Suchergebnisse

Colleen Hroncich


Denisha Merriweather Allen says her life would be very different today if not for school choice. She grew up in an impoverished community in Jacksonville, Florida. Her family had lived in poverty there for at least four generations. They were well‐​known in the community and in the local schools. "She's a Merriweather," teachers would say, with the implication being not to expect anything from her.
Not surprisingly, Denisha's behavior reflected these expectations the adults had of her. "I remember days when I would walk into the classroom and everyone would sigh, including my teacher," she shared with The 74. "I grew disheartened. To hide my hurt, I often lashed out in physical fights with my classmates. The principal's office became my new classroom, and I got used to being suspended. D's and F's filled my report cards." Denisha failed 3rd grade twice because she couldn't read.
As she entered 6th grade, Denisha's life changed. She began living with her godmother, who used a tax credit scholarship to send Denisha to Esprit de Corps Center for Learning, a private school her church had started. "The nurturing environment at Esprit de Corps made a huge difference," says Denisha. "They didn't just see me as a person who came to school with a lot of baggage and not the best outlook. I was a challenging student and spent a lot of time in in‐​school suspension. But they were so nurturing and consistent that it changed my attitude. They encouraged me to use my voice and gave me ways to channel my strengths. I went from making D's and F's to graduating with honors, going to college, and getting a master's degree. I don't think that would have been possible if I hadn't been given a different opportunity."
Denisha became a school choice advocate because she witnessed first‐​hand the tremendous impact it had on her own life. Fast forward to 2020. The country is in the midst of social unrest after the killing of George Floyd. "The entire country was looking at our systems and thinking about how we can become more equitable," says Denisha. "But I was frustrated that there wasn't enough focus on the inequities in our education system and the reforms that really could make a difference in the lives of students and especially Black students. The academic outcomes for Black students nationwide according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress are really dismal."
But Denisha didn't just complain about the situation or sit back and hope someone else would do something. She created Black Minds Matter, a national movement to celebrate black minds, support excellence, and promote the development of high‐​quality school options for black students. "There's a lot of research that shows when Black students have choice in education, their academic outcomes improve drastically. And not just academics—even crime and teen pregnancy rates improve when students have school choice," Denisha points out.
Black Minds Matter works to "encourage and empower elected officials, community members and families to be innovative, demand excellence in education, and increase the number of schools founded by Black individuals." A key piece of this effort is a Black‐​Owned School directory, which is the first online directory to promote schools founded by African Americans and currently includes 416 schools.
Last week, Denisha hosted the second annual Black Minds Matter Summit. It gave parents, students, teachers, school leaders, education reformers, and lawmakers a chance to connect with and inspire each other in their efforts to transform education for black students. The participants included founders of homeschool co‐​ops, microschools, charter schools, and traditional private schools. Students from a local black‐​owned school surprised the audience with a lesson on financial literacy. And former school choice beneficiaries shared their stories along with ways to activate and engage communities.
Prior to this year's summit, Black Minds Matter partnered with the State Policy Network to host a mini launchpad with black school founders who are looking to expand. It was a great opportunity for the founders to receive feedback and tips from a diverse group of entrepreneurs, innovators, and education reformers.
In her journey from school choice beneficiary to advocate, Denisha has been an inspiration to countless people. But she's also been inspired herself—by the parents who are finding better options for their children, the students who are working to improve their futures, the school founders who are creating new opportunities for those students, and the lawmakers who are willing to face strong opposition when they pass school choice programs that help disadvantaged kids escape bad environments. Through Black Minds Matter, she's created a way to help cultivate and sustain a growing movement centered around ensuring every black student has access to a high‐​quality education they've chosen.

From Blog BROADSTREET

By Jeffery A. Jenkins and Charles Stewart IIIhttps://broadstreet.blog/2023/01/05/back-to-the-future-day-3/#comment-2202

(…) what other options might be available? Two options have
been floated in the Twittersphere today that we have previously written about.The first is to vote by secret ballot, which was the practice in House officer elections until 1838, when it was abandoned in favor of voice voting. The secret ballot was especially helpful in bridging the regional divide – think slavery – because party members could rally behind a candidate who would best deliver on party matters, even if that candidate was from the wrong region. Abolitionists figured this out and agitated for voice voting, to smoke out the northerners who were supporting the election of southerners. This was first proposed in 1835 and not adopted until three years later.We have opinions about secret ballot for Speaker in this case, but most of the talk has been about the second option, electing the Speaker by plurality vote. This happened twice in the past. The long, hard-fought speakership elections of 1849 (31st Congress) and 1855-56 (34th Congress) were both settled only after a plurality-rule was adopted.In each case, the House adopted a motion (in fact, a resolution) that established the candidate who received the most votes would in fact win the speakership election. Both times, a majority of the House passed this plurality rule in the following form: three more regular (majority-rule) ballots would be had, and if a candidate didn't receive a majority, a fourth ballot would be held and the largest vote-getter would be elected. ("Largest" is the word they used.)Now, a plurality rule is a risky endeavor. In both 1849 and 1856, the two parties were closely divided, and on a final, plurality ballot, party leaders couldn't be completely sure how dissenters would break. Indeed, in 1855, the Democratic Party was the minority, but became convinced they could put together enough votes to elect a Speaker under plurality. In the end, however, they were outflanked and lost.Today, we think the plurality calculus is also tricky. Hakeem Jeffries (NY), the Democratic nominee, has won every plurality election to this point. Plurality seems a no-brainer for Democrats. On the other hand, plurality lowers the target that McCarthy has to hit, since no Republican is going to vote for Jeffries. With Jeffries stuck at 212 votes, all McCarthy needs is 213, which is roughly half the dissident faction he's been dealing with.That said, it's hard to see why McCarthy would consider a plurality rule to be a Godsend. McCarthy has seen 20 stalwart defectors, only five of which are "Never Kevin" Republicans, led by Matt Gaetz (FL). It is these five who keep McCarthy from getting a majority. Still, for McCarthy to win under a plurality rule, he needs most of the other fifteen, who very well may not support him either. A plurality rule would simply move his job from lifting a two-ton boulder to lifting a one-ton boulder.Another thing that hasn't been factored into plurality voting among the plurality-curious is the behavior of dissident members once the rule has been adopted. Some have said that a plurality rule would force House members to vote for one of the two front-runners, as a type of Duverger's Law for Speaker contests. However, that wasn't the pattern in either 1849 or 1856, when 20 and 11 members, respectively, threw away their final votes for Speaker.Some Democrats may be salivating at the thought of Jeffries becoming Speaker under a close plurality vote, but it's not clear how that would be a benefit to the party. A Jeffries speakership would free up the entire Republican caucus, both Never and Only Kevins, to obstruct. They have a majority of the chamber, after all. The Speaker isn't given a magic wand.In both 1849 and 1856, it took the House weeks to get to the point of throwing in the towel and approving plurality voting. We're a long way from that. At present, the most likely outcome is still a Republican Speaker elected by majority vote, but history also tells us that time is running out for Kevin McCarthy.MY COMMENTThat's very interesting.The discussion about secret or public voting recalls the
intellectual debate at about the same time between the English utilitarian
Jeremy Bentham and his heterodox disciple John Stuart Mill: Bentham was in
favor of secret balloting to prevent harassment of voters, while Mill, more
optimistic about human nature, supported public voting to make people reveal
their sincere preferences. Your story of the House in the 1830s seems to have
favored sincere vote with a secret ballot, so perhaps leaning on Bentham's side.It's also interesting the procedure of three rounds by
majority and if no candidate gets it, then by plurality. It's what the Conclave
to elect the Pope of the Catholic Church adopted twenty-some years ago, by John
Paul II's decree, to prevent unending lockdowns of the cardinals voting again
and again without a result. It worked. Ratzinger (the just deceased Benedict
XVI) was elected on the second day after a big dispersion of votes on the first
day, when the cardinals anticipated that he would win anyway by plurality and
better to leave the lockdown earlier than later. Josep ColomerGeorgetown UniversityEditor of Handbook of Electoral System Choice (Palgrave-Macmillan)

David Boaz


Suddenly, and rather quietly, both public and elite opinion are turning against the "new" methods of teaching reading that have dominated our schools for a generation.
I've been keeping an eye on this issue for a long time. In 1995 I noticed that after state test results showed that the vast majority of California public school students could not read, write, or compute at levels considered proficient, Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin appointed two task forces to investigate reading and math instruction. The reports were clear — and depressing. There had been a wholesale abandonment of the basics — such as phonics and arithmetic drills — in California classrooms. Eastin said there was no one place to lay the blame for the decade‐​long disaster. "What we made was an honest mistake," she said. Or as the Sacramento Bee headline put it, "We Goofed."
You'd think such a devastating report in the nation's largest state would have had an impact. But it didn't seem to get much attention outside California. Instead, schools kept adopting reading instruction plans based on "whole language" and "balanced literacy" theories. Despite the fact that in 1997 Congress instructed the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development to work with the Department of Education to establish a National Reading Panel that would evaluate existing research and evidence to find the best ways of teaching children to read. The panel reviewed more than 100,000 reading studies. In 2000 it reported its conclusion: That the best approach to reading instruction is one that incorporates:
Explicit instruction in phonemic awareness
Systematic phonics instruction
Methods to improve fluency
Ways to enhance comprehension
But suddenly, in May of last year the New York Times took note of the problems with school reading instruction with a page 1 article on how a leading advocate of "balanced literacy" was backtracking. At Columbia University's Teachers College, she and her team trained thousands of teachers, and she estimated that her "Units of Study" was used in a quarter of the country's 67,000 elementary schools.
The Times noted that a 2019 investigation by American Public Media revealed "American education's own little secret about reading: Elementary schools across the country are teaching children to be poor readers — and educators may not even know it."
Then in January of this year I noted that the Fairfax County and Arlington County NAACP chapters in Virginia were making demands on the local school system: they want the schools to teach black and Hispanic kids to read. And they want the school to start using the best research‐​tested methods. After years of promising to make minority achievement a priority, finally in the past school year, the district gave all kindergarten through second‐​grade teachers scripted lesson plans featuring phonics.
In March the Washington Post editorialized: "Cut the politics. Phonics is the best way to teach reading."
In April the New York Times reported, "A revolt over how children are taught to read, steadily building for years, is now sweeping school board meetings and statehouses around the country." They quoted Ohio Governor Mike Dewine: "The evidence is clear," Mr. DeWine said. "The verdict is in." And noted: "The movement has drawn support across economic, racial and political lines. Its champions include parents of children with dyslexia; civil rights activists with the N.A.A.C.P.; lawmakers from both sides of the aisle; and everyday teachers and principals."
American Public Media has continued to follow the issue, and reported recently that at least 18 state legislatures are considering "ways to better align reading instruction with scientific research."
NPR's "All Things Considered" reported in June on the state of Georgia's new push for phonics in the lower grades. NPR notes that "there's perhaps no greater predictor of how a child will succeed in school than how well they can read by about the third grade. Research has shown that if students don't learn by then, they're far more likely to fall dangerously behind."
This new approach is being called "the Science of Reading," but it's the science your grandmother knew: Learn the letters, learn how each letter sounds, learn how the letters combine into words. The amazing thing is that for a generation or more, professors and school administrators thought they had better ideas.
As I wrote before:
Phonics seems like a good idea to me, but I'm no expert. As noted, though, there's a lot of research recommending phonics that a lot of school districts still aren't following. As a libertarian, I don't usually spend much time telling government agencies how to do their jobs, except as their actions impinge directly on individual rights. My focus is more on defining what activities ought to be undertaken by government and what ought to remain in the private sector, with individuals, businesses, churches, clubs, nonprofits, and civil society. And I think there's a lesson here on that.
Government agencies tend to be sluggish monopolies, with little incentive to improve and subject to political influence. When the California superintendent promised to fix the mistake, the teachers union head warned, "It's like turning an oil tanker around. You just don't do that quickly," and the governor's spokesperson said it would be a hard slog because "there is such partisan politics going on." Private organizations, especially profit‐​seeking businesses, are under constant pressure to serve customers better than their competitors. Businesses fail to meet that test every day and go out of business. When's the last time you heard of a failed government agency being shut down? That includes schools. Private schools must keep families happy or they can go elsewhere, and the school could be forced to shut down. Public schools, no matter how unhappy parents are, are almost never closed. As long as the tax money keeps coming in, they stay in business.
The problem is that the schools are run by a bureaucratic government monopoly, largely isolated from competitive or community pressures. We expect good service from businesses because we know–and we know that they know — that we can go somewhere else. We instinctively know we won't get good service from the post office or the Division of Motor Vehicles because we can't go anywhere else.

But now, after many years of complaints from parents, the elite media are joining the chorus: Teach children to read, using time‐​tested methods, confirmed by the National Reading Panel in 2000. It's about time.

The gulf between the United States and the rest of the world — in particular the Global South — on the Israel-Palestine conflict remains sharp and wide. This was demonstrated yet again at The Hague last week, where the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is hearing a case triggered by a U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) resolution in December 2022 seeking an advisory opinion on the "legal consequences" of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.The case has taken on even greater significance in the current context of Israel's military action in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli assault (in response to Hamas's October 7 attack) has led to around 30,000 Palestinian deaths and widespread destruction of homes, mosques, churches, hospitals, and community centers with seemingly no end in sight. A BBC investigation at the end of January found that between 50% and 61% of the Gaza Strip's buildings had been destroyed or damaged in the war, while over 80% of the population had been displaced.This case also comes on the heels of last month's ICJ hearing in a separate case brought by South Africa alleging serious violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention by Israel in its current assault on Gaza. In that case, the ICJ issued a provisional order that Israel's actions in the current war against the Palestinians could plausibly be considered genocide. Other Global South states have initiated measures at the International Criminal Court. Overall, states representing close to 60% of the Global South's population have either directly or indirectly backed international legal action on Palestine, as our previous analysis showed.Last week's proceedings were the early stage of the UNGA-triggered case, in which the oral arguments focused on whether the court has jurisdiction over the matter. Of the 49 countries and three international organizations (the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the African Union) that argued before the court's judges — the most of any case in the ICJ's history — only four argued that the court lacked jurisdiction and should therefore not render an opinion: the United States, the United Kingdom, Hungary, and Fiji.Although this round of argumentation centered around the question of the court's jurisdiction, the representatives who spoke on behalf of their respective countries presented their view of Israel's occupation as well as current and past military activity in Palestine. Cuba went as far as to explicitly argue that Israel's military aggression in the current war amounts to a "genocide." Several others, including Bolivia and Chile, argued that the occupation violates international law, and should therefore end.The extent to which this issue resonates across the Global South is evident in the fact that Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populous country and a U.S. partner, so strongly supports the Palestinian cause that the country's foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, left the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Brazil to personally present Indonesia's argument before the court. She argued that Israel's "unlawful occupation and its atrocities must stop and should not be normalized or recognized." Indonesia sees Palestine as the last unresolved issue of decolonization, which it is mandated to oppose according to its constitution. Bangladesh spoke of violations of three basic tenets of international law: the right to self-determination; the prohibition to acquire territory by force; and the prohibition of racial discrimination and apartheid. Namibia also cited apartheid in its arguments, while The Maldives spoke of appropriation of water resources for Palestine, among other things. The African Union, collectively representing 54 African states, described "an asymmetrical situation in which an oppressed people is confronted with an occupying power."Other Global South states arguing in favor of the ICJ's jurisdiction in this case even called out the United States by name. Guyana, for example, said that the U.S.'s argument fails because the U.S. wrongly claims that there is an ongoing peace negotiation between Israel and Palestine, therefore leaving no legal authority for the ICJ to deliver an opinion on this issue.Algeria also explicitly said that this case not only stains Israel's image, but also hurts that of the United States, as the U.S. government continues to support Israel despite its continued violation of international law.Fiji was the only Global South state in the hearings to broadly align with Israel and the United States in its arguments. It argued that a two-state solution could only come about when (Palestinian) terrorism ended. It also stated that Israel had not agreed to the case, the ICJ approach circumvents the Oslo process, and the information available to the court was one-sided. Additionally, Zambia struck a cautious tone, supporting a two-state solution but also saying that a solution should not "squarely blame one party."The deep opposition to U.S. and Israeli positions was not just confined to the Global South. Most core U.S. allies in the Global North were also opposed. For example, France argued that Israel's settlements in Palestine are illegal. France also asked the court to render an opinion on the extent to which the Palestinians have suffered damages, and asked that the court consider how much restitution or compensation is appropriate for the damages suffered by Palestinians under Israeli occupation.Even the United Kingdom — the lone core U.S. ally aligned with American and Israeli positions in the case — called out Israel's occupation. The country's representative stated that although the UK opposes ICJ jurisdiction in this case, in part because the scope of a fact-finding mission would be too broad in the context of an ongoing conflict, Israel's continued and expanding occupation of Palestine is illegal under international law.China and Russia, the two great power rivals of the United States, both supported the majority opinion, arguing in favor of the ICJ's jurisdiction in the case and against Israel's occupation of Palestine.This comes as growing security, economic, and political ties are being formed by the Chinese and Russians with states across the Global South. The Russian mercenary group known as the Wagner Group — recently rebranded as Africa Corps — has tapped into strong anti-Western sentiment to form military and security ties with states across central and west Africa, largely replacing unpopular and outdated U.S. and French security projects in the area. Meanwhile, China continues to promote its Belt and Road Initiative globally, connecting with countries across the world, claiming to meet their economic demands and support development projects. China and Russia's positions against the Israeli occupation of Palestine have only hardened in recent months.Both China and Russia are also leading members of BRICS, in which they are in a de facto coalition with leading middle powers of the Global South looking to plug existing and major gaps in the current international system as well as prominently project their voice on the global stage.Washington's isolation on Palestine may not have mattered much if we were still in a unipolar world. But with relative power slowly diffusing away from Washington, the United States may benefit from shifting its policies and bridging its position with the rest of the world on the highly emotive issue of Palestine that is causing enormous human suffering and already beginning to destabilize the wider region.

To be clear, my time in Europe is not over, and Mrs. Spew has a few more days, but Berlin is, well, home enough for me that tomorrow I will be returning to my apartment and my normal.  I will still be doing a heap of tourism but now as tour guide for my wife and my sister and her boyfriend.  So, I will just highlight some stuff we saw the past few days here in Lombardy (which reminds me that Italy is the country that gave us irredenta as a word!) and then some thoughts about intra-Italy contrasts before moving onto some thoughts about the trip as a whole.I made a fun mistake--we ended staying in a very nice hostel rather than a hotel.  Not a huge mistake as it worked out fine, but the Hilton (and its points) nearby was actually not that much more expensive.  It would have meant a larger elevator, perhaps slightly older neighbors, and, perhaps we wouldn't have roomed with Molly Mosquito.  We bought a package of transportation/museum tickets/etc, but couldn't really get the metro part of that to work for us.  But Milan has some turnstiles where you can just tap your credit cards.  Once we figured that out, the metro was a breeze.  We were deterred from the trams (bigger, uglier, slower than those in Erfurt) as I was not sure how to pay.  The package did pay off for getting us into the Duomo (but only the stairs to the terrace, which meant not for us), the fortress, and the Ambrosian Library.The Duomo lift situation reminded of how the Church did and does perpetuate inequality.  Three ways to get to the top--stairs for those who pay a bit extra, elevator for those who pay more than that, and then an express elevator for those who yet more.  No line for the last one, of course.  Whenever I see cathedrals, I always think about how they exploited the peasants to make them.  But to be fair, these projects involved a lot of jobs for a long time (several hundred years in this case).  On the other other hand, sculptors made lots of Saint Lucy statues since she is the patron saint of the bline, and carving marble .... was not good for one's eyes.  I have a question: are sculptures in cathredals normally this violent?  I can't recall anything like this.  What is this scene depicting?  In the museum next to the Duomo, they had a bunch of statues that are no longer in the cathedral, mostly for preservation/safety reasons.  Lots and lots of Abraham nearly smiting his son--which is one of the key points in my religious education which led me to being pretty hostile to religion.       The fortress, designed by Leo Da V, was pretty amazing.  Just a beautiful structure that seemed impossible to attack.  Not sure it was ever successfully attacked.  Too much art inside to get into the history.  Museum for musical instruments, museum for furniture, plenty displays of glass and ceramics, etc.  Most impressive.  But our fave museum in Milan was the Ambrosian Museum--it had a lot of incredible displays.  My faves were an exhibition where they gave artists moleskin notebooks and they went to town on them in many different ways;  the Raphael drawing that serves as guide to the Philosopher's football meeting; and Da Vinci's own notebooks.  It was very cool to see his own handwriting.    Because we couldn't make reservations for the big museums for our first day in Milan, we headed off to Como to see lake and mountains and George or the Smiths.  And, yes, Como is beautiful--lake and mountains and the buildings all make it a special place.  We didn't have time to either use the funicular (can't spell it without fun) or rent a boat or take a ferry.  But we did have time to walk around, people watch, and check out the area.   The food, including the gelato, was terrific.  I had a great calzone in Como, had some wonderful pasta in Milan, and had an amazing sandwich with the freshest foccacia bread just off a canal in the Navigli area--the Venice of Milan.  Hmm, how many Venices of have I been to?  Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Stockholm, ... am I missing any?  I only repeated gelato flavors once--coffee!  Milan vs Venice: Milan has some amazing museums, and we didn't really get a taste of that in Venice.  Venice has a heap more beautiful sights, but damn it is crowded outside of peak season.  Milan was far easier to walk with only bridges/canals in Navigli.  The food was amazing in both.  Milan was not quite the tourist trap that Venice is.  Venice had Murano and Burano, and I guess we could have tried to see some other parts.  I am glad we did both.Northern Italy vs my memories of southern Italy: I spent one overnight in Naples in 2001 on my way to Bosnia, and my other Italian experience was Rome/Florence in 1987.  I remember the roads/the walking to be far more chaotic and, um, thrilling in the south than in the north. While we saw some old stuff here in Milan and in Venice, well, it doesn't get much older than Rome (except my trip to Jerusalem 5 years ago).  The food?  My palate has changed a lot and I am willing to pay much more now (not traveling on $25/day max anymore) so I can't make any comparisons.  I didn't get food poisoned this time, so there's that!  Much more English this time, which is no surprise.  Navigating via google maps made things far easier this time--to use the metro system, to get to the sights, to navigate the alleys of Venice, to find excellent restaurants, and only get gelato at places rated 4.5 or higher.Overall, how would I rank the places we visited over the past ten days?  Venice.  Just too pretty, too much fun.  Points off for not letting us into their castle.Erfurt. Small and sweet and I knew it complete. Kept up our castle streak nicely with its citadel.Dresden.  Its old town is spectacular--huge buildings of all different kinds of shapes and histories, nicely positioned on the Elbe (fun to be on the river that divided Soviet and western forces at the end of the war).  Bumps up with the Schloss nearby that we enjoyed so much.  We had our best German food here--a German tapas place if I remember correctly.Nuremberg.  The rise and fall of Nazis in one place with site of rallies and the trials plus a really cool castle.  Some great food.Milan.  Only this far down the list because the other places were that special.  Definitely gets points for a fantastic Da Vinci designed castle, terrific food (the last dinner's service had much to be desired).  Points off for Mosquito Molly.  Leipzig.  It was ok, didn't knock our socks off.And yes, between the German heavy food of Franconia and the gelato of Italy, I blew my diet bigtime.  Hopefully my lack of treadmilling was offset by all the walking.I will be spending another three months in Berlin next winter/spring for the second half of the Humboldt Award, again at the Hertie School.  Where will I wander next time?  The Italian Alps are calling--good snow and better food than the Austrian Alps.  Maybe Greece, maybe some part of the Balkans, depends on a variety of things including the possibility of traveling with my daughter.  Anyhow, as always, I am so lucky.  I was very frustrated with my career at the start and for some time, but I have been in a good place in spirit and physically for quite some time.  I do have a plan for the next sabbatical in seven years.  Hopefully, it can come into fruition as well as this one. 

On a picturesque beach in central Gaza, a mile north of the now-flattened Al-Shati refugee camp, long black pipes snake through hills of white sand before disappearing underground. An image released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shows dozens of soldiers laying pipelines and what appear to be mobile pumping stations that are to take water from the Mediterranean Sea and hose it into underground tunnels. The plan, according to various reports, is to flood the vast network of underground shafts and tunnels Hamas has reportedly built and used to carry out its operations. "I won't talk about specifics, but they include explosives to destroy and other means to prevent Hamas operatives from using the tunnels to harm our soldiers," said IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi. "[Any] means which give us an advantage over the enemy that [uses the tunnels], deprives it of this asset, is a means that we are evaluating using. This is a good idea…"While Israel is already test-running its flood strategy, it's not the first time Hamas's tunnels have been subjected to sabotage by seawater. In 2013, neighboring Egypt began flooding Hamas-controlled tunnels that were allegedly being used to smuggle goods between the country's Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. For more than two years, water from the Mediterranean was flushed into the tunnel system, wreaking havoc on Gaza's environment. Groundwater supplies were quickly polluted with salt brine and, as a result, the dirt became saturated and unstable, causing the ground to collapse and killing numerous people. Once fertile agricultural fields were transformed into salinated pits of mud, and clean drinking water, already in short supply in Gaza, was further degraded.Israel's current strategy to drown Hamas's tunnels will no doubt cause similar, irreparable damage. "It is important to keep in mind," warns Juliane Schillinger, a researcher at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, "that we are not just talking about water with a high salt content here — seawater along the Mediterranean coast is also polluted with untreated wastewater, which is continuously discharged into the Mediterranean from Gaza's dysfunctional sewage system."This, of course, appears to be part of a broader Israeli objective — not just to dismantle Hamas's military capabilities but to further degrade and destroy Gaza's imperiled aquifers (already polluted with sewage that's leaked from dilapidated pipes). Israeli officials have openly admitted their goal is to ensure that Gaza will be an unlivable place once they end their merciless military campaign."We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly," Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said shortly after the Hamas attack of October 7th. "We will eliminate everything — they will regret it."And Israel is now keeping its promise.As if its indiscriminate bombing, which has already damaged or destroyed up to 70% of all homes in Gaza, weren't enough, filling those tunnels with polluted water will ensure that some of the remaining residential buildings will suffer structural problems, too. And if the ground is weak and insecure, Palestinians will have trouble rebuilding.Flooding tunnels with polluted groundwater "will cause an accumulation of salt and the collapse of the soil, leading to the demolition of thousands of Palestinian homes in the densely populated strip," says Abdel-Rahman al-Tamimi, director of the Palestinian Hydrologists Group, the largest NGO monitoring pollution in the Palestinian territories. His conclusion couldn't be more stunning: "The Gaza Strip will become a depopulated area, and it will take about 100 years to get rid of the environmental effects of this war."In other words, as al-Tamimi points out, Israel is now "killing the environment." And in many ways, it all started with the destruction of Palestine's lush olive groves.Olives No MoreDuring an average year, Gaza once produced more than 5,000 tons of olive oil from more than 40,000 trees. The fall harvest in October and November was long a celebratory season for thousands of Palestinians. Families and friends sang, shared meals, and gathered in the groves to celebrate under ancient trees, which symbolized "peace, hope, and sustenance." It was an important tradition, a deep connection both to the land and to a vital economic resource. Last year, olive crops accounted for more than 10% of the Gazan economy, a total of $30 million.Of course, since October 7th, harvesting has ceased. Israel's scorched earth tactics have instead ensured the destruction of countless olive groves. Satellite images released in early December affirm that 22% of Gaza's agricultural land, including countless olive orchards, has been completely destroyed."We are heartbroken over our crops, which we cannot reach," explains Ahmed Qudeih, a farmer from Khuza, a town in the Southern Gaza Strip. "We can't irrigate or observe our land or take care of it. After every devastating war, we pay thousands of shekels to ensure the quality of our crops and to make our soil suitable again for agriculture."Israel's relentless military thrashing of Gaza has taken an unfathomable toll on human life (more than 22,000 dead, including significant numbers of women and children, and thousands more bodies believed to be buried under the rubble and so uncountable). And consider this latest round of horror just a particularly grim continuation of a 75-year campaign to eviscerate the Palestinian cultural heritage. Since 1967, Israel has uprooted more than 800,000 native Palestinian olive trees, sometimes to make way for new illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank; in other instances, out of alleged security concerns, or from pure, visceral Zionist rage.Wild groves of olive trees have been harvested by inhabitants of the region for thousands of years, dating back to the Chalcolithic period in the Levant (4,300-3,300 BCE), and the razing of such groves has had calamitous environmental consequences. "[The] removal of trees is directly linked to irreversible climate change, soil erosion, and a reduction in crops," according to a 2023 Yale Review of International Studies report. "The perennial, woody bark acts as a carbon sink … [an] olive tree absorbs 11 kg of CO2 per liter of olive oil produced."Besides providing a harvestable crop and cultural value, olive groves are vital to Palestine's ecosystem. Numerous bird species, including the Eurasian Jay, Green Finch, Hooded Crow, Masked Shrike, Palestine Sunbird, and Sardinian Warbler rely on the biodiversity provided by Palestine's wild trees, six species of which are often found in native olive groves: the Aleppo pine, almond, olive, Palestine buckhorn, piny hawthorne, and fig.As Simon Awad and Omar Attum wrote in a 2017 issue of the Jordan Journal of Natural History:"[Olive] groves in Palestine could be considered cultural landscapes or be designated as globally important agricultural systems because of the combination of their biodiversity, cultural, and economic values. The biodiversity value of historic olive groves has been recognized in other parts of the Mediterranean, with some proposing these areas should receive protection because they are habitat used by some rare and threatened species and are important in maintaining regional biodiversity."An ancient, native olive tree should be considered a testament to the very existence of Palestinians and their struggle for freedom. With its thick spiraling trunk, the olive tree stands as a cautionary tale to Israel, not because of the fruit it bears, but because of the stories its roots hold of a scarred landscape and a battered people that have been callously and relentlessly besieged for more than 75 years.White Phosphorus and Bombs, Bombs, and More BombsWhile contaminating aquifers and uprooting olive groves, Israel is now also poisoning Gaza from above. Numerous videos analyzed by Amnesty International and confirmed by the Washington Post display footage of flares and plumes of white phosphorus raining down on densely populated urban areas. First used on World War I battlefields to provide cover for troop movements, white phosphorus is known to be toxic and dangerous to human health. Dropping it on urban environments is now considered illegal under international law, and Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth. "Any time that white phosphorus is used in crowded civilian areas, it poses a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering," says Lama Fakih, director for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch (HRW).While white phosphorus is highly toxic to humans, significant concentrations of it also have deleterious effects on plants and animals. It can disrupt soil composition, making it too acidic to grow crops. And that's just one part of the mountain of munitions Israel has fired at Gaza over the past three months. The war (if you can call such an asymmetrical assault a "war") has been the deadliest and most destructive in recent memory, by some estimates at least as bad as the Allied bombing of Germany during World War II, which annihilated 60 German cities and killed an estimated half-million people.Like the Allied forces of World War II, Israel is killing indiscriminately. Of the 29,000 air-to-surface munitions fired, 40% have been unguided bombs dropped on crowded residential areas. The U.N. estimates that, as of late December, 70% of all schools in Gaza, many of which served as shelters for Palestinians fleeing Israel's onslaught, had been severely damaged. Hundreds of mosques and churches have also been struck and 70% of Gaza's 36 hospitals have been hit and are no longer functioning.A War That Exceeds All Predictions"Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history," claims Robert Pape, a historian at the University of Chicago. "It now sits comfortably in the top quartile of the most devastating bombing campaigns ever."It's still difficult to grasp the toll being inflicted, day by day, week by week, not just on Gaza's infrastructure and civilian life but on its environment as well. Each building that explodes leaves a lingering cloud of toxic dust and climate-warming vapors. "In conflict-affected areas, the detonation of explosives can release significant amounts of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter," says Dr. Erum Zahir, a chemistry professor at the University of Karachi.Dust from the collapsed World Trade Center towers on 9/11 ravaged first responders. A 2020 study found that rescuers were "41 percent more likely to develop leukemia than other individuals." Some 10,000 New Yorkers suffered short-term health ailments following the attack, and it took a year for air quality in Lower Manhattan to return to pre-9/11 levels.While it's impossible to analyze all of the impacts of Israel's nonstop bombing, it's safe to assume that the ongoing leveling of Gaza will have far worse effects than 9/11 had on New York City. Nasreen Tamimi, head of the Palestinian Environmental Quality Authority, believes that an environmental assessment of Gaza now would "exceed all predictions."Central to the dilemma that faced Palestinians in Gaza, even before October 7th, was access to clean drinking water and it's only been horrifically exacerbated by Israel's nonstop bombardment. A 2019 report by UNICEF noted that "96 percent of water from Gaza's sole aquifer is unfit for human consumption."Intermittent electricity, a direct result of Israel's blockade, has also damaged Gaza's sanitation facilities, leading to increased groundwater contamination, which has, in turn, led to various infections and massive outbreaks of preventable waterborne diseases. According to HRW, Israel is using a lack of food and drinking water as a tool of warfare, which many international observers argue is a form of collective punishment — a war crime of the first order. Israeli forces have intentionally destroyed farmland and bombed water and sanitation facilities in what certainly seems like an effort to make Gaza all too literally unlivable."I have to walk three kilometers to get one gallon [of water]," 30-year-old Marwan told HRW. Along with hundreds of thousands of other Gazans, Marwan fled to the south with his pregnant wife and two children in early November. "And there is no food. If we are able to find food, it is canned food. Not all of us are eating well."In the south of Gaza, near the overcrowded city of Khan Younis, raw sewage flows through the streets as sanitation services have ceased operation. In the southern town of Rafah, where so many Gazans have fled, conditions are beyond dire. Makeshift U.N. hospitals are overwhelmed, food and water are in short supply, and starvation is significantly on the rise. In late December, the World Health Organization (WHO) documented more than 100,000 cases of diarrhea and 150,000 respiratory infections in a Gazan population of about 2.3 million. And those numbers are likely massive undercounts and will undoubtedly increase as Israel's offensive drags on, having already displaced 1.9 million people, or more than 85% of the population, half of whom are now facing starvation, according to the U.N."For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza's population of food and water, a policy spurred on or endorsed by high-ranking Israeli officials and reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare," reports Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch.Rarely, if ever, have the perpetrators of mass murder (reportedly now afraid of South Africa's filing at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, accusing Israel of genocide) so plainly laid out their cruel intentions. As Israeli President Isaac Herzog put it in a callous attempt to justify the atrocities now being faced by Palestinian civilians, "It's an entire nation out there that is responsible [for October 7th]. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it's absolutely not true. They could've risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime."The violence inflicted on Palestinians by an Israel backed so strikingly by President Biden and his foreign policy team is unlike anything we had previously witnessed in more or less real-time in the media and on social media. Gaza, its people, and the lands that have sustained them for centuries are being desecrated and transformed into an all too unlivable hellscape, the impact of which will be felt — it's a guarantee — for generations to come.This article has been republished with permission from TomDispatch.

 How it Started/How it is goingThe final episode of Better Call Saul is not just a finale to the series but to the entire Breaking Bad multiverse (to use the parlance of our times). While the first half of the season dealt with Better Call Saul as a separate show from Breaking Bad, dealing with the fates of characters such as Ignacio and Lalo who are named but never appear in the latter, the second half returns to its status as prequel and sequel. This is not just because of the appearances by Walt, Jesse, and Marie Schrader, but because it returns to the fundamental question of both shows and that is personal change and transformation. Was Jimmy always Saul dovetails with the question was Walt always Heisenberg. Or, as Chuck put it, can people really change?Breaking Bad famously ended with a negative answer to that question, with Walt's confession to Skyler that he enjoyed every minute of being Heisenberg, that the power was always his dream. It initially seems very much that Better Call Saul is going in the same direction. Twice during the episode Saul brings up the hypothetical situation of a time machine, once to Mike and once to Walt, to ask them what they would go back to and change. Mike uses the question to rewrite his entire life story, to never take a bribe as a cop and thus never become the drug enforcer out in the desert with a sniper rifle. Saul, however, seems free of regret in both conversations. When talking with Mike in the desert he does not want to go back and change the actions that caused the death of his brother, and when talking with Walt in a flashback to the basement of the vacuum cleaner supply he does not want to go back and change the actions that led to the death of Howard. He only wants more money and to save his bad knee from his life as Slippin' Jimmy. To the latter Walt replies, "So, you have always been like this," stressing, as Chuck did, the continuity of Slippin' Jimmy the conman and Saul Goodman the lawyer. Walt's answer to the time machine question returns the show to its subtext, the intersection of change, of personal change, and class transformation, with the idea that a person could change their class status, what Chantal Jaquet calls non-reproduction or transclass. Jaquet's concept of non-reproduction cuts between two different discourses on class and class reproduction. On the one side there are the various theories of social reproduction, from Bourdieu to Althusser who focus on the mechanisms, social, political, and ideological that reproduce the relations of production, keeping people in their class position. The sons and daughters of bodega owners end up owning their own bodega while the sons and daughters of partners at law firms can one day make partner. On the other side there are the various ideals, or even ideologies, that claim that anyone can make it, can pull themselves by their bootstraps and transform their class position. These two discourses are divided as much by their respective anthropologies as their politics. Reproduction, the reproduction of the relations of production, is understood to be the effect of multiple causes, economic, ideological, familial, while non-reproduction is generally attributed to the univocal and ahistorical effect of the will, ambition, or some other such attribute. As much as the side of non-reproduction is undermined at the level of theory, offering little more than homilies to the undaunted human spirit, it does have a case for itself at the level of experience: people do transcend their class position. This is the challenge of Jaquet's concept of tranclass, to think non-reproduction not as the effect of some individual agency or will, but as itself produced in and through the multiple determinations of reproduction. The multiplicity of causes that reproduce the social order, material, affective, imaginary, ideological, do not just reinforce it, but in their multiplicity there is also potential discord in their common score. The school, for example, can be as much a site of nonreproduction, of exposure to a different norms, habits, and ideas, as it is an institution of reproduction of the social order. Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul can be understood to produce their own particular perspectives on non-reproduction, its conditions, possibility and limits. Class transformation or its failure, Walter's failure to fit in amongst his upper class classmates and Chuck's success at becoming partner, are generally alluded to more than presented, they are more backdrop than narrative. What we get in its place is a far more spectacular, and one could argue entertaining, transformation of a chemistry teacher into a drug kingpin as well as that of a former conman turned mail clerk into a corrupt lawyer.Walt's answer to the time machine question, that he would go back and stay on as partner to Gray Matter make his money legitimately, reveals both the identity and non-identity of Walt and Heisenberg. It was always about money, and the power connected to money and thus Walt was always Heisenberg, but also that Heisenberg is a return of Walt's fantasies of class transformation, of becoming a member of the "upper class" of someone who drives something better than an Aztec and does not have to worry about such mundane things as water heater issues (also referenced in the final episode). Saul does not mention Chuck, or his own attempts to lift himself by the bootstraps in the mailroom of Hamlin, Hamlin, and McGill to become James McGill, Esquire in his conversation with Walt, but we do get a flashback to Chuck. In that flashback we are reminded that Chuck has successfully transformed himself from the son of a bodega owner from Cicero, Illinois to a law partner who reads the Financial Times. The flashback also shows us what Jimmy ultimately says about his relation with his brother, that his attempt to destroy him, to take away the one thing he loved, practicing the law, was in part a product of their failed relationship, of a failure to connect. We also see a different side of Chuck, one that we might have forgotten, not the Chuck that insists that "people don't change." that Jimmy will always be Slippin' Jimmy, but the Chuck that wanted a connection with his brother, a Chuck that in his own way appreciated his brother's efforts or at least was willing to discuss his cases with him. As befitting a show about a lawyer, Better Call Saul's closing arguments about change and transformation happen in a court room. We see Saul/Jimmy give two different version of the common narrative that connects Walt/Heisenberg and Jimmy/Saul, two different summations of the intertwined plots of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. The first, delivered before a federal prosecutor is a lie, a con, Saul tells the story of a man who was terrified of Walt, who did everything out of fear, a story that only he can tell because he knows about the bodies. The point of this story is not to convince the prosecutor, not to argue for leniency, but to demonstrate what he, Saul, is a capable of, that the same story could convince a jury to change their mind, and he only needs one juror. The scam works. Saul is offered an incredibly light sentence of seven years to be severed in the poshest prison in the Federal system, the one for the likes of Bernie Madoff. Saul too would successfully make the change to become a member of the upper class even if it is just as a white collar criminal.Saul cannot leave it at that, and in his last push to prove that he has won, that he cannot be beaten (and to score some good ice cream) he learns that Kim has come clean, confessed her involvement in the destruction and death of Howard Hamlin. This leads to a second retelling of the narrative. In the courtroom Saul tells a different story of his involvement with Heisenberg, not the story of a man afraid of a vicious criminal enterprise, but of a man driven by desire, by greed. As with the earlier telling this story is said to the judge but she is not the intended audience. His confession is meant for Kim who is in the courtroom. The first audience, the judge, restores his sentence to eighty six years, while the latter, Kim, makes possible his forgiveness and his transformation back to Jimmy. In an odd Möbius like twist Saul is never more Saul when he claims to be Jimmy, when he tells the story of being frightened by Heisenberg it is all a con, but he finally becomes Jimmy when he narrates his life as Saul, when he claims to be the immoral monster of greed that everyone thinks he has been all along. He is Saul when he claims to be Jimmy and finally becomes Jimmy again when he tells his life story in the character of Saul with all of the bravado and ego one would expect. Jimmy/Saul lives out the last of his life in a federal prison, and not the one reserved for the likes of Madoff. He has not entirely shed the multicolor skin of Saul, and to some extent his Saul skin protects him. There are a lot of people in federal prison with fond memories of the "criminal lawyer." He is visited by Kim, and thus in some sense redeemed. The relation with Kim sets up one last parallel. We see a long montage of Kim's post Saul life in Florida, maintaining the website of a irrigation supply company, eating tuna salad, and discussing office gossip, it is the blandest life possible right down to the sex with a man who says "Yep" while climaxing as if he is discussing mayonnaise. These scenes, shot in the black and white that washout the color of Gene's life in Omaha remind us that there are other ways of being confined than a federal penitentiary. What is doing time in a prison compared to doing time in a cubicle. To quote J Church, "Prison guards are our daily banalities." Breaking Bad ended with two nightmare versions of life in contemporary capitalism, Walt's impoverished retirement into poverty and exile in New Hampshire and Jesse being forced to work, Better Call Saul also ends with two images of straight life, one in prison and one in Florida, but who is to say which is worse. This parallel undermines the moralism of the final episode. Kim was right, the real thing that one has to break bad from is a life spent in work. Breaking out of that world is something no confession, no con, can get you free from. 

Cass Sunstein has a lovely New York Times essay that tries to give us back the word "Liberal." I hope it works. "Liberal" from "Libertas" means, at bottom, freedom. In the 19th century, "liberals" were devoted to personal, economic, and increasing social freedom from government restraint.  "Conservatives" wanted to maintain aristocratic privileges, and government interventions in the traditional way of doing things. The debate was not so obvious. Conservatives defended their view of aristocratic power in a noblesse-oblige concern for little people that the unfettered free market might leave behind, in a way quite  reminiscent of today's elites who think they should run the government in the name of the downtrodden (or "nudge" them, if I can poke a little fun at Sunstein's earlier work). But by the 1970s, the labels had flipped. "Liberals" were advocates of big-state interventionism, in a big tent that included communists and marxists. It became a synonym of "left." "Conservatives" became a strange  alliance of free market economics and social conservatism. The word "classical liberal" or "libertarian" started to be used to refer to heirs of the enlightenment "liberal" tradition, broadly emphasizing individual liberty and limited rule of law government in both economic and social spheres. But broadly, "liberal" came to mean more government intervention and Democrat, while "conservative" came to mean less state intervention and Republican, at least in rhetoric.  But a new force has come to the fore. The heirs of the far-left marxists and communists are now, .. what shall we call them.. perhaps "censorious totalitarian progressives." Sunstein calls them "post liberals." The old alliance between center-left and far left is tearing apart, and Oct 7 was a wake up call for many who had skated over the division. Largely, then, I read Sunstein's article as a declaration of divorce. They are not us, they are not "liberals." And many of you who call yourselves "conservatives," "free marketers" or even "libertarians" should join us to fight the forces of illiberalism left and right, even if by now you probably completely gave up on the New York Times and read the Free Press instead. Rhetoric: Sunstein is brilliantly misleading. He writes what liberalism "is" or what liberals "believe," as if the word were already defined his way. It is not, and the second part of this post quotes another NYT essay with a quite different conception of "liberal." This is an essay about what liberal should mean. I salute that. It's interesting that Sunstein wants to rescue the traditional meaning of "liberal," rather than shade words in current use. "Classical liberal," is mostly the same thing, but currently shades a bit more free market than he'd like. "Neoliberal" is an insult but really describes most of his views. People have turned insults around to proud self-identifiers before.   "Libertarian," probably has less room for the state and conservativism than Sunstein, and most people confuse "libertarian" with "anarchist." It's interesting he never mentions the word. Well, let's rescue "liberal." Here are some excerpts of Sunstein's 37 theses. I reorganized  into topics. What is "liberalism"? 1. Liberals believe in six things: freedom, human rights, pluralism, security, the rule of law and democracy....6. The rule of law is central to liberalism. ...It calls for law that is prospective, allowing people to plan, rather than retroactive, defeating people's expectations. It requires conformity between law on the books and law in the world. It calls for rights to a hearing (due process of law)....Liberalism requires law evenly applied, not "show me the man, and I'll find the crime." It requires a legal system in which each of us is not guilty of "Three Felonies a Day," unprotected unless we are trouble to those in power. 10. Liberals believe that freedom of speech is essential to self-government....11. Liberals connect their opposition to censorship to their commitment to free and fair elections, which cannot exist if people are unable to speak as they wish. ...They agree with ... "the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate."   It's freedom, individual dignity, equality before the law and the state. Economics On economic matters, "liberalism" starts with the basic values of the laissez-faire tradition, because the right to transact freely is one of the most basic freedoms there is:15. Liberals prize free markets, insisting that they provide an important means by which people exercise their agency. Liberals abhor monopolies, public or private, on the ground that they are highly likely to compromise freedom and reduce economic growth. At the same time, liberals know that unregulated markets can fail, such as when workers or consumers lack information or when consumption of energy produces environmental harm.On the latter point, Sunstein later acknowledges room for a variety of opinion on just how effective government remedies are for such "failures" of "unregulated markets." I'm a free marketer not because markets are perfect but because governments are usually worse. A point we can respectfully debate with fact and logic.16. Liberals believe in the right to private property. But nothing in liberalism forbids a progressive income tax or is inconsistent with large-scale redistribution from rich to poor. Liberals can and do disagree about the progressive income tax and on whether and when redistribution is a good idea. Many liberals admire Lyndon Johnson's Great Society; many liberals do not.I endorse this as well, which you may find surprising. Economics really has nothing to say about non-distorting transfers. Economists can only point out incentives, and disincentives. Redistribution tends to come with bad incentives. "Liberals" can and do argue about how bad the disincentives are, and if the purported benefits of redistribution are worth it. Cass allows liberals (formerly "conservatives") who "do not" admire extensive federal government social programs, because of their disincentives. Me.17. Many liberals are enthusiastic about the contemporary administrative state; many liberals reject itI also agree. I'm one of those who largely rejects it, but it's a matter of degree on disincentives, government competence, and the severity of the problems being addressed. "Liberals" can productively debate this matter of degree.  Liberalism is a framework for debate, not an answer to these economic questions. Integrating ConservativismIntegrating "conservative" into "liberal" is one of Sunstein's charms, and I agree. He is also trying to find a common ground in the "center," that tussles gently on the size of government while respecting America's founding enlightenment values, and unites many across the current partisan divide. 2...Those who consider themselves to be leftists may or may not qualify as liberals. You can be, at once, a liberal, as understood here, and a conservative; you can be a leftist and illiberal. 22. A liberal might think that Ronald Reagan was a great president and that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an abomination; a liberal might think that Roosevelt was a great president and that Reagan was an abomination.   "Conserativism" properly means conserving many of the traditions of our society, rather than burning it down once a generation striving for utopia, and having it dissolve into tyranny. Sunstein's "liberalism" is conservative 24. Liberals favor and recognize the need for a robust civil society, including a wide range of private associations that may include people who do not embrace liberalism. They believe in the importance of social norms, including norms of civility, considerateness, charity and self-restraint. They do not want to censor any antiliberals or postliberals, even though some antiliberals or postliberals would not return the favor. On this count, they turn the other cheek. Liberals have antiliberal and postliberal friends.26. .. if people want the government to act in illiberal ways — by, for example, censoring speech, violating the rights of religious believers, preventing certain people from voting, entrenching racial inequality, taking private property without just compensation, mandating a particular kind of prayer in schools or endorsing a particular set of religious convictions — liberals will stand in opposition.The latter includes, finally, a bit of trends on the right that "liberals" do not approve of, and they don't. 28. Some people (mostly on the right) think that liberals oppose traditions or treat traditions cavalierly and that liberalism should be rejected for that reason. In their view, liberals are disrespectful of traditions and want to destroy them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consider just a few inherited ideals, norms and concepts that liberals have defended, often successfully, in the face of focused attack for decades: republican self-government; checks and balances; freedom of speech; freedom of religion; freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; due process of law; equal protection; private property.29. Liberals do not think it adequate to say that an ideal has been in place for a long time. As Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. put it: "It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past." Still, liberals agree that if an ideal has been with us for a long time, there might be a lot to say in its favor.A lover of freedom can also admire rule of law, tradition, and custom. Why do we have private property? A illiberal, like many college students fresh to the world, might start from basic philosophical principles, and state that all of the earth's bounty should be shared equally, and head out to the ramparts to seize power. As a philosophical principle, it can sound reasonable. But our society and its laws, traditions, and customs, has thousands of years of experience built up. A village had common fields. People over-grazed them. Putting up fences and allocating rights led to a more prosperous village. The tradition of property rights, and their quite detailed specification and limitation that evolved in our common law, responding to this experience,  along with well-educated citizens' conception of right and virtue, the moral sense of property right that they learn from their forebears, can summarize thousands of years of history, without us needing to remember each case. This thought is what led me in the past to characterize myself as an empirical, conservative, rule-of-law, constitutional and pax-Americana (save that one for later) libertarian, back when the word "liberal" meant something else. But, as Holmes points out, a vibrant society must see that some of this laws and traditions are wrong, or ineffective, and thoughtfully reform them. Property rights once extended to people, after all. Most of all, the 1970s "liberal" but now  "illiberal" view has been that government defines the purpose and meaning of life and society, be it religious purity, socialist utopia, or now the vanguard of the elite ruling on behalf of the pyramid of intersectional victimization. The role of the government is to mold society to that quest. "Conservatives" have thought that the purpose of life and society is defined by individuals, families, churches, communities, scholars, arts, culture,  private institutions of civil society, via lively reasoned debate; society can accommodate great variety in these views,  and the government's purpose is just to enforce simple rules, and keep the debate peaceful, not to define and lead us to the promised land. I read Sunstein, correctly, to restore the word "liberal" to this later view, though it had largely drifted to the former.  Who isn't liberal? The progressive leftWho isn't a "liberal," to Sunstein? If you've been around university campuses lately, you know how much today's "progressives" ("post-liberals") have turned politics into a tribal, warlike affair. This is who Sunstein is really unhappy with, and to whom this essay is a declaration of divorce: 5. ...liberals ... do not like tribalism. ... They are uncomfortable with discussions that start, "I am an X, and you are a Y,"... Skeptical of identity politics, liberals insist that each of us has many different identities and that it is usually best to focus on the merits of issues, not on one or another identity.I would add, liberals evaluate arguments by logic and evidence, not who makes the argument. Liberals accept an enlightenment idea that anything true can be discovered and understood by anyone. Truth is not just listening to "lived experience." 18. Liberals abhor the idea that life or politics is a conflict between friends and enemies.23. Liberals think that those on the left are illiberal if they are not (for example) committed to freedom of speech and viewpoint diversity. They do not like the idea of orthodoxy, including on university campuses or social media platforms. Ad of course, 30. Liberals like laughter. They are anti-anti-laughter.Old joke from my graduate school days: "How many Berkeley marxist progressives does it take to screw in a light bulb?" Answer: "I don't think that kind of humor is appropriate." ****In case you think everyone agrees on this new definition of "liberal," the essay has a link below it to another one by Pamela Paul, "Progressives aren't liberal." Paul's essay also covers some of the history of how the word was used, but in the end uses it in a quite different way from Sunstein.  In the 1960s and 70s, the left proudly used the word in self-description. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan, who often prefaced [liberal] with a damning "tax and spend," may have been the most effective of bashers. ...Newt Gingrich's political organization GOPAC sent out a memo, "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control," urging fellow Republicans to use the word as a slur.It worked. Even Democrats began avoiding the dread label. In a presidential primary debate in 2007, Hillary Clinton called herself instead a "modern progressive." She avoided the term "liberal" again in 2016.I think Clinton was trying to position herself to the right of what "liberal" had become by 2016.  "Progressive" has come to mean something else. But I may be wrong. Never Trump conservatives tout their bona fides as liberals in the classical, 19th century sense of the word, in part to distinguish themselves from hard-right Trumpists. Others use "liberal" and "progressive" interchangeably, even as what progressivism means in practice today is often anything but liberal — or even progressive, for that matter.In the last sentence she is right. Sunstein is not, as he appears, describing a word as it is widely used today,  but a word as it is slowly becoming used, and as he would like it to be used. liberal values, many of them products of the Enlightenment, include individual liberty, freedom of speech, scientific inquiry, separation of church and state, due process, racial equality, women's rights, human rights and democracy.Here you start to think she's got the same basic big tent as Sunstein.  But not so -- this essay is testament to the enduring sense of the "liberal" word as describing the big-government left, just please not quite so insane as the campus progressives: Unlike "classical liberals" (i.e., usually conservatives), liberals do not see government as the problem, but rather as a means to help the people it serves. Liberals fiercely defend Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, the Voting Rights Act and the National Labor Relations Act. They believe government has a duty to regulate commerce for the benefit of its citizens. They tend to be suspicious of large corporations and their tendency to thwart the interests of workers and consumers.Sunstein had room for disagreement on these "fierce" defenses, or at least room for reasoned argument rather than profession of essential belief before you can enter the debate. "Tout their bona fides" above also does not have quite the reach-across-the aisle non partisan flair of Sunstein's essay. I don't think Paul welcomes never-Trump classical liberals in her tent. For Paul, the divorce between "liberal" and "progressive" is real, as for many other "liberals" since the October 7 wake up: Whereas liberals hold to a vision of racial integration, progressives have increasingly supported forms of racial distinction and separation, and demanded equity in outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Whereas most liberals want to advance equality between the sexes, many progressives seem fixated on reframing gender stereotypes as "gender identity" and denying sex differences wherever they confer rights or protections expressly for women. And whereas liberals tend to aspire toward a universalist ideal, in which diverse people come together across shared interests, progressives seem increasingly wedded to an identitarian approach that emphasizes tribalism over the attainment of common ground.It is progressives — not liberals — who argue that "speech is violence" and that words cause harm. These values are the driving force behind progressive efforts to shut down public discourse, disrupt speeches, tear down posters, censor students and deplatform those with whom they disagree.Divisions became sharper after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, when many progressives did not just express support for the Palestinian cause but, in some cases, even defended the attacks as a response to colonialism, and opposed retaliation as a form of genocide. This brings us to the most troubling characteristic of contemporary progressivism. Whereas liberals tend to pride themselves on acceptance, many progressives have applied various purity tests to others on the left, and according to one recent study on the schism between progressives and liberals, are more likely than liberals to apply public censure to divergent views. This intolerance manifests as a professed preference for avoiding others with different values, a stance entirely antithetical to liberal values.Yes. But no Republicans, please. Unlike Sunstein, Paul's "Liberalism" remains unabashedly partisan. I hope Sunstein's version of the word prevails. In any case, it is nice to see the division between the Woodstock Liberals, previously fellow travelers, from the extreme progressive left, and it is nice to see this word drift back to where it belongs. This is an optimistic post for the future of our country. Happy Thanksgiving. Update: I just ran across Tyler Cowen's Classical Liberals vs. The New Right. Excellent. And I forgot to plug my own "Understanding the Left," which I still think is a great essay though nobody seems to have read it.  

NDI's Chris Fomunyoh is once again joined by Ambassador Johnnie Carson as they discuss the steps that can be taken to strengthen democracy. They continue their conversation with their thoughts on the key challenges and opportunities facing Africa this year.
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Johnnie Carson: When female voices are not heard, the conversation is crippled, the policy is crippled, the institutions are crippled and the results are crippled.
Chris Fomunyoh: I'm Chris Fomunyoh, senior associate and regional director for Central and West Africa at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, NDI. Welcome to this edition of DemWorks.

Again we're joined by Ambassador Johnnie Carson, a proud member of the board of directors of The National Democratic Institute, NDI with a 37 year career in the U.S. Foreign Service focus on Africa. In our previous episode, you spoke about the risk of back sliding. So for this episode, we will focus on the steps that can be taken to strengthen democracy in Africa.

I'd like us to pivot a little bit to the Sahel because in Tanzania we see the back sliding that's coming from political actors themselves, but there's something happening in the Sahel, which is a region in which we see a lot of political commitment to democratic governance, whether it's from the leaders and activists in Niger Republic, in Burkina Faso and in Mali, but at the same time these countries are coming under tremendous pressure from violent extremists who are coming across the desert and destabilizing what would be an emerging democracy and what concerns do you have and how do you think organizations like NDI, like USIP and others that have the self-power expertise, so to speak can contribute to the efforts to counter violent extremism like Sahel and also the whole of Africa?

JC: Chris you're absolutely right and we should all be concerned about outside forces that can come in and destabilize a country, its politics, its economy and its society and across the Sahel we in fact see this happening. The challenges to stability, to democracy to holding free and transparent and creditable elections and having democratic systems that work, are not only challenged by sometimes authoritarian leaders seeking to maintain power and control, we also can see this emerging as a result of exogenous forces coming in from outside, and here we see non-state actors undermining stability across the Sahel, which is creating tension for democracies and tensions for states.

I think one of the things that is absolutely critical in addressing the problems with the Sahel is for government to reconnect with their citizens, to put in place the kinds of services that citizens are looking for and are demanding and expecting. They need to be responsive to the needs that they, citizens believe are not there and they have to have these connections in order to build up resilience, to build up strength against the ideologies and to the negative forces that are brought in by extremist groups.

It is extremists groups across the Sahel are taking advantage of the absence of good services and good connectivity between government and citizens and one of the things that must accompany the security response is in fact a development and government response. Security alone cannot end the problems in the Sahel. It's an important ingredient but the most important ingredient is government going in and establishing responsible connections, providing services, education, healthcare, sanitation, water cattle feeding stations and services that citizens require and are being deprived of.

So one of the things that must be hand in hand and be out front is not the military response and the security response but the governance response, the social service response and if that is absent, the security response will be deficient and will not work.

CF: In fact, I'm so thankful you say that, because I know that you and other members of our board, Secretary Albright, in particular the chair of our board, you've been emphasizing reinforcing this message about democracy and development component as part of the toolkit in conquering violent extremism and in fact, that's the approach that NDI is taking to its work in the Sahel because we currently have ongoing programs in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, and our focus, the main focus of that piece of work is on people, processes and the politics and trying to create platforms where governments can reconnect with citizens at a grassroots level.

So in a number of cases we've set up platforms where civil society with legislatures and members of the executive branch, including representatives of the security services get together regularly to figure out what the challenges are in various communities and how to foster inter-communal dialogue and better relationships between the security services and the populations that they seek to serve, because you may remember there was a UN study that said that in many of the cases where violent extremism persist, that 70% of the people who join extremist organizations, are reacting to poor performance by security services and you have paid a lot of attention to Nigerian and the whole Boko Haram phenomenon.

I don't know how this would fit into our conversation with regards to the Sahel as well.


JC: I think it also very pertinent for Nigeria, and I too have seen studies of some very distinguished organizations, Mercy Corps and others that talk about why people are recruited and indeed, the authoritarian sometimes brutal nature of security forces towards communities that they should be protecting drives individuals away from the government and into the hands of Boko Haram.

Even the origin of the current violence in Northern Nigeria has its origins in the brutal extrajudicial killing of Boko Haram's first leader in 2009. His apprehension, his questioning, his interrogation, torture and mistreatment were all recorded on someone's cellphone and became widely seen throughout the country and throughout the north. Two years later, after that event in 2009 we saw and upsurge in 2011 and the activities of Boko Haram and indeed people continued to say that the brutal nature in which the security forces sought to root out Boko Haram, in fact generated more recruits for Boko Haram than it did for support for the government's efforts.

It is absolutely critical, it's absolutely critical that security forces recognize that they have a responsibility to protect the civil liberties and the human rights of the citizens of the state that they are protecting and that the way they treat the individuals in areas that they go into, may have an impact on their ability to ultimately win the conflict, but one thinks of Nigeria and particularly of the North East and there again weak institutions of corruption of lack of social services are all playing a major part in why the conflict in that region continues.

In the north east of Nigeria particularly and the three most affected states, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. Those three states have the lowest social indicators of any of Nigeria's 36 states, less access to education, to healthcare, to water resources and to jobs and access and this all plays out as well. Governments needs to be responsive to their citizens and while a security response is important, governance and providing social services and the needs to citizens to build resilience is critical as well.

CF: This seems like a good place to take a short break. For well over 35 years NDI has been honored to work side by side with courageous and committed pro-democracy activists and leaders around the world to help contribute to develop the institutions practices and skills necessary for democracy's success.

I realize it's many countries to cover but in the few minutes that are left, I just see if you have any parting words for four countries that we haven't really focused that much on and those are Ethiopia, Kenya, The Democratic Republic of Congo and we'll exit with Cameroon. What are your thoughts?

JC: My thoughts on Ethiopia. It is absolutely essential that those of us who support a democracy and democratic progress lend all of our efforts to those of the Ethiopian government to ensure that the democratic experiment that is underway is successful. Prime Minister Abiy won the Nobel Prize for bringing about peace with Eritrea but the more important thing is that we, outside step up our effort to help him ensure that his legislative elections, this year, are successful and that we do what we can to strengthen his country's democratic progress.

He has appointed and outstanding leader, Birtukan, former opposition leader, spent many years in jail as his country's election commissioner. We need on the outside to provide the kind of technical and financial and advocacy support that she might need to put in place the architecture for running the country's elections. It will in fact be the first real serious elections in that country since the collapse of the Derg in the early 1990s. So it's important that we help do this.

Ethiopia is Africa's second most populous country behind Nigeria and it's important that we help democracy there. It's also a key and strategic state in the region bordering a number of other countries that will look to the success of what happens here. So we need to support.

Kenya, will have elections next year. It is important that there be a continuation in the improvement of the country's electoral agencies. The shadow of the flawed and failed and controversial and violent elections of 2007 and 2008 continue to be a shadow. The controversies associated with the last elections and court decisions there continue to hang over. It is important to continue to support civil society, support the electoral commission and work with the Kenyan government to ensure an outcome.

It appears very clearly that President Kenyatta wants to leave a positive legacy of progress, economically, politically and electorally. This will be a challenge but we should support the process moving forward. The features are still there.

CF: In fact, I should say before end up with the last two countries that for listeners, Ethiopia has got a parliamentary system of government. That's why the parliamentary elections are extremely important, the national elections for Ethiopia and also with regards to Kenya, as you say, President Uhuru Kenyatta would like to leave a good legacy. He's coming to the end of his second term and NDI working with partners on the continent has been very strong on the issue constitutionalism, respect for rule of law. In fact, we had a continent wide conference in Niamey, Niger Republic last October on the whole question of presidential term limits and we'll be having a second conference in Botswana in June to discuss term limits with former African heads of states and various other partners on the continent.

Just to say that, as leaders relinquish power when their terms come to an end, they help consolidate and strengthen democratic practices and institutions. So, with the two remaining countries-

JC: I applaud President Kenyatta for saying very early on that he would adhere to the constitution, he would serve two terms and step down. This is an important message for the most important country in East Africa, especially looking at the neighboring states, particularly Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda where leaders there have found ways to extend themselves in office. He recognizes the importance of transition at the top and allowing the citizens of the country to select new leadership on a constitutional basis rather than trying to alter the constitution to eliminate term limits, age limits and perpetuate themselves in power.

So I hope others in the region are in fact looking at Kenya's model. One jumps across to West Africa and looks at President Paul Biya who's been in power for three decades, plus shows no desire whatsoever to leave office. Here is a man who has lost touch with his citizens and the communities of his country and because he has lost touch with his citizens, because there have been structural deficiencies and weaknesses and the institutions that he is responsible for, we now see a country that is suffering from three or four major political crisis, crisis with the English speaking portion of this country in the south west, the emergence of Boko Haram and radicalism across the border from Nigeria in the north west and problems of herders and farmers driven by drought and climate conditions.

President Biya has lost touch with the needs of his citizens and his government has not been responsive to anyone but himself and a small political elite. I think it is important for the international community to point out the failures and the flaws of his governance, the corruption that underpins it and to support those internally who are pushing for a constitution and political policies that fundamentally change the nature and structure of society, political architecture in society.

CF: You're so right, because that's one country that it's got tremendous potential but that it's not pulling its weight at all and because of its strategic location, invariably weakens other countries in the central Africa sub region, as well as in West Africa too and it's now taking full advantage of what could be real opportunities to improve the wellbeing of its citizens.

We'll be right back after this quick message.

And let's end with the country right in the heart of the continent, The Democratic Republic of Congo. I was in Kinshasa in October and met with political leaders and opinion leaders across the board, civil society, religious leaders who are very powerful in the Congo, very influential and I came away, I should say, a little more optimistic than I was going in. I was quite apprehensive given what has transpired in the 2018 presidential elections but after talking to the Congolese, I got a sense that a genuine attachment to reform.

Everybody wants some reforms of the political process or the electoral process and the key question is whether they are going to be able to set aside their personal agendas and actually get together to help this country, which has got tremendous resources and tremendous potential get back on its feet. I was very impressed by the fact that most of the leaders in Congo are pretty young. I know that you and I have talked about Congo for many, many times and when you were still in the administration you had to deal with some of their crisis.

I don't know what you take is on the present leadership and the present challenges but also the opportunities that present themselves in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

JC: Let me say that The Democratic Republic of the Congo has more unrealized potential than any other large state in Africa and that potential has continued to be in held in check and not realized because of the poor nature of the politics that have occurred there since the 1960s.

The 2018 elections were deeply flawed and irregular and not representative, I think, of the vote of the people. The one thing that one can say about the process that it did lead to President Kabila stepping down and a new younger president, Tshisekedi coming into power. There was immediately after the election a strong feeling that Tshisekedi was going to be instrument of Kabila going forward in that his leadership and his authority and his ability to do things would be substantially constrained. Tshisekedi has shown some degree of independence.

It is again important to recognize that there is little we can do to rerun that election or to reverse it but there is something that all of us can do going forward, and that to put pressure on President Tshisekedi to ensure that the electoral commission is strengthened, it has more independence, more technical capacity and more of an ability to deliver a more responsible, fair and transparent election going forward.

It is also important that he continue the fight against corruption, that he begin to put in place the kind of economic reforms that are going to unleash the potential of the Congo and to provide the people, The Democratic Republic of the Congo an opportunity to realize so many of the opportunities that they have been denied in the past. He has shown more independence than I thought but it is important that he not stop, that he continue to move forward, that he open up political space and continue to open it up for civil society, for the opposition, for the media, that he not constrain but unleash the country's potential and that he continue to show both in reality and fact his independence away from Kabila and those who were around him in the past.

He will be judged on the next four years very keenly, but it's important that the institutions of democracy to the extent that we can help civil society strengthen them, that they be nurtured and pushed forward. Elections and democracy...Democracy doesn't depend essentially, solely on elections. It is institutions that must be strengthened and we can help the DRC and civil society move those forward.

Again, working effectively with religions groups, Catholic Church, a very powerful instrument, working with women's groups, with working youth groups across the DRC and working with an emerging entrepreneurial class of young Congolese as well. We have to nurture and strengthen and push them forward. These next elections will be able to tell us whether there's been progress. President Tshisekedi needs to continue to move forward.

CF: Thank you very much Ambassador Johnnie Carson. It's really been an honor to have you do this tutor for us on the entire continent. Of course there still would always be ground to cover. As you were speaking, I thought about what late President John F Kennedy said about democracy as a never ending endeavor, and so NDI and similar organizations will continue to work side by side with our African partners to make sure that we can support them, give them the support and share experiences that they need so that we can all collectively, continue to work to strengthen and support democracy in countries like the DRC, Ethiopia, Sudan and across the entire continent.

Thank you also for being a member of our board of directors. We are extremely proud of that and extremely proud of the partnership that NDI has with USIP and hope that our two organizations would continue to work together to support the growth of democracy across Africa and to our listeners, can I just say thank you for sharing in this edition of DemWorks, to follow our next podcast. Please check us out on our website www.NDI.org.

Thank you for listening.


Ambassador Johnnie Carson





Peace, Security and Democratic Resilience,