Saturday, April 13, 2024

 

The Decline Of Extreme Poverty – OpEd


By 

One of the foremost accomplishments of the industrial age is the “immense progress against extreme poverty.” “Extreme poverty” is defined by the World Bank as a person living on less than $2.15 per day using 2017 prices. This figure has seen a sharp decline over the last two centuries—from almost 80 percent of the world’s population living in extreme poverty in 1820 to only about 10 percent living in these conditions by 2019. This is all the more astounding given that the population of the world is about 750 percent higher.

The causes of economic progress are clear. The laborers of past generations around the world—often against their will—gave us industrial revolutions. These industrial economies rely on, and generate, machinery, technology, and other capital goods. These are then deployed in an economy that requires less sacrifice of human labor and can generate more goods and services for the populations of the world, even as populations continue to grow.

Some ideologies, such as socialism, were most effective in fighting extreme poverty. Socialism is defined here as the state control of a national economy with an eye toward the welfare of the masses. Socialist regimes serve to counter and remove extreme poverty. Two regions illustrate this point well and account for billions of people who moved out of extreme poverty in the last century—all of them influenced by or under the rubric of socialism.

In the USSR and Eastern Europe, extreme poverty declined from about 60 percent in 1930 to almost zero in 1970. In China too, extreme poverty has been eliminated to virtually zero today, though there are debates over exactly what produced those gains. Some argue that these gains are the product of capitalist reforms; but even if this were the case, those reforms took advantage of the groundwork laid by the post-1949 socialist economy.

There is also a certain logic to why socialist economies in the 20th century were able to eventually generate massive gains for those at the very bottom of their societies. While not the only ideology that can do so, socialism is particularly good at the kind of state control and support of economies that is required for successful industrialization. Moreover, because socialism sets itself up to be politically evaluated by what it delivers to those at the very bottom, the politics of socialist countries tend to moderate some of the inequality that comes with industrialization in a capitalist world. This makes it markedly different from other varieties of state control like colonialism, imperialism, state capitalism, and fascism.

Socialism’s existence also seems to have pushed forward reductions in poverty in the capitalist sections of the world. The presence of the Soviet Union and internal left movements across the capitalist world put pressure on capitalist regimes to offer more goods and services to their working classes and underclasses. This is evident from several instances throughout the world, such as the role of communists in fighting for civil rights for Black people in the United States.

While there might have been an immense reduction in extreme poverty over the decades, a series of setbacks brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and various ongoing wars across the world have recently made a dire situation worse for those already struggling to make ends meet. According to a 2022 World Bank report, “the pandemic pushed about 70 million people into extreme poverty in 2020, the largest one-year increase since global poverty monitoring began in 1990. As a result, an estimated 719 million people subsisted on less than $2.15 a day by the end of 2020.”

This means that the world is “unlikely” to achieve the UN target of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. Consider what it looks like to live on less than $2.15 per day. It means that you cannot even “afford a tiny space to live, some minimum heating capacity, and food” that will prevent “malnutrition.” As we struggle to meet our goals, the majority of the world population has been forced to live on under $10 a day, while 1.5 percent of the population receives $100 a day or more.

Moreover, a racial analysis is also important to include given that extreme poverty is increasingly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia. Poorer countries (which are home to the vast majority of Black and brown populations) are “encouraged” to produce the cheapest and simplest goods for trade rather than developing self-sustaining economies or upgrading their economies and workforces. In fact, they are often pushed to destroy existing economies.

The final rub in any discussion of poverty is that the preexisting solutions to it— industrialization—may not be feasible with the limitations of a warming planet. If sub-Saharan Africa needs to industrialize to eliminate extreme poverty in that region, who will pay for that carbon footprint? Presumably, the countries of the Global North that have the most historical carbon debt ought to, but it is hard to imagine a world in which they will voluntarily do so. After all, they have yet to make reparations for the stolen labor with which their wealth was built in the first place.

  • About the author: Saurav Sarkar is a freelance movement writer, editor, and activist living in Long Island, New York. Follow them on Twitter @sauravthewriter and at sauravsarkar.com.
  • Source: This article was produced by Globetrotter.


Trump and Mike Johnson promote ‘great replacement’ theory to unveil election bill at Mar-a-Lago




Republican frontunner and House Speaker echo far-right conspiracy while promoting redundant measure to ban noncitizens from voting


Alex Woodward
THE INDEPENDENT UK

House Speaker Mike Johnson travelled to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to promote a bill that would ban noncitizens from voting, which is already illegal.

Mr Johnson, behind a lectern bearing the club’s logo, claimed that “election integrity” is tied to a “lack of border security,” which he claims is the most important issue facing American voters.

With the former president at his side on Friday, Mr Johnson promoted legislation that would require citizenship to cast a ballot, alleging that Democratic officials’ “designs” for an “open border” intend to “turn these people into voters.”

The “many millions of illegals in the country” could “turn an election,” he said.


Friday’s event – featuring the man who is third in line for the presidency alongside the presumed Republican nominee for the presidency – echoed the baseless far-right “great replacement” conspiracy theory that appeared to be designed to sow doubt about election outcomes in the event Mr Trump loses a second time.

The so-called “great replacement” theory posits that Democratic officials are intentionally allowing nonwhite minorities into the US to replace voting populations.

Mr Johnson played a central role among members of Congress in rejecting Mr Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, and he took the lead in a brief to the US Supreme Court with 125 other House Republicans to support Mr Trump’s failed legal challenge to overturn President Joe Biden’s victories in several states.

He later voted against certifying Mr Biden’s win during a joint session of Congress on 6 January 2021, even after the Trump-fuelled riots at the US Capitol.

In the months after Mr Trump’s election loss in 2020, GOP officials began promoting so-called “election integrity” legislation that echoed many of the false claims promoted by Mr Trump and his allies to discredit election officials and policies that certified his loss.

There is virtually no evidence that noncitizens are voting in federal elections at a scale that Mr Trump has baselessly alleged, continuing his false narrative of widespread election fraud that paved the way for a mob of his supporters to storm the halls of Congress to reject the results by force.

Donald Trumps speaks at Mar-a-Lago on 12 April with House Speaker Mike Johnson. (AP)

Here, his ongoing claims that elections are “rigged” against him dovetailed with his anti-immigrant platform, as Republicans make US-Mexico border security a central pillar of 2024 campaigns.

Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from casting ballots in federal elections, and only a handful of states have allowed noncitizens to vote in local or municipal elections.

“As fact-checkers across the board have made clear, it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. The American people see through today’s stunt, which amounts to House Republicans wasting time,” according to a statement from White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates.

In his remarks, Mr Trump claimed “we have an election problem” and demanded that the US-Mexico border be “closed.”

“Millions and millions are pouring in that no one’s reporting,” he said. “Some are terrorists … They come from jails and prisons, they come from mental institutions and insane asylums They come from all over the world.”

Mr Trump – who has previously stated that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the US – has repeatedly falsely alleged that unreported millions of people are pouring into the country, which is not supported by federal government data.

Arab Americans Should Not Settle For The Lesser Of Two Evils – OpEd

hope peace children globe hands earth

By 

Wouldn’t it be nice to hear Palestinian and Israeli activists and leaders call out the extremists on both sides, instead of acting like the defenders of one side only.

I was on a radio show in Chicago recently and, while I condemned Hamas for the horrific violence of Oct. 7, I also condemned the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Instead of joining me, the two pro-Israel guests immediately went into “defend Israel mode,” insisting that the problem is that Hamas uses “human shields” and Israel has no choice but to kill Palestinians.

I tried to get them to criticize Israel’s government, but they refused. In fact, read many of the op-eds in Western newspapers and you will see activists on both sides closing their eyes to the atrocities committed by their side, while aggressively and often exaggerating the atrocities committed by the other.

One of the questions I was asked related to the #AbandonBiden movement, which has successfully convinced many Arab and Muslim Americans to vote against President Joe Biden’s reelection in the Democratic primaries. They asked if Arabs “see” that, by rejecting Biden, they will “get” former President Donald Trump, “who moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem?”

I was asked: “Biden is the lesser of two evils to you, right?” But why do Arab Americans have to pick the lesser of two evils when we vote? In doing that, we end up with “evil” either way.

Why do we not have leaders who are in the center, who see the hate, the extremism and the violence of both sides — Israel’s government and Hamas extremists?

Wouldn’t that be a novel idea: picking someone who speaks the truth, not one-sided political propaganda. Someone who believes that both Hamas and the Netanyahu government are equally guilty of atrocities, war crimes and the killing of women, children and the elderly?

Because that is the truth that neither side wants to admit: their side is just as wrong as those they are criticizing.

I was asked what Biden could do to regain the support of the Arabs and Muslims who voted against him in the Democratic primaries, including in six swing states. I said that I had been reading the opinion columns being pushed by the mainstream American news media, which is partisan and today leans to the far left. They were defending Israel, defending Biden and blaming everything on one side. I tried to say that, maybe, these columnists should speak out about their own activists and leaders, who condemn one side, the Palestinians and Hamas, and say nothing about the crimes of the side they support.

In other words, the president cannot regain the backing of those who support the #AbandonBiden movement simply by pandering to them politically.

Biden empowered Hamas to attack Israel by refusing to condemn the Israeli assaults that took place in the two years prior to Oct. 7, during which time he was the so-called leader of the free world. He also needs to roll back his support of the Israeli government’s actions in more than a rhetorical manner: by cutting American funding and arms supplies to Tel Aviv. Biden must stop allowing one side to continue its carnage.

Do both and maybe that will suggest to Arab and Muslim Americans that Biden cares about peace, not politics. That he opposes violence of all kinds, not just violence against political allies who support him or that he favors. That he applies principles and morality to the actions of both sides and judges them harshly, condemning them both at the same press conference without worrying about the political repercussions.

Arabs and Muslims in America are no different to the rest of the American public. They want reason. They want moderation in policies and a leadership that is smart and driven by the principles that make America the true democracy it can be.

All someone needs to do is step away from the extremist sidelines and into the center. And speak the truth. Speak the truth about the Israeli government’s violence and its rejection of peace over the past two decades under Netanyahu and his late mentor Ariel Sharon. Horrific leaders. Netanyahu set the tone for the environment of haters in Israel who oppose the creation of a Palestinian state, with that hate-driven rejection of peace spurring the expansion of extremism among Palestinians.

Speak the truth about Hamas and other Palestinian extremists who have opposed the peace process since Day 1, when Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo I Accord in Washington in 1993 — a moving moment that I witnessed personally.

All these people who loudly scream, both in their rhetoric and their writings, that the other side is evil and that their side is the victim are only encouraging the growing carnage and conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. They are not offering reason or common sense and they are not embracing the principles of morality or peace.

The lesser of two evils is not a real option. Those who embrace it and advocate it over acknowledging the truth, no matter whether they are Palestinian or Israeli, Arab or Jew, are only being evil themselves.

For a future of peace for Palestinians and Israelis, the war is against the lesser of two evils, not each other.



Ray Hanania is an award-winning Palestinian-American former journalist and political columnist. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com.
ILLEGALS OVERRUN RESIDENTS
Israeli settlers storm West Bank village, setting cars and homes ablaze

By Kareem Khadder, Zeena Saifi and Benjamin Brown,
 CNN
 Fri April 12, 2024

A view of damaged houses and burning vehicles after a raid by Jewish settlers on the Mughir town near Ramallah, West Bank on April 12, 2024. Issam Rimawi/Anadolu/Getty Images
CNN —

Hundreds of armed Israeli settlers stormed a village in the occupied West Bank on Friday, setting fire to several homes and cars in one of the largest attacks by settlers this year, according to Palestinian officials.

At least one Palestinian man was killed by gunfire in the village of Al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah, according to the head of the village council Amin Abu-Alia, who is related to the deceased.

About 25 others were also injured in the rampage, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, the scale of which has not been seen since hundreds of settlers stormed through the villages of Turmusayya and Huwara in two separate incidents last year.

According to Abu-Alia, Israeli security forces had informed Palestinian officials that the settlers were looking for an Israeli teenager who had gone missing earlier in the day.

He estimated that between 1,000 and 1,200 settlers surrounded the village, and around 500 stormed it just after midday local time on Friday, blocking all the roads in the area.

The settlers attacked the village, raided homes, and fired guns at residents, he said. Videos obtained by CNN show parts of the village burning, with smoke billowing over several buildings and settlers lobbing rocks. Houses and cars are seen completely burned up, with sounds of gunfire and clashes heard in the background.


Israeli settlers wearing headscarves are seen near billowing smoke. Reuters

According to Abu-Alia, the Israeli military arrived at the scene at around 3 p.m. local time, but did not stop the settlers from attacking the village. Instead, Israeli soldiers allowed them to raid homes, prevented Palestinian residents from moving around and blocked ambulances from reaching the injured, he alleged.

Abu-Alia told CNN settlers stole approximately 70 sheep from the Palestinian village.

Reached for comment by CNN, the Israel Defense Forces said “violent riots were instigated in multiple locations in the area” following a search for the missing boy, and that Israeli forces tried to remove the settlers.



RELATED VIDEO‘That sounds like ethnic cleansing’: CNN questions lead figure in Israel’s settler movement


“Security forces operated to disperse the violent riots. During the incident, rocks were hurled at IDF soldiers, who responded with fire. Hits were identified. Furthermore, IDF and Israel Border Police forces operated to withdraw Israeli civilians who entered the town of Al Mughayyir,” it added.

A statement from the Palestinian Red Crescent said 11 ambulances drove to the scene of Friday’s attack to pick up the wounded, reporting that several people were injured by bullet fragments.

Earlier on Friday, IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said IDF forces had been working to search for the missing 14-year-old, who was last seen near an Israeli settlement and around 2 kilometers from Al-Mughayyir.


“IDF forces from the air and on the ground, including special forces, have been working since the early afternoon, along with the Israel Police and other forces, in the search for the 14-year-old boy who has been missing since this morning in the Malachei Ha’Shalom area in the Binyamin Brigade,” he said in a post on X.


A Palestinian is killed as Israeli settlers rampage in his village and troops fire on stone-throwers

BY JACK JEFFREY AND JULIA FRANKEL, 
ASSOCIATED PRESS - 04/13/24 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed into a Palestinian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, shooting and setting houses and cars on fire. The rampage killed a Palestinian man and wounded 25 others, Palestinian health officials said.

The violence was the latest in an escalation in the West Bank that has accompanied Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip. An Israeli rights group said the settlers were searching for a missing 14-year-old boy from their settlement. After the rampage, Israeli troops said they were still searching for the teen.

The killing came after an Israeli raid overnight killed two Palestinians, including a Hamas militant, in confrontation with Israeli forces.

Palestinian health officials say over 460 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli fire since the war erupted in October.

The Israeli human rights group Yesh Din said that settlers stormed into the village of al-Mughayyir late Friday, searching for the Israeli boy. The group said that settlers were shooting and setting houses on fire in the village.

Videos posted to X by the rights group showed dark clouds of smoke billowing from burning cars as gunshots rang out. A photo posted by the group showed what appeared to be a crowd of masked settlers.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said that one man was brought dead to a hospital and 25 were treated for wounds. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said eight of the injured were hit by live fire.

The slain man was later identified by his family as 26-year-old Jehad Abu Alia. His father, Afif Abu Alia, said he was shot and killed but was unsure whether the fatal bullet was fired by an armed settler or an Israeli soldier.

“My son went with others to defend our land and honor, and this is what happened,” Abu Alia said from a hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where his son’s body had been transported.

The attack was condemned by Mohammad Mustafa, the new Palestinian prime minister.

The Israeli army said it was searching for the missing Israeli teen, and that forces had opened fire when stones were hurled at soldiers by Palestinians. It said “hits were identified,” and soldiers also cleared out Israeli settlers from the village.

“As of this moment, the violent riots have been dispersed and there are no Israeli civilians present within the town,” it said.

United States officials, including President Joe Biden, have repeatedly raised concerns about a surge in settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank since Israel’s war with the militant Hamas group in the Gaza Strip began more than six months ago. Rights groups have long accused the military of failing to halt settler violence or punish soldiers for wrongdoing.

Earlier on Friday, two Palestinians were killed in confrontations with Israeli forces in the northern West Bank, Palestinian medics and the military said. Hamas said one of those killed was a local commander.


The military said the target of the soldiers’ raid was Mohammed Daraghmeh, a local Hamas commander. It said Daraghmeh was killed in a shootout with Israeli soldiers who discovered weapons in his car. The army alleged that Daraghmeh had been planning attacks on Israeli targets but provided no evidence. It also said assailants hurled explosives at soldiers.

The Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7, when Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, in a surprise attack and incursion into southern Israel. Around 250 people were seized as hostages by the militants and taken to Gaza.

Israel said Friday it had opened a new crossing for aid trucks into hard-hit northern Gaza as ramps up aid deliveries to the besieged enclave. However, the United Nations says the surge of aid is not being felt in Gaza because of persistent distribution difficulties.

Six months of fighting in Gaza have pushed the tiny Palestinian territory into a humanitarian crisis, leaving more than 1 million people on the brink of starvation.

Israeli bombardments and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 33,600 Palestinians and wounded over 76,200, the Gaza Health Ministry says. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tally, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.

Israel says it has killed over 12,000 militants during the war, but it has not provided evidence to back up the claim.

Three Palestinians killed in West Bank military raids and settler rampage

13 April 2024 - 

Mourners carry the body of a Palestinian who died during an Israeli settler attack on their village of al-Mughayyir, in Ramallah, in the Israeli occupied West Bank on April 12 2024.
Image: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman

Ramallah — Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians, including a member of the armed wing of Hamas, in raids in the occupied West Bank on Friday and the Palestinian Health Ministry reported at least one person was killed in an Israeli settler rampage near Ramallah.

The Israeli military said Mohammad Omar Daraghmeh, whom it described as the head of Hamas infrastructure in the Tubas area of the Jordan valley was killed during an exchange of fire with security forces. It said a number of weapons and military-style equipment, including automatic rifles were found in his vehicle.

Hamas confirmed Daraghmeh's death and his membership of its armed Al Qassam Brigades.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said another man was killed by Israeli forces conducting a raid in the Al-Far'a refugee camp in Tubas. Hamas mourned the man’s death but did not claim him as a member.

The military said forces carrying out the operation opened fire on Palestinians who threw explosive devices and killed one man it said was attempting to attack them.

Israel has stepped up military raids in the West Bank since launching an unrelenting assault on Gaza after a Hamas-led October 7 attack on its southern communities and military bases.

Later on Friday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said one person was shot dead in al-Mughayyer near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah as residents reported of dozens of Jewish settlers rampaging through their village. It was not immediately clear whether he was shot by Israeli forces or settlers.

The Palestine Red Crescent said at least 10 people were wounded, most of them by live fire, and that some ambulances trying to reach the area were shot at.

The head of al-Mughayyer’s local council, Ameen Abu Alia, said settlers had previously attacked the village but Friday’s raid was the most intense, with some 400 armed settlers, backed by military forces, firing at residents, vandalising the village and setting several houses and cars ablaze.

He said they were still assessing the damage when the Israeli military put the village under strict closure, placing a checkpoint at its only entrance.

In unverified videos circulating on social media, gunshots could be heard and heavy smoke was seen rising from a car set ablaze as residents called for help.

The Israeli military said its forces put up roadblocks and launched a search for a 14-year-old who had gone missing in the area, who police described as a Jewish resident of Jerusalem.

During the searches, security forces took action to disperse violent riots in the area, the military said, adding that rocks were hurled at soldiers who responded with fire and that “hits were identified”.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, condemned Friday’s settler attack and demanded urgent international intervention, particularly by the US.

Since the start of the Gaza war, Palestinian Health Ministry records show at least 460 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers, among them armed fighters from militant groups.

In the same period, at least 13 Israelis, among them two members of Israeli forces, have been killed by Palestinians in the West Bank, according to an Israeli tally.

Reuters



Pro-Palestine Yale students to hunger strike over university's Israel arms investments

Group accuses famed university of 'complicity in genocide' for investing in companies that supply Israel



Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Reuters
Thomas Watkins
Washington
Apr 12, 2024



A group of Yale University graduate students on Friday said they would begin a hunger strike to pressure the famed Ivy League school to divest from companies arming and equipping Israel.

The action comes after the student group Hunger Strikers for Palestine wrote to Yale president Peter Salovey on Wednesday, accusing the institution of “complicity in genocide” in Gaza and demanding that he publicly commit to ending the university's investments in arms firms.

“With the death toll of the genocide climbing daily in Gaza and the invasion of Rafah set to cause catastrophe, it is your moral responsibility to remove our institution from the list of those supporting genocide,” the group wrote.

The letter gave Mr Salovey until Friday to make a public statement. When that was not forthcoming, students said they would begin hunger striking on Saturday.

“President Salovey has failed to respond. The strikers will continue to fast until their demands are met,” the group said in a statement.

A Yale representative told The National that the university is “steadfastly committed to free expression and the right to peaceful protest, values that are foundational to our academic community”.

At the end of last year, the university's Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility was asked to consider a policy of divestment encompassing manufacturers of military weapons.

The committee “has looked into the issue and is preparing to provide an update to the community in the coming weeks”, the representative said.

The representative added that “students participating in a hunger strike are encouraged to consult with clinicians at Yale Health”.

A long-time Yale faculty member told The National that about 10 students were set to participate in the hunger strike, though that number was expected to grow at the weekend.

As of last June, Yale had an endowment of more than $40 billion, according to its investment office.

The student statement said more than $1.3 billion of this is managed by an investment firm with shares in aerospace companies Aerojet Rocketdyne and Howmet Manufacturing, as well as separate investments in US arms companies such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.

Campus tension

Since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and Israel's ensuing war on Gaza, where local officials say more than 33,000 people have been killed, universities across the US have seen a surge in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents.

“For Jewish students, as well as for Muslim as well as for Arab, for those who are just walking by, I think it's been a very difficult climate on campus for all students,” the faculty member said.

“But it has been particularly difficult and scary for students who are outwardly expressing support for Palestine.”

Support for Palestinian causes has come from students of different ethnicities, socioeconomic and religious backgrounds, the staffer said.

In their statement, students said Yale had provided only “repeated silence” after they sent several letters to the president and carried out protests calling on the institution to divest.

“Students have exhausted their means of communicating with the Yale administration about divesting from arms manufacturing,” they said.

They cited a precedent for divesting.

In 2006, Yale stopped investing in companies that “provided substantial assistance to the perpetrators of the genocide in Sudan”, they wrote, arguing that the same principle should be applied now, as Israel is facing genocide charges at the International Court of Justice.

The US has said such allegations are “unfounded”.

On Tuesday, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said there is no evidence Israel is committing genocide in Gaza but far too many civilians have been killed there.

In February, pro-Palestinian protesters at Brown University in Rhode Island ended a week-long hunger strike. They were unsuccessful in trying to force the divestiture of arms companies tied to Israel.

Updated: April 12, 2024, 4:48 PM