I Joined A Far-Right Group Of Moms. What I Witnessed Was Frightening.

Phoebe Cohen
Tue, December 21, 2021


“Look out for the trigger words,” the woman says. She’s perched on a chair in front of the room. She’s well-dressed yet funky with elegant boots, a demure sweater and some colorful jewelry. “‘Equality,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘inclusion,’ ‘marginalization,’... These words are CRT. If you see these words in your kids’ homework, you need to speak out.”

I am in a meeting held by a local right-wing mom’s group. It’s an organization catering to mothers who are bent on protesting at school board meetings to stop the supposedly evil critical race theory agenda from being taught in public schools and address other typically conservative concerns.

Critical race theory is not currently being taught in public schools.

There are about 20 of us. We are all maskless, all (apparently) white, mostly women and all on the younger side. I’m in my early 40s and I seem to be the oldest person in the room. A group of children, including my son, the only one in a mask, are scampering merrily in a play area down the hall while a young woman with a baby in her front carrier keeps an eye on them. On the wall by the door of our seminar room is a sign. It says: “Children should be: Heard. Respected. Encouraged. Loved. Appreciated. Guided with Compassion. Given Freedom to Learn Without Coercion.”

What exactly that last phrase means is ominously vague.

For several years now I have been worried about the increasing right-wing views that I have noticed in my demographic (white suburban women). Before 2016, I always thought of Nazis as mainly historical villains that belonged in Indiana Jones movies or old news reels or the sad stories my grandfather told me. Now, however, as the last Holocaust survivors are dying, I am aware that fascism is creeping back into the world at large in terrifying ways.

I wanted to know how I could fight against the appallingly stupid yet dangerously widespread disinformation that is entrancing many of my friends and neighbors. Basic facts about COVID-19 are being dismissed by whole states as part of the “liberal mainstream corporate media.” Bodies from COVID victims were stacking up in ICUs and filling the morgues back in 2020, yet I was still called a “child abuser” by people on the street because I made my son wear a mask. Why are people going nuts? Why are people dismissing science and history in favor of conspiracy theories? And, most importantly, how could we nudge the nation in a saner direction?

I was especially curious about activist groups that specifically target suburban women. These groups seemed intent on making life more dangerous for my child. According to my local right-wing women’s group, masks should not be allowed in school. They told us to stop worrying about kids dying of COVID. They were also vocal about not wanting racism and its deep, formative history in the United States to be taught. Some of these people literally do not believe white privilege exists because, according to them, the Union soldiers who fought in the Civil War were overwhelmingly white. (No, I don’t understand that argument either.) Others feel parts of our country’s history shouldn’t be included in curriculums if it makes people ― namely white people ― uncomfortable.

Every teacher I knew was struggling with COVID restrictions and dealing with students venting their post-pandemic trauma through increasingly disruptive behavior. School districts across the country were dealing with staffing shortages due to teachers burning out from stress. Why add to teachers’ difficulties by threatening school instructors who dared to teach topics like Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement and the repercussions of slavery in America?

Some of these people literally do not believe white privilege exists because, according to them, the Union soldiers who fought in the Civil War were overwhelmingly white. (No, I don’t understand that argument either.)

To learn more, I joined a local right-wing Facebook group for moms. It’s a private group that requires aspiring members to answer some questions before they’re granted entry. One question was “Why do you want to join?” I replied, “I want to be more involved with my kids’ school.” A week passed and then a moderator for the group contacted me privately. “Can you be more specific about what issue most concerns you?”

Yikes. Security was apparently very tight with this group. They weren’t going to let just any mom glide in using a few generic answers.

“I’m mostly interested in issues that involve keeping kids physically in school,” I messaged back. “Zoom school was devastating for my kid and I don’t want that to happen again.” I wasn’t lying about any of that. It’s one of the few opinions I share with many conservative parents.

The moderator sent me a thumbs-up emoji and let me into the group.

Once inside, I found the members were all stripes of Republican and I was pleasantly surprised to see opinion was not monolithic in the group. Several moms argued against the more far-right posters. One woman posted an objection to children reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” in class. “Divisive Concepts,” she wrote with a broken heart emoji. Underneath was a screenshot of a direct message from someone who appeared to be a student that read, “I’m in English right now. We’re currently reading ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ There’s a part where Calpurnia brings the kids to church with her and another black woman is being extremely racist towards Scout and Jem. My teacher was saying it was not racism because white people have a higher power over black people in society and that black people can’t be racist.”

There were several indignant emoji reactions in response to this post. One mom, however, pushed back. “Well,” she commented, “the woman at the church complained that Calpurnia had brought white children to the Black church, possibly one of the few places Black people felt any sense of freedom and safety. It’s a little absurd to call the woman racist, given the context.” This comment got a couple “likes” and no pushback.

Another surprise I found in the Facebook group was that some huge media outlets were giving them a platform. One of the founders of the group posted that she had done an interview with The New York Times as part of a story on parental rights.

The New York Times! I was dumbfounded. None of the women who ran the pro-Democrat “Indivisible” groups in my town had even managed to get an interview with the local paper!

I scanned the comments and my eyes nearly popped out of my head.

“It’ll be fine,” another mom wrote after the initial poster expressed concern about The New York Times possibly misquoting her. “It’s a lesson I learned the hard way after the BBC screwed me.”

The BBC! The BBC was talking to these women?

I had to know more.

Unfortunately a few of the moms may have become suspicious of me. Perhaps I had “liked” too many comments by moms pushing back against the anti-CRT posts. Perhaps some moderators had found the very liberal comments that I had posted on other public news articles. In any case, when I expressed interest in joining an in-person roundtable discussion event, I saw that the location of the event suddenly disappeared. I messaged the group moderator about the event location.

“Just a heads up,” she messaged back, “I think most people will not be masking. Is that something you’ll be comfortable with?”

I wondered if she was trying to frighten me off. “Yes, that’s fine,” I replied.

I never received the location, but luckily I had written it down before it disappeared from the event post.

I drove to the meeting with my son. The group moderator had been right. When I joined the meeting, I saw that nobody in the packed room was masked. I gritted my teeth and sat down anyway. I was fully vaccinated and my son wore a mask. He was the only one.

I listened to the speakers at the meeting while they discussed how to run for, campaign and pressure school boards. Many parents bemoaned how they had to pull their kids from public schools over mask mandates and instead enroll them in private schools. It was a common story. I got the impression that most of these families had income levels that allowed them to pay thousands in private school fees because they wanted to take a stand on masks. I was probably the poorest person there.

There was a lot of anger directed at teachers. “Rat out these teachers,” one mother instructed. “Find a lawyer who can challenge these teachers.” Another woman disdainfully noted that teachers “don’t even know what they’re doing half the time. They just pull it off the internet.” A third woman said, “There is no discipline for teachers outside of taking away their credentials.” The battle lines were clearly drawn.

I raised my hand. “What do you say to people who are like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna put bounties on teachers’ heads. You’re marching outside of school board members’ homes with guns. School board members are getting death threats and feeling terrorized’?”

I could see several women visibly flinch at the word “bounty.” One woman said she disliked the term “bounty” but she could see the need for “monetary compensation” for those who turn in teachers that were doing things parents found unacceptable. “There are no repercussions for teachers who break the law,” she said. “If we have to offer monetary compensation for people to report teachers, I see no problem with that. It’s an incentive for people to wake up.”

It wasn’t clear what laws these teachers were supposedly breaking. As far as I could tell, teachers ― like everyone else ― got punished if they broke laws.

Another woman raised her hand. “Look, I know we want to change school boards,” she said, “but elections aren’t until 2023. What do we do until then? We just can’t sit around and let them attack our kids. We have to do SOMETHING.”

I caught a gleam in the woman’s eye I didn’t like. Was there some flirtation with insurrection being suggested here? What, exactly, was she saying?

Another woman nodded. “Listen, we’ve tried playing nice. But they just dig in their heels and dig in their heels. We have to start being not so nice.”

One woman said she disliked the term 'bounty' but she could see the need for 'monetary compensation' for those who turn in teachers that were doing things parents found unacceptable. ... 'If we have to offer monetary compensation for people to report teachers, I see no problem with that. It’s an incentive for people to wake up.'

I didn’t like where the discussion was going. The moderator guided the topic back to safer ground. “Be pleasantly persistent,” she smiled. “Be annoying. Be the woman at the school board meetings who always shows up. Be the person who, when the meeting organizers see you, say, ‘Oh, God, her again.’ Be that person. And please try to get people to vote in municipal elections.”

Fair enough. A lot of the roundtable debate felt like a Republican version of a Run for Something meeting. Run for Something was a movement started after Donald Trump won the presidency that was meant to encourage young progressives to start their own campaigns for local political office. This right-wing women’s group seemed to be following the same model, but there was an undercurrent of rage among the group members that I had never seen in a Run for Something meeting.

Despite my uneasiness, I couldn’t help but find myself liking the women in the room. They were charismatic. They were energetic. They had no problem letting my low-functioning autistic son play with their children, which is unfortunately rare among a lot of the other mothers I’ve encountered. But this made me even more uneasy. I realized these women were dangerous precisely because they were so friendly. Their condemnation of history lessons about Ruby Bridges and Jim Crow laws and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was repulsive. They were trying to suppress the truth by labeling the unassailable facts of racism in the U.S. as “divisive.” “Equality,” “diversity” and “inclusion” were not virtues to be celebrated but “trigger words” with a poisonous intent. This nefariously clever bit of relabeling disgusted me. There was a very clear far-right agenda at work here.

Groups like the one I joined often appeal to mothers. The pandemic has hit moms especially hard. Lack of child care has resulted in a “she-cession” with thousands of women leaving the workforce to take care of their children. Lonely, frustrated, financially stressed people tend to be prime targets for radical groups. These right-wing women’s groups offer a sense of community and friendship to women who are isolated at home with their kids. It can be frighteningly easy for some people to start nodding along with all the rhetoric about the evils of critical race theory and COVID conspiracy theories if the women espousing them are also offering you coffee and friendship and child care ― and making you feel seen and heard.

I am currently still a member of this local right-wing women’s Facebook group. It has helped me to understand where these people are coming from ― and just how motivated they are. My membership could end up being rescinded, however, as I plan to attend a few upcoming school board meetings to defend the accurate and honest teaching of all parts of American history, especially in regard to racism and what it has meant and means to be Black in this country.

I can’t stop thinking about the gleam in that woman’s eye as she said, “We just can’t sit around and let them attack our kids. We have to do something.” Though some people think merely tweeting our outrage or frustration is productive (it’s not), those of us fighting against the far right need to be more aware of how energetic and organized they’re becoming and the lengths they’re willing to go to in order to get their way. Right-wing activists are attending school board meetings in hopes of transforming our children’s education, and, ultimately, their lives and the future of the United States. It’s time for us to be just as active to ensure this doesn’t happen. We must fight for our children’s safety and their right to learn our nation’s history ― even the ugly parts. Especially the ugly parts.

After all, when ugly history gets ignored, it tends to get repeated.

Phoebe Cohen has walked many paths in life, including living in the Gobi Desert as a Peace Corps volunteer and working as a paramedic in several states. Cohen’s work has been featured in Graphic Medicine, Mutha Magazine and BorderX. She regularly posts on her website Merry Misandrist. Cohen is a part-time cartoonist, writer and nursing student. She has been known to go up to five hours without coffee.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

I Embedded With Trump-Supporting 'Stop The Steal' Protesters. Here's What I Learned.

"I wanted to get as close as I could to find out how these individuals view themselves and the world they are fighting for."



Megan Kang, Guest Writer
01/19/2021 


A placard reading "Stop the steal" is seen during a protest after media announced that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had won the election.
GORAN TOMASEVIC/REUTERS

The intersection is unremarkable on most days. It sits at the cross of two major thoroughfares in a suburban town in Florida. It’s located on the edge of a large parking lot in a strip mall with a Starbucks, Supercuts, Publix grocery store, FedEx, and some local businesses.

But each Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, this intersection transforms into a political battleground. Since July, a group of Republicans have gathered there with signs supporting Donald Trump, flags, music, and attire. The demonstrators are met with honking, waving, swearing, flicking off, fist pumping, and occasionally, they get into shouting matches with the drivers passing by. Months after the presidential election resulted in a victory for Joe Biden in November 2020, this group of demonstrators continues to show up every Saturday in support of Trump and his claims that the election was stolen from him.

Their efforts are a part of a larger social movement known as “Stop the Steal,” which swept the country in the final months of 2020. It became one of the fastest growing groups on Facebook in early November, amassing 320,000 users in its first 22 hours before Facebook shut it down for trying to incite violence. Despite this, the slogan caught on like wildfire as testimonials alleging voter fraud made their way across social media and onto right-wing sites. The message was fueled by President Trump himself, who claimed the election was stolen on Twitter and official White House platforms. As of early December, one poll found that three out of four registered Republicans said they did not trust the 2020 election outcomes. By that time, “Stop the Steal” demonstrations were taking place on the steps of state capitols, outside of elected officials’ homes, and on local street intersections. On Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress met to certify the Electoral College votes, “Stop the Steal” followers and other Trump supporters staged an armed insurrection at the country’s Capitol. As a result of the attack, five people died and many more were injured. Footage of rioters destroying parts of the building, sitting inside the Senate chambers, and defacing legislators’ offices offered a shocking display of how far the movement had come.

In effort to try to understand those who are sympathetic to Trump’s efforts to undo the election results, I decided to join them. As a sociology graduate student, my lessons in ethnography have taught me to unravel problems by standing in or near other people’s shoes in the hope of explaining something seemingly inexplicable. Unlike those who study people’s beliefs or behaviors without this context, ethnographers try to capture people within their natural setting by participating in their lives. This is how I found myself spending my last four Saturday mornings at this intersection alongside these protesters. I wanted to get as close as I could to observe and learn how these individuals view themselves and the world they were fighting for, as well as uncover more about their beliefs and motivations.

I was nervous about whether I would be able to gain entree into their group and how I might be treated. How would these people react to a 20-something Asian woman who found herself spending an extended winter break in their town asking to join their ranks? How would these white and Hispanic middle-aged to elderly Floridians decked out in MAGA hats, bright red, white and blue apparel, and carrying pro-Trump signs feel about a California native who has spent her adult years living in bastions of progressivism like Berkeley, Detroit, Chicago and Princeton?

“I was nervous about whether I would be able to gain entree into their group and how I might be treated. How would these people react to a 20-something Asian woman who found herself spending an extended winter break in their town asking to join their ranks?”

I would also be wearing a mask among a group that believed COVID-19 mask mandates were the ultimate symbol of government overreach. Each time I joined the protesters, I was one of two people out of 15-20 wearing a mask. The other mask-wearer was Susie, a white woman in her 60s. She was soft-spoken and always carried a little red megaphone slung over her shoulder (though I never saw her use it). She was known for her shirts and flags decorated with provocative statements. Her favorite T-shirt read, “Socialism shits on the faces of soldiers who died for our freedom.”

Shortly after her arrival each Saturday morning, Susie taped up signs on nearby surfaces, including a laminated sign with a Chinese flag with an image of Biden’s face that she posted on an electric switch box at the center of the intersection. During my first Saturday morning at the intersection, she noticed that I didn’t have a flag or sign and offered her Trump Train flag to me. I respectfully declined but appreciated the gesture.

Jake is a white man in his mid-50s with a white-collar job who wore the same navy blue Ron Paul shirt each time I saw him. He brought a portable speaker to blast a diverse playlist ranging from the 1990s radio hit “C’mon N’ Ride It (The Train)” to the more recent YouTube hit “God Bless Trump and the USA.” When I asked him how he selected songs for these events, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “I go on YouTube and find whatever I like. Just for Trump alone this year, there’s probably been 20 different songs made for him, which is pretty nice.”

Jake was the first person to introduce himself to me when I arrived at the intersection over a month ago. I noticed that he and Connor, another member of the group, always made a point of saying hello to new people. They served an essential role in creating a sense of solidarity among the group of strangers brought together by their loyalty to Trump, and they also eased my worries about whether I’d be accepted into the group.

I explained to Jake that I had passed by the group a few days earlier and wanted to learn more about their cause. He asked if I wanted to join the protesters’ WhatsApp chat group and told me about other upcoming events. I accepted the invitation and learned that some of these demonstrators, including Jake and Connor, planned to trek north to attend the big “Stop the Steal” protest in D.C. planned on Jan. 6.

Jake had a long list of talking points that he read in an authoritative voice into his microphone, which was connected to portable speakers. His favorite topics were criticizing mainstream media, describing how Biden would ruin this country, and citing all the ways in which the election was stolen from President Trump.

“Every single thing points to a Donald Trump landslide,” his voice boomed. “Statistics show that Donald Trump won. You’re not going to hear any of this on the mainstream media. Guys, the truth is most of the people driving by that are pro-Biden or anti-President Trump are very surface thinkers, they’re very directed by the mass media. They don’t have any clue about some of the things I mentioned today.”

Distrust in mainstream media was a central theme in the conversations I had with the demonstrators. Madeline is an elderly white woman who enjoyed sharing a wide array of opinions and bits of information on current events. She was a lifelong Democrat until Obama’s second term when he became, in her eyes, too lenient on “terrorists and illegal immigrants.” Now, Madeline gets most of her news from YouTube, which she believes is more reliable than mainstream news platforms because you can see things “firsthand.”

When Trump entered the scene, Madeline says she found a candidate who was able to put words to her worries about the direction America was heading. “Trump said it as it is,” she told me. She has been participating in the flag waving demonstrations at the intersection since July and believed this was the least she could do to “protect Americans’ freedom.”

When I asked Madeline which rights she felt would be most threatened under a Biden administration, she said she was worried Americans would be forced to wear masks, get vaccinated, and that small businesses would be shut down.

Connor is in his 60s, works a white-collar day job and spends his time off helping to coordinate the demonstrations at the intersection and trying to increase membership in the county’s Republican group. He also turned his back on the mainstream media. When I asked him why he had showed up at the intersection every Saturday for the last five months, he told me, “I’m a Trump supporter. I’m not going to give up. I do believe [the Democrats] cheated like hell, and I don’t know how people can’t see that. But when somebody hates someone, it overtakes them. And that’s what happened here. The news media hates him and then a lot of people just go along with the program.”

Connor’s loyalty to Trump was central to how he processed information. He told me that anything that was critical of Trump was the same as being biased against Trump. For example, Connor’s main source of news for most of his life had been the Wall Street Journal. But when the publication began publishing articles critical of Trump during his campaign in 2015, Connor unsubscribed and moved to other news sources that he felt were fairer to Trump. Now, Connor gets most of his news from OAN (a far-right pro-Trump cable channel known for promoting conspiracy theories) and Epoch Times.

Connor believes that Trump is an antidote to the radical left, which he says increasingly dominates the mainstream media and the nation’s universities. “A lot of what we have is an educational system that has told people, ‘You’re white and you come from this background and these other people didn’t have that opportunity so we should give up something and we should feel guilty,’” he told me. “Then students think, ‘Maybe you’re right, you’re the college professor and my parents are sending me to go to school here.’ The communication is manipulative. And that’s how we have all these bleeding hearts who want to guilt white people, take their money, and give it to Black people. Now you have a generation of lazy, in debt, college graduates who work at Starbucks but still have a $1,000 iPhone and want Bernie Sanders to forgive all their debt.”

In addition to the misinformation they believed and their allegiance to Trump that brought them together, the camaraderie and pride they shared also kept these individuals coming back to the intersection each week. “Trump supporters know how to have a good time!” Madeline told me. “Once we had five ladies in wheelchairs here. We were all having so much fun.” Each time a car honked in support of the protesters, everyone raised their flags a bit higher, smiles appeared, and a feeling of unity swept over the group. Even I found myself returning smiles to those who honked and waved at me and I felt the elation that my compatriots felt beside me. It was contagious.

“In addition to the misinformation they believed and their allegiance to Trump that brought them together, the camaraderie and pride they shared also kept these individuals coming back to the intersection each week. 'Trump supporters know how to have a good time!' Madeline told me.”

During the month I spent with these demonstrators, I learned that the “Stop the Steal” movement is comprised of individuals who are deeply misinformed by lies spread by President Trump and others. Each person had their own reason for being there. Jake believed he was helping to inform people about the truth of what is really happening in the United States. Madeline saw attending the “Stop the Steal” protests as a civic duty to defend Americans’ freedom. Connor felt compelled to fight what he believed to be the full-frontal assault of President Trump that is being waged “by the establishment.” When I asked him what the long-term strategy for the demonstrations was, he told me, “When Trump says it’s over, there’s a good chance we’ll stop.”

When I began this project, my partner asked me, “Is there a chance that writing about the perspectives of this group might validate their views? Don’t you think there are some perspectives that we shouldn’t be empathetic to?” I continued to grapple with these questions over the past month and I still am even as I write this now.

One answer that I gravitate toward comes from Arlie Hochschild, the Berkeley sociologist who published a book based on her interviews with Tea Party supporters in Louisiana in 2015. Hochschild suggests that to address the major issues of our day ― from protecting the environment to ending homelessness ― we need to understand those who oppose the state’s role in these efforts. This requires what Hochschild describes as scaling an “empathy wall” to try to grasp the stories of people who are different from us.

It’s unclear what the outcome of the “Stop the Steal” movement will be, or what stage it’s currently at. It is clear, however, that the kind of thinking that motivated “Stop the Steal” has moved beyond the realm of mere rhetoric and into very real and dangerous action.

In light of the events of Jan. 6, Hochschild’s vision of social progress may seem more like an idealistic plea rather than a serious blueprint for change. Still, it is precisely these moments in which violence and destruction occur ― and further threats of both loom ― that developing a clear-eyed understanding of the ideas that inspire and fuel them is most important.

When engaging in a process of understanding, we should be open to the likelihood that the ideas that emerge will seem deplorable to us. In these instances, it’s especially important to remember that it is the ideas ― and the mediums that transmit them ― that we must concentrate on. That certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t hold these individuals accountable for their actions but, ultimately, if we hope to change them, we must be able to reach them. And that can only happen if we understand their motivations and struggles.

At the close of the Second World War, the UNESCO signatories ratified a constitution that opened with, “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” Recognizing what the harmful ideas are, where they come from, and why they take such hold is how we will begin to construct the best defenses against them. It is through this sort of understanding that we may hopefully begin to dismantle the destructive narratives and construct a new one together.

Note: All names of individuals described in this essay have been changed.


Megan Kang is a Sociology Ph.D. student at Princeton. Her work aims to make sense of issues around crime and criminal justice by providing a perspective that’s hard to access through conventional data. Follow her on Twitter at @kang_megan.

Kellogg strike to end as workers vote in favor of new contract - union president


Bernie Sanders shows up to support striking Kellogg workers

Tue, December 21, 2021
By Praveen Paramasivam

(Reuters) - A majority of workers at Kellogg Co's breakfast cereal plants voted in favor of a new contract that offers better terms for transitional employees as well as wage increases, Daniel Osborn, president of the local union in Omaha, said on Tuesday.

The new five-year deal ends months-long stalemate between Kellogg and its factory workers in Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Tennessee that had prompted the company to warn of permanently replacing striking workers, drawing criticism from President Joe Biden.


The union representing around 1,400 workers said last week the latest tentative deal had showed some progress on a few key issues from the previous proposal, including increases in the cost of living wages and removal of the term "legacy employee."

A union leader had said they could return to work two days after Christmas, nearly three months from when they went on a strike.

Kellogg had said the latest deal offered its lower-tier workers, known as transitional employees, "an accelerated, defined path to legacy wages and benefits as compared to the current contract".

(Reporting by Praveen Paramasivam in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

Kellogg's, union reach deal to end cereal plant strikes


Signs are held during a rally where US Senator Bernie Sanders spoke to striking Kellogg's workers in Battle Creek, Michigan, on December 17, 2021 (AFP/SETH HERALD)


Tue, December 21, 2021


Kellogg's workers have agreed to end strikes at US cereal plants that had attracted attention from the White House and other politicians amid a wave of labor actions in the country, the company announced Tuesday.

The strike began October 5 at Kellogg's cereal plants in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nebraska and Tennessee, with workers objecting to the company's two-tiered wage structure, among other grievances.

The firm known best for its breakfast cereals drew intense criticism including from President Joe Biden after it threatened to replace striking workers.

But the company said workers voted in favor of the deal reached last week with the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) that covers about 1,400 workers and will see wage increases and improved benefits.

"We are pleased that we have reached an agreement that brings our cereal employees back to work," Kellogg's Chairman and CEO Steve Cahillane said in a statement.

"We look forward to their return and continuing to produce our beloved cereal brands for our customers and consumers."

BCTGM International President Anthony Shelton welcomed the deal, saying, "Our striking members at Kellogg's ready-to-eat cereal production facilities courageously stood their ground and sacrificed so much in order to achieve a fair contract."

The Kellogg's dispute came amid a wave of threatened and actual strikes across American businesses in recent months, which have seen workers at businesses ranging from hospitals to factories threaten to walk off the job.

The action at the cereal factories drew the attention of prominent Washington Democrats after Kellogg's moved to replace striking workers, with Biden saying he was "deeply troubled" by the decision.

Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders attended a rally with striking workers in Michigan last week, cheering their stand against what he called "corporate greed."

cs/hs

Strike at Kellogg comes to a close; workers to return Monday


Striking Kellogg's workers stand outside the company's cereal plant in Omaha, Neb., Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021. The company and the union announced a tentative agreement Thursday that could end the strike that began Oct. 5. (AP Photo/ Josh Funk)

The Associated Press
Mon, December 20, 2021

NEW YORK (AP) — A strike at Kellogg that has gone on since early October has ended after workers voted to ratify a new labor contract at the company's four U.S. cereal plants.

The contract covers approximately 1,400 workers represented by the union at plants in Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Kellogg said Tuesday that the new contract provides immediate, across the board wage increases and enhanced benefits for all. It also provides an accelerated, defined path to top-tier wages, a major sticking point for workers, and benefits for transitional employees.


“We are pleased that we have reached an agreement that brings our cereal employees back to work,” CEO Steve Cahillane said in a prepared statement.

Workers that have been on strike since Oct. 5 will return to work on Monday, Kellogg said, after the holiday.

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union said the contract is a win for workers.

“This agreement makes gains and does not include any concessions,” union President Anthony Shelton said in a prepared statement.

Members of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union voted on the new offer over the weekend. The offer includes cost-of-living adjustments and a $1.10 per hour raise for all employees.

Earlier this month, an overwhelming majority of workers voted down a five-year offer that would have provided 3% raises and cost of living adjustments in coming years to most, but not all of the workers.

Workers have been on strike at plants in Battle Creek, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Memphis, Tennessee. They make all of the company’s well-known brands of cereal, including Apple Jacks and Frosted Flakes.

Kellogg’s said most workers at its cereal plants earned an average of $120,000 last year, though union members have said they work more than 80 hours a week to earn that, and those wages are only available to longtime workers. Under the two-tiered pay system the company uses, newer workers are paid less and receive fewer benefits.

That pay system has been a sticking point during the negotiations, and Kellogg’s offer didn’t change on that part of the contract. The company has said it will allow all workers with at least four years of experience move up to the higher legacy pay level as part of this contract. Union officials previously said that plan wouldn’t let other workers move up quickly enough. The company has also proposed eliminating the current 30% cap on the number of workers at each plant who receive the lower wages.

The workers remained unified during the strike amid worker shortages across the country, which may have given them more leverage in negotiations. And the said raises were overdue after workers kept the plants running throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Throughout the strike Kellogg has been trying to keep its plants operating with salaried employees and outside workers, and the company said late last month that it planned to start hiring permanent replacements for the striking workers.

President Joe Biden sharply criticized Kellogg’s for threatening to permanently replace workers, saying that doing that would undermine the collective bargaining process.

Shares of Kellogg Co., based in Battle Creek, Michigan, fell more than 2% Tuesday.

Facebook's internal assessment of EU-US data transfers shows it has no legal leg to stand on, says noyb

Natasha Lomas
Mon, December 20, 2021


In its latest (and last) pre-Christmas document reveal, European privacy advocacy group noyb has published details of an 86-page internal assessment by Facebook of its (continued) transfers of European's personal data to the U.S. -- and the resulting conclusion can be best summed up as "The Emperor, Mark Zuckerberg, Has No Clothes".

The convoluted backstory here is that Facebook's transfers of EU users' data to the U.S. remain ongoing -- in spite of two rulings by the bloc's top court finding the U.S. is a risky jurisdiction for such data (aka Schrems I and Schrems II); and a preliminary order by Facebook's lead EU DPA, over a year ago, saying it must suspend EU-U.S. transfers in the wake of the aforementioned Schrems II ruling.

And if that wasn't enough, it's also almost a year since Facebook's lead EU DPA, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), settled a legal challenge from noyb -- agreeing last January to "swiftly" finalize the complaint in question.


Yet there's still no final decision from Ireland on the legality of Facebook's EU-U.S. data transfers -- some 8.5 years after the complaint was first filed by noyb founder and chair, Max Schrems (noyb didn't even exist when he filed this complaint!).

Asked whether a decision on Facebook's data transfers will -- at long, long last -- be issued this year, the DPC's deputy commissioner, Graham Doyle, told us the inquiry is "fairly well progressed at this stage" but he admitted it will not be finalized in the next few weeks.

Asked if a decision will be issued in January, Doyle ducked specifying a time frame -- saying that the DPC is unsure "exactly when" the decision will be made.

So perhaps 2022 will -- finally -- be the year of reckoning for Facebook.

Facebook’s EU-US data transfers face their final countdown

But, if not, 2022 may well be a year of substantial reckoning for the Irish DPC, which is now facing intense scrutiny over the sedate pace and convoluted form of its enforcements in major cases against tech giants like Facebook.

The European Commission warned earlier this month that unless "effective" enforcement arrives soon it will step in and move the bloc toward a system of centralized oversight.

So the message from EU lawmakers to DPAs such as Ireland (and, really, especially to Ireland) is simple: Use your enforcement powers soon -- or you'll lose them.

Returning to Facebook, if an EU data transfer suspension order does ever actually get enforced, the tech giant faces having to make drastic changes to its infrastructure and/or its business model.

Or it could even shut down service in Europe -- a possibility Facebook has floated in an earlier legal submission -- although its chief spin doctor, Nick Clegg, quickly denied it would ever actually do that.

Facebook and Clegg have preferred to resort to economic scare tactics to lobby the bloc's lawmakers against enforcing the rule of law against the national-state-sized data-mining empire -- suggesting that any suspension order against Facebook's data flows would wreak economic damage against European SMEs that use its ad tools to target consumers.

It's a classic Big Tech tactic to lobby against tighter regulation of its own market power by claiming that limits on its operations will be far more damaging for the smaller businesses that rely on powerful platforms to reach potential buyers.

The adtech industry also likes to imply that you can either have privacy or competition, not both.

However, on that front, regional competition authorities are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their assessment of adtech platform power -- including understanding how data abuse by tech giants can itself be a lever to lock in market power. (See, for example Germany's Federal Cartel Office's antitrust case against Facebook's consentless superprofiling of users.)

So how much runway such self-serving framing has left, as the bloc hastens to pass ex ante rules to boss tech giants, is up for debate.

Facebook has managed to use the courts to defer a final countdown on its data transfers issues for years. But its business model is now under attack on multiple fronts -- with the European Parliament, for example, pushing for tighter restrictions on behavioral ads and an outright ban on dark patterns in the Digital Markets Act.

In recent weeks, noyb has also been shining more disinfecting sunlight onto the EU's enforcement failures -- where Facebook is concerned -- by protesting at being removed from an ongoing procedure against it by the Irish DPC, after the regulator tried to get it to sign a gag order in exchange for remaining a party to the proceeding.

The DPC has been accused of acting in Facebook's interests in trying to keep procedural documents confidential without a valid legal basis for ordering third parties not to publish information related to ongoing procedures.

(And other pre-Christmas document-reveals by noyb have made especially awkward reading for the DPC -- which can be seen apparently trying to insert a notorious Facebook GDPR consent bypass tactic into European Data Protection Board (EDPB) guidance -- by arguing for allowing T&Cs to be laundered via contract clause -- and getting roundly slapped back by other EU DPAs.)

Last month, the not-for-profit also took the further step of filing a complaint of criminal corruption against the DPC -- in another sign of how frustrated European privacy campaigners have gotten at inaction against rights-trampling tech giants.

Facebook’s lead EU privacy supervisor hit with corruption complaint

As noted above, despite a complaint that dates back to the Snowden disclosures, two landmark CJEU rulings and countless court challenges, Facebook continues to pass Europeans' data to the U.S. -- as if the rule of law can't touch it.

Yet, back in May, the company lost in the Irish High Court after trying (and failing) to challenge the DPC's procedure; including by arguing the DPC was being too hasty and did not properly investigate before it sent the preliminary suspension order. (NB: The original complaint dates back to June 2013 so it's fast approaching a decade old at this point.)

Details of Facebook's Transfer Impact Assessment (TIA) revealed by noyb yesterday are long on claimed justifications for Facebook to ignore the CJEU -- and short on substantive arguments to stand up Facebook's claim that it's totally not a problem for it to continue to take European's data to the U.S. for processing despite the CJEU ruling that there are huge legal implications if you do that.

The CJEU has -- not once, but twice -- struck down flagship transfer agreements between the EU and the U.S. on the grounds that U.S. surveillance law is in fatal conflict with European privacy rights.

And while, back in July 2020, the court did allow the possibility that data can be legally moved out of the EU to third countries, it made it clear that DPAs must step in and suspend data flows where they suspect people's information is going somewhere where it's at risk.

Given the court simultaneously struck down the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, the U.S. was clearly identified as a problem third country.

Add to that, Facebook has the additional problem of its data processing being subject to U.S. surveillance law (via NSA programs like PRISM). So there's no easy fix for Facebook's EU data transfers, as we've said before.

However, having a friendly regulator that doesn't rush to do anything about really obvious problems is sure to help, though...

Europe puts out advice on fixing international data transfers that’s cold comfort for Facebook

In a statement accompanying its publication of details of Facebook's TIA, Schrems said: "Facebook has been ignoring EU law for 8.5 years now. The newly released documents show that they simply take the view that the Court of Justice is wrong -- and Facebook is right. It is an unbelievable ignorance of the rule of law, supported by the lack of enforcement action by the Irish DPC. No wonder that Facebook wants to keep this document confidential. However, it also shows that Facebook has no serious legal defence when continuing to ship European's data to the US."

Noyb details the contents of the TIA via a number of videos -- including several where Schrems summarizes the contents of the document in detail. (In some locations in Europe it also provides data from the TIA itself but notes that it is withholding this content from the U.K. and Ireland on account of the legal risk of Facebook and/or the DPC bringing baseless SLAPP suits against it to try to exhaust its limited resources.)

Per its analysis, one of Facebook's tactics to try to deny/evade legal reality is to seize on newer developments, such as the Commission's updated Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) or the adequacy decision recently granted to the U.K. (despite that country's own surveillance practices) -- to claim as new evidence that the earlier CJEU ruling no longer applies.

That means Facebook has variously sought to argue that the DPC was too quick to come to a conclusion vis-à-vis the legality of its data flows; and that circumstances on the ground have changed in a way that means its flows are now totally fine anyway.

All of which serves to underline how delaying enforcement is itself a key strategy for Facebook to evade the application of EU law.

That, in turn, directly implicates its lead EU regulator -- because, by taking such a painstakingly long time over investigations the regulator generates ample time and space for Facebook to come up with fresh lines to cynically reboot its arguments against any enforcement taking place.

In short, it allows for a perpetual game of regulatory whack-a-mole that gives Facebook a thumbs up to carry on with data-mining business as usual in the meanwhile. While EU people's fundamental rights exist only on paper.

The DPC declined to comment on noyb's fourth Advent Reading when we reached out.

But here's Schrems' assessment again: "The Irish DPC is extremely slow and is not in control of this procedures. Facebook constantly moves to another argument, while the DPC has not even decided on the decision from 2013. Facebook is dominating this procedure -- instead of the DPC."

Per noyb, Facebook's TIA also details what it claims as "supplementary measures" to boost protection for the data -- something the EDPB has said may be possible for data controllers to apply to transfers to risky third countries to make such flows achieve compliance with EU standards.

For example, robust, end-to-end encryption may, in theory, be applied to prevent access to data in a readable form when it's in the U.S.

However, Facebook's business model is based on profiling users via its big data analysis of their information so it's certainly not in a position to lock its own business out of people's data. Not without a radical change of business model.

Unsurprisingly, then, noyb found the TIA's section on claimed "supplementary measures" contained nothing more than a (long) list of industry standard policies and procedures. So no extra steps at all, then.

"According to the documents we received, absolutely no new or relevant measures were taken by Facebook on foot of the CJEU judgment of 16.6.2020," noyb notes.

We reached out to the EDPB for a view on the sorts of policies and procedures Facebook's TIA lists as "supplementary measures" -- and will update this post with any response. Update: The EDPB secretariat said:

"[T]he GDPR introduces the new cross-functional principle of accountability. This means that each organisation must analyze its own situation and implement the organizational and technical measures necessary in its specific case. This is a case by case analysis, depending on the risk presented by the processing of personal data by the organisation.

The same principle applies to the Recommendations on measures that supplement transfer tools, which can be found here."

Asked for its response to noyb's assessment of its TIA, Facebook sent this statement -- attributed to a Meta spokesperson:

Like other companies, we have followed the rules and relied on international transfer mechanisms to transfer data in a safe and secure way. Businesses need clear, global rules, underpinned by the strong rule of law, to protect transatlantic data flows over the long term.

Legal clouds gather over US cloud services, after CJEU ruling

Rio Tinto names outgoing Canadian ambassador to China as chairman

* Dominic Barton to start as chairman on May 5, join board in April

* Was managing director of McKinsey for 9 years

Dec 20 (Reuters) - Rio Tinto on Monday tapped Canada's outgoing ambassador to China as its chairman, hoping the veteran consultant's links to its biggest market will help the global miner as it looks to move on from the scandal over its destruction of ancient rock shelters in Australia.

Dominic Barton will take over as chairman of Rio from Simon Thompson, who decided to step down https://www.reuters.com/business/rio-tinto-chairman-becomes-latest-high-profile-departure-after-caves-blast-2021-03-02 to take responsibility for the destruction of the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelters in Western Australia in May 2020.

The Anglo-Australian company faced public and investor uproar following the cave blasts, which led to the resignations https://www.reuters.com/article/rio-tinto-ceo-int-idUSKBN2613OD of its then-chief executive and two other senior executives.

The Ugandan-born Barton, 59, will join Rio's board on April 4 before becoming chairman on May 5, the company said. Jakob Stausholm has been CEO for almost a year.

Barton, who spent nine years leading McKinsey & Co and was previously its Asia chairman based out of Shanghai, is leaving https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-china-idCAKBN2IL15Y his two-year assignment as Canada's ambassador to China where he helped secure the release of two detained Canadian citizens amid icy relations between Ottawa and Beijing.

China accounts for more than half of Rio's revenue, according to the company's latest annual report, largely due to the appetite in the world's second-largest economy for iron ore, a steelmaking ingredient essential to the country's infrastructure push.

That demand helped lift iron ore prices this year, which in turn saw Rio post record profits https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/rio-tinto-first-half-earnings-more-than-doubles-2021-07-28 in the first half, although prices have since cooled.

Barton is set to leave his role as ambassador at the end of the year and as Rio chairman will have to contend with rising tensions between Canberra and Beijing, which has slapped tariffs on Australian wine and barley, as well as severely limiting imports of coal.

Also on his plate will be helping Rio push through several growth projects, including the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project in Mongolia and the $2.4 billion Jadar lithium mine in Serbia.

He served as managing director of McKinsey when its work in South Africa https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mckinsey-safrica-idUSKBN1CL316 with utility firm Eskom drew the management consultancy into political scandal.

 (Reporting by Nikhil Kurian Nainan in Bengaluru; Editing by Paul Simao and Peter Cooney)

Support for Black Lives Matter movement is declining, AMONG WHITE AMERICANS  according to new poll



Claretta Bellamy
Mon, December 20, 2021

A new poll found a decline in support among Americans for the Black Lives Matter movement, a year and a half after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other high-profile deaths of Black people in encounters with police sparked a global outcry.

According to a national poll conducted by Civiqs, a nonpartisan online survey firm affiliated with the progressive media group Daily Kos, 44 percent of respondents, overall, said they support the Black Lives Matter movement. Another 43 said they oppose it, while 11 percent said they neither support nor oppose it. The survey has tracked respondents’ viewpoints at multiple moments from April 2017 to this month. Civiqs did not provide a margin of error.

According to the poll, support for the Black Lives Matter movement peaked in June 2020 at 52 percent, a month after Floyd was killed. At the height of the movement, protesters marched across the country to express their outrage at Floyd’s death, which was seen by millions in disturbing video showing Floyd losing consciousness as a white police officer knelt on his neck for almost 10 minutes.

Since then, public support to Black Lives Matter has continue to decline, including after the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by police officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020 and the conviction in April of former police officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of Floyd.

While 82 percent of Black respondents said they support the Black Lives Matter movement, 53 percent of white respondents said they opposed the movement, reflecting a pattern of public opinion when it comes to racial justice movements, said Vida Robertson, the director of the Center for Critical Race Studies at the University of Houston-Downtown.

Robertson said the findings reveal the historical phenomenon of the liberation struggles of Black Americans and civil rights movements, from the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Power movement.

“These polls are quite representative of America’s approach,” Robertson said. “There’s no historical evidence whatsoever that America has ever been interested in Black liberation and building an equitable society. We are simply coming to grips with our romantic ideals that are running up against our political realities. And the fact stands that America has constantly and will constantly struggle with the liberation of Black bodies, because we are endemically a racist society.”

Black Lives Matter, founded in 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of a Black teenager, Trayvon Martin, began as a hashtag and grew into a global organization. In a previous interview, Alicia Garza, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, said her organization has been adapting its focus toward more structural reforms.

Robertson said he believes far more people became aware of issues affecting the Black community, such as police brutality, during the Covid-19 pandemic, which allowed the country to focus on problems that would otherwise have been ignored. However, as the pandemic shifts, so does support for movements like Black Lives Matter.

“Our country is simply going back to default,” Robertson said. “Our job is to reconstruct the game, so that we can actually move beyond winning them over to becoming the American Dream that we longed for.”

Follow NBCBLK on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

US ‘closer to civil war’ than most would like to believe, new book says

The US is “closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe”, a member of a key CIA advisory panel has said.

Martin Pengelly in New York
Mon, December 20, 2021

Photograph: John Minchillo/AP

Related: Why Trump appears deeply unnerved as Capitol attack investigation closes in

The analysis by Barbara F Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego who sits on the Political Instability Task Force, is contained in a book due out next year and first reported by the Washington Post.

At the same time, three retired generals wrote in the Post that they were “increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military”.

Such concerns are growing around jagged political divisions deepened by former president Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat in the 2020 election.

Trump’s lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was caused by electoral fraud stoked the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, over which Trump was impeached and acquitted a second time, leaving him free to run for office.

The “big lie” is also fueling moves among Republicans to restrict voting by groups that lean Democratic and to make it easier to overturn elections.

Such moves remain without counter from Democrats stymied by the filibuster, the Senate rule that demands supermajorities for most legislation.

In addition, though Republican presidential nominees have won the popular vote only once since 1988, the GOP has by playing political hardball stocked the supreme court with conservatives, who outnumber liberals 6-3.

All such factors and more, including a pandemic which has stoked resistance to government, have contributed to Walter’s analysis.

Last month, she tweeted: “The CIA actually has a taskforce designed to try to predict where and when political instability and conflict is likely to break out around the world. It’s just not legally allowed to look at the US. That means we are blind to the risk factors that are rapidly emerging here.”

The book in which Walter looks at those risk factors in the US, How Civil Wars Start, will be published in January. According to the Post, she writes: “No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war.

But “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America – the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or Ivory Coast or Venezuela – you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely”.

“And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”

Walter, the Post said, concludes that the US has passed through stages of “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” and may now be in “open conflict”, beginning with the Capitol riot.

Citing analytics used by the Center for Systemic Peace, Walter also says the US has become an “anocracy” – “somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state”.

Related: Capitol attack panel will determine if Trump committed crime – Republican

The US has fought a civil war, from 1861 to 1865 and against states which seceded in an attempt to maintain slavery.

Estimates of the death toll vary. The American Battlefield Trust puts it at 620,000 and says: “Taken as a percentage of today’s population, the toll would have risen as high as 6 million souls.”

Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton adviser turned biographer of Abraham Lincoln and Guardian contributor, said: “The secessionists in 1861 accepted Lincoln’s election as fair and legitimate.”

The current situation, he said, “is the opposite. Trump’s questioning of the election … has led to a genuine crisis of legitimacy.”

With Republicans’ hold on the levers of power while in the electoral minority a contributing factor, Blumenthal said, “This crisis metastasises, throughout the system over time, so that it’s possible any close election will be claimed to be false and fraudulent.”

Blumenthal said he did not expect the US to pitch into outright civil war, “section against section” and involving the fielding of armies.

If rightwing militia groups were to seek to mimic the secessionists of the 1860s and attempt to “seize federal forts and offices by force”, he said, “I think you’d have quite a confidence it would be over very, very quickly [given] a very strong and firm sense at the top of the US military of its constitutional, non-political role.

“… But given the proliferation of guns, there could be any number of seemingly random acts of violence that come from these organised militias, which are really vigilantes and with partisan agendas, and we haven’t entered that phase.

“The real nightmare would be that kind of low-intensity conflict.”

Members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group, on the East Front of the US Capitol on 6 January. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

The retired generals who warned of conflict around the next election – Paul Eaton, Antonio Taguba and Steven Anderson – were less sanguine about the army.

Related: Republicans are shamelessly working to subvert democracy. Are Democrats paying attention?

“As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol,” they wrote, “we … are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk.

“In short: We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time.”

Citing the presence at the Capitol riot of “a disturbing number of veterans and active-duty members of the military”, they pointed out that “more than one in 10 of those charged in the attacks had a service record”.

Polling has revealed similar worries – and warnings. In November, the Public Religion Research Institute asked voters if they agreed with a statement: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”

The poll found that 18% of respondents agreed. Among Republicans, however, the figure was 30%.

On Twitter, Walter thanked the Post for covering her book. She also said: “I wish I had better news for the world but I couldn’t stay silent knowing what I know.”

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Gabriel Boric’s triumph puts wind in the sails of Latin America’s resurgent left

Laurence Blair in Santiago

THE GUARDIAN
Mon, December 20, 2021,

Photograph: Claudio Reyes/AFP/Getty Images

At the age of 14, Gabriel Boric – the great-grandson of a Croatian migrant and an avid reader of Marx and Hegel – formed a city-wide student union in the Chilean city of Punta Arenas.

At 21, and by then a law student, he led a campus sit-in for 44 days in Santiago, Chile’s capital, to oust a senior professor accused of plagiarism and corruption. Two years later, in 2011, he was elected figurehead of a massive student rebellion against profiteering private universities, and in 2013 became a congressman for his remote home region.

After protests over meagre pensions, living costs and police brutality brought millions more on to the streets from October 2019, Gabriel Boric helped channel public rage into a peaceful outlet: the redrafting of Chile’s dictatorship-era constitution.

And on Sunday, Boric, 35, trounced José Antonio Kast – a Catholic law-and-order candidate nostalgic for the bloody dictatorship of Gen Augusto Pinochet – by a 12 percentage-point margin to become the youngest president in Chilean history.

Turnout on Sunday was the highest – at nearly 56 percent – since voting became voluntary in 2012. When he takes office on 11 March, Boric will be Chile’s most leftwing leader since Salvador Allende was overthrown in 1973 – and the first from outside the centrist blocs that have swapped the presidential sash since the return of democracy in 1989.

The triumph of the avowed feminist and environmentalist has also been hailed as historic by his progressive counterparts across Latin America, who after nearly a decade in the doldrums have won a string of electoral victories in the past year – and are set to notch up even more in 2022.

Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – who pollsters predict will deal a thumping defeat to another far-right dictatorship-apologist, Jair Bolsonaro, in late 2022 – shared a grinning picture of himself wearing a Boric-branded baseball cap, and said he felt “happy for another victory of a democratic and progressive candidate in our Latin America”.

As Chile went to the polls, Gustavo Petro, a Colombian former guerrilla who is currently leading in polls ahead of presidential elections in May, favourably compared Boric as a “social democrat” against Kast, the son of a card-carrying Nazi.

The Peronist president of neighbouring Argentina, Alberto Fernández, invited Boric to “work together to end inequality in Latin America”. Luis Arce of Bolivia’s Movement towards Socialism (MAS), which returned to power a year ago with an even greater electoral margin after dislodging a rightwing caretaker government, also praised Boric’s win fulsomely, calling it “the triumph of the Chilean people”.

In Peru, the leftist teacher turned president Pedro Castillo – who narrowly avoided impeachment earlier this December after a chaotic four months in office – tweeted: “Your victory is shared by all Latin American peoples who want to live with liberty, peace, justice and dignity.” Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian leftist ruler, praised Chileans “for their resounding victory against fascism”.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s old-school leftwing president, spoke of his “joy” at Boric’s victory, adding that “the people of Chile had “given an example to Latin America and the world”.

But some responses to Boric’s win – or the absence thereof – hinted at dividing lines of a generational and philosophical nature within Latin America’s left.

The Cuban leader Miguel Díaz Canel expressed his wish to improve ties with the Chilean public and the incoming government – perhaps a nod to Boric’s remarks in July that his “solidarity” was with Cuban protesters and not the country’s Communist government.

Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s Sandinista strongman, made no comment – perhaps reflecting Boric’s recent comments – soon after Ortega was elected to a fourth consecutive term after first jailing most of the opposition – that the Central American country “needs democracy, not fraudulent elections nor persecution of opponents”.

Xiomara Castro, the progressive incoming president of Honduras has also made no comment so far.

This reluctance to immediately jump on the Boric bandwagon perhaps reflects not only geographical distance but the gulf between what Javier Rebolledo, a journalist and writer, described as the traditional “Marxist” left and the softer, more Scandinavian cut of Boric’s politics.

But few Chileans see themselves as locked in a continental battle between left and right, cautioned Rebolledo. Most are fed up with a threadbare welfare system and a society systematically stacked in favour of the rich, concerns to which Boric has spoken eloquently for a decade.

“Boric is part of the path that Chile has been walking for a long time,” he argued.

Fears of Venezuelan-style socialism and economic ruin pushed some voters into Kast’s arms. But conversely, the sobering example of racial hatred and mob violence stirred up by Donald Trump, and the deadly incompetence of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro – on whose watch nearly 620,000 Brazilians have died from Covid-19 – may have helped inoculate Chileans against far-right populism.

“Chile today demonstrated that we can choose for ourselves,” said Daniela Pardo, a midfielder for a Santiago football club. She had donned a crown of paper flowers to join the jubilant Boric supporters in the emblematic plaza called Dignity Square by anti-inequality protesters. “In the United States and Brazil, far-right governments terrified the public. It was good to learn that lesson.”

No, Joe Manchin, Americans aren’t using the child tax credit to buy drugs

The Advanced Child Tax Credit program isn't fueling drug benders, Joe.

REUTERS/ELIZABETH FRANTZ/FILE PHOTO

By Camille Squires
Cities reporter

QUARTZ
Published December 20, 2021

US president Joe Biden’s proposed $1.75 trillion climate and social spending bill, known as Build Back Better, is effectively dead after West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said he would not vote for it in its current form. The bill, which allocates billions of federal dollars to expand access to things like affordable housing, medicare, and childcare, together with the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, was the centerpiece of Biden’s policy agenda.

Manchin said publicly that he “cannot” support the legislation because of its size; he worried it would worsen inflation and add substantially to the US national debt. But in private conversations with other senators, however, he appeared to take issue with how people might use some of its benefits. As HuffPost reports, Manchin allegedly shared concerns with his fellow Democratic senators that people would abuse an expanded paid sick leave policy included in the bill to go on hunting trips and that parents would use monthly child tax credit payments to buy drugs.

But on at least one of those counts, Manchin’s alleged fears are unfounded. Monthly child tax credit payments have already been reaching 35 million American families since July when, as part of emergency pandemic legislation, the Internal Revenue Service temporarily expanded the amount of child tax credits and began sending out half the money—up to $3,600 for children up to age six, and $3,000 for ages six to 16—as cash payments to all but the wealthiest families. (The remaining half stayed a lump sum for families to claim on annual taxes).
How Americans spend child tax credit payments

The monthly payments of $250 or $300 per child (depending on their age) were intended to help alleviate child poverty by giving families a consistent source of income to spend on food and other household expenses, or address other financial needs. As it turns out, they have done just that. Between July and October, the US Census Bureau collected weekly survey data on how people used child tax credit payments and found that families tended to spend, save, or use the money to pay off debt almost equally.

When people spent the money, they most often put it towards housing, food, and school expenses like tuition and books, according to the survey. On the whole, this extra income has made a difference for families; even in the first few months of the program, it reduced the number of families experiencing hunger.

Of course, “drugs” was not among the categories of expenses families were asked about in the survey, but study after study on cash transfer programs shows that this fear about people misusing benefits on vices does not bear out. A 2014 World Bank metastudy of cash transfer programs from around the world found no evidence that beneficiaries spend significant portions of the money on alcohol or tobacco. A March 2021 study (pdf) of a pilot cash transfer program in Stockton, California, found that recipients used less than 1% of the funds on alcohol or tobacco.

The end of a lifeline for families

The existing child tax credit payments are temporary, and the last payments of the year went out on Dec. 15. Already, families are worried about what they will do without the extra income. The Build Back Better act would extend the payments for another year, bringing the US into the ranks of more than 100 other countries with a cash benefit program for children and families.

Democrats expect to go back to the negotiating table next year to renegotiate a smaller version of the deal. If the child tax credit expansion is left out, millions of families could once again find themselves struggling to make ends meet.

Goldman Sachs says Joe Manchin's rejection of Biden's $2 trillion spending plan is bad for the US economy

hrobertson@businessinsider.com (Harry Robertson) 

Senator Joe Manchin all but killed Biden's spending bill Sunday. 

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Sen. Joe Manchin's move to torpedo the Build Back Better plan will likely weigh on US growth, Goldman Sachs said.

The Wall Street Bank on Monday cut its US economic forecasts for the first, second and third quarters of 2022.

Manchin told Fox News Sunday that he couldn't go along with the $2 trillion social and climate legislation.

Sen. Joe Manchin's rejection of the Biden administration's $2 trillion "Build Back Better" spending plan will likely tank the legislation and lead to slower economic growth, Goldman Sachs has said.

The Wall Street bank cut its forecasts for US gross domestic product late Sunday after the West Virginia Democrat told Fox News: "I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation."

Goldman's analysts, led by chief economist Jan Hatzius, think the Build Back Better bill is now unlikely to pass. A much smaller set of measures is the most likely outcome, they said.

Hatzius and team now expect the US economy to grow:
2% in the first quarter, compared with a previous estimate for 3%.
3% in the second quarter, down from 3.5% earlier.
2.75% in the third quarter, versus 3% before.

The roughly $2 trillion Build Back Better plan aims to expand the social safety net in the US, with a focus on children and childcare, and to tackle climate change.

To pass in the 100-member Senate, all 50 Democrats there, including Manchin, must vote for it. But the West Virginia senator blindsided the White House when he said Sunday he could not vote for the bill, all but dooming the legislation.

"My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society in a way that leaves our country even more vulnerable to the threats we face," he told Fox, voicing concerns about inflation and government debt.

The winding-down of pandemic-era support programmes was already set to weigh on the US economy in 2022, Goldman's analysts noted.

But they said "this fiscal impulse will [now] become somewhat more negative than we had expected," with the expiry of child tax credits acting as a particular drag.

Hatzius and colleagues said the current high rate of inflation in the US will make it more difficult for President Joe Biden and his administration to revive the spending plan. Goldman expects inflation to top 7% in early 2022, after it rose to a 39-year high of 6.8% year-on-year in November.

"The Omicron variant is also likely to shift political attention back to virus-related issues and away from long-term reforms," the bank said.

However, Goldman's analysts said there could be some benefits for financial markets, given that the bill also imposed higher taxes to pay for much of the spending.

Goldman said the odds of higher corporate taxes — which the bank had estimated would reduce S&P 500 profits by 3% — have now fallen. It also said pharma companies may no longer come under pressure to reduce prices.

The United Mine Workers of America is urging Sen. Manchin to rethink his opposition to Build Back Better

Cheryl Teh

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. 

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The United Mine Workers of America asked Sen. Joe Manchin to rethink his stand on Build Back Better.

The UMWA asked Manchin to consider how the bill could help coal miners.

 
Manchin has had long-standing ties to both the union and the coal industry.

A coal miners' union with strong ties to Sen. Joe Manchin released a statement on Monday asking the senator to rethink his opposition to the beleaguered Build Back Better legislation.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) asked Manchin to reconsider saying no to President Joe Biden's Build Back Better social and climate spending legislation, saying the bill had provisions for coal miners who suffer from black lung disease.

"The bill includes language that would extend the current fee paid by coal companies to fund benefits received by victims of coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or Black Lung. But now that fee will be cut in half, further shifting the burden of paying these benefits away from the coal companies and on to taxpayers," wrote UMWA leader Cecil E. Roberts in the statement.

Black lung disease happens after continued exposure to coal dust and is an occupational hazard for many coal miners. According to The New Republic, Build Back Better would help to extend an excise tax that funds the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, a source of benefits for coal workers set to expire at the end of 2021.

Roberts added that the bill also includes provisions for tax incentives that might encourage manufacturers to build facilities in coalfields that could create thousands of jobs for coal miners.

"The bill includes language that will provide tax incentives to encourage manufacturers to build facilities in the coalfields that would employ thousands of coal miners who have lost their jobs," Roberts said in the statement. "We support that and are ready to help supply those plants with a trained, professional workforce. But now the potential for those jobs is significantly threatened."

"We urge Senator Manchin to revisit his opposition to this legislation and work with his colleagues to pass something that will help keep coal miners working, and have a meaningful impact on our members, their families, and their communities," Roberts added.

Build Back Betters had previously seen opposition from coal miners that complicated the bill's progress. Roberts previously penned an op-ed in November lauding Manchin for axing the Clean Electricity Performance Program from the bill. The CEPP advocated for the building of wind and solar generation plants over keeping fossil fuel plants running, an item in Build Back Better that Roberts strongly opposed.

The UMWA represents coal miners in Manchin's state of West Virginia, and has long-standing ties with the senator, having named him an honorary member in 2020. Manchin is also deeply invested in the coal industry and has millions of dollars in holdings in Enersystems, Inc., a coal brokerage firm he founded.

"If I can't go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can't vote for it," Manchin said on Fox on Sunday, torpedoing a large part of the Biden administration's agenda by coming out against BBB. "I've tried everything humanly possible. I can't get there. This is a no."

However, there is a chance that Manchin might agree to vote on a scaled-down, $1.8 trillion counter-offer to Biden's plan, which includes provisions for universal pre-K and measures to combat the climate emergency. Politico also reported that Manchin and Biden had a phone conversation on Sunday night, which indicates there might be hope yet for Build Back Better.

So Many Ubisoft Employees Have Quit

That They're Calling It 'The Great Exodus'

Luke Plunkett
Mon, December 20, 2021

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

A report on Axios says that over the past 18 months so many Ubisoft employees have left the company that those remaining have begun to call it “the great exodus” and “the cut artery.”

The story says that over that time period—which coincides with both a global pandemic and a trend that’s become known as The Great Resignation—so many developers and staffers have quit that ”the departures have stalled or slowed projects”.

A look at LinkedIn departure statistics, which aren’t a perfect metric but are certainly useful, show that Ubisoft’s annual attrition rate is at 12% among its 20,000-strong workforce, which is significantly higher than competitors like EA (9%) and Epic (7%). That said, one company’s rate was even higher: Activision Blizzard, at 16%. I wonder why that could be.

There are multiple reasons for the departures. A significant one is simply the realities of the workforce situation in Montreal, where the company has a large presence and where “attrition at Ubisoft’s main studio doubled for a time”. Fierce competition from rivals and start-ups mean Ubisoft’s workers can make more money elsewhere, though to combat this Ubisoft recently announced payrises for its Canadian employees, which in turn “frustrated developers in other studios who wonder when they’re getting raises too.”

The company’s horrific track record with abuse allegations and other PR disasters—like its dabbling with NFTs—have also played a part, with one former employee telling Axios “The company’s reputation was too much to bear. It’s legitimately embarrassing.”

For a more practical example of how this is affecting the company’s series and games, “at least five of the top 25-credited people” from Far Cry 6—which was only released in October!—have already left Ubisoft, and 12 from 50 of those from 2020's Assassin’s Creed Valhalla have departed as well.

Oh, and to close this out: “One developer recently said a colleague currently at Ubisoft contacted them to solve an issue with a game, because no one was still there who knew the system”.

You can read the full report here.