diwali in Hinduism that celebrates how light and good overcame darkness and evil, or the same way Harvest is in Christianity.

Indeed, by painting the witch as evil, devil-worshipping and harmful, it limits the exploration of the various identities of the witch. Witch is also not a gender-specific term, it’s an empowering faith identity and it should be presented as such.

So this Halloween, rather than taking on the hag witch persona, why not explore the identity of the Samhain witch in an alternative Halloween celebration – you could take a nature walk, light a bonfire or candles, cook a nice meal and give thanks for the things you are grateful for.

Author

Maggie Webster

Senior Lecturer in Education, Edge Hill University
Disclosure statement

Maggie Webster does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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West Australian Shipwreck Reveals Secrets Of 17th-Century Dutch Seafaring Domination


Aoife Daly extracting a tree-ring sample from the Batavia ship’s hull planking in strake 14 CREDIT: (Photo: W. van Duivenvoorde).

October 30, 2021 
By Eurasia Review

Many Dutch ships passed the West Australian coast while enroute to Southeast Asia in the 1600s – and the national heritage listed shipwreck, Batavia, has revealed through its timbers the history of the shipbuilding materials that enabled Dutch East India Company (VOC) to flourish against major European rivals for the first time.

Built in Amsterdam in 1626-1628 and wrecked on its maiden voyage in June 1629 on Morning Reef off Beacon Island (Houtman Abrolhos Archipelago), Batavia epitomises Dutch East India (VOC) shipbuilding at its finest in a Golden Age, experts reveal in a study led by Flinders University archaeologist Associate Professor Wendy van Duivenvoorde with co-authors, Associate Professor and ERC grantee Aoife Daly at the University of Copenhagen and Marta Domínguez-Delmás, Research Associate and VENI Fellow at the University of Amsterdam.

“The use of wind-powered sawmills became common place in the Dutch republic towards the mid-17th century, allowing the Dutch to produce unprecedented numbers of ocean-going ships for long-distance voyaging and interregional trade in Asia, but how did they organise the supply of such an intensive shipbuilding activity? The Dutch Republic and its hinterland certainly lacked domestic resources” says Wendy van Duivenvoorde.

In-depth sampling of Batavia’s hull timbers for dendrochronological research, published in open-access journal PLOS ONE, offers a piece of the puzzle of early Dutch 17th century shipbuilding and global seafaring that was still missing.

In the 17th century, the VOC grew to become the first multinational trading enterprise, prompting the rise of the stock market and modern capitalism. During this century, a total of 706 ships were built on the VOC shipyards in the Dutch Republic and 75 of these were shipwrecked and 23 captured by enemy forces or pirates.

However, little is understood about the timber materials that enabled the Dutch to build their ocean-going vessels and dominate international trade against competitors in France, Portugal, and continental Europe.

“Oak was the preferred material for shipbuilding in northern and western Europe, and maritime nations struggled to ensure sufficient supplies to meet their needs and sustain their ever-growing fleets. Our results demonstrate that the VOC successfully coped with timber shortages in the early 17th century through diversification of timber sources” explains Marta Domínguez Delmás.”

Fortunately, the Batavia ship remains were raised in the 1970s and are on display at the Western Australian Shipwrecks Museum in Fremantle.

This allowed archaeologists and dendrochronologists from Flinders University, the University of Amsterdam, and University of Copenhagen to undertake the sampling and analysis of the hull timbers.

“The preference for specific timber products from selected regions demonstrates that the choice of timber was far from arbitrary. Our results illustrate the variety of timber sources supplying the VOC Amsterdam shipyard in the 1620s and demonstrate the builders’ careful timber selection and skilled craftsmanship” says Aoife Daly.

“Our results contribute to the collective knowledge about north European timber trade and illustrate the geographical extent of areas supplying timber for shipbuilding in the Dutch Republic in the 17th century” concludes Wendy van Duivenvoorde.

 

US Supreme Court to review lower court’s dismissal of Trump-era power plant GHG rule

29 October 2021 Amena Saiyid

The US Supreme Court agreed on 29 October to review a lower court ruling earlier in 2021 that rejected a signature Trump administration regulation that curbed power plant releases of GHGs.

The review was sought in April by a 19-state coalition led by West Virginia, which challenged the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's decision in January to vacate and remand the 2019 Affordable Clean Energy Rule (ACE) for a rewrite.

The appeals court said the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President Donald Trump misconstrued a provision of the Clean Air Act, the nation's key air pollution law, thereby illegally restricting the measures that could be imposed to curb power plant GHGs.

In their 29 April petition, the states argued the circuit court, through its ruling, gave EPA, the federal agency charged with regulating GHGs and other air pollutants, "unbridled power" to decarbonize any sector of the economy including factories and power plants, as well as the millions of homes and small businesses that use natural gas for heating.

In petitioning the highest court in the land, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey contended that the lower court "inappropriately" interpreted Section 111 of the Clean Air Act as "authorizing EPA to sidestep Congress to exercise broad regulatory power that would radically transform the nation's energy grid and force states to fundamentally shift their energy portfolios away from coal-fired generation."

Morrissey said the Supreme Court's decision to accept the case marks the "most consequential victory" since he was able to persuade the court to stay the Obama-era Clean Power Plan in February 2016 before it even took effect.

EPA has yet to rewrite ACE since it was remanded to the agency. EPA Administrator Michael Regan has stated publicly that the court ruling allowed the agency to take a fresh look at the regulation. Following the Supreme Court's action, Regan tweeted out that power plant carbon pollution hurts families and communities, and threatens businesses and workers, while noting that "the courts have repeatedly upheld EPA's authority to regulate dangerous power plant carbon pollution."

Released in 2019, ACE replaced the Obama administration's more stringent 2015 Clean Power Plan—which set the first CO2 limits for existing coal-fired power plants—with standards based on a list of technologies that EPA identified for upgrading plant equipment and improving operations. The ACE rule did not set a numerical standard for power plants.

In contrast, the Clean Power Plan imposed a numerical limit on carbon emissions for coal-fired plants, while offering flexibility to meet this limit through energy efficiency improvements as well as by trading carbon offsets and fuel switching.

The West Virginia petition was backed by the National Mining Association and a trade group by the name of America Power that represents plants generating electricity from coal. The cities of Boulder, Chicago, Denver, New York, South Miami, Philadelphia, and the District of Columbia joined a 22-state coalition led by New York state that opposed the petition.

New York University School of Law Professor Richard Revesz, who directs the Institute for Policy Integrity, said the West Virginia-led petition lacks merit because it claims the EPA lacks authority to employ emissions trading when regulating power plant carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act.

"That argument is at odds with decades of regulatory practice under administrations of both parties," Revesz said in a statement. "EPA has repeatedly employed flexible techniques like emissions trading in Clean Air Act rules and should be able to continue to do so as it works to decarbonize the power sector."

Posted 29 October 2021 by Amena Saiyid, Senior Climate & Energy Research Analyst, IHS Markit

Nearly 300 Scientists Ask WTO To Ban Harmful Fisheries Subsidies


Fishing boats. Photo Credit: Ivan Khmelyuk from Pixabay

October 30, 2021

By Eurasia Review

Two hundred and ninety scientific researchers from 46 countries, and 6 continents, are asking members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to take the bold step and pass a motion to ban harmful fisheries subsidies at their 12th Ministerial Conference that will take place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 2021, in Geneva.

In an open letter, published in Science, and spearheaded by Dr. Rashid Sumaila, professor in the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, and Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Ocean and Fisheries Economics, the scientists stated that the WTO is in the unique position to pass an effective international agreement that could eliminate subsidies for fuel, distant-water and destructive fishing fleets, and ille­gal and unregulated vessels.

Citing a comprehensive body of research, the signatories stated that government payments that lower the cost of fuel and vessel construction; provide price support to keep market prices artificially high, and back fleets that plunder the high seas, only incentivize overcapacity and lead to over­fishing. This, the scientists said, actively contravenes the aims of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 14, which is to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.”

In their view, the 164 states represented at the WTO could use their upcoming meeting to sign an agreement that forbids such harmful practices, while allowing special and differential treatments for small-scale, sustainably managed wild fisheries that sup­port food and nutritional security, liveli­hoods, and cultures, particularly in low-income countries.

Further, the researchers said that such a deal should support low-income countries’ efforts to meet their commitments and transition to sustainable management. Finally, the agreement should require transparent data documentation and enforcement measures.

COP26 Conference in Glasgow takes place amid escalating class conflict

Tony Robson
WSWS.ORG

The United Nations COP26 conference, opening in Glasgow on Sunday for two weeks, was to take place amid planned strikes of thousands of key workers both in the city and around Scotland. This did not happen thanks to the utterly rotten character of the trade unions.

As with other such global events, widespread protests are expected. Climate change activists will gather alongside world leaders and political dignitaries, opposing the tidal wave of empty pledges over carbon emissions reductions by those upholding the interests of the chief despoilers of the planet, the corporate oligarchy.

This time, however, protests were accompanied by threats of workers taking strike action over their plummeting living standards during the pandemic, testifying to the growth of the class struggle internationally. The task for the trade union bureaucracy was to prevent this at all costs.

A two-week strike during the entire proceedings of the COP26 conference by over 2,000 rail workers on ScotRail threatened to bring the entire rail system across Scotland to a standstill. ScotRail, owned by Dutch transnational Abellio, runs 95 percent of rail services in Scotland. This was averted by the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) calling off the strike voted for on an 84 percent mandate and accepting a below-inflation pay deal on Wednesday.

ScotRail trains (Credit: Creative Commons)

Rail workers in the RMT on the Caledonian Sleeper service which runs between London and Inverness, operated by Serco, are still scheduled to conduct two separate 48-hour strikes, the first starting on November 1 and the second from November 11.

Around 1,500 Glasgow City Council workers were also due to walk out for seven days of strike action from November 1. Those involved include refuse workers and school cleaners, catering staff and janitors. From November 8, thousands of local government workers in similar roles were to take five days of strike action across half of all local authorities in Scotland.

These strikes were both also suspended Friday, after local authority body Cosla proposed a pay rise of 5.8 percent, but only for the lowest paid staff, within a £1,062 increase for all staff earning below £25,000. Unison suspended five days of strike action across Scotland while its members are consulted.

The strike action had been billed by the trade unions concerned as an escalation of long-running disputes based on the claim that the Scottish National Party (SNP) government would be obliged to meet the demands of workers to spare its political embarrassment during COP26.

The example of the RMT at ScotRail shows that the only climbdown is by the trade unions. Its agreed-to pay deal for this year of 2.5 percent with a one-off £300 payment is a de facto pay cut with inflation running at 4.9 percent. The RMT has not even balloted its membership over acceptance.

In a clear indication that the deal contains an agreement on cost-cutting measures, a joint RMT-ScotRail press release states: “Our talks acknowledged the pressures on Scotland’s railway, and we agreed that by working together and exploring future productivity initiatives we will be able to build a sustainable future for ScotRail.” It declares an end to all disputes at ScotRail and concludes by stating, “As the disputes are resolved strike action has been cancelled and RMT members have been advised to work normally.”

The pay disputes in Scotland provide a snapshot of how the union bureaucracy is holding back a tidal wave of working-class opposition. In the name of national unity, the trade unions have enabled the ruling class to dictate its homicidal response to the pandemic of placing profits before the protection of life.

The RMT has attempted to bask in the reflected glory of the strike action over pay at ScotRail and on the Caledonian Sleeper since spring this year, while making sure the disputes remained isolated.

The grounds for national strike action exist across the UK network after the Johnson government announced in January a two-year pay freeze for 62,000 rail workers across 22 operating companies. But the RMT has not lifted a finger to oppose this attack. It has taken its place alongside the other trade unions in the Rail Industry Recovery Group (RIRG) based on a framework agreement for imposing £2 billion of cuts. That the RMT is touting the sellout deal it has reached with ScotRail as an example for pay dispute resolution means that a similar fate awaits Caledonian Sleeper workers if their struggle against a pay freeze is left in the hands of the union bureaucracy.

As for the deal agreed for local government workers, according to Unison over 55 percent of earn less than £25,000 per year and most have worked through the pandemic without a pay rise. The trade unions have delayed strike action until now, having submitted their pay claim for 200,000 workers 10 months ago, and presided over a pay freeze two years into a pandemic.

The strike action by rail and local government workers would also have been joined by hundreds of bus workers at Stagecoach across Scotland. The UK’s largest private bus and coach operator is owned by Brian Souter and Ann Gloag, with a combined wealth of £650 million, the fourteenth-largest fortune in Scotland. Unite and the RMT has blocked the 20 or more pay disputes across the UK at Stagecoach from becoming national strike action and ended individual disputes based on below-inflation agreements.

The trade unions, led by Unite, claim to have adopted a “leverage strategy”, intelligently using external factors to strengthen workers engaged in struggle. If that were truly the case, the ability of rail and council workers to paralyse the activities of the world’s most prominent political event would have been the ultimate opportunity to put this into practice. Instead, the various appeals to the SNP government in Holyrood have been used to disarm workers and pave the way to a sellout. The “leverage strategy” is revealed as the utilisation of the bureaucracy’s organisational dominance of key sections of workers to suppress the class struggle and preserve its own lucrative relations with governments and corporations across the UK.

Mounting social conflict surrounding the COP26 conference is evidence that the pre-conditions for a general strike are building up. But to take this fight forward means breaking the stranglehold of the labour and trade union bureaucracy, without which even getting to the point of a strike, let alone winning one, is proving increasingly impossible.

We urge rail, bus, and local government workers, including teachers working in unsafe schools, to form rank-and-file committees, unifying the struggle for health measures to end the pandemic and the fight against deepening social inequality, low pay and exploitation.

Read and share the statement of the International Workers Alliance for Rank-and- File Committees (IAW-RFC) which states:

“The IWA-RFC will work to develop the framework for new forms of independent, democratic and militant rank-and-file organizations of workers in factories, schools and workplaces on an international scale. The working class is ready to fight. But it is shackled by reactionary bureaucratic organizations that suppress every expression of resistance.”

Rich nations to acknowledge climate change threat, take urgent steps -draft communique

By Jan Strupczewski, Colin Packham and Philip Pullella

Posted on October 29, 2021

Coal-fired power plants in Germany

ROME (Reuters) – Leaders of the 20 richest countries will acknowledge the existential threat of climate change and will take urgent steps to limit global warning, a draft communique seen ahead of the COP26 summit https://www.reuters.com/business/cop shows

As people around the world prepared to demonstrate their frustration with politicians, Pope Francis https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/pope-francis-cop26-must-offer-concrete-hope-future-generations-2021-10-29 lent his voice to a chorus demanding action, not mere words, from the meeting starting on Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Group of 20, whose leaders gather on Saturday and Sunday in Rome https://www.reuters.com/world/climate-set-dominate-g20-summit-ahead-un-conference-2021-10-28 beforehand, will pledge to take urgent steps to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

While the 2015 Paris Agreement committed signatories to keeping global warming to “well below” 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and preferably to 1.5 degrees, carbon levels in the atmosphere have since grown.

“We commit to tackle the existential challenge of climate change,” the G20 draft, seen by Reuters, promised.

“We recognise that the impacts of climate change at 1.5 degrees are much lower than at 2 degrees and that immediate action must be taken to keep 1.5 degrees within reach.”

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that the world was rushing headlong towards climate disaster and G20 leaders must do more to help poorer countries.

“Unfortunately, the message to developing countries is essentially this: the cheque is in the mail. On all our climate goals, we have miles to go. And we must pick up the pace,” Guterres said.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/protests-proposals-activists-face-climate-talks-test-2021-09-28, who has berated politicians for 30 years of “blah, blah, blah” is among those who took to the streets of the City of London, the British capital’s financial heart, to demand the world’s biggest financial companies withdraw support for fossil fuel.

U.S. BACK IN THE FRAY

Demonstrators in the United States also protested outside several Federal Reserve Bank buildings and other banks.

U.S. President Joe Biden will join leaders at the G20 meeting after a setback on Thursday https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-give-update-democrats-spending-plans-before-europe-trip-source-2021-10-28 when the House of Representatives abandoned plans for a vote on a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which would have represented the biggest investment in climate action in U.S. history.

Biden had hoped to reach an agreement before COP26, where he wants to present a message that the United States has resumed the fight against global warming.

The 84-year-old pope will not attend COP26 following surgery earlier this year, but on Friday he led the calls for action at the talks that run from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12.

The world’s political leaders, he said, must give future generations “concrete hope” that they are taking the radical steps needed.

“These crises present us with the need to take decisions, radical decisions that are not always easy,” he said. “Moments of difficulty like these also present opportunities https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/pope-francis-cop26-must-offer-concrete-hope-future-generations-2021-10-29, opportunities that we must not waste.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is hosting COP26, said this week the outcome hangs in the balance.

On Friday, Britain sought to align business more closely with net-zero commitments by becoming the first G20 country to make a set of global voluntary disclosure standards on climate-related risks mandatory https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britain-says-company-climate-disclosures-will-be-mandatory-2022-2021-10-29 for large firms.

But leaders of Europe’s biggest oil and gas companies, among big firms conspicuous by their absence at COP26, said only governments can effectively curb fossil fuel demand.

SURVIVAL

The statement from the G20 countries, which are responsible for an estimated 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions, said members acknowledged “the key relevance of achieving global net zero greenhouse gas emissions or carbon neutrality by 2050”.

But countries on the climate frontline struggling with rising sea levels want steps taken now.

“We need concrete action now. We cannot wait until 2050, it is a matter of our survival,” said Anote Tong, a former president of Kiribati.

Tong has predicted his country of 33 low-lying atolls and islands was likely to become uninhabitable in 30 to 60 years’ time.

UN climate experts say a 2050 deadline is crucial to meet the 1.5 degree limit, but some of the world’s biggest polluters say they cannot reach it, with China, by far the largest carbon emitter, aiming for 2060 https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/china-submits-updated-climate-pledges-united-nations-2021-10-28.

Britain’s Johnson said he had urged Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday to do more to reduce his country’s reliance on coal https://www.reuters.com/article/climate-un-coal-demand/insight-cop26-aims-to-banish-coal-asia-is-building-hundreds-of-power-plants-to-burn-it-idINL4N2RI1DL and to bring forward its prediction for peak emissions.

“I pushed a bit on (peak emissions), that 2025 would be better than 2030, and I wouldn’t say he committed on that,” Johnson said.

Xi is not expected https://www.reuters.com/world/china/britain-not-expecting-chinas-xi-glasgow-un-envoy-2021-10-28 to attend the conference in person.

In the G20 draft communique, the 2050 date for net zero emissions appears in brackets, indicating it is still subject to negotiation.

Current commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions put the planet on track for an average 2.7C temperature rise this century, a United Nations report (Reuters),ahead of crunch climate talks said on Tuesday.

https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/un-warns-world-set-27c-rise-todays-emissions-pledges-2021-10-26/#:~:text=LONDON%2C%20Oct%2026%20 

Pacific Island leaders said they would demand immediate action in Glasgow.

“We do not have the luxury of time and must join forces urgently and deliver the required ambition at COP26 to safeguard the future of all humankind, and our planet,” said Henry Puna, former Cook Islands prime minister and now secretary of the Pacific Islands Forum.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski, Costas Pitas, Colin Packham, Jeff Mason, Philip Pullella, Timothy Gardner, Trevor Hunnicutt, Elizabeth Piper and Richard Cowan; Writing by Alexander Smith; Editing by Barbara Lewis, Angus MacSwan and Toby Chopra)

REAGAN DEMOCRAT

Manchin's comments reveal he still has a foot planted in the ashes of Ronald Reagan's worldview

John Stoehr
October 29, 2021

Joe Manchin on Facebook.

I know you want to know if I know what US Senator Joe Manchin wants. I do not. I do know, however, that our national discourse over taxing and spending is so warped he opposes a so-called billionaire's tax while favoring a tax on billionaires not called a billionaire's tax. Such word games conceal the truth.

Taxes pay for a full and equal democracy.

This is not how the GOP would prefer we talk about taxes. They would prefer a national debate centering on individuals living an atomized existence, separate from and unequal to others, while encouraging individuals to think of themselves as "taxpayers" who are "liberated" from the moral obligations of fellowship, community and citizenship.

There was a time when this perspective was thought radical — either it was a cover-up for greed or for something more sinister. That's why Ronald Reagan, before he was president, cited a widely admired transcendentalist writer to make that view seem respectable. In 1964, while stumping for conservative Barry Goldwater, Reagan said: "Henry David Thoreau was right: that government is best which governs least."

Thoreau was right, but Reagan was wrong. That line comes from "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" (1849), in which Thoreau famously developed the principle of moral conscience superseding the citizen's uncritical adherence to law. The occasion was Thoreau's refusal to pay taxes he believed the government was using to fund imperial expansion, on the one hand, and advancing slavery, on the other.

So the government that Thoreau said would be better if it governed least was, to his way of thinking, an anti-democratic government — a government that, before Abraham Lincoln became president, was not of, by and for the people but instead of, by and for the interests of proto-fascist slavers in the American south. That's why Thoreau accepted prison time for failing to pay his taxes. He refused to be morally complicit in his government's crimes against humanity.

By the time Reagan stumped for Goldwater, the government had become of, by and for the people more completely than any time in the country's history. By then, President Lyndon Johnson had signed into law the 1964 Civil Rights Act, followed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act, together representing American democracy in its fullest flower yet. This is the proper context for knowing what you need to know about anti-tax rhetoric, which struggled in the 1960s but has dominated our national discourse from the time of Reagan's election through today. What you need to know is this: anti-tax is anti-democracy.

With the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it began illegal for the United States government to do what it had been doing since the American founding — treating non-white people, but especially Black people, as if they were not equal citizens fully and morally entitled to the same rights and privileges as their white counterparts. Of course, an equal democratic union did not sit well with some white people.

Before 1964, anti-tax rhetoric was, to them, rich people bitching about paying their fair share. After 1964, it sounded different. It sounded, to them, like the very obscenely rich defending their "freedoms" and their "rights." With enough time and effort, the anti-tax rhetoric of the very obscenely rich was no longer thought to cover up for greed or something sinister. It was thought downright principled. By standing against the government, and standing up for "taxpayers," the GOP seemed to have a noble lineage going back to Henry David Thoreau.

Beneath the rhetoric was a belief long-standing and deeply rooted in the blood and soil of America — that nonwhite people, but especially Black people, don't count in this experiment in self-rule. "The people" doesn't include them. "The people" is us. A government treating them as equals to us, therefore, is not a government that "sovereign citizens" can support with their tax dollars in good conscience. The whole of the "conservative movement" in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, was a movement to defund a government that would not, because it could not, treat Black people like second-class citizens. A democratic government governing the least became the best of all governments.

That Joe Manchin is trying to have it both ways is, in a sense, not surprising. He has one foot in two worlds. A world that Reagan built, in which billionaires are "job creators" who should not be "punished" for being successful. And a world being built right now, I think, on the ashes of Reagan's in which billionaires are increasingly seen, for all the right reasons, as abominations offensive to all lovers of democracy.

'Ted Lasso' gets corrupted by Mitt Romney and Kyrsten Sinema's Halloween charade

Kylie Cheung, Salon
October 28, 2021


With Halloween a few days away, Capitol Hill is getting spooky.

On Thursday, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney tweeted photos of him and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema dressed as fan-favorite characters Ted Lasso and Rebecca Welton from the Apple TV+ hit "Ted Lasso." Ted is played by Jason Sudeikis with an iconic mustache, and Rebecca is played by Hannah Waddingham, who often dons stylish, fitted dresses and high heels.

The photos Romney shared recreate a classic Ted and Rebecca tradition, of Ted bringing freshly baked shortbread cookies to Rebecca each morning.

In the Emmy-winning comedy, Kansas native Ted is a famous American college football coach who moves to London to coach the AFC Richmond football club, which Rebecca owns. Since American football and the sport the rest of the world calls football is vastly different, it's clear that his selection is unexpected to say the least.

It turns out that Rebecca chose Ted to deliberately try and sabotage the team, which once belonged to her philandering ex-husband. Therefore, she has no interest in seeing Ted succeed, let alone building a friendship with him – but somewhere between morning biscuit dropoffs and emotionally vulnerable conversations, the two build a deep, almost familial friendship. And for all Ted and Rebecca's problems, like Ted's compulsive need to be liked, as the Season 2 team therapist Dr. Sharon Fieldstone (Sarah Niles) points out, or Rebecca's mean-spirited reasons for hiring Ted, both have become widely beloved characters on a show that's famous for its prevailing niceness and positivity.

It's all just very nice, which is why Romney and Sinema's cosplaying raised a few eyebrows.

One of the posts is a GIF of Romney as Ted proferring Sinema, in the role of Rebecca, a box of the signature biscuits. In another post, he shares a still photo of him handing her the box. "Biscuits with the boss," he writes, and captions the follow-up tweet, "She's one tough cookie."

In another tweeted GIF, the mustachioed Romney tapping the yellow hand-lettered "BELIEVE" sign, mimicking the inspirational message that of Coach Lasso hangs above his doorway.


"If you believe in yourself, and have clear eyes and full hearts — you can't lose," he captions the post, paraphrasing another sports-centric series, "Friday Night Lights."

And in yet another tweet, Romney tags Sudeikis directly, posing in Ted's signature coaching attire with a soccer ball in one hand. "After 10 years, I'm finally returning the favor. How was my @TedLasso, @JasonSudeikis?" he writes.

The irony of Romney and Sinema posing as Ted and Rebecca hasn't been lost on their critics on social media. The exchange is tantamount to two of the most controversial members of Congress cosplaying as, well, nice people. (They aren't nice people.)


Romney, after all, is most famous for bucking his party to vote to impeach former President Trump during Trump's first impeachment trial, only to go on to support nearly all of Trump's agenda, including confirming his nightmarish Supreme Court and judicial nominees.

Sinema, on the other hand, has been in the news more lately, most notably for derailing nearly all of President Biden and the Democratic party's agenda. Sinema has opposed minimum wage increases, climate change action, and ending the filibuster, which is key to almost any progressive policy change. The Arizona senator is increasingly cozying up to Republicans like Romney as a result.

The irony of their supposed, feel-good, "across the aisle" friendship is that Romney's own policy stances could have Sinema, who is openly bisexual, removed from her job. "A reminder that Mitt Romney's public position is that it should be legal for Kyrsten Sinema to be fired from a job for being bisexual," one user tweeted.

"It's nice to see two people from two different parties come together over their mutual disdain for the poor and love for lining their own pockets," another wrote.

Arguably in some ways, Romney and Sinema reflect the worst traits of the characters they're dressed as. There's Romney's almost compulsive need to be liked by everyone, from anti-Trump Republicans and some liberals, as demonstrated by his pro-impeachment vote, to the most intolerant wings of the Republican party, as demonstrated by nearly all his policy stances.

And as for Sinema, you'll recall how Rebecca spent the entire first season of "Ted Lasso" sabotaging her own team. Well, Sinema, in real life, has spent the past year sabotaging her own political party