2023 was the hottest year on record, besting the previous record set in 2016. With the dissipation of El Niño, a phenomenon relating to warmer-than-average waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean, there is some hope that 2024 may not be a back-to-back record-setting year. Yet that remains to be seen, as May 2024, the hottest May on record, marked 12 consecutive months of record-breaking warmth.

Scientists and meteorologists face a challenge. They have invented ominous-sounding phrases like “polar vortex,” “bomb cyclone” and “atmospheric river” to showcase extreme weather phenomena driven by global warming and climate changes. In comparison, “heat wave” sounds so tepid, so lukewarm, to talk about a phenomenon that is killing humanity by the hordes. 

Record deaths

The death toll from the record-setting heat of 2023 in the US was more than 2,300, the majority occurring in the state of Arizona. Arizona’s capital, Phoenix, sweltered in the heat for a continuous 19-day period, with practically no relief even during the nighttime, when temperatures stayed north of 32°C (90°F).  The statistics were equally staggering in Europe, where France saw more than 5,000 lives lost to the heatwave. The death toll across the European continent is expected to surpass 55,000. 

One would expect the numbers to be significantly higher in the Indian subcontinent, the world’s most populous region. However, the data presented to the Indian lower parliament, Lok Sabha, in July 2023 was 264, an unbelievably low number considering India’s harsh heatwave. 

The summer of 2024 has already resulted in hundreds of heat-related deaths in India and Saudi Arabia, where the temperatures have been reaching scorching levels. Mecca, the seat of the Hajj pilgrimage, saw temperatures rise above 52°C (125°F), where more than 1300 people have died on account of heat. New Delhi saw temperatures soar above 50°C (122°F) in May, prompting authorities to issue a red alert. In India, the peak heat season is three months before the arrival of the southwest monsoon in June. During this period, the death toll in India has topped 100, while more than 40,000 people have fallen victim to heat stroke. 

Heat, the human body and aging

Extreme heat affects human beings at many levels. At the low end is heat exhaustion, typically accompanied by headache, dizziness and sometimes fainting. A heat stroke is more severe and occurs when the body temperature goes above 39°C (103°F), resulting in cognitive dissonance, delirium and even loss of consciousness. The shift from exhaustion to stroke happens when a person stops sweating, a critical aspect in regulating the body temperature. 

Extreme heat also affects the functioning of many organs in the human body. Breathing in hot air can cause lung-related complications, accentuating asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). If accompanied by dehydration, it can impair the functioning of the kidney, resulting in renal complications. The cardiovascular system shifts into high gear, trying to regulate the internal body temperature, causing increased stress on the heart. 

The most vulnerable to heat exhaustion, heat stroke and heat-related organ failures resulting in death fall into two categories: the old and the poor. 

Nearly 75%, or about 3,700 of the 5,000 deaths in France were people aged 75 or older. Climate Central estimates more than 12,000 people die in the United States from heat-related causes, far above the 2,300 number mentioned in the Associated Press analysis of Center for Disease Control and Prevention data. Climate Central estimates more than 80% of heat victims to be over 60. 

As people age, they tend to develop chronic health conditions and their ability to tell how hot it is or how dehydrated they are also declines. Coupled with their cognitive dissonance and a less-than-optimal functioning cardiovascular system, it is no surprise that across the globe, the majority of heat victims tend to be older people.

Survival of the richest

The second demographic that bears disproportionate hardship from the heatwaves is the poor. 

Delhi is experiencing the same conditions that Phoenix did last year when the nighttime temperatures stayed dangerously high for several days. When the brutal heat of the day persists through the night, the human body has no chance to refresh and reset for a new day.  

National Public Radio (NPR) featured the tragic stories of several poor New Delhi residents living in windy conditions and being short on water while the temperatures soared to 49.5°C (121°F). Nothing can be more heartbreaking than the death of Ina Khan, a six-month-old baby who just died in her nap. The only shelter her low-income family could provide her was a blue plastic sheet over a dusty scrap of land. On that fateful day in late May, Ansar Khan pacified his crying daughter with some milk, and the family took a short nap while the unrelenting heat scorched the air around them. 

Ina Khan would never wake up from her nap. “It was all over in half an hour,” Khan told NPR.

Near the same makeshift shelter where Ina died, Salma lost her two-day-old baby to Delhi’s punishing heat. 

Salma never even got a chance to name her baby. 

Taranum, who is marginally better off than Salma or Ansar Khan’s families, said in an interview with NPR, “I can’t die. We are homeless. Who will take care of my daughters?”

Taranum considers herself fortunate compared to Salma and Khan simply because she and her three daughters have an assigned bed in a homeless shelter for women and children. 

Stories similar to Taranum, Khan or Salma are unlikely to come from someone well off and with access to running water and air-conditioned comfort. 

Each year, we are vying to break the record-setting heat of a recent one, helped by climate change, resulting in more severe heat waves occurring more frequently. A 2020 study by McKinsey forebodes a dystopic future for India, with some parts of the country becoming unlivable without air conditioning.   

In Hindi, the phrase “Roti, Kapda aur Makan” captures the bottommost section of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — food, clothing and shelter. In the face of growing inequity between the rich and the poor and impending doom, where parts of the earth may become uninhabitable without air conditioning, one has to wonder if the phrase needs to be changed to “Roti, Kapda, Makan aur Hawa,” adding air to a human’s basic need.

The safety net society offers the poor falls far short of Maslow’s basic needs today. Sadly, if that does not improve regarding real shelter from heatwaves, survival of the fittest would essentially become survival of the richest.

[Liam Roman edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Heatwaves and Humanity: The Devastating Impact on Our World appeared first on Fair Observer.

Evidently, Devi has free access to every part of the house, including the kitchen, once considered inviolable by Brahmins. Four or five decades ago, an act like this would have been utterly inconceivable. Growing up, I remember servant maids barely had permission to walk inside our home, let alone enjoy unfettered access to the kitchen. When they did come inside, it was only to sweep and mop the floor, spending the minimal amount of time necessary to accomplish those chores.

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The rest of their tasks, such as cleaning the vessels, washing the clothes and drying them on a clothesline, would be done in the backyard. Taking their sense of cleanliness to a new height, vessels cleaned by the servant maid would be rinsed once again with water untouched by the servant before they eventually found their way into the kitchen.

I couldn’t help but reflect on the dramatic shift in attitude I observed in my family, belonging to the elite Tamil Brahmin upper caste, toward Devi, belonging to one of the lower castes. Is this experience unique to me and my family? Or is it something that is a reflection of the changing times in the traditionally conservative Tamil Brahmin community?

I knew scientific evidence based on facts regarding the social change I was ruminating on would be hard to come by. But I was convinced that if I tried, I would find anecdotal evidence of this shift toward a more liberal way of life among other Tamil Brahmin — or colloquially, Tam Brahm — families.

A Liberal Infusion

Every parent desires upward mobility and better quality of life for their offspring. Not surprisingly, Tam Brahms also subscribed to the same sentiment. This quest for upward mobility among Tam Brahms resulted in a generational shift in the type of career they aimed for. Gone was their desire to secure a steady job in a bank, central government organization or, as a distant consolation prize, in a state government organization. Instead, they set their eyes on professional careers, armed with degrees in engineering or medicine. Some sought to become entrepreneurs, a rarity in the past.

Securing professional degrees did not come easy for Tam Brahm youngsters. The Tamil Nadu state’s 69% caste-based reservation system in higher educational institutions meant many had to leave the comfort of their home and their home state in pursuit of those credentials. They may have left with apprehension, but that provided them an exposure to the outside world that was erstwhile impossible in the cocooned Tam Brahm way of life.

At a recent high school reunion, I had the opportunity to meet several of my childhood friends after a gap of more than 30 years. While many had spread their wings and flown far and wide, there were few who had stayed their entire life in Madurai, the town where I spent the bulk of my childhood. Conversations rarely went beyond the friendly banter befitting a reunion among childhood friends, but there were clear indications on where one stood on the conservative-liberal divide.

 A scientific survey, had one been done, would have corroborated the following hypothesis: Those who had the opportunity to explore the outside world, especially at the defining moment immediately following high school, typically subscribed to more liberal views.

Aging and Necessity

Decades ago, living in the rural towns of Tamil Nadu, my parents were steeped in caste-based hierarchical distinctions. Being young, they had little reason to question their belief system or modify their core values. Surely, views and beliefs passed down through generations wouldn’t crumble with the nascent liberal perceptions of their youngest children? They did not.

During the phase when they were still strong and able, and I was behaving like an insufferable know-it-all, there were many occasions we simply had to agree to disagree. The shift I allude to started happening only as my parents started aging and developing a dependency on others. That shift accelerated when their primary caregivers, my older brother and sister-in-law, also entered the post-retirement phase of their life.

Most interestingly, the interactions I shared with my parents played out in a slightly modified form among my brother’s own family. Dispelling my doubts that this could be unique to my immediate circle, Purushothaman and Sathesh, two Tam Brahm friends of mine, corroborated very similar developments in their respective families.

Sathesh remarked that his mom started yielding gracefully once she realized that resistance was futile. Puru concurred, albeit, in a less colorful, non-Star Trek language, saying that his mom is not where he is (on the conservative-liberal social spectrum), but that she is far more tolerant compared to her past self.

As my mother entered her 90s, the demands on the care she needed increased. This set the perfect scenario for Devi to start playing an increasingly prominent role in the household work in order to ease the pressure on my brother and sister-in-law. It was not before the sexagenarian couple started embracing the help from their servant maid from an entirely different angle, while the nonagenarian matriarch was forced to let go of her deeply entrenched hierarchical distinctions.

Far from reluctant tolerance, Devi’s presence has found grateful acceptance among my family members.

Altruism?

In the past, Brahmins asserted their superiority by employing a variety of oppressive techniques. While many of them involved dehumanizing and stripping away the agency of those beneath them, withholding knowledge was by far the most effective technique they employed to stay on top of the caste totem pole. It is no surprise that the caste-based reservation system targets this very aspect in higher educational institutions, offering preferential treatment to a staggering number of non-Brahmin caste and communities.

This is not an article on the caste system in India, but I would unequivocally recommend “Annihilation of Caste,” a speech Dr. B. R. Ambedkar wrote in 1936, as a must-read for anyone interested in understanding this woeful practice.

In a dramatic U-turn from the behavior of withholding knowledge, it is now commonplace to see Tam Brahm households sponsoring the education of their servant maid’s children. Not only does this act guarantee upward mobility for those kids, but it also effectively reduces the supply of future maids.

I asked Puru if this isn’t akin to shooting yourself in the foot. Puru, who had sponsored the school education not just of his servant maid’s children but also that of his neighborhood vegetable vendor’s son, commented succinctly, “It is the right thing to do.”

A Glimpse Into the Future?

If I thought I am liberal in my outlook, my children effortlessly put me to shame. The extent to which their ideas challenge the social status quo is more than evolutionary. They are downright revolutionary. But that is a topic for another article.

What is important here is the concept of identity. While I still acknowledge and accept my Tam Brahm identity, to my children, it would hardly be a matter of significance. Sathesh wholeheartedly agreed, remarking that, while growing up, and even now, he was proud of his Tamil Brahmin heritage, but he sees that it makes absolutely no difference to his kids. Thinking about his older son who is a trained classical Carnatic musician, Puru chimed in, saying that despite the rigorous traditional gurukul education, his son espouses far more liberal views than him.

The reshaping of this identity has many ramifications, the most prominent one being the number of inter-cultural and inter-caste marriages involving Tam Brahms. In the last decade, we have welcomed Gujarati, Malayalam and Punjabi grooms into our family. What was once unthinkable is now so commonplace that it has found broad social acceptance.

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Tamil Brahmins, who account for less than 3% of the state’s population, may already be an endangered species as the pendulum of poetic justice swings hard to the other side. The threat to their identity from within and without causes many to lament about the future of Tam Brahms as a community. Particularly concerning is the plight of the learned priests, whose profession it is to administer and uphold the rituals and practices in Tamil Brahmin homes, temples and elsewhere.

Me? I am simply glad that my family has embraced humanity over conservative traditionalism — and hope that the anecdotal evidence I have observed in my small circle of friends and family is a harbinger of things to come.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Are Tamil Brahmins Finally Shifting Their Outlook on Caste? appeared first on Fair Observer.

At 8:45 am Eastern time, an American Airlines flight had crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. Within minutes, CNBC stopped discussing stocks and started covering the incident, which, at that moment, no one knew if it was an anomalous accident or an attack of some kind.

360° Context: How 9/11 and the War on Terror Shaped the World

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Three minutes after 9 am Eastern, as I watched incredulously at the events unfolding, I saw a United Airlines passenger aircraft fly right into the south tower of the twin towers. In under an hour, the south tower collapsed, resulting in a massive cloud of dust and smoke. By now, there was no doubt that America was under attack.

 “We will remember the moment the news came, where we were and what we were doing,” said President George W. Bush in an address to Congress on September 20. Images from that Tuesday morning are still etched in my memory, happening, as it were, just nine days after my second child was born.

In all, 2,996 people of 78 nationalities lost their lives in four coordinated attacks conducted by al-Qaeda using hijacked commercial, civilian airliners as their weapons, making 9/11 the second-biggest attack on American soil — second only to the genocidal assault on Native Americans committed by the nation’s immigrant settlers.

Operation Enduring Freedom: America’s War on Terror

Addressing the nation the following day, Bush called the attacks “more than acts of terror. They were acts of war.” He promised that “the United States of America will use all our resources to conquer this enemy.” The president went on to assure Americans that this “battle will take time and resolve, but make no mistake about it, we will win.”

Twenty years later, the US has left Afghanistan and Iraq in a chaotic mess. The question remains: Did the United States win the war on terror the Bush administration launched in 2001? This was a war that has cost more than $6.4 trillion and over 801,000 lives, according to Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

In October 2001, the US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban government that had harbored al-Qaeda. Soon after, al-Qaeda militants had been driven into hiding. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attack and leader of al-Qaeda, was killed 10 years later in a raid conducted by US forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

In a shrewd move, Bush had left himself room to take down Iraq and its president, Saddam Hussein, using an overarching definition for the war on terror. In his address to Congress on September 20, Bush also stated: “Our war on terror begins with Al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

True to his words, in 2003, the United States and its allies invaded Iraq under the premise that it possessed weapons of mass destruction. Bush settled his score with Hussein, ensuring he was captured, shamed and subsequently executed in 2006.

Despite reducing al-Qaeda to nothing and killing bin Laden, despite wrecking Iraq and having its leader executed, it is impossible to say that the US has won the war on terror. All that Washington has managed to do is to trade the Islamic State (IS) group that swept through Syria and Iraq in 2014 for al-Qaeda, giving a new identity to an old enemy. Following the US and NATO pullout from Afghanistan last month, the Taliban, whom America drove out of power in 2001, are back in the saddle. In fact, the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan has been so swift, so precise and so comprehensive that the international community is in a shock, questioning the timing and prudence of the withdrawal of troops.

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Setting an expectation for how long the war or terror was likely to last, the secretary of defense under the Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld, remarked in September 2001 that “it is not going to be over in five minutes or five months, it’ll take years.” Rumsfeld, who christened the campaign Operation Enduring Freedom, was prescient, as the war enters its third decade in a never-ending fight against terrorism.

The Winners and Losers

Ironically, Operation Enduring Freedom has only resulted in an enduring loss of American freedom, one step at a time. I still remember that I had walked up to the jet bridge and received my wife as she deplaned from a flight in 1991. Another time, when she was traveling to Boston from San Francisco, I was allowed to enter the aircraft and help her get settled with her luggage, along with our 1-year-old. It is inconceivable to be allowed to do such a thing today, and I would not be surprised if readers question the veracity of my personal experience. In many ways, al-Qaeda has succeeded in stripping Americans of the sense of freedom they have always enjoyed.

More than Americans, the biggest losers in this tragic war are Iraqis and Afghans, particularly the women. Afghan women, who had a brief respite from persecution under the Taliban’s strict Islamic laws and human rights abuses, are back to square one and justifiably terrified of their future under the new regime. The heart-wrenching scenes from Kabul airport of people trying to flee the country tell us about how Afghans view the quality of life under the Taliban and the uncertainty that the future holds. 

To its east, the delicate balance of peace — if one could characterize the situation between India and Pakistan as peaceful — is likely to be put to the test as violence from Afghanistan spreads. To its north in Tajikistan, there isn’t much love lost between Tajiks and the Taliban. Tajikistan’s president, Emomali Rahmon, has refused to recognize the Taliban government, and Tajiks have promised to join anti-Taliban militia groups, paving the way for continued unrest and violence in Central Asia.

If History Could be Rewritten

In 2001, referring to Islamist terrorists, Bush asked the rhetorical question, “Why do they hate us?” He tried to answer it in a speech to Congress: “They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”

Islamic fundamentalists couldn’t give two hoots about a form of government or a people’s way of life thousands of miles away. The real answer to Bush’s question lies deeply buried in US foreign policy. America’s steadfast support of Israel and its refusal to recognize the state of Palestine is the number one reason for it to become the target of groups like al-Qaeda and IS.

America’s ill-conceived response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 during the Cold War led to the creation of al-Qaeda. It was with US funds and support that the anti-Soviet mujahideen fought America’s proxy war with the Soviets. Without US interference, al-Qaeda may never have come into existence.

During the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, the US bolstered Saddam Hussein by backing his regime against the Iranians. When Hussein became too ambitious for America’s comfort and invaded Kuwait in 1990, George H.W. Bush engaged Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. The US motive at that time was primarily to protect its oil interests in Kuwait.

The US created its own nemesis in Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and spent $6 trillion to kill them. In the process, US leaders have reduced Iraq and Afghanistan to shambles and created a new monster in the Islamic State.

Sadly, history can never be rewritten. The US has proved time and again that its involvement in the Middle East and Muslim world is aimed at advancing its own political interests. The only question that remains is: Can the US adopt a policy that would not aggravate the situation and, over time, deescalate it, without creating yet another Hussein or bin Laden? Without a radically different approach, Operation Enduring Freedom is doomed to endure forever, costing trillions of dollars each decade.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Is Operation Enduring Freedom Doomed to Endure Forever? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Congress Adjourns While the Nation Burns

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In the gubernatorial election, Newsom polled 61.9% of the votes and thrashed his Republican opponent, John Cox, handsomely. Newsom secured more than 7.7 million votes, as opposed to the 4.7 million that Cox received.

Sadly, California is a state in which forcing a recall election is not difficult. A signed petition that adds up to 12% of the votes most recently cast for the targeted office is sufficient to get a recall election to happen. To reach that number, fewer than 1.5 million voters would need to put their names on the petition. Or, looked at another way, if 32% of the Republicans who voted for Cox were to complete a petition, Newsom’s job would be in jeopardy.

On April 26, the California secretary of state confirmed that the threshold was met. The proceedings have been set in motion, sending Californians back for a special election on September 14 to decide if Newsom is to be recalled or not.

Partisan Arguments, Specious at Best

The recall effort was launched last year with unsubstantiated partisan claims blaming the sitting governor for anything conceivable: “Unaffordable housing. Record homelessness. Rising crime. Failing schools. Independent contractors thrown out of work. Exploding pension debt. And now, a locked down population while the prisons are emptied. Hold Gavin Newsom accountable. Gavin Newsom must go.”

Common sense would tell anyone that none of this could have come to pass in the two years since Newsom assumed his job as the governor of the state. Truth be told, it is impossible to eradicate homelessness and crime and make housing affordable in this country. The root cause for many of the problems that apparently rankle the Republicans behind the recall effort is capitalism and the economic inequity that is fast becoming an insurmountable chasm. Yet, in their infinite wisdom, they chose to pinpoint Newsom as the single reason for the failings of an entire nation that has embraced capitalism as the way of life.

The assertion that recall Republicans make regarding Newsom emptying the prisons is specious. While it is true that some 76,000 inmates would become eligible for an earlier release with good behavior, it is a far cry from replacement candidate Cox’s claim that Newsom has already released them into an unsuspecting population that would unleash a crime wave in California.

In California, about 1,000 prison inmates serve as firefighters, albeit for a paltry wage, as part of the fire-camp program that began in 1946. In yet another false claim, the recall proponents say that Newsom is weakening California’s firefighting capability by releasing prison inmates. On the contrary, the governor signed AB 2147, a bill that will ease the path for such inmates to become firefighters following their release.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continued to grip the world, unleashing wave after wave in different countries at different times, Newsom committed a political blunder in November 2020. He and at least 12 others dined at an exclusive restaurant in Napa County, celebrating the birthday of a friend. The backlash was swift and the recall momentum gathered strength, with the additional ammunition Newsom had gifted the recall proponents on a platter.

Accountability, a Game of Double Standards

It is not unreasonable to expect elected officials to be held accountable. However, accountability is nebulous in American politics, employing different standards for Republicans and Democrats.

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Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has not only lifted the mask mandate in schools, but he has threatened to pull public funding should school districts choose to make mask-wearing compulsory. DeSantis faces neither recall nor accountability for his actions that is pushing his state into dire straits.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, also a Republican, has issued executive orders that prohibit mandating vaccination or masks by local government and state agencies. Abbott opines that wearing a mask and choosing to be vaccinated are matters of personal responsibility and freedom.

Texas is on the brink of a COVID-19 surge that it may not have seen before, something Abbott could prevent if he chooses to act as a responsible leader. After testing positive for COVID-19, Abbott, who has been vaccinated, quickly recovered from the disease, having the luxury of receiving Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment. “I am told that my infection was brief and mild because of the vaccination I received,” Abbott said. “So, I encourage others who have not yet received the vaccination to consider getting one.” Despite the efficacy of the vaccination, Abbott’s statement is a lukewarm endorsement of the importance of getting vaccinated, distancing himself as much as possible from the science of the cure.

Openly shirking his responsibility, Mississippi’s Republican governor, Tate Reeves, refuses to take a stand and mandate either vaccination or masks, despite a 13-year-old girl dying from COVID-19 in a mask-optional school district.

The recall effort in California was launched in the spring of 2020, during the early stages of the pandemic, well before Newsom committed the political gaffe of dining in Napa. The governor took a cautious approach to the pandemic, putting California in a lockdown before other parts of the country, protecting the people better than any red state. His actions, placing people above politics and business interests, irked the GOP minority in California that has an abundance of COVID deniers, mask refusers and anti-vaxxers.

Yet it is Newsom, the Democratic governor who has done right by his people, who is facing a political recall, not DeSantis, Abbott or Reeves, the southern state Republican governors who continue to put their populations at risk with their irresponsible actions.

Is Newsom at Risk?

Any politician facing an election is at risk, Newsom included. More than Newsom, California is at risk of becoming the laughing stock of the world if this recall election results in the removal of Newsom.

Forty-six candidates are vying to replace Governor Newsom. No, that number is not a mistake. There are 46 candidates, many of them Republican, some without a party preference, and a smattering of Democrats and other party candidates who have thrown their hats in the ring. Reading the statements of many of these candidates in the Official Voter Information Guide makes me cringe at the foolish zaniness of the entire recall effort and its ramifications.

Angelyne, with no stated party preference, makes this argument for her candidature: “Angelyne Billboard Queen. Icon. Experienced politician.” Adam Papagan, also without a stated party preference, is even more cryptic: “Love U.” Jeremiah Marciniak recommends prospective voters to “Search YouTube” and Dan Kapelovitz keeps his statement simple, “Can you dig it?” Nikolas Wildstar says, “Our nation was founded on liberty, but now it’s considered a wild idea. That’s why I’m asking you to Go Wild and elect Wildstar for Governor Now!”

Newsom is at risk of being recalled for one single reason. The situation requires every voter, whether they are a Democrat or an independent, to show up and vote against the recall. Should they fail to do so, whether it is because they are sick of the political drama that is unfolding, or because they are enjoying a false sense of security that this foolhardy effort is bound to fail without them casting their ballot, Newsom’s position will be on the line.

Those who are against the recall must understand that more than 1.5 million voters have proved they are motivated to removing Newsom from his position as governor, something that he won convincingly. The people of California mandated Newsom do a job for the next four years, and he has done nothing that merits a recall.

If the majority of the 7.7 million who voted for him choose to be complacent, choose to not take the threat of this recall seriously, the very fundamentals of the democratic process that entrusted the job of the governorship of California with Newsom will be upended by partisan political hatred. No Californian should stand for it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Should California Governor Gavin Newsom Be Recalled? appeared first on Fair Observer.

How Joe Biden Looks at the World

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President Biden has proved that he is a shrewd politician, even if he is not the charismatic orator that Barack Obama was, in whose administration Biden served as vice-president from 2009 to 2017. To properly gauge the Biden administration, in addition to comparing the president’s performance against that of his predecessors, one must also evaluate him against his own campaign promises.

Bipartisan Politics Redefined

Without a doubt, the most significant achievement thus far for Biden has been the passage of his $1.9-trillion stimulus package, dubbed the American Rescue Plan. The bill was passed in both chambers of Congress without the support of a single Republican senator or House representative. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy summed up the Republican sentiment: “This isn’t a rescue bill; it isn’t a relief bill; it is a laundry list of left-wing priorities that predate the pandemic and do not meet the needs of American families.”

Even Obama, a political novice compared to Biden, managed to get three Republican senators to cross the aisle when he pushed through his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009. That bill, in response to the global financial crisis, consisted of $787 billion in government spending, which later rose to $831 billion.

A detailed analysis of a draft version of Biden’s plan did show meaningful Republican support for many aspects of the bill, including the all-important $1,400 stimulus payment per person. Despite this, and the seasoned politician that he is, Biden could not make meaningful headway in his efforts to rekindle bipartisan politics, a campaign promise he mentioned in his inaugural address to the nation.

Talking about President Biden’s bipartisan politics, Utah Senator Mitt Romney tweeted: “A Senate evenly split between both parties and a bare Democratic House majority are hardly a mandate to ‘go it alone.’ The President should live up to the bipartisanship he preached in his inaugural address.”

Facing stiff GOP resistance, Biden, the astute politician that he is, has done the next best thing: He has redefined bipartisanship to go beyond elected Republican officials. When asked, “Have you rejected bipartisanship?” in a recent White House press conference, he responded: “I would like Republican — elected Republican support, but what I know I have now is that I have electoral support from Republican voters. Republican voters agree with what I’m doing.”

A Flurry of Executive Actions

Biden has signed a flurry of executive orders, presidential memoranda, proclamations and notices. Signing these presidential decrees at a pace eclipsing his recent predecessors, Biden’s executive actions reversed many of the decisions made by Trump in the areas of immigration, economy, equity, environment and the coronavirus pandemic. Of noteworthy significance are the ones related to gun control, gender equity, the prison system and the pandemic.

Calling gun violence a public health epidemic, the Biden administration announced specific actions to tackle the proliferation of “ghost guns.” In addition, Biden will nominate David Chipman to serve as the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, an organization that has not had a confirmed head since 2015.

On March 8, celebrated worldwide as International Women’s Day, Biden signed an executive order establishing the White House Gender Policy Council. The aim of the council is to promote gender equity by combating systemic bias, discrimination and sexual harassment. On the same day, he signed an executive order guaranteeing an educational environment free from all forms of sexual discrimination.

In many of her speeches, Angela Davis, the outspoken, firebrand activist, has described the American prison system as a business proposition to incarcerate black people and profit from it. In 2003, Davis talked about “slavery and the prison industrial complex” at the fifth annual Eric Williams Memorial Lecture that she delivered at Florida International University. On January 26, Biden signed an executive order to eliminate for-profit prison centers as a step toward reforming the nation’s flawed incarceration system.

It was heartening to read Biden’s executive order that acknowledges the fact that a disproportionate number of people of color are in prison, that mass incarceration does not make our communities safe, and incarceration levels will decrease if the federal government’s reliance on privately-operated, for-profit criminal detention centers is reduced. While it is a far cry from the criminal justice system reform the country sorely needs, it is a laudable step in the correct direction.

In stark contrast to the woefully inadequate response from the Trump administration, Biden has taken several decisive actions to address the coronavirus pandemic. He halted the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization and mandated wearing masks on federal property for 100 days. He also boosted the supply of vaccines and personal protective gear. Finally, Biden ensured that the response to the pandemic is equitable, data-driven and that care and treatment are accessible to everyone.

Time Is of the Essence

Coming off the high of passing the American Rescue Plan, Biden has launched the even more ambitious American Jobs Plan worth $2 trillion in spending over eight years. This initiative aims to invest in the country’s infrastructure and create new jobs. The hefty bill would be footed by reversing many of Trump’s tax cuts. These include raising the corporate tax rate to 28%; Trump slashed taxes from 35% to 21% in 2018, the biggest corporate cut in US history. Biden also aims to eliminate tax breaks for fossil fuel companies and block loopholes that allow for tax havens and offshoring jobs. Finally, the administration has proposed increasing the global minimum corporate tax rate to 21%.

Relying on a strategy to fund his ambitious infrastructure and jobs plan by primarily taxing large corporations will not pass muster with Republican lawmakers. It may even face resistance from centrist Democratic senators, such as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

With a razor-thin majority in Congress, Joe Biden has accomplished more than what I had expected in his first 100 days. Yet there is no guarantee that the Democratic Party can hold onto the House and Senate majority in November 2022. If recent history is any indication, the House majority does usually switch party after midterm elections, as it happened for Trump, Obama and Bill Clinton during their first terms in office.

Whether the president’s redefinition of bipartisanship gains acceptance or not, time will tell. But as the savvy politician he is, Biden knows that he has limited time to advance his key agenda items in the next 20 months.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Biden Scores Key Wins in First 100 Days appeared first on Fair Observer.

I put aside my fears in the hope that the United States and India, two nations that have been severely impacted by COVID-19, would have mandated enough checks and controls to ensure safe travel.

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India and the US had established an air transport bubble, allowing for nationals from either country to travel to the other if they meet specific requirements. As a US citizen holding an Overseas Citizen of India card, I qualified for travel.

Leaving the Bay Area

I was quite impressed with the Air Suvidha portal from India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation. From that system, it was possible to complete the required formalities to enter India. I had to fill in a self-declaration form that is required of all incoming international passengers, and I could apply for an exemption from institutional quarantine with a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of commencing the journey.

My initial impression at San Francisco International Airport was promising. An airline worker performed a thermal scan before allowing me to join the line for check-in, maintaining a safe 6-foot distance from others. They also checked my negative RT-PCR test report before issuing me the boarding pass. However, a negative COVID-19 test report is not mandatory to undertake travel to India. Passengers with certain extenuating circumstances, or those who opt to take the test at Delhi airport, can actually board the flight, presenting an opportunity for a possible COVID carrier to slip through and mingle with others.

Social distancing in the airport fell apart soon after the check-in process. While boarding the aircraft, as well as while going through security checks, my experience was no different from pre-pandemic travel times, save for the fact that people were wearing masks. Onboard, the cabin crew offered personal protective equipment (PPE), including face shields, that very few people chose to use. It was amusing to see many people tucked away the PPE gear offered by the airline and carried it with them unopened, as though they were travel souvenirs.

The inflight service team, draped in protective coveralls, did their best to minimize interaction with passengers. San Francisco to Delhi is a long-haul flight lasting more than 16 hours. Despite their stated intent to have minimal contact with passengers, the service crew did a stellar job of taking care of people’s needs, serving them with a smile that was hidden behind their mask and face shield.

The pandemic did bring about unusual behavior among passengers on that San Francisco-to-Delhi flight. It is a common occurrence that as soon as an aircraft lands and the seat-belt signs go off, people immediately get up from their seats and open the overhead lockers. My observation during the flight I was on was no different.

Within seconds after the aircraft had reached the arrival gate, people were crowding the aisle, ready to disembark. The crew announced politely, but firmly, that unless everyone was seated and prepared to deplane in an orderly manner, no one would be able to leave. It was quite a sight to see passengers back in their seats, their bags and luggage haphazardly placed in the aisle, or on their laps, before disembarking resumed.

Landing in India

Typically, one would have to clear immigration at the first port of entry in a country. Had I completed my immigration formalities in Delhi, everything I had done in the Air Suvidha portal and my RT-PCR test report would have been critical to enter India. However, when traveling by Air India, it is possible to land in Delhi and continue as an international traveler to Chennai, my final destination, and complete the formalities there. 

My itinerary allowed me to do the latter, and I was surprised when no one in a position of authority — neither the immigration officer, nor a health inspector of some kind — bothered to look at my RT-PCR test report. Local jurisdiction at Chennai airport required me to have an e-pass to enter the state of Tamil Nadu that I did not possess, but I was able to secure one without any trouble from the arrivals lobby.

Despite the availability of scientific studies that show the relationship between international air travel and the spread of the coronavirus, the fact that a person without a negative test result could actually board the aircraft, and the lax enforcement of the mandatory safety checks in Chennai airport, meant I could give no more than a C+ for the journey.

While I was in Chennai, there was a change in administration in the United States. President Joe Biden mandated the need for a negative COVID-19 test result, or proof of having recovered from the disease, for all international air travelers coming into the US, without exceptions. Armed with a negative RT-PCR test report, I started my journey back home in the first week of February.

Going Home

In sharp contrast to my experience in San Francisco, Chennai airport was crowded and chaotic, with no social distancing being observed. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requires airlines to confirm a negative COVID-19 test result and to clear every passenger for travel into America. It was no surprise that in addition to verifying the usual travel documents, my test result was also reviewed when I checked in at the Chennai airport and prior to boarding the San Francisco flight at Delhi airport.

At San Francisco International Airport, apart from cursory questions pertaining to my travel, no one asked to see my COVID-19 test report or reviewed the passenger disclosure and attestation form that I had to complete. I offered both to the immigration official, who waved them off.

It is true that the CDC has delegated the responsibility of verifying travel documents, including a negative test result, to the airlines, as stated clearly in the passenger disclosure form. In a world where every single person is conscientious and self-disciplined, cross-checking the work of one entity by another may not be necessary. Sadly, with infections soaring, the world is still reeling under the grip of a pandemic that has infected more than 128 million people — and that’s just those confirmed via a test — and resulted in the death of 2.8 million of them.

I would have felt safer if authorities in India and the US had been more thorough during my travels. Instead, I just feel lucky that I was fortunate to avoid contracting the virus myself, walking away unscathed from a game of Russian roulette.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Is Travel Now a Game of Russian Roulette? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Georgia has been a Republican stronghold for nearly a quarter of a century, at both the national and state levels. The last time Georgia elected a Democrat to the US Senate was in 1996. Its last Democratic governor was elected in 1998. After electing Bill Clinton in 1992, Georgians have not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate until this November.

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Georgia has suddenly become the center of attention for the entire nation after giving Joe Biden a majority in a closely contested race. After two recounts, Biden was certified the winner by Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on December 7. With both Senate seats headed for a runoff election, Georgia may well be on its way to becoming the newest battleground state in American politics.

What’s at Stake in Senate Runoff Elections?

The Republicans currently hold a narrow 50-48 majority in the Senate, pending the results of the Georgia runoff. If they win one or both the seats, they will hold the Senate majority in the 117^th Congress. If the Democrats win both seats, by virtue of winning the White House, they will control the Senate, with the incoming vice president, Kamala Harris, casting the tie-break Senate vote as needed.

In the first contest, Republican Senator David Perdue is running for reelection against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. The second contest is a special election between Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to fill former Senator Johnny Isakson’s seat, and her Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock; the winner of this race will serve the remaining two years of Isackson’s six-year term. Both contests are at dead heat based on aggregated poll data from FiveThirtyEight.

Despite losing the presidential election comprehensively, Donald Trump has not only refused to concede, but has been spreading misinformation on the integrity of the electoral and democratic process of the nation. Stumping for Loeffler and Perdue, Trump assailed the Georgian Republican leaders for refusing to award Georgia to him, upending the will of the people.

Loeffler recognizes the stranglehold Trump has among Republican voters even during the lame-duck phase of his presidency. She stays safely ensconced among the 88% of those Republicans serving in Congress who refuse to accept Biden as the president-elect. In a nationally televised debate with Warnock, Loeffler refused to acknowledge Trump’s defeat. Instead, she provided the stock answer most Republicans resort to: “The president has every right to every legal recourse, and that’s what’s taking place.”

Can Biden Govern With a Republican Majority?

Ideological differences between Republicans and Democrats have not stopped them from working with each other in a bipartisan manner in the past. During his tenure as president, Bill Clinton advanced his signature achievements — the welfare reform and the crime bill — both centrist agendas palatable to the Republicans and the House majority leader, Newt Gingrich, who helped shepherd the legislation through his party’s base.

Bipartisanship gave way to polarized politics when Barack Obama become the nation’s first black president in 2009. Prior to retaking the House majority in 2011, Republican John Boehner opined about the level of cooperation he would offer to President Obama going forward: “We’re going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.” Then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was not far behind with his infamous statement that “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

While McConnell could not achieve what he wanted, after the Republicans flipped the house in 2011, he was able to successfully block many of the president’s initiatives, culminating in thwarting Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland.

Without control of the Senate, Democrats will in all likelihood be able to do precious little to advance Biden’s agenda, being at the mercy of McConnell, who has demonstrated how good an obstructionist he can be. A shrewd politician who will go to any length to advance his political agenda, we can expect McConnell to be deferential to Trump until after the Georgia elections. Only a fool would underestimate the vicelike grip Trump has on Republican voters. McConnell is no fool.

Should McConnell remain the Senate majority leader, Biden will become the first president since George H. W. Bush in 1988 to inherit a divided government upon taking office. The first hurdle confronting Biden will be the Senate confirmation of his nominees for cabinet positions as well as the deputy secretaries, undersecretaries and assistant secretaries. Biden may find himself handicapped in making choices that will meet both the approval of the progressive leftist Democrats and pass muster with McConnell and Republicans.

Even if the two Democratic candidates, Ossoff and Warnock, win the January runoff, Biden’s ability to advance his campaign promises will be dictated by a handful of Senators who typically do not tow the party line, the conservative Democrat Joe Manchin and the temperamental Republicans, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney.

Unless Trump decides to fade away from American politics, the fire he has ignited will be hard to put out. Trump may very well become the second US President after Grover Cleveland to lose the White House and run again in 2024. By refusing to concede, he can keep up the claim that he lost a rigged election. That will be enough to keep his voter base angry, as demonstrated by the violent pro-Trump rally in Washington, DC, on Saturday. Trump had successfully used a similar approach to chip away at Obama’s legitimacy with the birther conspiracy.

With the distinct probability of Trump running again in 2024, it is unlikely that Mitch McConnell will play along with Biden in a divided government. Without a Democratic Senate, that would portend a rough and acrimonious two years for the Time Person of the Year team.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Georgia Runoffs Will Decide How Biden Will Govern appeared first on Fair Observer.

360˚ Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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The losing incumbent, Donald Trump, has been a singularly divisive figure in American politics over the past several years. He is a racist and a white supremacist, a xenophobe and an Islamophobe, a misogynist and a narcissist, a liar and a petulant loser. Trump repeatedly denied scientific evidence when dealing with environmental issues and the coronavirus pandemic. The COVID-19 death toll in the US is nearing 250,000 from over 10 million cases, primarily due to the mishandling of the pandemic by the Trump administration. And yet, 8 million more people than the 62 million who voted him into office in 2016 find Trump’s actions and behavior as acceptable. A staggering 70 million Americans still feel that there is nothing wrong with the soul of the nation and chose to cast their vote for Trump.

If we are forced to draw conclusions about that intangible entity referred to as the soul of America just from the votes people cast in the presidential contest, we can only surmise that it is split almost evenly between what Joe Biden and Donald Trump stand for. Refusing to accept that verdict, I investigated down-ballot races across the country with the hope of unearthing other clues that could shed a light in my quest to understand where and what America stands for today.

Should Non-Citizens Be Able to Vote?

Each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia have in their constitution language to the effect that the right to vote is available only to citizens of the country. Notwithstanding that, Alabama, Florida and Colorado passed constitutional amendments to make the citizenship requirement for voting more explicit. What is interesting is not that these measures passed with an overwhelming majority, but the fact that 23% of voters in Alabama, 20% in Florida and 33% in Colorado cast their ballots against the measure.

The 3.5 million Americans who subscribe to the idea that non-citizens should be able to vote belong to an interesting segment of the nation’s population. Perhaps they echo my thought process that it is appropriate for non-citizens to get to vote on specific issues. As non-citizens, it makes sense that they do not get to participate in the representational democratic aspects such as electing the president, governor or members of Congress. However, in keeping with the philosophy of taxation with representation, it also makes sense for them to vote in specific propositions, measures and initiatives local to their place of residence.

Criminal Justice Reforms

Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota legalized recreational marijuana, increasing the list of states that have decriminalized the schedule 1 drug to 31, including Washington, DC. Only in seven states — Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wyoming — is the possession of marijuana fully illegal, even for medicinal purposes, although in North Carolina, it is not considered a criminal offense.

Oregon became a trailblazer, the first state to decriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs. Today, America’s prisons have a population of 2.3 million, where one in five behind bars is there on account of a drug offense. With the decriminalization of marijuana, America’s war on drugs, initiated by Richard Nixon and perfected by Ronald Reagan, may finally be coming to an end.

A harsh reality of committing a felony offense is the loss of the right to vote. In the infamous presidential election of 2000, Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in the state of Florida by a razor-thin margin of 537 votes. Florida, along with Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, has some of the harshest possible voting laws for people who have committed a felony offense. According to the Sentencing Project, 5.2 million people were ineligible to vote in the 2020 elections. Nearly 22%, or 1.13 million of them, are in the state of Florida. History may have been very different, and Bush may never have won the 2000 election had Florida’s laws allowed former felons who have paid their dues to the justice system and turned their lives around to vote.

This November, California made a shift to take a more liberal view on the voting rights of those with felony convictions. Californians restored the right to vote for people on parole, removing an important obstacle in allowing former felons to become full-fledged members of society. They also rejected a proposal that sought stricter parole rules and harsher sentencing.

Eliminating Symbols of Slavery

Earlier in June, Mississippi retired the state flag that had incorporated a version of the Confederate battle banner in it. The people of Mississippi voted to approve a new flag with the symbol of magnolia and the words “In God We Trust,” removing one of the last vestiges of Confederacy in a state flag.

Rhode Island voters passed a measure to strip the racially insensitive phrase “Providence Plantations” from its official name, after having failed to do so in 2010. By an overwhelming majority of 80% and an impressive majority of 68%, respectively, voters in Utah and Nebraska passed an initiative that removes references to slavery from their constitutions and suspends the permission of involuntary servitude as criminal punishment.

 And the Verdict Is

Toning down the populist and ill-conceived war-on-drugs rhetoric and easing the reintegration of former felons into society by restoring their voting rights are small steps toward meaningful criminal justice reform. Eliminating signifiers that celebrate the Confederacy and slavery from state names and flags is more than symbolic. They open up a path to healing, rejecting the hatred that lurks in the veneration of the icons of white supremacy.

The disappointments came from my home state of California. Here, Proposition 22 posed the question of whether app-based gig-economy workers such Uber and Lyft drivers should be treated as contractors or as employees with proper benefits. Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Postmates pumped nearly $200 million dollars to avoid the responsibility of giving gig-workers employee status. Their marketing blitzkrieg recruited Mothers Against Drunk Driving to portray a dismal scenario of increased drunk-driving deaths should this proposition fail. In the end, capitalism won where people opted to have their cheap Uber and Lyft rides, even if it meant denying their drivers their fair share of benefits.

More poignantly, California missed its chance to reinstate affirmative action, which it ended in 1996 without giving adequate time for that initiative to have a meaningful impact. Sadly, more than 56% of voters failed to appreciate that compensating for centuries of advantages enjoyed by whites and other privileged classes would not only require counterinitiatives like affirmative action, but that they need to be given time so that African Americans and other disadvantaged minorities have a true shot at social equity.

Counterbalancing my disappointments stemming from the 70 million who are still willing to embrace Donald Trump and Californians rejecting affirmative action, I found many down-ballot measures, from Mississippi to Utah, from Arizona to New Jersey, pointing to a subtle shift in the right direction. That gives me a glimmer of hope that the soul of America may not be so dark as to be beyond redemption. And as they say, hope springs eternal.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Searching for the Soul of America appeared first on Fair Observer.

360° Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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Another 60 million or so voted on Election Day, making the total number of citizens who voted reach nearly 160 million, according to CNBC estimates. This works out to a historic 66.8% of the 239.2 million Americans eligible to vote in 2020.

These people had one reason to participate in the democratic process. They wanted their vote to count. They wanted their ballot to be counted. Intellectually, it is easy to rationalize the logic that a person exercising their franchise wants their voice heard. That rationale took a far more significant meaning when I got a chance to observe the face, the countenance and emotions of a person when they showed up at a vote center and said, “I would like to vote.”

Listening to Voters

I worked as an election officer in my local county for the 2020 elections and had the opportunity to observe first-hand nearly 1,500 people who stopped by at my vote center. What I experienced when I directly interacted with many of them made my usual intellectual rationale pale in significance, allowing me to viscerally appreciate the importance of every single vote.

It was heartwarming to observe a nonagenarian lady and her septuagenarian daughter come in together to cast their vote — the daughter assisting her mother with the process.

There was an elderly lady who required the assistance of her husband, a mobility walking aid device and a portable oxygen tank in order for her to come to the vote center and drop off her vote-by-mail envelope. She could have dropped it in one of the 100 ballot boxes the county had set up. Yet for this lady, it was important to come to a vote center — even if it meant taking one small step at a time from the parking lot — and be assured that her vote would count by an election official before dropping her envelope in the proper bag.

There was an octogenarian man who was not comfortable coming into the vote center due to COVID-19. We assisted him by setting up a polling station out in the open so he could exercise his right to vote. Despite being worried about his health and the pandemic, this old man decided to come in person and ensure that his voice was heard.

Worried that using the United States Postal Service may not get their ballot to their county in time, an older couple was willing to drive more than 400 miles in order to drop off their ballot in their county of residence. Thankfully, we were able to assure them that dropping their vote-by-mail envelope in our vote center would ensure their ballot would reach the appropriate county and their vote counted.

Another person who was concerned that the vote-by-mail envelope she had mailed had not been recorded in the system made several phone calls to various people — including Senator Kamala Harris’ office — before deciding to come to a vote center to understand what had happened. In her conversation with me, she kept repeating, “All I want is for my vote to count.” Thankfully, we were also able to assist her and allay her fears that her voice would not be heard in what she felt was “the most important election she has ever voted in.”

Yet another person who works for the city but registered to vote in a neighboring county that was a couple of hours drive away accosted me when I was taking a break to get some fresh air. Explaining his special circumstances, he clarified with me exactly how he could vote. Once he understood the process, I could hear him talking to his manager asking for time off on Election Day so he could drive to his county and exercise his franchise.

Living in one of the most diverse counties in America, we were also able to assist several monolingual voters with the process. One of our bilingual aides spent nearly an hour assisting a first-time voter who only spoke Spanish. Another aide assisted a Vietnamese family who were somewhat overwhelmed by the voting process.

Every Vote Counts

These are only a handful of the many instances when I could sense the palpable concern of the voter who needed to be assured that despite efforts by the sitting president to discredit the democratic process, their voice would be heard.

I am just one average citizen, living in one corner of America, but one who actively participated in the elections this year. My eyes misted over on more than one occasion when I interacted with people who braved many personal challenges, be it physical, emotional or a linguistic one, in order to exercise their democratic right. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of people across the length and breadth of the country had to overcome their own personal obstacles in order to cast their vote in this election.

As I cleared my thoughts and got back to my job after each moving interaction I experienced, one aspect became crystal clear: that every vote matters. And every vote that has been cast must be counted. Whether it is in a blue state or a red state. Whether it is in a battleground state where the incumbent is leading or the challenger is leading. Even if it takes several days, in order to uphold the fundamentals of democracy, every vote that has been cast must be counted.

As that one voter put it, “All I want is for my vote to count.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post “All I Want Is For My Vote to Count” appeared first on Fair Observer.

Trump is a president whose bungled handling of the COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in the death of more than 215,000 Americans. Even after being infected by the virus himself, Trump tweeted on October 5: “I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”

360° Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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As president, Trump received the best possible treatment anyone infected with the virus could hope for, including access to medication that an average American can only dream of. Trump’s insensitive tweet flies in the face of the lives lost, displaying his utter disconnect from reality and a cruel lack of empathy. This is a president who has a chronic compulsion for defrauding people and lying pathologically about seemingly everything, including his finances. As a recent investigation by The New York Times exposed, Trump not only managed to pay no tax at all in 10 out of the past 15 years, but he is also a consummate loser as a businessman.

Trump is also the first president in the history of the United States to have been impeached and then seek reelection following an acquittal by the Senate. It is seemingly inconceivable that a tax evader, crook, pathological liar and callous narcissist can succeed in hoodwinking the public for a second time into electing him. Sadly, anyone who dismisses Trump as not reelectable would do so at their own peril.

Voter Suppression

President Trump has repeatedly tried to undermine the democratic process in more ways than one cares to count in the lead up to the presidential election on November 3. Without providing any credible evidence, he has claimed that voting by mail is fraught with fraud, sowing seeds of doubt in the election results should his bid for a second term fail. Wary Democrats have reacted to this by encouraging people to cast their vote in person, despite the raging pandemic.

In an effort to further subvert mail-in voting, Trump trained his guns on the United States Postal Service (USPS), openly admitting that he opposed allocating additional funding. “They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump stated unabashedly in an interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo in August. “If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.” Despite these attacks, Trump himself voted using a mail-in ballot during the March presidential primaries in his resident state of Florida.

One has to marvel at the brazen thoroughness with which he is diminishing the authenticity of the very process that propelled him to his current position. There are only two ways in which people can exercise their franchise: by voting in person or by using an alternate option that is available to them in their local jurisdiction, such as vote-by-mail or absentee ballots. On the one hand, Trump has discredited the usage of mail-in ballots. He has also appointed Louis DeJoy, a Republican donor, as postmaster general, who has crippled the operations of the USPS. On the other hand, Trump is employing scare tactics to turn people away from in-person voting. His comprehensive approach is aimed at lowering voter turnout, which he believes will be favorable for Republicans.

In a statement that borders on voter intimidation, Trump stated in an interview with Fox News on August 20 that “We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement, and we’re going to hopefully have U.S. attorneys and we’re going to have everybody, and attorney generals.” Trump was alluding to sending law enforcement officials to voting centers. Federal law prohibits any on-duty law enforcement personnel bearing arms from entering a voting center without the express purpose of casting their own vote. Yet the mere threat of sending police and sheriffs to voting centers, even if only to monitor polls, can terrify marginalized communities and prevent them from turning up to vote.

Logic Defying Loyalty

Anyone with an iota of common sense can see the hypocrisy of Trump’s statements. Sadly, there is an intransigent base of followers that he has cultivated who refuse to see him for the charlatan president he really is. Cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian’s article in Psychology Today, entitled “A Complete Psychological Analysis of Trump’s Support,” enumerates more than a dozen elements that energize Trump’s voter base, which include terror management theory and the Dunning-Kruger effect.

There are several Republican politicians who have stated that they will not be supporting Trump in this election. Nearly everyone on the list is someone who held office as a Republican in the past and is not seeking reelection. Other than Senators Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski, both of whom have not categorically stated who they intend to vote for, most sitting Republican politicians have forsaken their dignity and self-respect in order to do Trump’s bidding.

Former Nevada Senator Dean Heller brazenly lied in a Fox News interview that the state’s vote-by-mail process will allow people to vote once by mail and once in person. Trump echoed this in September when he seemed to suggest voters should “test” the system by casting their ballot twice.

Serving as an election officer in my local county, I know for a fact that when a person’s vote-by-mail ballot is received, it is recorded in the system and it is impossible for the same person to vote again without committing fraud under the penalty of perjury. Truth notwithstanding, Trump and Heller have managed to sow seeds of doubt among the gullible, making some of them question the robustness of the country’s democratic election process.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has been one of the biggest turncoats in his criticism of the president. In 2015, Graham called Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious-bigot.” Today, he is one of Trump’s staunchest cronies. Fighting a tough reelection bid in his home state, Graham shamelessly kowtows to the same person who was the object of his scathing criticism that has made an interesting case study on the fluctuating loyalties of politicians.  

GOP Machinery

However disingenuous and self-serving Trump’s actions may be, to win in November, the president needs the help of well-oiled machinery that is unafraid to flout the democratic process, engage in voter suppression and set the stage for a possible showdown in the judiciary system overruling the will of the people. That machinery goes by the name of the GOP.

In Santa Clara County, California, the Registrar of Voters has made available nearly 100 vote-by-mail drop-off locations spread across the county. In stark contrast, Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose ordered just one drop-off box installed in each of the state’s 88 counties, some of which have a population of more than a million. LaRose reluctantly yielded after a judge in Franklin County rescinded his order. LaRose has since agreed to allow individual counties to decide to have more drop-off boxes if they wish to, but he has mandated that the location of those boxes has to be within the premises of the board of elections’ property, doing his best to make it as difficult as possible for people to cast their ballots.  

It is worth remembering that, in 2004, the partisan actions of Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell may very well have played the decisive factor in George W. Bush getting reelected. Ohio continues to be a battleground state in 2020, and the actions of LaRose are dangerously reminiscent of what happened 16 years ago.

In Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott has managed to succeed where LaRose fell short. Abbott has issued a proclamation limiting the number of drop-off locations to just one per county. Elections are already underway even as the legal wrangling over Abbott’s decision is likely to ensue. Concerned by the changing demographics of the voting population in his state, Abbott’s actions show how scared Republicans are and the extent to which they will go to subvert democracy.

Setting the Stage for a Grand Finale

Should he lose, Trump has categorically refused to commit to an orderly and peaceful transfer of power to his Democratic opponent. The president believes that this election will be decided by the Supreme Court, not the people of America.

The sudden demise of the liberal Supreme Court icon, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has provided Trump and the Republicans a fortuitous opportunity to shift the ideology of the court to decidedly conservative. No doubt, Democrats will do everything within their power to appeal to the logic and conscience of Republican senators to stop the confirmation of Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, to replace Ginsburg just weeks before the presidential election. Unfortunately, both logic and conscience are in dangerously short supply, if not downright nonexistent, among Republican politicians in a Trumpian world.

Can America see a blue wave of unprecedented proportion, awarding the White House to Joe Biden and flipping the Senate majority to the Democrats? Or will the machinations of Donald Trump and his coterie preclude such an occurrence from coming to pass? Whatever happens, if Trump fails to get the result he desperately craves, we should not be surprised to see more flagrant acts aimed at subverting democracy unfold before us.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Can Donald Trump Steal a Second Term? appeared first on Fair Observer.

In four years, this man has caused countless harm to everyone possible, save rich white Americans and even richer American corporations. He has worked hard to reclaim whiteness in America, having done everything possible to ensure that to be American is synonymous with being white. He has characterized Mexicans as rapists and Central American refugees as criminals. Blinded by his xenophobic views, he promised his supporters a beautiful wall on the southern border that would be paid for by Mexico. Employing his executive powers to keep Muslims away from American soil, his exclusionary immigration policies have been openly Islamophobic from the first days of his presidency.

Donald Trump’s War With the Troops

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As president, Trump had the opportunity to make a positive impact on innumerable aspects of the lives of its citizens. Unfortunately, anything he turned his attention to — whether it’s education, health care, taxation, immigration, trade agreements or the environment — he managed to make worse. It requires an extraordinary amount of ineptitude and incompetence to accomplish what Trump has in his four years. He has done enough damage to the country — and the world at large — to vie for the unenviable top spot as the worst president in the history of the United States of America.

Enduring the final year of his presidency, I had thought that it is impossible to be surprised or outraged any longer by whatever the man says or does. I was proven wrong. Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has made his previous transgressions seem like a walk in the park. On September 9, he acknowledged that he had intentionally downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic. The White House response was a pathetic effort to mitigate the fallout from the information contained in the upcoming book by The Washington Post’s veteran journalist Bob Woodward.

The COVID-19 death toll in the US is just shy of 200,000, from over 6.5 million cases — the highest in the world. That Trump never cared for the welfare and well-being of his fellow countrypeople was amply clear from his policies and actions over these past four years. That he could turn a blind eye to the calamitous effects of the pandemic and lie to the nation about it likens him to a modern-day emperor, mocking the suffering of his subjects, not much different from Nero who fiddled while Rome burned.

Trump’s bungling response to the pandemic makes him culpable for this exorbitant death toll, which could have been averted had he acted swiftly and decisively, with a plan of action based on scientific findings. Instead of encouraging responsible social behavior from the country, he mocked science with his refusal to wear a mask, by consuming hydroxychloroquine as a shield against the coronavirus and misleading the American public by not only not impressing upon it the gravity of the pandemic but, as we now know, willfully underplaying the dangers of COVID-19. Trump’s callous and reprehensible behavior during the pandemic not only taints his legacy with the unnecessary loss of life, but it also cements his position as the worst president of the country with an insurmountable lead over Andrew Jackson and quite possibly anyone else in the future.

America is a nation that loves to bookmark in history the wars its presidents spearheaded during their tenure. Lyndon Johnson is remembered for launching his war on crime in 1965, Ronald Reagan for his war on drugs in 1982. Today, both those wars have resulted in more than 2.3 million incarcerated Americans, with a disproportionate amount of them being black and people of color. George W. Bush is identified with the war on terror that he commenced soon after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

By contrast, what Trump has managed to do in his four years at America’s helm is wage a full-scale war on humanity. Sadly, Republican politicians have been abetting this war by kowtowing to the president. A vote for Donald Trump this November is an endorsement of his war on humanity and actively lending support to it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Donald Trump: A President Against His People appeared first on Fair Observer.

It is important to understand how insidiously widespread racism is in this country. The brutal treatment of black people at the hands of police is a direct consequence of racism that pervades this society. Any solution aimed at ending police brutality executed against black people cannot come to pass without addressing America’s bloody history of slavery and the systemic racism that this not-distant history has morphed into.

400 Years of Anger

The protests and riots are more than an aftermath of Floyd and Taylor’s deaths. They represent an explosive outburst in response to 400 years of oppression of black people. The protests are for the nearly 388,000 Africans who were shipped into America for a life of slavery. They are for the 246 years of inhuman treatment meted out to them, from the time the first slave ship came into Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. With the passage of the 13^th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1865, three years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery was supposed to be abolished. Nearly 4 million black people were freed by emancipation, as per the 1860 census. Surely slavery should have ended there? Sadly, it did not.

The white man found other creative ways to oppress black people. He created Jim Crow laws that ensured their segregation even after emancipation. He created the poll tax to suppress their voting rights. Ironically, Jim Crow was not even a real person. He was an African American caricature created by a white man, to satisfy his perverted desire to dehumanize black people. During the Jim Crow era, white men took sadistic pleasure in lynching African Americans. The protests are for the 3,446 black people lynched to death between 1882 and 1968, and for the many whites who suffered the same fate for opposing the practice. Did the oppression of the black people end with the abolition of Jim Crow in 1968? It absolutely did not.

It happens today in the form of police brutality that is reserved especially for black people, itself a carry-over from the slave patrols. It is present in the form of voter suppression that stifles black voices. It happens in endless subtle ways, denying black people equality. Even among the Asian American and Latino communities, African Americans are viewed with racial prejudice.

As an Indian American, I know how the color of a person’s skin clouds our judgment and vision. During a recent Black Lives Matter protest, when a question was asked how many in attendance have black friends, barely a few hands went up. Had the question been how many white people they have as friends, without doubt every single person would have put their hand up.

When discussing interracial marriage, I have had a couple of Indian American friends commenting that they would be fine with any partner their kids choose, as long as they are not black. It is a tragedy that immigrants come to America with their prejudices on caste and color intact, only to imbibe white people’s racism and become more deeply entrenched in their biases.

ACAB

The air rings with cries of ACAB today. I did not know ACAB stood for “All Cops Are Bastards” until earlier this week when I saw it on a poster my kid had made. When they asked me what I think of it, I replied that I cannot agree with that sentiment. After all, not all cops are bad. I argued with both of my children hoping that I could convert them to see the logic in my reasoning.

Five days later, it was me who had been converted to seeing their point of view. Later that weekend, I attended two Black Lives Matter protests in the Bay Area, one in Saratoga and another in Palo Alto. When I got a chance to speak at the open mic, I said: “There are many good cops in every police department. But a single bad cop in any PD is one bad cop too many. All it takes is for a single drop of poison to spoil an entire gallon of good milk. When that happens, we discard the entire gallon of milk. It is time to have zero tolerance for bad cops in police departments.”

Cries of ACAB are reverberating at the protests not just against killer white cops like Derek Chauvin, Daniel Pantaleo and Darren Wilson. They are also against Hispanic American cops like Jeronimo Yanez, who shot and killed Philando Castile; against Asian American cops like Tou Thao, who stood by watching Chauvin kill Floyd; even against black cops like Alexander Keung, who has been charged with aiding and abetting Floyd’s killing.

Yanez, Keung and Thao’s behavior shows how broken the law enforcement system is and how it subsumes anyone who enters it, irrespective of their race. ACAB is a cry against all cops who have been complicit by their silence and the morally bankrupt police unions who protect their own even if they commit murder in broad daylight.

Hollow Apology

In 2008, the United States House of Representatives issued an apology for slavery. In 2009, the Senate followed up with a slightly modified version. These congressional apologies sound empty and hollow, coming across as nothing more than a pathetic effort to shove under the rug the atrocities committed against African Americans and Native Americans and move on.

The House resolution mentions “its commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African Americans under slavery and Jim Crow and to stop the occurrence of human rights violations in the future.” The Senate resolution aims to “express its recommitment to the principle that all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and calls on all people of the United States to work toward eliminating racial prejudices, injustices, and discrimination from our society.”

The Senate also went a step further to guard and protect America’s ill-gotten gains from the blood and sweat of African Americans and the looting of the Native American lands with the disclaimer that “Nothing in this resolution authorizes or supports any claim against the United States.” It is appalling and laughable that the Senate had the impudence to even consider the possibility of America ever being able to offer meaningful reparations to the four centuries of horror it has inflicted and continues to inflict on those whose land it stole and those it enslaved to work this stolen land.

The House resolution promised to “stop the occurrence of human rights violation in the future.” Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery and Philando Castille would disagree. The Senate resolution “calls on all people of the United States to work toward eliminating racial prejudices, injustices, and discrimination from our society.” Those calls evidently fall on the deaf ears of law enforcement. Had they heard it, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd would be alive to corroborate that sentiment. It is as well that the sham of an apology from Congress wasn’t signed by any president — not even by the first black president of this country. I have said many times that America must genuinely apologize for its bloody past. Today, I know what form that apology should take.

Say It Like You Mean It

With the rallying cry of Black Lives Matter growing louder, three schools of thought have emerged on how to address police brutality. The reformists, led by Campaign Zero, envision a world where the police are more accountable and have better relations with the community they serve. Skeptical of any kind of reform being effective, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wants to divert taxpayer money toward social programs and stop the violence before it starts, a policy that is somewhat misleadingly referred to as “defund the police.”

Then, envisioning a world entirely without police, the most radical plan of all calls for abolishing policing altogether. Alex Vitale, a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and author of “The End of Policing,” shares in an interview his view of a radically different society.  

Politicians talk about criminal justice reform and incremental change to make policing better. Body cams became a requirement in most police departments since 2014. Despite the behavioral deterrent, black Americans are still getting shot and killed by police at more than two times the rate of white Americans. Democrats want to legislate a ban on chokeholds and prohibit certain no-knock warrants, both part of the reform package championed by Campaign Zero. But a racially-biased rogue cop will still manage to kill, even without a chokehold. Such knee-jerk measures are cosmetic and will do little to temper the brutal violence police inflict on black people. Without a strict zero tolerance policy toward rogue cops, none of the reforms will make any difference.

Even with a zero tolerance policy, the current state of policing is so rotten that there is no hope for redemption. I believe the answer lies in rethinking the entire idea of law enforcement by replacing the concept of policing with public service. Embracing the ideas advocated by the ACLU will eventually lead to the end of policing as we know it. Getting rid of policing, an odious concept from the days of slavery, can serve as the first true olive branch America can offer black people as an apology.

Then, with the entire population of African Americans and Native Americans standing tall, every single American should take a knee. Irrespective of their race, each and every cop should kneel, admitting to their complicity in a system so unjust and wrong. Americans must kneel to reflect, repent and reform, and contemplate the magnitude of the irreparable damage they have collectively caused to the lives of black people.

They must repent genuinely, so when they apologize, it doesn’t sound as hollow and perfunctory as political apologies do. They must embrace the reforms that African Americans want with an open heart. They should kneel not just once to absolve themselves of their guilt. They should kneel as many times as it takes to be worthy of forgiveness from black people. Even if it takes 400 years. For that is how long African Americans have suffered.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post To Heal, America Must End Policing appeared first on Fair Observer.

Chauvin appeared to be posing for a trophy hunter photo even as a human being’s life was being slowly snuffed out. Chauvin’s training should have taught him that eight minutes is ample time to strangle a person to death. I wonder what went through the policeman’s mind during that time. A sense of unassailable superiority? Unmitigated racial hatred? Without a modicum of doubt, Chauvin had plenty of time to consider the consequences of his actions. Yet Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, setting up the farce of a judicial system that will play out in the white cop’s favor in due course.

The Murder of Ahmaud Arbery Is an Echo of Slave Patrols

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The inhuman brutality of Chauvin’s actions has sparked fierce anger, resulting in protests across the country — and beyond. In what is likely to be a watershed moment for police brutality and racism in America, the reaction to Floyd’s death and its aftermath by people and elected officials alike is putting everyone’s true colors on public display.

Justifiable Anger

Instead of demonstrating the poise and statesmanship the situation demands, America’s racist president, Donald Trump, tweeted: “Great job last night at the White House by the US @SecretService. They were not only totally professional, but very cool. I was inside, watched every move, and couldn’t have felt more safe.” While cities across America went up in flames, and demonstrators — and the media covering the protests — were being tear-gassed, blinded with rubber bullets and rammed with police vehicles, the best its cowardly leader could come up with was to share how safe and protected he felt.

Not all leaders have reacted in the frivolous way Trump characteristically does. In California, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo commented that “Anger and peaceful protest will always be appropriate responses to injustice; violence will never be. San Jose is united in outrage over the atrocious crime committed in Minneapolis and in sadness over George Floyd’s horrible death.” Liccardo’s comment typifies the response from elected officials across the country facing angry protesters. They express sadness over the “horrible death” of George Floyd but stop short of calling his death a murder — which, in my opinion, it was, committed in broad daylight. Atlanta’s Police Chief Erika Shields, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Merylin Mosby, the prosecutor on the Freddie Gray case, all seem to agree on this, with the lawyer for the Floyd family calling the murder “premeditated.”

In an emotional speech asking the protesters to go home, Bottoms lamented: “This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., this is chaos. A protest has purpose. When Dr. King was assassinated, we didn’t do this to our city.” The riots following King’s assassination in 1968 spared the city of Atlanta, but America did witness unprecedented social unrest, particularly in Washington DC, Baltimore, Chicago and Kansas City.

Bottoms’ plea to spare her city from violence and property damage is understandable from her position as mayor. But she fails to see that the protests happening today do have a purpose, even if it is not in the spirit of non-violence advocated by Dr. King. Floyd’s murder is the straw that broke the camel’s back for black people thirsting for justice denied to them over decades. For Rodney King, savagely beaten in 1991. For Trayvon Martin, shot in 2012. For Eric Garner, strangled, and Michael Brown, shot, in 2014. For Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, shot in 2016. For Ahmaud Arbery, killed earlier this year. For the countless black lives lost at the hands of white policemen and vigilantes.

Ex-cop Gregory McMichael and his son Travis were only charged with Arbery’s murder following a public outcry. George Zimmerman, a self-styled vigilante, was acquitted of murdering Martin following a trial. Darren Wilson, an officer at the Ferguson Police Department, was not even indicted in connection with Brown’s death. In a case that bears a striking resemblance to Floyd’s last moments, New York Police Department’s Daniel Pantaleo was also not charged with fatally choking Garner. The four Los Angeles Police Department officers who mercilessly beat King to near death — Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno and Stacey Koon — were all acquitted following a trial.

Racist Amplifier

The list of black people who have died unfairly at the hands of the police and justice denied to them in the subsequent legal process is endlessly long. According to The Washington Post database, police shot and killed 107 unarmed black men and women since January 2015, when the newspaper started tracking every fatal shooting by an on-duty police officer. A study by Mapping Police Violence, which uses a broader definition for police killing, has identified that in 2015 alone, 104 unarmed black men and women were killed by police across the nation.

Only a meager five of those officers have been convicted, each serving out a laughable sentence amounting to nothing more than a slap on the wrist. With an incredibly low conviction rate and extraordinarily lenient sentencing, it is no wonder that officers like Chauvin, Wilson, Pantaleo and Thao act with impunity in the name of law enforcement.

White men instituted the concept of policing for their own protection and controlling the minorities in the early 19^th century. Even 200 years after its inception, that institution has failed to evolve in a fashion that treats all human beings in a fair and just manner. African Americans may not be slaves to white men today, but this has not made them equal. Certainly not in the eyes of law enforcement and white people whose vision is clouded by racism.

Behavioral change in policing is a key aspect of the much-discussed criminal justice reform. A shift in police behavior cannot happen when they are trained to use lethal force against individuals perceived to be dangerous. Systemically flawed police training, coupled with the ingrained racial bias against black people, invariably results in deadly consequences for African Americans. Of the more than a thousand people shot dead by police each year, black Americans are killed at more than two times the rate of white Americans.

A white person enjoys the privilege of being innocent until proven guilty. In the eyes of law enforcement, black people are regarded as guilty until they prove their innocence. Presumed guilty, more often than not, black people do not get a chance to prove their innocence when faced with unreasonable and deadly force at the hands of police. The protests and riots that are engulfing the entire nation today are a result of centuries of injustice meted out to black people. The longer America ignores the cries of its black citizens, the stronger the flames will burn.

* [Updated on 6/2/2020 at 16:20 GMT.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Thirst for Justice Engulfs America in the Wake of George Floyd’s Death appeared first on Fair Observer.

McMichael and his son were not arrested even though they had murdered an unarmed black man. On the contrary, they enjoyed their free, privileged life for 74 days after killing Arbery, granted to them courtesy of the Glynn County Police Department (GCPD) where Greg McMichael had worked as a police officer between 1982 and 1989. Defending the problematic behavior of the police department, Glynn County Commissioner J. Peter Murphy said: “Tell me what the agency did wrong when its men and women were told several times not to arrest anyone? What were they supposed to do? Cuff these guys and walk them into the jail and have no one prosecute them?”

The murderers were not arrested because District Attorney Jackie Johnson’s office had allegedly instructed the police to not make any arrests on the day of the murder. Having worked with McMichael in the past, Johnson subsequently recused herself from the case and assigned it to Waycross Judicial Circuit DA George Barnhill. After reviewing the evidence, Barnhill defended the actions of the McMichaels in his letter to the GCPD. Barnhill also recused himself from the case on account of his connections with McMichael, but not before opining that it was lawful for the vigilantes to perform a citizen’s arrest of a black man even though he had committed no crime and to shoot him dead in self-defense.

Same Story, Different Characters

The killing of Arbery by a GCPD ex-cop and the subsequent cover-up by the local officials, including DAs Johnson and Barnhill, may very well have gone undetected but for a video of the killing appearing in social media. It was only after the video of the murder surfaced, followed by public outrage, that the killers were arrested. Taking over the case from Barnhill, Tom Durden, Georgia’s Atlantic Judicial Circuit prosecutor, has recommended that a grand jury decide if McMichael and his son ought to face criminal charges.

Arbery’s death and the criminal negligence displayed by Georgian local law enforcement bear striking resemblance to the case of Trayvon Martin in the neighboring state of Florida almost eight years to the date. Martin, a black teenager visiting his father, was shot dead by George Zimmerman, a self-styled vigilante, on February 26, 2012. As in the case of Arbery’s killing, the local police did not arrest Zimmerman after the incident. More than two months after the killing and following a prolonged public outcry, Zimmerman was finally arrested and had to face trial. Sadly, there was no justice for Martin, whose life was cruelly cut short. Zimmerman was acquitted on the basis of Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law by an all-female jury comprising of five white women and one of mixed ethnicity.

Unlike in the Martin-Zimmerman case, McMichael and his son will face a grand jury that will decide if charges will be brought against them for killing Arbery. It will be a travesty of justice if the grand jury fails to see what the McMichaels did was nothing short of a savage and cold-blooded murder of a black man who was just going about his own business.

Policing Black Americans

Following the 2015 Charleston church shooting perpetrated by white supremacist Dylann Roof and subsequent protests, I had written the article “Racism in America is Alive and Well.” Absolutely nothing has changed in the racial bias and violence African Americans face today. Still, 51% of the nation’s homicide victims are African American, even though they make up just 13% of the country’s population. Of the more than a thousand people shot dead by police each year, black Americans are killed at more than two times the rate of white Americans.

Zimmerman and the McMichaels typify the disgraceful carryover from the ugly days of slavery in America, where organized groups of white men would enforce laws pertaining to slavery. They practiced vigilante tactics to terrorize black people and keep them in bondage. Policing black Americans sometimes paid handsomely, especially if the vigilantes happened to catch an escaped slave. White people could not be charged with a crime even if they killed a slave in the process of interrogating their captive.

The arrogance and audacity of Greg and Travis McMichael likely stems from the fact they could hide under the fine print of the law written by white men for the protection of their own kind. Georgia’s open carry law allows for McMichael and his son to arm themselves with a shotgun and a .357 Magnum revolver and chase after a black man jogging down the street. Georgia’s law also allows for them to confront and attempt to perform a citizen’s arrest of Arbery who had done nothing wrong. The state’s law also provides for the two white men to shoot the black man in the ensuing altercation and characterize it as an act of self-defense.

Ahmaud Arbery had committed two crimes. He was born black. And he took the liberty of going out for a jog in pursuit of happiness. He had to pay for those crimes with his life.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Murder of Ahmaud Arbery Is an Echo of Slave Patrols appeared first on Fair Observer.

Politics is terrible and murky even among people whose policies are reasonably aligned. The two progressive leaders in American politics, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sanders, are guided by different core principles. While Sanders stands for equality, Warren stands for liberty. The two flagbearers of the progressive movement failed to see eye to eye and coalesce their campaign the way centrist candidates did. That proved to be a costly mistake, resulting in both of them aborting their campaigns prematurely.

Unabashedly declaring himself a democratic socialist, Sanders was able to shake the country with a rousing campaign for a five-year period during his two presidential bids. However, at 78, Sanders is in the twilight of his political career and is unlikely to seek reelection for his Senate seat in 2024, let alone a third presidential run. Does this spell the end of the progressive movement Sanders has been instrumental in creating?

An American Utopia?

Despite his infectious passion that has engaged the younger generation of Americans, Sanders has not succeeded in challenging the nation to look past itself and look out for others. Even in the midst of one of the worst pandemics in human history, politicians have been unable to rise above politics, govern the country and lead the people safely and responsibly. The richest country on this planet is suffering the worst casualties, exposing its broken health-care system, inadequate testing infrastructure and a lack of supply of protective gear for health workers and the general public alike.

Not a day goes by without the nation’s megalomaniac leader, Donald Trump, doing something that is scandalous, parochial and irresponsible. His Republican entourage meekly kowtows to the president’s whims, leaving the impotent Democratic politicians flailing miserably, crying foul and accomplishing precious little.

Had Sanders, or any progressive leader, been at the helm during this disaster, science and facts would have dictated policies at the national level. The stimulus money that individuals receive would have been protected from banks and other private debt collectors having first dibs at it. The egregious abuse of power by an administration allowing the richest in the country to avoid paying $82 billion in taxes by way of a loophole in the stimulus plan would have been inconceivable. Assuaging human suffering, caring for the lives and health of American citizens would have taken precedence over the well-being of corporations and restarting the economy.

Sanders’ vision for America is egalitarian, not utopian. In his own words, every American “is entitled to health care as a right, is entitled to a decent paying job as a right, is entitled to a dignified retirement as a right, is entitled to a clean environment as a right, and is entitled to all of the education they need to accomplish their life goals,” capturing the essence of what he has been passionately fighting for.

Stranglehold of Capitalism

Strangely, millions of Americans who would benefit from an egalitarian society prefer to stay in the lower echelons of the economic caste system imposed on them by a capitalistic society. The select few who sit on top of the pyramid and wield the power have little incentive to change the system when the status quo is skewed so much in their favor. It is no surprise that Sanders calls his progressive movement a political revolution, for nothing sort of a revolution can bring about a change to this well-entrenched economic caste system foisted by capitalism.

How the political revolution created by Sanders survives and thrives after him depends on the surrogates filling the void he leaves behind. Until they truly become a force to reckon with within the Democratic establishment, they have to learn to win small concessions from the evolutionary policies of centrist Democrats without becoming obstructionists. Inspired by Sanders, it is promising to see many millennials aspire for political office. It would be critical for their aspirations to become reality as in the case of House Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Ro Khanna, all ardent believers in a progressive agenda.

As Congresswoman Omar correctly observes, “the progressive movement has never been about one individual. It is about issues.” Shifting the mindset of an entire nation to a progressive agenda, either through a radical revolution, as Sanders advocates, or specifically targeting the excesses of the capitalist system, as Warren believes, will take years, if not decades. We would need a new generation of leaders in positions of political power who are unafraid to place the larger social good ahead of personal gains and the interests of a wealthy few. They must be prepared and ready for capitalism to choke any incremental gains they make toward a more progressive society. Most importantly, they must be savvy enough to deal with it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Can America’s Progressive Movement Thrive Without Bernie Sanders? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Can the Democratic Party Unite Behind Bernie Sanders?

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In 2016, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) did everything it could to discredit Sanders’ campaign, ensuring that it was Hillary Clinton who secured the party’s nomination. The DNC probably thought the Sanders phenomenon was a short-lived burst of enthusiasm that would fade away over time. Four years later, the septuagenarian is back with the energy of a teenager, his revolutionary ideas catching the appeal of a larger audience as evidenced by his strong showing in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Super Tuesday

It is no surprise that the DNC would prefer anyone but Sanders as the 2020 Democratic contender. Soon after the South Carolina primary, where former Vice President Joe Biden scored his first victory, three candidates dropped out. Billionaire Tom Steyer, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, and Minnesota senator, Amy Klobuchar. On the eve of the crucial Super Tuesday primaries in 14 states, Biden was endorsed by Klobuchar, Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke, who dropped out of the race in November.

The last-minute endorsements were a calculated move to stem Sanders’ surge and bolster Biden’s comeback. The tactic paid off for the anyone-but-Sanders Democrats. Biden secured more than 6 in 10 votes from the late deciders. That Biden did a sweep of the Southern states with the strong support of African American voters is no surprise. But his clinching the top spot in Senator Elizabeth Warren’s home state of Massachusetts, where he spent no time or money campaigning, Virginia, where he held just one rally, and Texas, where Sanders was supposed to win with strong Latino voter support, highlight Biden’s remarkable reversal of fortunes.

As the dust settles following Super Tuesday, the Democratic primary is shaping up to be a two-way race between Sanders and Biden going forward. Warren’s poor showing thus far, including the defeat in her home state, should make it clear to her that she has no viable path for the nomination. She has decided to stay put in the race even though she is at a distant third spot, exasperating the progressives who expect that most of Warren’s supporters would embrace Sanders should she step aside.

In the process of securing the Republican nomination in 2016, Donald Trump methodically eliminated more than 20 seasoned politicians with name-calling and a campaign promise to “drain the swamp.” Notwithstanding all the insults he meted out to them, the GOP rallied behind Trump 100% and has remained subservient to him since then. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, the two sitting senators whom Trump insulted by calling “Lyin’ Ted” and “Little Marco,” have kowtowed before the president. Senator Lindsay Graham, an erstwhile critic of Trump, is today his staunch ally.

Biden Will Prove to Be a Calculated Mistake

In strong contrast, the DNC has resented the independent senator from Vermont for using the party’s platform for the presidential nomination. The Democratic establishment is rejoicing in the resurgence of Biden, but its belief that he is the most electable candidate against Trump would prove to be a mistake. It is harder for someone with an extreme viewpoint, whether it is to the left or right, to accept a moderate middle ground. In 2016, Hillary Clinton did not get the wholehearted support of Sanders voters. The fact that the Sanders campaign was foiled by a rigged primary favoring Clinton must have played a part. By alienating Sanders’ supporters with its machinations, the DNC runs the risk of not having them come out in support of Biden in November.

No matter how well coached, Biden’s propensity for stumbling in public with his gaffes would be mercilessly exploited by the Trump campaign. Biden cannot differentiate himself from Barack Obama’s legacy without being critical of his own role in the administration for eight years. Clinton, a consummate career politician, failed to do so — and lost to Trump. It is inconceivable that Biden, with his uninspiring vision, will succeed in rousing any segment of the population save those who want to return to the status quo of yesteryears.

Biden touts his electability against the incumbent president. Trump will, without doubt, bring up his acquittal by the senate and drag Biden into the very allegations that caused the House to impeach him. Blunder-prone Biden would find it difficult, if not impossible, to come out on top when that issue takes center stage.

Polls show that Sanders is very much capable of beating Trump. The real reason the Democratic establishment is afraid of pitching Sanders against Trump is that the election will become a referendum between a socially responsible way of life against pure capitalistic greed. Being socially responsible does not automatically translate into adopting socialism. The nation needs to have a chance to weigh the implications and voice its opinion. The Democratic establishment has no right to sabotage the Sanders campaign as it did four years ago. If it chooses to do so yet again, it will be at its own peril, ensuring four more years for Trump.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Trump’s reckless action showed his utter disregard for Congress, pushed US and Iran into a state of heightened tension and sparked fears of more instability in the Middle East. Thumbing its nose at the Democrats, the Trump administration has now taken the position that killing Soleimani was justified whether or not he posed an imminent threat. 

Democrats have wasted valuable time not realizing that the 2020 presidential election will be anything but normal. It has taken them more than eight months to whittle down the extraordinarily long list of hopefuls seeking a chance beat the incumbent Republican to a dozen. Six of them — Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, former Vice President Joe Biden, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg and billionaire investor Tom Steyer — had met the requirements set by the Democratic National Committee and took the stage for their party’s 7^th debate in Des Moines, Iowa, on Tuesday, January 14.

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In addition to the usually debated topics on health care, immigration, climate change, foreign policy, economic inequality, government structure and education, the impeachment proceedings against Trump and the aftermath of his imprudent actions against Iran set the stage for the last debate before the Iowa caucuses.

Foreign Policy

It was no surprise that the recent turn of events in the Middle East meant the first few questions to the candidates were around American foreign policy and their qualification for the role of commander-in-chief of the United States of America. Sanders wasted no time in calling out the lies of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and his opposition to the Iraq War in 2002. He also pointed out the other huge blunder in America’s foreign policy that got it embroiled in the Vietnam War. Sanders essentially reiterated his non-interventionist foreign policy that would rely on negotiations with adversaries in close collaboration with allies over military intervention and armed conflicts.

Senator Warren minced no words when she said that she would pull back all American troops deployed in the Middle East back and put an end to the corruption between the defense industry and the Pentagon. Biden was apologetic about his support of the Iraq War but touted his role in the troop reduction in the region during the Obama administration.

Buttigieg, who was deployed to Afghanistan as a naval intelligence officer, talked about the emerging threats to national security in the form of cyberattacks. He was the only person to bring up the topic of executive powers granted to the president post 9/11 and argued that they ought to be revisited, lest they be misused the way Trump did in his recent drone attack in Baghdad to target General Soleimani.

The debating candidates were more or less unanimous in how they would deal with Iran and North Korea. Their approach would rely on undoing the damage caused by Trump and his administration in both countries, ensuring Iran remains non-nuclear, and applying pressure on North Korea with the help of China and Japan.

Trade, Climate Change and Health Care

Sanders vehemently opposed the new trade deal between America, Mexico and Canada, the USMCA, on account of the fact that there were no climate change-related checks and balances in them, even as he acknowledged that the deal had modest improvements favoring American workers. The two other senators, Klobuchar and Warren, voiced their support, as did the remaining candidates.

Steyer tried to make a case as the climate change candidate on the stage, but he failed to set himself apart in a meaningful fashion. Each one of his opponents agreed to take on addressing climate change, stating that it would be one of their top priorities.

Sanders could not convincingly explain how he would pay for his Medicare-for-all policy when he was put on the spot. Warren and Klobuchar aim to build on the Affordable Care Act, as does Biden, who did not lose the opportunity to christen his improvements to Obamacare as the “Biden option.” Buttigieg stood by his public option of health care for everyone with two key proposals: lowering prescription drug costs and rolling back Trump tax cuts to corporations. 

None of the candidates chose to talk about improving the overall health of Americans in a holistic fashion. Nor did they question how the health-care industry continues to alter what is considered normal for chronic ailments like blood pressure and cholesterol. Those changes have resulted in several more millions of Americans having to rely on prescription drugs. While the empirical evidence used to alter the range for chronic ailments ought to be respected, relying on prescription drugs without a holistic approach to health will only address the symptom and provide long-term and life-long customers to the pharmaceutical industry.  

Can a Woman Become President?

In the days leading to the debate, Warren had accused Sanders that in 2018 he suggested that a woman could not become the president of United States. Warren’s and Sanders’ campaigns had agreed not to go down the mudslinging route between themselves, but by bringing up something Sanders had allegedly said in 2018, Warren had chosen to move away from that arrangement. The issue came up during the debate: Sanders denied that he ever made such a statement, while Warren did not seem to acknowledge it.  

After making a pitch of how the two women on stage have the highest record in winning elections, Warren went on to say that she is only one on stage to beat an incumbent Republican in an election in the last 30 years. Sanders promptly contested that assertion, stating that he beat an incumbent Republican in 1990, technically in the 30-year timeframe that Warren had mentioned. While Sanders and Warren chose not to escalate their barbs on stage, it was clear that there was not much love lost in the bickering between the two progressive candidates.

Best Suited to Take on Trump

While no clear winner emerged from the debate, Biden, the current leader in national polls, emerged as a loser. Biden is running on a centrist agenda and his supposed ability to beat Trump. During the 7^th debate he was hesitant, apologetic and inarticulate, all of which will make it impossible for him to stand up against the bully Trump during the presidential campaign and debates.

Steyer ought to realize that he is wasting everyone’s time continuing to stick around — as should the remaining six who did not even make it to the national debate. Steyer would do well to spend his money on helping whoever emerges as the candidate to take on Trump. He should quit the race knowing his signature campaign agenda — climate change — will be addressed by whoever is the Democratic nominee to take on Trump.

Klobuchar was fluent, but lacked the conviction and substance the other three on stage displayed. Like Biden, she courts the centrist Democrats with her policies and her supposed ability to come out on top where Trump fared well in 2016.  

Sanders and Warren, whose viewpoints were closely aligned much of the way, were persuasive and stood by them with authority. The challenge they will face is in convincing the centrist Democrats and the rest of the country that their progressive policies will, in the long run, be beneficial for the country even if it means reigning in the capitalistic excesses of the nation. Buttigieg showed himself to be competent and cogent, and will make an excellent addition to either a Sanders or Warren ticket.

Beating Trump will not be easy. Trump will run a brutal campaign that is dirty, filled with name-calling, personal insults, evading the truth and substantive issues while spreading lies. His impeachment has not swayed the opinion of his supporters. He will very likely be acquitted in the farce of a Senate trial later this month and emerge that much stronger and more vicious. Biden will not be able to stand up to the personal assault of a savage Trump campaign.

Sanders or Warren, on the other hand, will have the opportunity to face Trump without a barrage of personal assaults that is bound to muddy the campaign. Their primary challenge will be selling their progressive agenda to the nation, especially in the swing states. Given how hard it is going to be to beat Trump, it is a risk worth taking rather than run with an insipid Biden and his centrist campaign.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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The protest is supported by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a right-wing student organization affiliated with the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Rationalizing the protest, ABVP’s BHU wing convener said: “Their demand is genuine. The students want transfer of Dr. Firoz since they want only Hindus as teachers in the faculty of SVDV that imparts education of Sanatan Dharma.”

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The students have called off the protest after being assured by the university’s vice-chancellor of corrective measures within 10 days. The issue is far from over, however, as a subsection of the current and former BHU faculty members have expressed their parochial view to the president of India, Ram Nath Govind, seeking immediate repeal of the appointment. Khan, who has a doctorate in Sanskrit, expressed his deep sadness at the protests: “All my life, I learnt Sanskrit and I was never made to realise I am a Muslim, but now when I am trying to teach, suddenly it has become the only subject.”

Myopic View

The resistance to a Muslim scholar teaching Sanskrit at SVDV stems from a misguided sense of rectitude from a specific segment of Hindu students and teachers. Many voices in India have come out in support of Khan, including a group of BHU students. In a surprise twist, the Varanasi chapter of RSS also expressed its support for Khan’s appointment, stating that “The Sangh has a clear and firm view that opposing a person appointed by the due selection process and is dedicated and devoted to Sanskrit literature, goes against the law and social harmony.”

It is but a travesty that certain BHU students and professors are up in arms against Khan’s appointment to the SVDV, one of whose cardinal objectives is to “remove the pervading misconceptions about religion, spirituality, Astrology and Tantras in society and reinstate the paramount values of ethics and religion for the upliftment of society and nation in general and individuals in particular.”

All the more telling is the fact that the university was founded in 1916 by Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, along with British theosophist, writer, educationist and philanthropist, Annie Besant. Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, revered by many, had no issues working alongside the non-Hindu co-founder, Dr. Besant. Those students and the teaching faculty of BHU who are against Khan’s appointment have failed to understand the core principles of the institution as well as that of the founder of the university. And their refusal to embrace Khan demonstrates their myopic view of religion, life and learning.

Communal Harmony

The dimwitted view of a few people, emboldened by the rise of fundamentalism across the world and Hindutva in India, cannot take away from the predominant prevalence of communal harmony between Muslims and Hindus. In Moin-ul-Islam madrassa located in Agra, Hindu and Muslim students learn Arabic and Sanskrit side by side. Founded in 1926, the madrassa opened its doors to Hindu students in 2005 and today has more Hindu students than Muslim ones on its campus.

In Uttar Pradesh, an 18-year-old Hindu girl, Pooja Kushwaha, has been teaching the Quran to Muslim children. Today, her free classes are held in a temple for about 35 Muslim students who are too poor to pay for the lessons. Endorsing her efforts, a 70-year-old Muslim leader, Haji Jamiluddin Qureshi, said “It’s heartening to know that such rare examples of communal harmony exist in our city. A teacher is a teacher and her religion doesn’t matter as long as she knows the Holy Scripture well.”

Dr. Firoz Khan isn’t the first to face such resistance on account of his religious faith. Similar to Pooja learning the Quran, Gopalika Antharjanam, a Brahmin girl from Kerala, learned Arabic when she was 17. When she started teaching Arabic in a public school in 1987, there was an uproar and protests similar to what Khan is facing today. Fired from her job as an Arabic teacher, Gopalika took the matter to court. In 1989, the Kerala High Court ruled in her favor, allowing her to pursue a career of teaching Arabic even though she is a Hindu Brahmin.

Protesters against Firoz Khan teaching Sanskrit could take heed these examples instead of writing to the country’s president or threatening to contest his appointment at the Supreme Court. Until they take a stance based on reason, one of Annie Besant’s quotes best conveys the die-hard position of the protesters: “Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Why Can’t a Muslim Scholar Teach Sanskrit in India? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Not to be outdone, when it was his turn to address the crowd, Trump continued the lovefest with Modi, saying, “I’m so thrilled to be here in Texas with one of America’s greatest, most devoted and most loyal friends, Prime Minister Modi of India.”

Modi and Trump played a calculated game scratching each other’s back in front of an influential Indian American crowd. Trump essentially secured Modi’s tacit endorsement for his 2020 reelection campaign, while Modi successfully managed to have Trump on his side just in time before the 74^th United Nation General Assembly (UNGA) meeting in New York. In his address to the UNGA, Modi purposefully ignored speaking about the turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir where, earlier this year, he had revoked the state’s special autonomous status mandated by the Indian Constitution. Instead, Modi focused on talking about the progress India has made under his governance. In contrast, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan in his speech focused heavily on how India has clamped down on Kashmir over the past two months.

Without doubt, India has seen progress under Modi’s leadership. That progress, however, has come at the cost of persecution of minorities in India. India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) promotes Hindu interests while subtly chipping away at the rights of the minority Christian and Muslim communities. I have spoken to my Christian and Muslim friends from India who have shared with me how disenfranchised and insecure they feel under BJP’s rule and Modi’s leadership.

The Ghosts of Godhra

Before ascending to the highest office in India, Modi was the chief minister of the state of Gujarat between 2001 and 2014 — 13 long years. He had not been in office even for a year before the infamous 2002 Godhra riots broke out, in which more than 1,000 Muslims were massacred. The riots occurred in retaliation for an incident in which 60 Hindu pilgrims burned to death in a train compartment. An Indian government investigation did reveal in 2005 that the fire was caused by an accident and not as a result of a Muslim attack on the train that fateful day. In the immediate aftermath, reason did not prevail as communal riots broke out, and Muslims were systematically slaughtered.

Many still believe that Modi has blood on his hands, allowing the carnage against Muslims to happen on his watch. The gruesome killings and rape went on not for one or two days, but for a full two-month period, something that would have been impossible without Modi turning a blind eye and withholding law enforcement. Modi was unapologetic soon after the incident and avoided talking about it for years, before expressing a token apology in 2012, a full decade after the incident. Modi has successfully shirked prosecution for his role in the tragedy, while some victims, like Bilkis Bano, had to wait 17 years after the events to receive some kind of restitution for the atrocities committed against her and her family, even though it is questionable if money can ever heal her suffering.

Modi was ostracized by the international community for his role in the Godhra riots. The United States had banned Modi from its soil for his complicity in the massacre. Britain instated a 10-year boycott that ended only in 2012. This diplomatic cold shoulder from the international community melted away when the BJP came to power in 2014 and Modi became the prime minister of what is today the second most populous country and the world’s third-largest economy.

A Campaign Speech

In sharp contrast to the earlier visa ban, Modi has been allowed to hold one of the largest rallies in the US by a foreign leader, with America’s president appearing on stage with him. Trump’s words and actions have shown him to be a racist and a misogynist, a xenophobe and an Islamophobe with no morals or scruples. By endorsing Trump in front of a large Indian American crowd, Modi conveyed to the world that he had no qualms standing up for such a person. Even though Modi and Trump share the same distrust and dislike of Muslims, it is a surprise that he went as far as he did to deliver what resembled a campaign speech on behalf of Donald Trump.  

The Indian diaspora who cheered Trump along with Modi ought to realize that Trump can turn on a dime against the brown-skinned immigrant community from India. Trump has used the unlawful actions of outliers in the Hispanic community to paint Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals. There is nothing that would stop him from turning against Indian Americans should that provide him political expediency in some form. Trump has emboldened this nation of immigrants to openly express racist sentiments and bully people of color. The Indian Americans who cheered Trump ought to realize that their kids continue to get bullied in schools, labeled with terms such as “curry n****r” and “dot head” as the nation witnesses an uptick in racist and sexist behavior since Trump gained prominence in the political arena.

Narendra Modi had no business campaigning for Trump in Houston. With his bear hugs, handshakes and campaign speech for Trump, Modi and his devoted followers are demonstrating their shortsightedness, mortgaging the future of their own children in return for favors from the US president facing impeachment.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Mueller’s report concluded that his probe did not find sufficient evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government on election meddling. Furthermore, the report also did not find sufficient evidence that Trump committed obstruction of justice, but it stopped short of exonerating him completely. For Pelosi, the political implications of launching impeachment proceedings without conclusive evidence on either aspect of the Mueller inquiry was a risk not worth taking.

All that changed dramatically this week when President Trump’s phone conversation with the newly elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, came to light. In his July call with Zelensky, Trump specifically asked for his help in investigating Hunter Biden, the son of his possible 2020 Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, while alleging wrongdoings by the former vice president himself. Trump repeatedly mentioned that he would like his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Attorney General William Barr to call the Ukrainian president in order to get to the bottom of some issues.

The issues that the president of United States of America felt compelled to discuss were the business dealings of Biden’s son and the hacking of the Democratic National Congress servers in 2016. The full transcript of the conversation released by the White House shows how uninspiring and pathetically pedestrian Trump can be, even as Zelensky tries to shamelessly humor him and massage his ego.

Blowing the Whistle

The crucial question that legal pundits will be debating is whether there was any explicit quid pro quo in the conversation. A careful reading of the transcript will show Trump asking for favors from Zelensky and vice-versa. Even as someone who is not a trained legal expert, I can see nothing incriminating in the conversation. In fact, the conversation was very much akin to two juveniles gossiping, Trump complaining about German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, with Zelensky echoing those complaints to score a brownie point or two with Trump.

Trump’s veiled suggestions to look into the Bidens’ activities comes dangerously close to soliciting a foreign leader’s help against a political opponent, but there was no direct mention of aid being withheld until the favors he asked for were granted. (Trump did admit to reporters earlier this week that he did in fact withhold aid to Ukraine, but did so because of concerns of US overspending compared to other European nations.) The US president did, however, fail to demonstrate any respect or pride in the nation he leads when he trash-talked Mueller, Yovanovitch and Biden during the conversation.

Following this ill-fated call, in August, a whistleblower complaint was lodged against President Trump. The House Intelligence Committee released the seven-page document, wherein the whistleblower — whose identity has not been revealed, but who some have suggested was an officer in the intelligence services — accuses Trump of using his presidential powers to pressure foreign leaders to meddle in the 2020 elections, posing a risk to US national security.

Most of the information contained in the complaint is not the whistleblower’s first-hand knowledge. Rather, it is conjecture based on various information he gleaned as a non-White House official privy to sensitive information during his interactions with several US government officials. The material contained is definitely damning to Trump’s lawyer Giuliani, but not the president directly. Unlike the transcript of Trump’s telephone call with Zelensky, which is easy to read and make sense of, the whistleblower complaint is involved and needs to be investigated further in order to determine who acted with impropriety. If it is Giuliani, he will likely get thrown under the bus by Trump in much the same way as his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen.

That Pelosi succumbed to the growing pressure to impeach Trump based on his phone call with Zelensky and the material contained in the whistleblower report looks like a tactical error. Removing Trump from the Oval Office is a long, drawn out process that seems farfetched at this time. Following the initial impeachment inquiry announced by Pelosi, the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Congressman Jerrold Nadler will lead the effort of overseeing the ongoing investigations of the six House committees. At the end, if the committee does decide to pursue impeachment, it will draft the articles of impeachment that will be voted in the House. It requires but a simple majority in the House to impeach him.

If Trump is indeed impeached, he will then be tried in the Senate, with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts presiding, and the members of the Senate acting as the jury. A two-third majority in the Senate is needed to convict and remove Trump from office — a practical impossibility in the Republican-controlled Senate under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Impeachment Imminent?

Trump is an unethical businessman who knows how to navigate the thin line between legality and committing a crime. He would never have won the election in 2016 should good ethics, morality, respect for women, regard for all human beings irrespective of their race, color, ethnicity or country of origin were mandatory requirements to be president of United States. He garnered 62 million votes in 2016 with all his character flaws. It would require a lot more than the appearance of impropriety in a conversation with a foreign political leader advancing his personal agenda to sway the opinion of Trump’s voter base.

It is insufficient to have only Democrats talk about impeachment. It is imperative that the House impeachment be a bi-partisan effort with significant number of Republican Congress members sharing the view that Trump did cross a line in his dealings with the Ukrainian president. For that to happen, incontrovertible proof from thorough investigations of the whistleblower complaint will be needed to make GOP Congress members vote against their party’s president.

Proceeding along partisan lines, even if the House succeeds in impeaching Trump based on the questionable evidence seen in the whistleblower complaint, without Republican voters willing to turn away from this corrupt man in the White House, the Senate is sure to acquit him. Should that happen, Trump will remain on the 2020 ballot, and an angry Republican base will propel him to a win, making him the first ever president to be impeached and go on to win a second term.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Trump lamely tried to distance himself from the racist chant, stating: “I felt a little badly about it. But I will say this, I did — and I started speaking very quickly.” In fact, the president waited a full 13 seconds before he started speaking, visibly basking in the power of his words as the crowd chanted.

Ilhan Omar, a junior representative for Minnesota’s 5^th congressional district, epitomizes everything Trump hates: a Muslim immigrant woman who is also a person of color. Attacking Omar and the three other American-born congresswomen — nicknamed “The Squad” — and gloating at the rallying cry of “Send Her Back!” may stoke the ego of America’s narcissistic president. But what it really shows is his deep-rooted fear of losing the 2020 election. In 2016, Trump successfully ran an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Obama campaign against Hillary Clinton with the rally chant “Lock Her Up!” to win the presidency.

Presiding over a corrupt and tumultuous first term in office, now into its third year, Trump knows that it will not be his policies that ensure his reelection. He knows that he has to rely on a recipe that mixes fearmongering, bullying and nationalism to reenergize his voter base for a successful second bid. Even with an approval rating consistently below 50% in Gallup polls, Trump’s confidence in his ability to pander to his voter base comes through loud and clear in a June interview with Time magazine, during which the president quipped when asked about reaching out to swing voters: “I think my base is so strong, I’m not sure I have to do that.”

A Deal with the Devil

Not surprisingly, Democrats have been up in arms against Trump and his provocative tweets against the four newly elected congresswomen. The House moved quickly to condemn Trump’s attack against them. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi called his tweets “racist” and, in an unprecedented scenario, this characterization remained in the formal rebuke of the president. Yet only four Republicans joined the Democrats in chastising Trump.

The Republican leadership still stands staunchly by Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell believes “the president is onto something” and wants everyone to “tone the rhetoric down across the country,” while accusing the Democrats of wanting “to take America into a socialist country.” Senator Lindsay Graham, of South Carolina, one of Trump’s strongest allies, refused to condemn his tweets as racist; instead, he went one step further and described the four congresswomen as “a bunch of communists.”

A marginally stronger condemnation by a Republican amounting to nothing more than a gentle slap on the wrist came from Utah Senator Mitt Romney when he said the president’s behavior was “destructive, was demeaning, was dis-unifying and frankly was very wrong.” In a similar vein, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, himself a son of a Cuban immigrant, said that “The president shouldn’t have written that. I think it damages him but it damages the country and none of us should be participating in identity politics.”

However, there is not a single elected Republican leader who had the courage to acknowledge the xenophobic, racist and misogynistic nature of Trump’s behavior, let alone confront him, either today or in the past. While the Democrats continue to be outraged every time Trump goes on the offensive, they can do little to rein him in. Afraid of facing the president’s wrath and fearing their own political survival by alienating his voter base, Republican leaders have chosen to stay silent and shift the blame onto progressive Democrats. While career politicians in both parties play into the hands of the political reality show orchestrated by Trump, America slowly but surely sinks deeper into an ethical and moral vacuum.

Daring Trump

Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by a margin of 2.9 million ballots. But the fact remains that there were 62 million American voters who wanted him in the White House. That Trump’s crass language laced with racism, xenophobia and misogyny was acceptable to more than 46% of the voting population ought to make everyone wonder about the country’s true moral fiber. Emboldened by an impotent GOP and an ineffective opposition from the Democrats, it has been left to a handful of people in Congress to challenge Trump’s autocratic ways.

The four congresswomen has been unafraid to dare Trump and stand up for what they believe in. Omar, a Somali refugee who came into the United States in 1995, has battled the odds to win her seat in the House Representatives last year. She confronted Trump in a recent social media battle, tweeting that “It is time for us to stop allowing this president to make a mockery out of our constitution, it is time for us to impeach this president.”

Omar did made the mistake by using anti-Semitic tropes earlier this year when she tweeted that “It’s all about Benjamins baby,” alluding to the reason behind the pro-Israeli stance among US politicians. The whole political establishment, comprising of both Democrats and Republicans, came down heavily against her critical view on Israel. Apparently, expressing an anti-Israeli opinion amounts to hating United States of America, as Senator Graham summed it up succinctly when he suggested that apart from being “communists,” the four congresswomen “hate Israel, they hate our own country.”

Anyone who has had a chance to see the junior representative from New York, Ocasio-Cortez, questioning the acting chief of Department of Homeland Security would understand why she makes the Republican establishment squirm in discomfort. The first black woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts, Pressley is unafraid to call Trump “an occupant” of the White House for the way he dishonors the country’s highest office every day. “We are allowing a crooked CEO to run this country,” says Tlaib, the representative from Michigan who is a daughter of Palestinian immigrants.

The double standard prevailing in American politics is appalling. The Republican establishment is willing and ready to give Trump a pass every time he makes a racist statement, be it against The Squad or standing up for white supremacists following the far-right Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 in which a peaceful protester, Heather Heyer, was killed. Trump has denigrated Hispanics, calling them criminals and rapists early on in his presidential campaign, and stoked Islamophobia time and time again over the last few years without facing any repercussions.

Yet when Rashida Tlaib stands up for the rights of Palestinians, or Ilhan Omar challenges the influence of Israeli money in American politics, they are quickly branded anti-Semitic and haters of America. Just because they are critical of its policies and are open about their criticism of it, it doesn’t mean Omar, Tlaib, Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez hate America. Far from being haters, they are the true patriots for trying to make the nation better. Bullying them for it in the name of patriotism is sheer cowardice — and Trump is the biggest coward of all.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Donald Trump: The Biggest Coward of Them All appeared first on Fair Observer.

The United States of America is facing a constitutional crisis of an unparalleled magnitude. The Founding Fathers of the nation wisely created the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government to ensure checks and balances between them. Should the executive branch blatantly overstep its boundaries, they had provisions for the legislature to rein it in, under the auspices of the judiciary. They probably did not foresee a situation where the Senate shamelessly colludes with the president, while the House of Representatives gets mired in its own political incompetency against the backdrop of the Supreme Court that is in danger of losing its neutrality.

Chief Justice John Roberts tried to convince the country that ideological differences in the Supreme Court are not due to political affiliation of the judges, telling an audience at the University of Minnesota last October that “we do not serve one party or one interest, we serve one nation.” Yet Justice Roberts does have the right to vote, which he can exercise every two years and, in the process, align himself with a political party. If one were to look into the leanings of the Supreme Court justices, it is clear that all five judges nominated by a Republican president fall under the conservative spectrum, and the remaining four judges nominated by a Democratic president fall on the liberal side.

The intersectionality between religious, political and ideological beliefs is hard to escape, notwithstanding Justice Roberts’ assurances that the Supreme Court is immune to it.

The challenge to the democratic institution in America comes not from the ideological underpinnings of the Supreme Court, but rather from its imbecile president and the spineless Republican senators marshaled by their hypocritical majority leader, Mitch McConnell. After successfully sabotaging President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016 after insisting that it is improper for a departing president to fill any judicial vacancy, McConnell asserted that in 2020 he would allow President Trump to fill such vacancies, including the Supreme Court, should one arise. The lengths to which McConnell will go in order to shift the judicial landscape to a decidedly conservative one ought to scare anyone who believes in a fair democratic process.

A Constitutional Crisis

Assured of the unwavering support and protection from a Republican Senate, Donald Trump’s behavior is turning increasingly authoritarian. Fancying himself an emperor, Trump has floated the idea of extending his presidency to more than two terms in violation of the Constitution. He also wants two years added to his current term to account for the time lost on the Mueller investigation.

Already taking for granted a win in 2020, Trump is laying the foundation for a potential civil unrest in the country should he lose his reelection bid. In a tweet, he stated that his supporters might “demand that I stay longer.” In the same tweet he also discredits media that he disagrees with, specifically calling out The New York Times and The Washington Post.

In order to secure a second term, Trump unabashedly stated in an interview with ABC that he would accept dirt on his opponents from foreigners, tacitly extending an open invitation to Russia and any country that may want to interfere in the 2020 election. It is not only unethical, but unprecedented for the president of the United States to solicit dirt on his political opponents from a foreign power. Unfortunately, ethics and decorum are concepts that do not exist in the world of Trump, the most unscrupulous president America has seen in recent times.

In the midst of this remarkable crisis facing the nation, 24 Democrats have thrown their hats in the ring for a chance to unseat Trump. Let us not forget that Trump had methodically dismantled more than 20 Republican candidates and the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 election to win the presidency. Going through a traditional nomination process, Democrats would lose valuable time in identifying the candidate to take on Trump and devising a strategy to defeat him.

Twice in recent times a Democrat who won the national popular vote failed to win the presidency: Al Gore against George W. Bush in 2000, and Hillary Clinton against Trump in 2016. Representative democracy and the convoluted nature of the Electoral College provides a means for a person to lose the popular vote and become president. Fully cognizant of this fact, only eight candidates endorse the need for Electoral College reform, while three are against it, and the remaining ones dance around the issue.

Without waiting for the improbable abolition of the Electoral College, 15 states and Washington DC have joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact — an effort to ensure that every vote in every state counts in deciding who gets to be America’s president. In a reflection of the dysfunctional politics among Democrats, Nevada refused to join this coalition when its Democratic governor, Steve Sisolak, vetoed the bill that would have made it possible for the state to join the group. That the Democrats cannot get their heads around an issue as important as Electoral College reform, even after losing the 2016 election to a reprobate like Trump, is most disconcerting.

Getting Their Act Together

America faces a plethora of issues that need to be addressed urgently to restore balance and decency in the country. Some of the Democratic hopefuls have centered their campaign around a specific issue they are passionate about. Julian Castro’s People First Policing is a comprehensive plan reforming how policing is done, the only candidate as yet to present such a complete proposal. Beto O’Rourke has reignited the issue of congressional and Supreme Court term limits in his comprehensive voting rights plan aimed at improving participation in and functioning of American democracy.

Unafraid of being labeled a socialist, Bernie Sanders’ campaign is centered around economic, social and racial equality. In addition to embracing some of the issues Sanders espouses, Elizabeth Warren highlights a bold foreign policy that is not anchored in military conflicts and bloated defense budgets, but rather friendly collaboration with allies and peace with everyone. When it comes to gun control, Cory Booker goes the farthest by supporting a federal registry of gun owners, making gun ownership much like having a passport.

Health care, affordable housing, voting rights, free college education, gun control, immigration, climate change, women’s rights, LGBTQ equality, racial justice and more feature in the long list of issues all these various candidates highlight. Each and every one of the issues is important; some more critical than others.

But the issue that is of paramount importance is identifying the person best suited to taking on Trump and beating him in November 2020. In a recent survey conducted by Ipsos, 82% of Democrats and independents polled said they want a candidate who can beat Trump, even if that means not nominating a woman or a minority candidate. Ideally, the 24 Democratic hopefuls should get together in a closed room and emerge with a candidate and his/her running mate with unconditional support, along with a well thought out plan on how to tackle the constitutional crisis being precipitated by Trump and McConnell.

Identifying that candidate should not turn into a reality show circus that the Republican nomination process was in 2016. It is imperative Democrats get their act together soon, lest 2020 becomes yet another unlearned lesson and an exercise in hindsight.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Who Can Beat Trump in 2020? appeared first on Fair Observer.

On March 15, 50 people were killed by a Christian, far-right, white supremacist when they were engaged in Friday prayers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. More than three years ago, when gunmen killed 130 people in France, media had no issues calling the perpetrators what they were, Islamic terrorists, highlighting both the faith and the ideology of the attackers.

The whole world stood by France in its moment of grief, with social media feeds going through the roof as people embraced the French flag in their identity, especially on Facebook. There was no ambiguity in the grief expressed across the globe at the predominantly Christian lives that were lost at the hands of terrorist perpetrators belonging to the Islamic State group. While there is outrage expressed at the New Zealand massacre, it seems the world is more shocked at the fact that a terrorist attack happened in the small island nation, rather than the hate crime targeted at innocent Muslims.

Standing in solidarity with New Zealanders where worshippers were killed by an Australian citizen, Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the perpetrator as an “extremist right-wing, violent terrorist.” It is remarkable that the Australian prime minister went as far as using the word “terrorist” to describe him.

In contrast, the irresponsible, indifferent and Islamophobic Australian senator from Queensland, Fraser Anning, had no qualms about blaming the attack on New Zealand’s immigration policies from the past that allowed Muslims to immigrate into that country. “The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program that allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place,” Anning said in a statement soon after the Friday massacre.

US President Donald Trump had this to say of the tragic incident: “My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealand.” Warmest sympathy? Best wishes? Even the tragic loss of lives could not move Trump to call out the Muslim identity of the victims and express at least some perfunctory sympathy for them and their families.

Trump has never hidden his disdain for Muslims while openly promoting white nationalism. It is farfetched to expect the president to call out the gunman for what he is: a Christian, white, right-wing terrorist. In fact, when Trump was asked if he saw white nationalism as a rising threat in the world, he doubled down on his core fundamentalist beliefs and responded: “I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”

It is no wonder that the Christchurch shooter’s 74-page manifesto lauded Trump as a “symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” Whether Trump acknowledges it or not, his hateful rhetoric following his ascension to power has had serious consequences, and his hands are tainted with the blood of the Muslim women, men and children who lost their lives while praying in mosques on that fateful Friday.

Why hate crimes against Muslims won’t stop

As long as there are leaders like Trump and Anning who unabashedly spread falsehood with their vile rhetoric against Muslims, the world will continue to see more incidents where innocent people are targeted with hate crimes.

As long as countries defend and accept hate speech as an individual’s right to freedom of expression, the world will continue to breed more of the likes of Brenton Tarrant and Anders Behring Breivik — the terrorists behind the New Zealand massacre and the 2011 Norway attack.

As long as the world refuses to acknowledge that guns have no place in a civilized society and allow people to own weapons that can extinguish multiple lives in a matter of moments, the Christchurch attack will not be the last of its kind.

As long as the world media continues to paint Christian, white, right-wing terrorists as outliers and tries to “humanize” them, Caucasians and Christians will never have to bear the brunt of the actions of people like Tarrant. They can offer their prayers and sympathies to those killed and move on with their lives without fear.

As long as the media continues to describe the actions of every Muslim extremist as a reflection on the entire Islamic population, every Muslim in the world will have to live in fear of bearing the brunt of those actions just because they share the same faith.

March 15, 2019, was a sad day not only because of the loss of 50 innocent Muslims engaged in prayers at the hands of a hate-filled man, but the world got to witness yet again the double standards in media reporting and the words of fanatics in positions of power like Trump and Anning.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The New Zealand “Gunman” Is a Terrorist appeared first on Fair Observer.

On February 15, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency in order to appropriate the funds needed to build a wall on America’s southern border with Mexico. Trump’s autocratic action will definitely face legal challenges as lawmakers and political pundits debate the extent of the president’s executive powers. In deciding to arrogate some $8 billion earmarked for military construction, Trump has effectively sidestepped the nation’s legislative procedures to solve a non-existent crisis that he had manufactured for political gains.

Trump was at his incoherent best when he made the announcement from the Rose Garden:

“And by signing the national emergency, something signed many times by other presidents, many, many times, President Obama, in fact, we may be using one of the national emergencies that he signed having to do with cartels, criminal cartels. It’s a very good emergency that he signed … And what we really want to do is simple. It’s not like it is complicated. It’s very simple. We want to stop drugs from coming into our country. We want to stop criminals and gangs from coming into our country. Nobody has done the job that we have ever done.”

Trump had touted his astute business sense and deal-making in the course of his election campaign, publicly asserting several times that Mexico will pay for the wall. Following a Super Tuesday win in March 2016, Trump stated during a press conference that “We have a trade deficit with Mexico of $58 billion a year — $58 billion. The wall is going to cost $10 billion. It’s so easy. I’ve had these guys that I’m on the stage with go you don’t really mean Mexico is going to pay for the wall. One — as sure as you’re standing there, 100 percent, Mexico’s going to pay, 100 percent.”

Trump failed miserably to deliver on his signature campaign promise, demonstrating utter incompetence when he could not secure the funds needed for the wall’s construction from a Republican-controlled Congress for two full years. When the power dynamics shifted in 2019, with Democrats taking control of the House, Trump gambled with the lives and livelihoods of 800,000 federal workers, petulantly instituting a government shutdown that lasted a record 35 days. The Democrats’ steadfast refusal to fund the wall forced Trump to end the unnecessary impasse on January 25, just so he could secure House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s invitation to give the State of the Union address.

Criminal Immigrants

Crime, murder and social turmoil in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, known as Central America’s Northern Triangle, have contributed to a sense of disdain in the United States toward socialism and paranoia against communism that have led to meddling in the internal politics of the three countries. The humanitarian crisis at the Mexican border is largely the result of an irresponsible US Central American policy over the last half century.

Refusing to acknowledge this in any fashion, America’s xenophobic president has referred to Mexicans as rapists, and to immigrants and asylum seekers at the southern border as drug addicts and criminals. A study by the Cato Institute, an independent, non-partisan public policy research organization, has determined that Trump’s White House has repeatedly misled everyone with an error-filled and false narrative on crimes committed by immigrants. Trump has claimed that more than 25,000 criminal aliens have been arrested on homicide charges.

The Cato Institute study points out that the number is over a 55-year period, and that immigrants could have accounted for no more than 2.7% of the 934,000 homicides committed in the country during that timeframe. Trump continues to whip up frenzy about border crossings despite the fact that arrests at the southern border are at a historic low: The numbers have come down from 1.6 million in 2000 to about 303,000 in 2017.

If the number of people trying to enter the country illegally has drastically fallen, and the amount of crime committed by immigrant pales in comparison with those committed by native-born Americans, Trump’s assertion that there is an invasion happening on the southern border is merely an attempt to create hysteria and a warlike atmosphere in order to justify his national emergency proclamation.

The United States has declared a state of national emergency 58 times since the National Emergency Act was passed in 1976; 31 of these are still active. Emergencies that have been declared by previous presidents have typically been in response to humanitarian and political threats abroad caused by government-sponsored human rights abuses, terrorism and regional destabilizations. Most national emergency declarations work in tandem with sanctions the United States imposes on a country or a specific group, as in the case with sanctions against Russia introduced by President Barack Obama in 2014 in connection with its annexation of Crimea and incursions into Ukraine.

Markedly different from most of the 31 active emergencies, President George W. Bush promulgated a domestic national emergency in response to the 9/11 attacks. Trump’s latest proclamation is essentially positioning the humanitarian crisis at the Mexican border as an invasion against the country and a threat to its national security.

The Real Crisis

There is indeed a humanitarian crisis at the southern border: It is one faced by the thousands of migrant families and asylum seekers who have been displaced due to the violence and turmoil in their home countries as a direct result of US actions in the past. While migrant crossings and arrests are at a historic low, Trump’s executive order bemoans America’s inability to provide detention facilities for immigrants, and especially the growing number of families seeking entry into United States. Instead of building a wall, perhaps the Trump administration should have considered using the money to provide temporary amenities to those looking for refuge in the US and at the same time address the root causes of the problem that are driving this exodus.

Not surprisingly, Trump’s national emergency proclamation has met with a swift disapproval from Democratic leaders. “The President is not above the law. The Congress cannot let the President shred the Constitution,” said Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a joint statement. Trump’s action also drew criticism from several Republicans, albeit his diehard supporters, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Lindsay Graham, continue to stand by him.

While the inevitable challenges to Trump’s national emergency plays out in the courts, Congress has in its power to rein in a president who abuses his executive powers. A simple majority vote of disapproval in both chambers of Congress is the first step. With a Democratic House majority and several outspoken GOP senators united against Trump’s action, the vote of disapproval may actually come to pass, although it will most certainly be vetoed by the president himself. In order to formally end a national emergency declared by the president without the possibility of him vetoing it, there has to be a two-third majority in both chambers of Congress. That is a tall order as long as there are those like McConnell and Graham continuing to support Trump.

America does have a real national emergency on its hands right now. It is not on its southern border with Mexico. Rather, it is in the White House in the form of its singularly incompetent president. The sooner the Republican senators and House representatives acknowledge that fact honestly and rein in the blundering leader who is running amok, the faster the real crisis can be contained.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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On January 22, the United States Supreme Court approved the Trump administration’s bid to ban most transgender people from serving in the military, even as several challenges on the issue are being litigated in the lower courts of the country. Donald Trump ran on a campaign promise to bar transgender people from serving, citing “tremendous medical costs and disruption.” In July 2017, President Trump heeded that promise, taking to Twitter to announce a blanket ban across the armed forces.

The Supreme Court decision came as no surprise, with all five conservative judges agreeing to revive the ban that had been stayed by the lower courts. The decision leaves an estimated 10,000 transgender people serving in the US military in a state of limbo. Following the Obama administration’s lifting of the ban in 2016 — which came six years after the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that barred openly LGBTQ people from serving — US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter stated: “Effective immediately, transgender Americans may serve openly, and they can no longer be discharged or otherwise separated from the military just for being transgender.” The relief was, unfortunately, short-lived.

Land of the Free?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the basis for protection against workplace discrimination in the United States. Title VII offers protection from being discriminated against on account of one’s sex, race, color, age, religion and national origin. Even though employers cannot discriminate against a person based on sex, the Trump administration had argued that such protections are not applicable to gay people. The Department of Justice had filed a brief arguing that Title VII did not cover sexual orientation discrimination. However, New York’s Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in February 2018 that Title VII indeed bans gay and lesbian bias in the workplace, becoming only the second federal court to take that point of view. Previously, Chicago’s Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in a similar fashion, making it the first federal court to recognize Title VII as offering protection to people of all sexual orientations.

The Constitution of the land of the free and the home of the brave does not extend consistent protection from discrimination to transgender people. In 2011, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a transgender woman who was fired from her state legislature job in Georgia because her boss was uncomfortable with her gender transition. However, as evidenced by the current military ban and last week’s Supreme Court decision, the legal protection offered to transgender people in the workplace is unpredictable at best.

When lifting the transgender ban in 2016, Carter quoted the then-Army chief of staff, General Mark Milley, saying that the decision had its roots in upholding the Constitution: “The United States Army is open to all Americans who meet the standard, regardless of who they are. Embedded within our Constitution is that very principle, that all Americans are free and equal. And we as an Army are sworn to protect and defend that very principle. And we are sworn to even die for that principle. So if we in uniform are willing to die for that principle, then we in uniform should be willing to live by that principle.”

The Trump administration, smarting from the slap on the wrist on the Title VII ruling against it on the issue of sexual orientation, filed a briefing with the Supreme Court, arguing that it is lawful to discriminate against transgender people. The conservative learned men sitting on the Supreme Court — Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts — agreed by granting a stay on two lower court injunctions that had blocked the discriminatory ban, making one wonder if there is any real constitutional protection for transgender people in America.

Medieval Policies

Trump has repeatedly tried to justify his homophobic and transphobic policies on the basis of battle readiness and high costs associated with having transgender people in the military. Prior to lifting the ban in 2016, the Obama administration had commissioned the RAND Corporation, a non-profit research organization, to conduct a study on transgender people in the United States military. The report estimated that the US military had between 1,320 and 6,630 people on active duty out of a total of 1.3 million personnel. Further, the study assessed that the additional medical costs associated with continuing the hormonal treatments for transgender people would range between $2.2 million and $8.4 million, an insignificant 0.13% of the Defense Department’s health-care budget of $50 billion.

If military readiness of transgender people were really an issue, the 18 countries that allow them to serve in their military, including Israel, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, would not have done so. Trump’s medieval policies have never been based on realities or facts, but rather on his aversion to LGBTQ people and pandering to his right-wing voter base.

With the signing of the gender identity law in 2012, Argentina became the world’s most transgender-friendly nation. Two years later, Denmark followed suit and became the first European state with transgender-friendly laws. Seven countries — comprising of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Germany, Australia and New Zealand — now offer a third gender category for those who do not want to identify as male or female.

By contrast, with its outdated and anachronistic policies, the Trump administration is pushing the United States further backward in its treatment of transgender citizens. The recent Supreme Court decision is a setback, but not a decisive blow in the fight for transgender equality. Last week’s decision has effectively allowed the discriminatory ban to stay in place while litigations proceed in the lower courts. While there are state and local laws that prohibit discrimination against transgender people, they will offer no help to those serving in the US military currently impacted by the ban.

When the Supreme Court made the landmark ruling in the Roe v. Wade in 1973, it was a watershed moment for a woman’s right to choose. Without doubt, the Supreme Court will deal with a case of similar magnitude in the near future, assessing the constitutional rights of transgender and LGBTQ people to be treated equally and be truly free. When that day comes, we can only hope that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court bench can and will recognize the applicability of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to all its citizens, irrespective of their gender or sexual orientation — and grant them true freedom.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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The Central American migration crisis has reached new heights, with thousands of asylum seekers having reached Tijuana in Mexico, hoping to gain asylum in the US. Taking a leaf from President Donald Trump’s playbook, some Tijuana residents have resorted to cries of “Tijuana First” and “Long Live Mexico,” denouncing the migrants who have sought temporary refuge in their town while they wait for an opportunity to enter the United States. The enormous strain of caring for the thousands of migrants has forced the mayor of Tijuana, Juan Manuel Gastelum, to declare a humanitarian crisis and seek help from the United Nations.

There are an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 migrants in the caravan that left the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on October 13. Starting at a modest 150 people, the number swelled to several thousand as the caravan made its way from Honduras through El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, heading toward the Californian border. While this is not the first group of migrants to make its way to the US, this particular caravan is unique in that it started spontaneously, organized itself and swelled in numbers along the way, drawing international attention.

International reaction and response have been all across the spectrum for this unprecedented migration effort. It is heartening to note that many small towns in the caravan’s path did their best to provide food and rest for the travelers, the demands on their resources limited to a day or two. However, with thousands settling down in Tijuana for a long wait to have a chance to cross the California border, Mayor Gastelum has been critical of the Mexican federal government for not providing appropriate aid to help his small town temporarily house the migrants. Not surprisingly, Trump, has continued to respond with characteristic xenophobia, vitriol and hateful rhetoric against the migrants.

Trump has threatened to withdraw aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, presenting the migrants as criminals without any evidence. After deploying nearly 5,800 active-duty troops to the southern border, Trump has also authorized the use of force to protect America from the migrants, essentially likening the asylum seekers’ efforts to an invasion. Trump’s antipathy to immigrants in general, and Central American asylum seekers in particular, has been a constant in his two years of presidency thus far.

Route of Death

Under federal law, anyone from a foreign country can seek asylum if they had to flee their country out of fear of persecution over race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular group. The latter stipulation is subjective and gives each administration some latitude on how it is interpreted. The Obama administration had been more inclusive in its interpretation, allowing people fleeing domestic and gang violence to seek asylum.

That changed when Attorney General Jeff Sessions instituted a new policy in June 2018 where people fleeing gang and domestic violence no longer qualify for asylum. “Our nation’s immigration laws provide for asylum to be granted to individuals who have been persecuted, or have a well-founded fear of persecution on account of their membership in a particular social group,” the Justice Department said in a written statement, accompanying Sessions’ opinion. “But victims of personal crimes do not fit this definition — no matter how vile and reprehensible the crime perpetrated against them.”

The hardship of undergoing a journey of this magnitude from Honduras to the US border by foot and other makeshift transportation can be enormously trying. Some have even lost their lives in the process. A Newsweek article mentions the death of a Honduran and six Guatemalans in separate accidents involving vehicles. Traveling through the Gulf coastal state of Veracruz to reach Mexico City is known as the “route of death,” where in addition to heat and exhaustion, migrants also face dangers of kidnapping. Why then, are Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans willing to undergo such an arduous journey for an uncertain future just for the remote possibility of entering a country harboring the most anti-immigrant sentiment toward them?

Unabated violence tied to drug trafficking and gangs has made life in the three Central American countries nearly impossible. In 2015, El Salvador became the world’s deadliest country outside of a war zone, with San Salvador crowned as the world’s murder capital, though there has been a drop in homicides since. Extortion is rampant in the three countries, with Salvadorans paying $400 million annually in extortion fees, followed by Hondurans, who pay an estimated $200 million, and Guatemalans, who pay $61 million. Finding themselves between the devil and the deep blue sea, it is no surprise that thousands in the troubled trio of countries resort to the treacherous journey to seek asylum in United States.

Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an immigration rights group, has been helping Central American migrants, organizing caravans and otherwise providing logistics support along the trek to the US border. Formed more than 15 years ago, the organization stands in solidarity with displaced populations, providing humanitarian aid and legal advice to migrants and refugees. A relatively unknown group, Pueblo Sin Fronteras became more prominent after it attracted Trump’s ire when it organized another  caravan earlier this year. Unlike the April march, however, the October caravan organized itself spontaneously in Honduras, although Pueblo Sin Fronteras has provided it with logistical support along the way.

Muddled Immigration Policy

My June article for Fair Observer, “The US Role in the Migrant Crisis,” discusses in detail America’s culpability in the plight of the citizens of the countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador today. Honduras, one of the poorest Latin American countries, was thrown into chaos soon after the 2009 coup, when the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya was ousted. The murder rate in the country spiked to 86.5 per 100,000 people in 2011 before declining to 59 per 100,000 in 2016. Even at 59 deaths per 100,000, the number is incredibly high compared to 5.35 per 100,000 in the United States or 0.30 per 100,000 in Iceland.

Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state in the Obama administration, has admitted to America’s role and the choices she made in the 2009 coup ensuring Zelaya would not return to office. Thanks to Clinton and the Obama administration, Honduras today is unliveable, taken over by drug trafficking gangs MS 13 and Barrio 18, while citizens get no protection from a corrupt police system. If Clinton set aside well-accepted principles of international law and human rights in 2009, the Trump administration repeated the act recently by recognizing Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez’s questionable reelection in 2017 for a second term.

While Trump continues to spew hateful rhetoric against the Northern Triangle migrants, statistics show that the number of arrests at the southern border reduced steadily under Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama. Deportation is no longer a term that is used formally, having been replaced by two nuanced euphemisms, “returns” and “removals.” Return refers to those who are apprehended at the border trying to enter the US illegally and turned back to the country where they came from. Removal refers to the deportation of those already inside United States, as well as those who are denied entry into the country when trying to enter it legally.

Clinton removed less than a million people, and Bush removed 2 million people during each of their eight-year terms respectively. In contrast, Obama removed more than 3 million people — more than any other administration — earning him the nickname “deporter-in-chief.” On the other hand, Clinton and Bush returned more than 90% of those apprehended at the border, while Obama returned just 40% — a statistic that corroborates more people were able to enter the country seeking asylum during Obama’s tenure. While it is too early to comment on the Trump administration’s record, border crossings have dropped dramatically since his election, while interior deportations, or removals, have edged up compared to Obama.

Escalating Tensions

Deportation statistics during Clinton and Obama administrations (the last two Democratic presidents), compared with those during Bush and Trump administrations (the last two Republican presidents), will leave one wondering if any administration has really been immigrant-friendly, notwithstanding the political rhetoric and grandstanding. In the meantime, normal life and livelihood of the thousands who rely on the smooth functioning of the world’s busiest border crossing at San Ysidro in Tijuana are being threatened with escalating tensions between United States, Mexico and the migrants. The San Ysidro crossing was closed temporarily as the US beefed up security following the arrival of the migrant caravan, with tear gas used to disperse migrants trying to cross the border.

The incoming Mexican government has denied striking a deal with the United States to allow the migrants to remain in Mexico while their asylum applications go through the US courts, although it acknowledged that talks are ongoing with the Trump administration to come up with a solution. It is difficult to envision a deal happening as Trump continues to take a hardline stance on immigration issues. He reiterated his threat to close the southern border in a tweet: “All will stay in Mexico. If for any reason it becomes necessary, we will CLOSE our Southern Border.”

While America tries to sort its muddled immigration policy, the Central American migrants’ lives displaced in large part due to US policy and meddling in the region hangs in the balance. In spite of being a nation of plenty, it is appalling to see United States’ refusal to show compassion to the unfortunate migrants from Central America.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Making a decidedly strong statement against body-shaming and asserting that girls are not a distraction, no matter what they wear, Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) in California has taken a radical approach by adopting a new dress code. According to the revised policies, students must still wear “bottoms, tops, shoes and clothing that covers genitals, buttocks, and areolae/nipples with opaque material.” The code also bars clothing that depicts violent images, profane or pornographic material, hate speech or drugs. But changes to the dress code allow students complete freedom to wear what they want and feel comfortable in. This new policy is in a pilot phase for the 2018-19 academic year.

The AUSD’s experimental dress code is based on the work done in 2016 by the Oregon chapter of National Organization for Women (NOW). Its model student dress code embodies the principle “dress codes should support equitable educational access and should not reinforce gender stereotypes.” NOW’s code also outlines how administrative enforcement ought to be done without body-shaming or oppression of anyone “based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, household income, gender identity or cultural observance.”

Historically, school dress codes have impacted girls and gender expansive students in a disproportionately higher number compared to boys. A CNN article on body-shaming mentions several stories of insensitive treatment young girls have been subjected to in the name of infractions on dress code. A 15-year-old was given detention because her shorts were too short; her teacher went as far as saying that her dress was too suggestive and that “she was asking for it.” A 9-year-old wearing a tank top on a 99°F day was reprimanded for violating the school dress code. A 13-year-old was told that she could not wear yoga pants because boys would get turned on and be embarrassed.

Authored by Men

Enforcement of these male chauvinistic dress codes is, at best, arbitrary. A tall girl with long hands or fingers would fail the test where the length of her shorts or dress has to be longer than the fingertips when the arms are held at the sides. A girl with a developed body is likely to get in trouble for wearing a top showing some cleavage, whereas a girl who is behind in her physiological development would get away with wearing the same kind of top. The Oregon NOW’s code specifically addresses the latter issue with the guideline “cleavage should not have any coverage requirement.” Yoga pants and other form fitting clothing are also considered kosher in NOW’s dress code.

The sexist nature of dress codes and their enforcement goes beyond the confines of high school, all the way into the courts of Grand Slam tennis. Men routinely change their shirts on court without facing any repercussions. On hot days, Novak Djokovic would even take off his shirt and sit in his chair during changeovers. Yet when French tennis player Alize Cornet took off her shirt that she had inadvertently worn inside out during a 2018 US Open first-round match, she was penalized with a code violation. Cornet realized that she had her shirt backward coming off a break and took it off only to correct the mistake. Facing criticism of their handling of the situation, US Tennis Association apologized to Cornet and clarified the rules around players changing their shirts on court.

Dress codes for women do not stop in schools and on tennis courts. They are present for women of all ages, especially in Eastern cultures. While the debate in the American school system is about form-fitting yoga pants or shorts that are too short, women are expected to dress modestly at all times in Islamic countries. Saudi Arabia has a formal dress code for women, requiring them to wear an abaya, a loose-fitting, full-length robe. By law, Sudanese women have to cover their body when in public. In many Muslim nations, women are required to wear a burqa, a niqab or other variants of garments that cover their entire body and often the face. Some women may wear these garments out of choice or on account of their religious beliefs. But a vast majority have to do it because it is expected of them culturally.

Western women have had more freedom when it comes to the amount of skin they can expose and still be considered properly attired in public. Yet whether it is East or West, whether it is Islam, Christianity or Hinduism that is the religion of the land, what is considered appropriate attire for women in public is dictated by rules that are written by men. By and large, the logic attributed to these social norms and dress codes stems from the philosophy that just being able to lay their eyes on certain parts of a woman’s body is reason enough for men to get turned on.

In an effort to keep their libido in check, appropriate dress and behavior codes have been authored by men, dictating what women can wear, how they ought to behave and conduct themselves in public. “In essence, the veil, much lauded by so-called Islamic teachings, is a protection for men against us voracious vixens of the mortal world. Not, as so many pundits state, a protection for women against men,” says  Jacqueline Pascarl in The Sydney Morning Herald article, “Burqas reveal more about men than women.”

The Myth of Protection

It is a myth that dressing modestly in a hijab or even more conservatively in a burqa will protect women from sexual objectification, harassment and assault. In this moving narrative, a young Afghan refugee in Pakistan walking to school with his sister who was wearing a burqa, describes how men made sexually derogatory comments about her that he was too young to even understand. The brother and sister were emotionally traumatized every day, and the only thing the girl could do was shed silent tears behind her veil, the boy feeling angry and helpless.

In Iran, wearing a hijab was not mandatory until the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Yet many women avoid even taking a walk alone for fear of being groped by the piercing eyes of men or hearing their catcalls and vulgar comments. A woman walking alone without male protection is “looking for it” and is open for hunting. “Should women just disappear?” asks an Iranian girl in this harrowing description of sexual objectification experienced by women on the streets of Tehran.

In an interview with The Independent, Muslim women have shared their personal stories of sexual assault despite dressing modestly. One woman mentions how she was raped even when wearing a hijab; another woman talks about having her crotch grabbed in a crowded public place even though she was wearing a niqab; a 16-year-old narrates her experience of being groped by a tailor under the pretext of taking measurements for her dress in the presence of her mother.

In the world’s most populous democracy, Indian women are routinely subjected to “eve-teasing,” a term specific to South Asia that denotes various kinds of sexual harassment women experience in public places irrespective of the way they dress, behave or look. Two popular dresses women wear in India, the sari and the salwar, are both on the conservative side. Yet that does not stop them from being subjected to sexual harassment, much along the lines of the experiences of Iranian women in Tehran.

Dressing modestly will not help women escape becoming an object of sexual gratification in the eyes and minds of men. In today’s society, men have established territorial ownership of public places. In a telling statement that public space is owned by men, and men alone, France, acknowledging that men have little control over their biological urges and urgencies, installed uritrottoirs in Paris.

Uritrottoirs are eco-friendly, open-air, completely exposed urinals installed on pavements in places with known public urination problems. Rather than question that if a woman can hold her bladder until she reaches a restroom to relieve herself, why can’t men do the same, Parisians have taken the route of installing the abhorrent pissoirs in their capital city. Not surprisingly, uritrottoirs have drawn flak from feminist protesters who call the decision to install them in public places sexist.

Too Much to Ask for?

There is something seriously wrong in a society that frowns upon public breastfeeding, yet is fine with public urination by men. It is bizarre that men can worship goddesses inside a temple, but resort to eve-teasing outside the temple boundaries.

Not everyone is likely to be behind NOW’s dress code for students in American public schools. Indeed, several men and women from different cultures would take serious offense at a dress code that condones ripped jeans, midriff-baring shirts and tank tops. They may feel that the reformist policies cross not just the limits of modesty, but also of decency.

Yet if we are to look deeper behind the rationale for the radical approach, it would become clear that NOW poses a profoundly perceptive question for us to ponder: How should society view a woman’s body? Are women just eye candy, meant for the gratification of men? Is a girl “asking for it” when she wears something that could potentially turn men on? Should she be required to wear a garment covering her entire body in the hope of avoiding sexual objectification by men?

“Just because I’m wearing this doesn’t mean that I want people to look at me sexually. I want to be seen as a woman. I don’t want to have to feel bad about my body,” says the 15-year-old who was disciplined for wearing shorts that were too short. Is that too much to ask for?

*[A version of this article was cross-posted on the author’s blog, PoliSocioNomics]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post How Should Society View a Woman’s Body? appeared first on Fair Observer.

On September 28, the Indian Supreme Court voted 4:1 in favor of doing away with the centuries-old ban that barred girls and women aged 10 to 50 from entry into the Hindu Sabarimala temple in Kerala. Chief Justice Dipak Misra ruled that “Patriarchy in religion cannot be allowed to trump right [sic] to pray and practise religion.” Justices Chandrachud, Khanwalikar and Nariman all agreed with the chief justice that the practice of excluding women of certain age is discriminatory in nature. The lone dissenting opinion was from the only female judge on the bench, Justice Indu Malhotra. “Notions of rationality cannot be invoked in matters of religion,” she concluded, adding that “what constitutes essential religious practice is for the religious community to decide, not for the court.”

The Sabarimala temple, one of Hinduism’s holiest shrines that attracts millions of pilgrims each year, follows a very specific calendar of when it is open to devotees. It is the abode of Lord Ayyappa, the 12-year-old god who is forever a brahmachari, or a celibate. Legend has it that Lord Ayyappa was born out of the union of Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu, who had assumed the female form of Mohini in order to kill the demoness Mahishi. In his human incarnation, Lord Ayyappa was the son of the king of Pandalam, Raja Rajasekhara. After fulfilling his divine duty to vanquish Mahishi, Lord Ayyappa is said to have assented to the king’s wishes to build a temple dedicated to him. He is worshipped by Hindus for his strict adherence to dharma — the path of righteousness.

The scene at the temple during the opening immediately following the court ruling was nothing short of chaos. Despite the Supreme Court verdict, women who attempted to enter the temple were stopped by protesters. The temple is closed again and will reopen soon for its busiest worshipping seasons, Mandala Pooja and the Makaravilakku festival. (Mandala Pooja at Sabarimala is the period devotees visit the temple to offer their prayers after observing a strict code of austerity for 41 days, and it typically occurs from mid-November to end of December. Makaravilakku is observed on the first day of the Malayalam month of Makara, typically between January 14 and 16.) Petitions have been filed challenging the ruling, and the Supreme Court has set the hearing for November 13, even as protesters vow to defy the current ruling and keep women away from the temple.

Body and Soul

Prior to the Supreme Court ruling, the general information page on the temple’s website stated: “As Sabarimala Ayyappa is ‘Nithya Brahmachari’ (celibate) women between the 10-50 age group are not allowed to enter Sabarimala. Such women who try to enter Sabarimala will be prevented by authorities.” This sentence has been removed since the court verdict. As a rule, if celibate gods cannot be worshipped by women, there would be much anguish and chaos amongst Hindu religious circles and devotees. After all, the Hindu God Hanuman, also a brahmachari, has no restrictions on being worshipped by women of all ages. Lord Hanuman, a passionate devotee of the Hindu God Rama and his wife Sita, is worshipped for his strength, energy and unyielding devotion to Lord Rama. One would be hard pressed to find an instance in mythology where Lord Ayyappa himself forbids young women from worshipping him.

According to legend, upon slaying Mahishi, when the beautiful woman ensconced in the demoness’ body emerged and asked to marry him, Lord Ayyappa declined. However, Ayyappa did mention a condition under which he would marry her. Should it ever come to pass that no new devotee comes to worship him in any given year, Lord Ayyappa said that he would marry the girl. The decision to bar women from entering the temple is, apparently, not by the God himself, but by the men of the gods.

Men who visit the temple have to observe a vrutham, a penance of sorts, practicing the celibate life of a brahmachari and abstaining from alcohol and other worldly pleasures in preference to prayers and a pious lifestyle for 41 days. It is considered a sacrilege to attempt to visit the temple without observing the vrutham, which prepares a devotee physically, emotionally and mentally to worship Lord Ayyappa. Devotees are required to be pure at heart and in body before undertaking the journey to Sabarimala. The requirement that a devotee has to be pure in body poses the obstacle when a woman between the age of 10 and 50 wants to visit Sabarimala.

Girls and women in that age group are not considered pure because of menstruation. While every other bodily function that men and women have little control over is considered acceptable, menstruation, unique to women, is considered impure. From a young age, boys and girls are taught to believe that women are lesser — and dirtier — than men on account of menstruation. The subject is a taboo in most cultures around the world, but especially so in India and in Hinduism. In most households, women are virtually ostracized during their periods. They are not allowed to enter the kitchen or to cook, forbidden from going into temples, are served food in separate plates while they “sit out” the three days without touching anything or being touched by anyone.

Buying a sanitary napkin in India tends to be an embarrassing experience both for the buyer and the pharmacist. While women are making great strides in unshackling themselves from the taboos around their periods, the notion that menstruation is dirty and women are impure is still deeply entrenched in Indian society. Strong resistance to allowing women from entering the Sabarimala temple in complete defiance of the Supreme Court verdict is case in point.

A Matter of Time

In a press interview in 2015, former president of the Travancore Devaswom Board, the governing body of Sabarimala temple, Prayar Gopalakrishnan, fuelled the long-standing controversy stating that women will be permitted entry into the temple if a machine is invented to judge and scan their purity. In an equally bizarre statement, Smriti Irani, an educated woman who has risen through the political ranks to become the union minister of textiles in Indian Parliament, went as far to ask, “Would you take sanitary napkins steeped in menstrual blood and walk into a friend’s home?” Women like Irani and men like Gopalakrishnan typify the reasons why the fight against patriarchy is as much a fight with women steeped in its philosophy as it is with men and their beliefs.

Justice Chandrachud explains why the judiciary is entertaining the contentious and emotionally charged topic of balancing individual rights against the customs and practices of religious groups. In his consenting opinion, he likened the ban on women from entering Sabarimala temple to a form of untouchability. “Exclusion of women because she [sic] menstruates is utterly unconstitutional,” he said, confronting the taboo subject head on and highlighting that the “popular notion about morality can be offensive to dignity of others.”

It is heartening to see such clarity of thought from the bench of the Indian Supreme Court in recognizing women’s rights, striking a strong blow at the very core of patriarchy. Women should take heart that it is only a matter of time before they are able to enter the Sabarimala temple, once closed to them. They should be free to worship Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala temple much the same way they can offer their prayers to Lord Hanuman today.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post At Sabarimala Temple, India’s Women Challenge Patriarchy appeared first on Fair Observer.

The US midterm elections are just a week away as a deeply divided nation anxiously watches whether the Republicans will maintain their majority in Congress, or if the Democrats will pull off a surprise retake of the House or the Senate. Any pretense of bipartisanship and decency in politics today has completely evaporated, as evidenced in the recently concluded hearings on the allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Brett Kavanaugh at the Senate Judiciary Committee. Just last week, Americans have resorted to expressing differences of opinions not with words but with bombs.

The person singularly responsible for the demise of decency in American politics, President Donald Trump, paid lip service to condemn the attempted attacks against his critics like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros, among others, stating that “acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America.” He quickly resorted to blaming the media and everyone who is critical of him, continuing to spew the divisive rhetoric that would define his presidency.

On October 25, Trump tweeted: “A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News. It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!” The president’s hate-filled words have only deepened the partisan divide in a nation that is already split asunder by ideology-based politics rather than issue-driven discourse. Republican Senators and House Representatives have dispensed with any sense of self-respect and propriety to line up meekly behind Trump just to advance their party agenda.

Underdog Urgency

Over the last century, Republicans have been the underdogs of American politics. Democrats have had control of the Senate for 66 of the last 100 years. They have also enjoyed a majority in the House for 65 years, including 40 straight from 1954 until 1994. With control of both arms of Congress and the presidency, it is no surprise that underdogs are behaving with a great deal of urgency, rushing through their agenda.

Now, a GOP-controlled Congress successfully passed a tax bill that is projected to increase the national debt by $1.9 trillion between 2018 and 2028. The tax breaks will primarily benefit corporations and America’s superrich, while the fast-dwindling middle class and the poor end up getting crumbs.

In complete defiance of science, the Trump administration has precipitated the problem of climate change by rolling back environmental regulations. The world has just 12 years to apply the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions and limit the rise in Earth’s temperature before humanity faces the irreversible effects of global warming in the form of droughts, flooding, extreme heat and poverty.

In his eight years as president, Barack Obama appointed 329 Article III federal judges, two to US Supreme Court, 55 to the US Court of Appeals, 268 to the US District Courts and four to US Court of International Trade. Thanks to the Republican-controlled Senate that had stalled several Obama nominations since 2015, Trump inherited several vacancies, including the one that allowed him to appoint Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. As of this writing, Trump has appointed 84 Article III judges, including two to the Supreme Court, 29 to the Court of Appeals and 53 to the District Courts, reshaping the complexion of the most important courts in the country.

What Are the Odds?

The battle to retake the Senate may prove near impossible for the Democrats, with more of them contesting for re-election than their Republican counterparts. To regain the majority, vulnerable Democratic candidates Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Donnelly, Jon Tester and Joe Manchin have to hold on to their seats in the battleground states of North Dakota, Indiana, Montana and West Virginia respectively. In addition, they have to flip two of the three possible seats in Nevada, Arizona and Texas.

While the Democratic incumbents in Indiana, West Virginia and Montana are likely to hold their ground, Heidi Heitkamp is trailing in North Dakota by three points, a deficit that may prove very difficult to overcome following her vote against Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Incumbent Republican Ted Cruz holds a comfortable five-point edge over his Democratic rival, Beto O’Rourke, in Texas, but the contest is surprisingly close for a Senate race in the Lone Star State. The Senate race is a toss-up in Nevada. Democrats stand the best chance of an upset in Arizona, where Democrat Kristen Sinema holds a thin lead over Republican Martha McSally. When the dust settles, the final tally may remain exactly what it is today, 51-49 in favor of Republicans, giving them two more years to comfortably fill court vacancies at various levels in the country with conservative judges and altering the complexion of the judiciary for decades to come.

The prospect for Democrats to retake the House majority looks more promising. In order to change the current 194-241 breakdown to a majority, Democrats have to flip at least 24 Republican seats in addition to holding on to their current constituencies. While the number 24 may seem daunting, the House has flipped a majority in the recent past with much larger margins. In 1994 and 2010, Republicans gained a House majority with a swing of 54 and 62 seats respectively. Democrats did that in 2006 with a swing of 32 seats. Regaining the majority in this election season is achievable if the anti-Trump sentiment, especially in key blue states, translates into more voters at the polls.

Decency and Decorum

Despite having the highest number of electoral votes, California typically plays an insignificant role in presidential elections. That is likely to change in these midterm elections as California can singlehandedly give more than a third of the seats needed for the Democrats to retake the House majority. Political pundits and polls show that California does have the ability to transfer as many as eight Republican-held seats to Democrats in their quest for 24. They are also aided by the millions that former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is pumping into California to help the cause of winning the House back.

The Garden State, New Jersey, has five Republican incumbents who are vulnerable and is very likely to unseat four of them in preference to their Democratic challengers. New York, Illinois, Virginia Iowa and Pennsylvania are all states with competitive elections that can provide the remaining seats needed by the Democrats. A statistical analysis website FiveThirtyEight projects that the Democrats will retake the House with a 6-in-7 chance.

If the Democrats do gain House majority, Trump, one of America’s most scandal-prone presidents, will come under closer scrutiny and may even face impeachment. He and his administration will likely face a slew of investigations that will apply brakes on the Republican legislative agenda for rest of his term, slowing down Trump’s destructive policies in the areas of immigration, environment and the rights of marginalized minorities. His threat to end birthright citizenship with an executive order, potentially defying the 14th Amendment of the Constitution will undoubtedly face stiff legal battle, driving another wedge in a nation already struggling with many unresolved immigration issues.

Decency and decorum in American politics will still be a distant dream even if Democrats flip the House next week. America’s vindictive and hate-mongering president will only redouble his efforts maligning every effort that exposes the vacuous and corrupt person that he is. That would still be a small price to pay for providing the much-needed checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches of the US government that has been completely absent the past two years.

*[This piece was updated on October 31, 2018.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post What’s at Stake in the US Midterm Elections? appeared first on Fair Observer.

The controversy surrounding Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination is heating up with a second claim of sexual misconduct against him. Allegations that Kavanaugh exposed himself and behaved in an extraordinarily deplorable manner with Deborah Ramirez while they were both at Yale University surfaced over the weekend in a New Yorker article. This comes on the heels of the previous allegation by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 28 that Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted her during their high school days in the 1980s.

In a confidential letter to Senator Diane Feinstein, Ford shared the details of her harrowing experience at the hands of the man poised to become a judge in the country’s highest court. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Charles Grassley, released the letter to the public following Deborah Ramirez’s allegations.

Kavanaugh has defended himself against both women’s claims. In his letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh characterized these allegations as “smears, pure and simple.” Refusing to step aside, Kavanaugh stated that “the vile threats of violence against my family will not drive me out.” Not surprisingly, President Donald Trump, a man who unabashedly bragged about kissing and groping women, defended his nominee to the Supreme Court, saying: “Judge Kavanaugh is an outstanding person. I am with him all the way,” calling the allegations politically motivated. Standing by Kavanaugh are most Republicans, including Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell.

How the Senate Judiciary Committee and the GOP conduct themselves in the next days and weeks will be a telling point in how far has America come in respecting women’s rights and appreciating their unique predicament when it comes to discussing sexual assault and harassment. In 1991, Anita Hill accused another Supreme Court nominee, Judge Clarence Thomas, of sexual harassment. A group of men comprising of both Republicans and Democrats grilled Hill during a 1991 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, displaying no sensitivity to the woman who had faced sexual harassment at the hands of a powerful man.

Particularly insensitive was Senator Arlen Specter, who accused Hill of perjury and called her testimony a “product of fantasy.” Hill could not sway the committee despite her valiant effort, and the alleged sexual harasser continues to date as a judge on the Supreme Court.

Disregard for the Truth

Now, 27 years later, the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to hear Ford’s testimony. Sitting on the committee is Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who told Hill in 1991 that she got the idea for some of her charges from a horror film The Exorcist. The hearing is bound to proceed in the same fashion as Hill’s, where the Republicans will do their best to discredit Ford and make her feel uncomfortable with their insensitive questions. With the prospect of losing the House and the Senate in the upcoming midterm elections looming large, the Republicans are rushing through the process of confirming Kavanaugh’s nomination instead of devoting the time to perform a thorough investigation a matter of this import deserves.

In a display of total arrogance and complete disregard for the truth, McConnell has vowed to proceed with the full Senate vote no matter what happens in the upcoming testimony by Ford and Judge Kavanaugh before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Kavanaugh’s behavior described by Ford does not seem to be an isolated incident. She mentions that his friend Mark Judge was present in the room when Kavanaugh tried to force himself on her. Judge, a classmate of Kavanaugh at Georgetown Prep, has graphically outlined the drunken debauchery he and his friends routinely indulged in their high school years. In his book, God and Man at Georgetown Prep, Judge boasts that “Prep was a school positively swimming in alcohol, and my class partied with gusto.”

Notwithstanding Judge’s claim that he has no memory of the incident involving Ford, it is undoubtedly clear that such encounters routinely took place at Georgetown Prep in the 1980s. Kavanaugh’s page in his 1983 high school yearbook makes references to his drinking excesses as well as a reference to “Renate Alumnius,” possibly boasting of his conquests with Renate Schroeder, a student at a neighboring Catholic high school.

Moral Fiber

The mounting evidence against Kavanaugh’s character demands an investigation into the allegations that he had sexually assaulted Ford in high school and continued the pattern in college with Ramirez. An FBI investigation into the matter will shed more light on the events, which right now remain a “he said, she said” story. In a desperate attempt to cover up the truth and place the fifth conservative judge on the Supreme Court, the Republicans are racing to confirm Kavanaugh, going through the motions in the Senate Judiciary Committee before McConnell puts the nomination up for a full floor vote. Their efforts are aided by the only person who can order an FBI investigation, President Trump, who has indicated that he would not do so.

America is at a pivotal moment in its history today. The #MeToo movement has empowered women, allowing them to make big strides in seeking, and sometimes getting, the justice denied to them in the past. Republicans are desperately trying to change the composition of the Supreme Court, first by denying Merrick Garland his rightful place and now rushing through Kavanaugh’s confirmation process. Pushing the nomination of someone accused of sexual misconduct would be a discouraging acknowledgement of the fact that not much has changed since 1991, even with the momentum from #MeToo movement.

Notwithstanding their liberal or conservative beliefs, every judge in the Supreme Court ought to possess the highest integrity and moral fiber. The onus is upon Kavanaugh and the Republicans to prove why allegations against him are false. In Clarence Thomas, we already have an alleged sexual harasser on the Supreme Court. If Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination is confirmed without categorically proving the allegations against him are not true, the Supreme Court would have a second judge who is accused of alleged sexual misconduct. And that would indeed be a travesty of justice.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Despite New Allegations, Will the GOP Confirm Kavanaugh? appeared first on Fair Observer.

The 2018 US Open women’s final was supposed to be a match between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka. Instead, it became a sexist, petty power play between the chair umpire Carlos Ramos and Williams. Ramos chose to make the finals about himself rather than the game of tennis.

Osaka had won the first set comfortably 6-2, displaying extraordinary talent to beat her tennis idol, Williams. At the beginning of the second set, Williams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou made a gesture indicating she should approach the net, which he admitted was an attempt to coach her. Situated at the far end of the court, Williams did not even see the gesture. Understandably, she was taken aback when Ramos issued her a warning that she was being coached. Even though she was angry, her reaction to the code violation was very measured. She approached the chair umpire and said: “I don’t cheat to win. I’d rather lose. I just want you to know that.”

Ramos should have accepted the word of the 23-time grand slam winner, perhaps even graciously clarified that the infraction was by committed by her coach, not her. That may have put a lid on the situation and the focus might have switched to the brilliant game of tennis between the two women.

Losing a crucial game in the second set, Williams banged her racket on the ground, breaking it, earning the second code violation. Ramos judged a point penalty, and Osaka started serving the 7th game 15-0, with the set tied three games apiece. Osaka comfortably won the game, taking her lead to 4-3.

Williams continued to exchange words with Ramos and called him a thief for taking a point away from her. Having been unfairly assessed the first code violation, the penalty assessed for breaking her racket was justifiably a stolen point from her. Yet again, Ramos could have diffused the situation by having a proper conversation with Williams, something he failed to do when the previous incidents transpired. After all, the job of a chair umpire is to referee the game, diffuse emotionally charged situations rather than escalate them. Instead, his ego bruised by being called a thief by a woman, the stubbornly obstinate Ramos issued a third code violation against Williams that resulted in a game penalty. Naomi Osaka went on to win the set 6-4, and the championship, in what has turned out to be one of the most controversial Grand Slam finals.

Tennis players from the past and now are rallying behind Williams’ call that there is sexism in the game even today. Earlier in the tournament, French player Alize Cornet was given a code violation for changing her shirt on court. Novak Djokovic, who takes off his shirt and sits in the court half-naked, is not even issued a warning, let alone a code violation.

During the 2017 French Open, Rafael Nadal threatened Ramos that he would never referee another one of his matches after being called out for taking more time than allowed between games. Roger Federer has verbally abused chair umpires several times in his career, but has never had a game deducted from him as penalty.

Serena Williams was accused of being a sore loser by Australian media soon after the finals. On the contrary, she was absolutely gracious during the trophy presentation when she chose to acknowledge that the moment belonged to Naomi Osaka. The only person who had the power over the crowd to stop its booing was Williams. She did not hesitate and did it with poise that ensured the ceremony proceeded in a dignified manner.

Williams was right to take the stand she did on and off the court on the day of the finals. Those who lament that her behavior disrupted the beautiful game of tennis ought to realize that to challenge the sexism that is steeped in the game and in the society, this ugliness had to take center stage, even if it was at the cost of taking something away from what could have been a beautiful game of tennis. And for that, we should thank Carlos Ramos.

*[A version of this article was cross-posted in the author’s newsletter, Polisocionomics. Updated: September 17, 2018, at 19:00 GMT.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Is Donald Trump one of the most corrupt presidents in US history? Trump is yet to cross the midway point of his presidency, but his actions over the last two years, during the 2016 election campaign and earlier as an unscrupulous businessman, seem to point in that direction. In fact, there is ample evidence to the fact that he could possibly be the most corrupt president America has ever seen.

On August 21, Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges that included bank fraud, tax evasion and campaign finance law violations. Cohen admitted to making a payment of $130,000 to adult film actress Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) and facilitating a payment of $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, both at the behest of Trump.

These startling admissions directly implicate Trump in a federal crime. Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis said: “Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election.” Davis added: “If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?”

When characterizing Cohen’s actions, Robert Khuzami, deputy US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a press conference: “What he did was he worked to pay money to silence two women who had information that he believed would be detrimental to the 2016 campaign, to the candidate and the campaign.”

Trump, a sleazy realtor-turned-politician, has consistently surrounded himself with people of questionable character who have little respect for the law. On the same day Cohen pleaded guilty, Trump’s former chairman of his 2016 election campaign, Paul Manafort, was found guilty on eight of the 18 charges against him on bank fraud and falsifying tax returns. Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor, also pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. George Papadopoulos and Richard Gates, associates of the president, have also pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI.

Republicans who have endorsed Trump and his ways do not fare any better. Chris Collins, house representative from New York, and Duncan Hunter, house representative from California — the first two to endorse Trump from the Republican Party — have both been indicted on charges of insider trading and campaign fund misappropriation, respectively. With scant regard for law and indifference to democratic norms, the Trump presidency may turn out to be the most corrupt in American history. Engineering a tax overhaul that would benefit “pass-through” companies, Trump stands to gain millions of dollars as the Trump Organization is essentially a collection of pass-throughs. Sharing the spoils with Trump are several GOP House and Senate representatives who voted for the tax bill. Defying well-accepted norms, Trump refused to disclose his tax returns during the 2016 election campaign, a practice that all aspiring presidential candidates follow.

Trump, however, is not the first US president with questionable character and ethics to lead the nation. Richard Nixon faced certain impeachment following the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. He resigned in 1974. Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were both impeached by the House of Representatives, although they were acquitted in the Senate trial that subsequently followed.

Trump impeachment on the horizon?

Trump embodies the worst of all bad US presidents. His volatile temperament stemming from insecurity is similar to Johnson’s personality; his approach of surrounding himself with crooks is reminiscent of Warren Harding’s administration filled with corrupt people in power; and his penchant for blatantly lying likens him to Bill Clinton’s behavior of lying under oath. Trump is as narcissistic and paranoid as Nixon. While Nixon had to go on television to state, “I am not a crook,” Trump resorts to Twitter on a daily basis to extol his genius and character.

It is not a crime to be openly racist in America today. Had it been so, Trump would have been held accountable for calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” in 2015. He even had the audacity to refer to that infamous comment yet again earlier this year. Marking the anniversary of the 2017 Charlottesville riots, Trump remarked, “I condemn all kinds of racism and violence,” standing his ground on his racist position supporting white supremacists and disregarding the flurry of criticism from a year ago.

It is also not a crime to be Islamophobic or harbor anti-immigrant sentiments in Trump’s America. Trump has targeted Muslims from specific countries with travel bans right from the day he assumed office as president. His inhuman immigration policies toward refugees from Central America ought to make every decent citizen of America cringe in shame.

Trump has managed to get away thus far with his racist, misogynist, Islamophobic and anti-immigrant comments and actions. However, curses are like chickens: they always come home to roost. There is an ongoing lawsuit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation for failing to follow financial laws and illegally coordinating with Trump’s political campaign. Not surprisingly, Trump calls that lawsuit “ridiculous” and has vowed to fight and not settle.

A significant development is the immunity offered by New York prosecutors investigating the Trump Organization to its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg. The immunity deal is viewed in conjunction with Cohen’s willingness to work with Robert Mueller, special counsel for the Department of Justice, which should worry Trump as the prosecution moves methodically to close in on the criminal activities of the president.

The odds of impeachment against Trump reached the highest level after Cohen implicated him in federal crimes, prompting even the president to acknowledge the possibility to Ainsley Earhardt of Fox News: “If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash.”

The present Congress with a Republican majority in the House and the Senate will not step up and impeach Trump, irrespective of the seriousness of allegations against him. However, this could change following the midterm elections in November. Should the House flip to a Democrat majority, the House Judiciary Committee could kick start impeachment proceedings in 2019.

Sadly, even if Trump is impeached by the House of Representatives, he is likely to be acquitted in the Senate, much in the same way that Clinton and Johnson were, making it possible for him to complete the rest of his term. With varied legal opinion on whether a sitting president can be indicted, we may very well bear witness to Trump not only completing his term, but walking away unscathed.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Will Donald Trump Face Impeachment? appeared first on Fair Observer.

In a country where 9 out of 10 students between the ages of 12 and 17 have cellphones, France has banned the use of mobile phones in primary and junior schools from the next academic year. The ban is applicable to students and teachers alike. France’s move has drawn the attention of the world and has sparked a debate on the pros and cons of such measures.

Other places around the world have already experimented with the approach. New York public schools had banned cellphones on campus in 2005. Reversing the controversial policy, the 10-year ban was lifted in 2015, citing better communication with parents, especially during emergencies, as one of the reasons for the shift in policy.

According to GSMA Intelligence, there will be a staggering 5.7 billion unique cellphone users by 2020 — that’s nearly two-thirds of the world’s population. It has taken barely half a century to reach this remarkable milestone in the evolution of mobile phones. The first handheld mobile device was produced by Motorola researcher Martin Cooper in 1973. As with any new popular technology, mobile communications evolved over the next few decades, with each generation eclipsing the capabilities of the previous one.

The first generation of 1G analogue cellular network of the 1980s gave way to 2G digital cellular technology in 1990s. By the turn of the century, there were about 300 million using 3G technology that featured mobile broadband access. Today, nearly 50% of the cell phone users own a smartphone that packs in a full-fledged computer in the tiny handheld device.

The kids who are no longer permitted to use cellphones during school hours grew up toying with a mobile device even before they could speak properly. In affluent and middle-class households, toddlers barely able to grip things with their tiny hands are given a smartphone with a kid-friendly app to keep them amused and occupied, allowing their parents to catch a few moments for themselves. Swiping and navigating various apps in the smartphone is second nature to this new generation.

Will Restricting Access Work?

The Environmental Health Trust, a nonprofit that performs research on controllable environmental health hazards, has produced a report on how different countries across the globe have tackled the problem of mobile phone usage in schools. Countries have banned cellphones in schools not on account of radiation and other environmental issues, but rather because of the distractions the devices cause to academic pursuits. One study shows that test scores have improved in schools where cellphones were banned, especially among students who are usually underachieving.

With the onslaught of technological advancements, and the gradual change in human behavior as a consequence, it would be worthwhile to examine if approaches like banning mobile devices will stand the test of time.

We all remember the recent past when using a mobile phone on an aircraft was banned. Every electronic device had to be powered off once the airplane doors were closed and could be used only after passengers had disembarked. Today, with better understanding of the issues around the interference of cellphones in air traffic control communications, every airline permits the use of the mobile phone on the tarmac, during taxing and right after touchdown.

Technological advancements go further to provide passengers the option of unfettered connectivity at 35,000 feet in the air. While a better understanding of the communication interference of mobile devices in air traffic control helped in this shift, human desire to be constantly connected to the internet played more than a significant role in ushering these changes.

If adults cannot keep their hands off their smartphones because of their compulsive need to be connected all the time, there is little chance that legal restrictions on the use of mobile phones inside schools will hold over time. Not only were these children breastfed this technology, teachers — who were included in France’s ban — have publicly derided their inclusion in the ban. The debate on the pros and cons of the usage of mobile phones in schools weighs in the direction of education rather than prohibition.

The sentiment was echoed by a high school student in America who argued that any technological advance will come with its own undesirable side effects, and that it is the responsibility of educators to successfully reach out to youngsters and mould their behavior appropriately rather than give up on them and ban the use of mobile phones altogether. The youngster also suggested that motivated students will find creative ways to circumvent the ban, while those who actually use phones responsibly will be the ones who will face the effects of the ban.

Technology and Politics to the Rescue

Technological advancement is inexorably making humankind more and more reliant on it. These advancements are usually accompanied by certain undesirable capabilities. Strengthening its vicious grip on humanity, solutions to such side effects are also found in the form of more help from technology. When hands-on cellphone usage in cars while driving was banned, technology came to the rescue in the form of Bluetooth-enabled earphones and hands-free tools.

Today, while Bluetooth still provides the connectivity between a car and the mobile device located within it, voice recognition has obviated the need for earphones. Alexa, Siri and Google are already getting integrated in our life at the very core. The next generation of kids may very well grow up without ever having to use hands as an input mechanism with mobile devices. They will, in all likelihood, use voice recognition as the primary technology to accomplish this interaction.

Just as New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio fulfilled his campaign promise to lift the cellphone ban in public schools in 2015, French President Emmanuel Macron fulfilled his own promise to enforce a ban on mobile phones in primary and middle schools this year. Both politicians took advantage of the existing sentiments, turning it to their own advantage during the election campaign. No matter how scientific or compelling the argument to institute a change, in the end it is the prevailing sentiment of the people that will eventually win.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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The entire Northern Hemisphere has been in the grips of an unprecedented heat wave this year. Asia, Europe, Africa and North America saw several countries reeling under record-breaking temperatures. In 1977, Athens recorded the highest ever temperature in continental Europe at 48°C. That record may very well be broken by the extraordinary heat wave currently sweeping the Iberian Peninsula.

In Japan, the deadly heat wave killed 96 people in July alone — a number that is likely to increase 170% by 2080. Kumagaya, near Tokyo, has seen temperatures rise above 41°C (106°F) for the first time in the country’s history, with more than 22,000 people, predominantly elderly, seeking medical attention across Japan. Heat stroke from sustained high temperatures has claimed the lives of 29 people in South Korea, where temperatures reached the highest point in 111 years in the capital Seoul.

In Quebec province alone, more than 34 people have lost their lives on account of the heat wave, with an estimated 70 deaths attributed to the scorching temperature and high humidity across Canada. The United States celebrated its Independence Day with blistering temperatures across the Northeast and 80 million people in 14 states under a heat advisory warning. The Death Valley in the Mojave Desert in California holds the record for the highest ever temperature measured on planet Earth at 56.7°C (134°F). While that record set in 1913 still holds, Death Valley has seen the hottest July to date, with the monthly average temperatures above 42°C (107°F), with the mercury topping 52.7°C (127°F) four days in a row.

What is a heat wave?

This is not the first heat wave the world has seen. However, what ought to be concerning everyone is the increased frequency and deadliness of these occurrences. Europe saw its worst heat wave in 500 years in 2003, which claimed the lives of more than 70,000 people. In just 15 years, Europe is reeling from another heat wave with record-setting temperatures. Even Russia, known for its frigid temperatures, saw one of a kind heat wave in 2010 that covered an exceptionally large area of 400,000 square miles. In Asia, barely 13 years after over 1,000 people died from extreme heat in 2002, India saw another killer heat wave in 2015. Since the US Environmental Protection Agency started recording heat waves, America has seen several instances, with the deadliest ones occurring in 1896, 1934, 1936, 1954, 1980, 1988, 1995, 2006, 2012, 2017 and 2018.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines a heat wave as a “marked unusual hot weather (Max, Min and daily average) over a region persisting at least two consecutive days during the hot period of the year based on local climatological conditions, with thermal conditions recorded above given thresholds.” There are currently 34 countries that have a formal definition for a heat wave. Interestingly, the official definition of what constitutes a heat wave varies from country to country, though not differing in principle from WMO’s definition. Exceeding 25°C would be considered a heat wave in countries that usually enjoy mild weather, whereas the threshold is much higher in tropical countries. This is why WMO’s definition is broad allowing individual countries adopt it to their local climatological conditions.

Denmark defines a heat wave as a period of three consecutive days where the average maximum temperature across 50% of the country exceeds 28°C (82.4°F). Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands share the definition of a heat wave as five consecutive days where the temperature exceeds 25°C (77°F), including three where the temperature tops 30°C (86°F). India, which consistently sees heat waves year after year, defines it as one when the temperature exceeds 40°C (104°F) in the plains and 30°C (86°F) in the mountainous regions. When the temperature reaches 46°C (114.8 °F), the Indian Meteorological Department classifies the event as an extreme heat wave.

Scientific studies have found that man-made climate change has raised the probability of natural disasters like hurricanes, heat waves and wildfires. Analyzing the data from seven stations in Europe, researchers have determined that the probability of heat waves occurring across the continent as a consequence of human activity has increased twofold.

“Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States,” says Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), adding that “the ways these records are being broken show how our climate is already shifting.” NCAR’s research and analysis shows that since the turn of the century, the number of record hot days have outpaced record cold days by two to one. If humankind does not curb greenhouse gas emissions, NCAR’s model predicts 20 record hot days for each record cold day by middle of this century.

Human activity since mid-20th century has resulted in unprecedented amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Indisputable evidence of climate change can be seen in the steady increase of sea levels, warming oceans, shrinking ice sheets, extreme hurricanes and other weather events including a global rise in temperature. A group of 1,300 independent scientific experts has concluded that human activity in the last five decades has warmed our planet, with devastating effects. The consensus from 18 reputed scientific associations is unambiguous: Our planet is warming as a direct consequence of human activity.

It’s time to heal our planet

In December 2015, 195 nations came together in Paris to sign an accord to combat climate change. They agreed to keep the temperature rise this century well below 2°C from pre-industrial levels in an effort to save humanity from the devastating effects of global warming. The historic accord signed by almost all the nations of the world is a crucial first step in arresting the harsh effects of climate change, including the likes of the current heat wave.

Sadly, defying scientific consensus, an incompetent and short-sighted Trump administration pulled America out of the Paris Climate Agreement — an act this author views as a crime against humanity. However, this was before the heat wave of 2018 affected the entire Northern Hemisphere, including America. In a survey conducted by University of Michigan and Muhlenberg College in May 2018, 73% of Americans accept the evidence of global warming, with 60% of them also accepting that human activity plays a part.

The world needs America’s full participation in the fight against climate change. As the largest consumer of world’s resources and second largest greenhouse gas emitter, America has a responsibility to humankind to do more than its fair share in combatting climate change.

The earth cannot survive sustained increase in temperatures of more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Studies show that we are at serious risk of reaching a threshold that would cause an irreversible chain reaction resulting in our planet becoming a hothouse if we do not stick to the decisions outlined in Paris. For all the climate change skeptics out there, one can only hope that the 2018 heat wave becomes a tipping point and puts an end to their denial.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Andrey Myagkov / Shutterstock.com

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Announcing the US withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, told the media, “I want to make it crystal clear that this step is not a retreat from human rights commitments. On the contrary, we take this step because our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights.” Haley cited a “chronic bias against Israel” as the reason for the US exit from the UNHRC. The ambassador’s statement sounds hollow in the backdrop of “mockery of human rights” happening in its very own border with Mexico.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration instituted a “zero-tolerance” immigration policy in April. The policy meant families crossing the US-Mexico border without proper authorization, including those seeking asylum, would be separated. Parents faced criminal prosecution, while their children were taken to detention centers. In less than two months since the policy went into effect, more than 2,300 children have been separated from their parents. Once separated, there is no process in place for the parents and their children to communicate with each other, nor a guarantee that the family will be reunited at some time in the foreseeable future.

A gut-wrenching recording of the voices of children separated from their parents at the border was released by ProPublica. This recording intensified the national and global outrage against Trump administration’s inhuman policy of taking the children away from the parents. Unable to withstand the sustained backlash, Donald Trump signed an executive order on June 20 to stop the practice of separating families, while still maintaining the zero-tolerance policy.

While Trump’s executive order would stop families being torn asunder at the border, the plight of the migrants trying to make it across the US-Mexico border would still be terrible by any measure. Trump’s order will run into issues with the Flores agreement, the landmark 21-year-old court decision which mandates that migrant children be held in detention for no more than 20 days. The executive order does not address the fate of the 2,300 children already separated from their parents. The zero-tolerance policy is cruel, with or without separation of families. With the prospect of indefinite detention along with their children, migrant families have effectively been thrown from the frying pan into the fire.

Trump’s behavior is very much akin to that of the authoritarian dictators in the modern era. Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Augusto Pinochet had used the tactic of separating children from their parents as a way to punish dissidents and enforce obedience. It should come as no surprise that Trump, who has a fascination with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, both leaders of authoritarian regimes today, chose to emulate the actions of Stalin and Hitler in his immigration policy. Even when signing the executive order, Trump showed no real compassion by stating, “I did not like the sight of families being separated.”

Justifying the approach of tearing apart families as a deterrent to border crossings, Sessions said: “If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. It’s that simple. … If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child may be separated from you as required by law.” He added, “If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.” Trump and Sessions have resorted to what dictators from the recent past did in order to instill fear among the less fortunate, instead of taking a balanced approach to the complex problem of immigration.

The Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy is nothing short of state-sponsored terrorism against migrant families and children. That this is being done today in such unabashed fashion should send shivers down the spines of all decent human beings. America’s behavior is a shameless display of double standards. As it accuses the UNHRC of hypocritical behavior, the US has no qualms about the cruel and coldhearted treatment it is meting out to migrants needing help at its southern border.

Central American Migrant Crisis

A nation of immigrants, America is unbecoming of the self-styled leader of the free world to not be empathetic to migrants knocking on its doors. The rise in the present influx of migrants is largely due to the situation in the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Many people from this region undertake the arduous journey to the US border fleeing violence and persecution in their own country. “If my country would be OK … I would not try to cross,” said a mother from Honduras harboring hopes of crossing into the US with her 7-year old son.

Whether it is Democrats or Republicans in power, US foreign policy has always been self-serving. There are very few countries in the world where America has not meddled with in some fashion or the other. The US has not shied away from backing drug lords, terrorists and even dictators if such an action has suited it. The current Central American migration crisis is in large part due to US actions in that region.

Honduras saw the removal of elected President Manuel Zelaya during the coup of 2009, which tacitly received American support in the form of inaction by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton had set aside well-accepted principles of international law and human rights in an effort to advance America’s own interest in the country. In the aftermath of the coup, Honduras is reeling under high homicide rates and violence, resulting in migrants from that country coming to the doors of the US.

When Trump called El Salvador a “shithole,” he probably did not realize the role of the US in the long fought civil war during the times of President Ronald Reagan propping up right-wing oligarchs against leftist revolutionaries. The US has a moral responsibility for the unabated gang violence in that country today which is bringing hordes of migrants to its borders.

America’s meddling in Guatemala dates back to 1954 when it orchestrated the coup to oust a democratically elected leftist government. Years of civil war left more than 200,000 dead and now several thousand are at US borders.

The Northern Triangle in Central America, which is comprised Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, is home to drug cartels, gang violence and some of the highest homicides rates in the world. Corruption, weak governments and political turmoil make it difficult, if not impossible, to curb the violence and cartels. The US is without a doubt responsible for the position these countries find themselves in today. In 2014, the Obama administration tried to pay lip service to the problem by investing $1 billion in the region to bring stability. However, it took more than 18 months to convince Congress to agree to spend just $750 million there. Today, taking a self-centered nationalistic view, Trump wants to build a wall on the US-Mexico border costing $70 billion to keep migrants from crossing over, prosecute them as criminals when they do and, worse, deport the several thousands who have already sought refuge in America.

Time for a Shift in Foreign Policy

Self-serving US foreign policy has always been a law unto itself and to its existing allies. Much suffering in the world can be avoided if only this country would genuinely commit to following international law all the time, respecting human rights across the globe and demonstrating leadership that promotes peace rather than war.

A Brown University study pegs the costs of America’s wars or military involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria at $4.79 trillion and counting. If America chooses to spend even a fraction of the money it spends in global wars toward repatriation and stabilization of the Northern Triangle of Central America, it would not only improve the lives of the people there, but also stem the flow of migrants at its southern border.

The United States of America has a moral responsibility for the plight of the citizens of Central America. Until it brings meaningful reparations that will improve their lives, the least it can do is to welcome them into America instead of treating them as criminals at the border and destroying families.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. 

Photo Credit: AAraujo / Shutterstock.com

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In swift reaction to Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet — “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.” — ABC canceled the revived sitcom Roseanne, in which Barr plays the lead character. Barr’s tweet was making a reference to Valerie Jarrett, former aide to President Barack Obama, likening her to an ape. Not surprisingly, right-wing media wasted no time in defending Barr’s tweet with implausible arguments. Fox News highlighted Roseanne fans crying foul at media double standards, citing Bill Maher getting away with calling Donald Trump an orangutan.

Instead of getting caught up in arguments based on ideological positions, it would be worthwhile to examine Roseanne Barr’s likening Jarrett to an ape and Maher’s likening Trump to an orangutan to see how fundamentally different the two incidents are. When Maher compared the president to a great ape from Borneo, he was specifically joking about one person: Donald Trump. Maher was not attacking the entire Caucasian race. Rather, he was making fun of a specific white male, who, on multiple occasions, has spewed hateful rhetoric against immigrants, intolerance toward Muslims and disrespect toward women.

In contrast, comparing black people to apes has been done for centuries. On the surface, Barr’s comment denigrating Jarrett may be confused as a poorly conceived joke on a successful African American woman. In reality, Barr’s tweet is an expression of the inherent racial bias harbored by many against African Americans. Barr’s tweet and Maher’s joke are both in poor taste. The crucial difference between them is that Maher chose to make fun of a specific white male, whereas Barr expressed her racial bias against blacks, treating them less than human.

People of color belong to a marginalized community in the United States. Black people are disproportionally incarcerated in American jails and have been at the receiving end of excessive use of police force in many instances based on skin color. These, and a host of other issues, stack the odds against African Americans. With her fortunate upbringing and education, Valerie Jarrett represents the minority of blacks who have overcome the challenges many others face. But that does not make her immune to the deep-seated bias that exists in the society against her race and gender. Even America’s charismatic first black president had to endure him and his wife portrayed as apes in a Belgian newspaper or in a photoshopped picture posted by a Russian lawmaker.

A telling factor in a marginalized community is the burden successful people carry on behalf of their entire group. Without doubt, President Obama would have been held to much higher standards should he have ever stooped to Trump’s level, spouting hateful rhetoric or denigrating women. As the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office, he shouldered the burden of representing the entire black race.

In contrast, Donald Trump embodies and enjoys the privilege that is extended only to a white Caucasian male. White male privilege is in large part the reason Trump can get away with making misogynistic statements like, “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything … grab them by the pussy.” It is the same white privilege in the American society that provides him immunity for singling Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals. Even a rebuke from a federal judge has done little to tone down his rhetoric.

His natural disposition to make outlandish statements coupled with his penchant for attention has warranted Trump’s position as a lightning rod for the media. Many public personas, politicians especially, provide fodder for stand-up comedy acts and late-night talkshows. It is no surprise that Trump was roasted by Maher, the irreverent HBO host. Through his own provocative behavior, Trump virtually invites himself onto such shows. There is no racial bias here.

America continues to remain a strongly racist society. Donald Trump’s presidency has made it worse by providing an environment that is conducive to openly displaying prejudice and intolerance of fellow humans based on their race, nationality, gender and sexual orientation. We cannot say the same of Barr’s deliberate tweet about Valerie Jarrett. Jarrett did nothing to invite Barr’s wrath. She is, however, a successful and accomplished African American woman, which in itself is sufficient to draw the ire of many racially biased people. Whether Roseanne Barr is a racist or not, her action unambiguously displays a racial bias toward black people.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

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It is not easy to write about gun violence and gun-related deaths in America. Even before the ink is dry, more shootings will bring more deaths somewhere in the country. As I wrote this article, the nation had to contend with the heartbreaking loss of the lives of three women at the hands of a gunman in the small town of Yountville, California.

Presenting a frightful perspective on gun deaths in America, The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof asserted in 2015 that, “More Americans have died from guns in the United States since 1968 than on battlefields of all the wars in American history.”  This statistic has been verified more than once by PolitiFact.

The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organization that keeps track of gun violence in America, not only provides a sad commentary on the senseless loss of lives from gun violence, but its records also demonstrate why Kristof’s astute observation will stay true for the foreseeable future in America. Studies show a direct correlation between gun ownership and gun-related injuries and deaths. In an analysis of gun ownership across 50 US states, those with more guns tend to have more gun-related deaths. In a similar study of developed countries, America, which has 42% of civilian-owned guns in the world, stands in a league of its own when it comes to gun-related deaths in comparison with countries like Japan, UK and the Netherlands, where gun ownership is low.

I have unequivocally stated that guns have no place in a civilized society, and that America has to engage in a debate on the relevance of the Second Amendment rather than gun control. In the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, it is alarming to see the dialogue shift toward the arming of teachers and school staff.

Armed Teachers?

During the Republican primaries, President Donald Trump opined that the country’s response to gun violence ought to be more civilians with guns. “I am a Second Amendment person,” Trump said. “If we had guns in California on the other side where the bullets went in the different direction, you wouldn’t have 14 or 15 people dead right now. If even in Paris, if they had guns on the other side going in the opposite direction, you wouldn’t have 130 people plus dead.”

America’s delusional president wants to turn the entire country into a war zone, including schools, which are a gun-free zone today. Despite strong evidence that more guns would mean more gun-related deaths, Trump loves the idea of “bullets going in the other direction” and believes in the myth that more good guys with guns ought to be the nation’s answer to mass shootings. At a White House meeting on school safety, Trump stated that “certain highly adept people, people who understand weaponry and guns,” ought to be allowed to carry guns inside schools. He is not talking about soldiers or mercenaries, but about teachers. The president went as far as to suggest that teachers willing to carry guns should be paid bonuses.

Not surprisingly, Trump’s repeated call to arm teachers drew mixed reactions after the shooting in Parkland, Florida. The National Rifle Association (NRA) and some teachers are in favor of Trump’s call to arms, while many teachers’ unions, parents and educators have overwhelmingly rejected the idea. As with any aspect of the gun debate, the nation is polarized on the topic of arming schoolteachers. The strong divide was amply evident in Florida lawmakers’ knee-jerk response to the Parkland shooting.

Reacting to the school shooting, Florida passed a bill on March 7 that has a provision for additional funding for arming school staff. While the bill has positive aspects, including raising the minimum age to purchase firearms, a three-day waiting period and restrictions on the sale of assault-style weapons, it also includes the provision to arm school teachers. Florida’s Senate narrowly passed a modified version of the bill to create a school marshal program with the additional funding earmarked for arming non-teaching school staff. Defying the NRA, Florida Governor Rick Scott, a self-professed proponent of common-sense gun laws, signed the bill into law on March 9. The final scene will play out in the federal court where the NRA has filed a lawsuit contesting that the new Florida law violates the Second Amendment constitutional rights of people under the age of 21 to bear arms.

Watershed Moment

Taking the step of arming school staff will, unfortunately, negate the benefits of other aspects of Florida’s rnew law. Schools are a place of learning. They are sacred institutions that impart knowledge to students. Nelson Mandela believed that “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Teachers have the unenviable job of shaping the next generation of responsible citizens, creating in them a desire to learn and equipping them with the skills needed to change the world for the better.

Teachers are referred to in Sanskrit as gurus. A guru is a revered mentor who enlightens the minds of students and molds their values. A guru dispels the darkness that is ignorance by guiding students to the path of knowledge and wisdom. It is inconceivable that the very fabric of what a place of learning ought to be is getting ripped apart by the ill-conceived ideas of the most pedestrian president America has seen in recent times. With school marshals, armed school staff and teachers, America will create an indelible image in the impressionable minds of its young learners that guns and violence they bring are a normal way of life. In the process of making violence the norm in society, America is failing in its duties as a nation to nurture its next generation.

The year 2018 has the potential to be a watershed moment in the war against guns in America. Drawing the wrath of the NRA, retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart and Kroger have taken a stand and stopped selling assault-style rifles and guns to anyone under the age of 21, federal and state laws notwithstanding. Students are taking to the streets and staging protests against gun violence. Even a Republican governor with an A+ rating in the NRA’s grading system took the unexpected step of signing into law a gun-control bill that might improve Florida’s standing with the Giffords Law Center.

With the midterm elections looming in November, 2018 can and should become a referendum on where America stands on guns today and how much power the NRA wields in American politics.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: maroke / Shutterstock.com

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There was no doubt that America would regress on multiple issues when it elected Donald Trump as its 45th president. While opinion is divided on his intellectual capacity and mental stability, the president himself opines that he is a stable genius. Yet with every action and tweet of his, he does his best to belie the opinion that he is stable, let alone a genius.

The most damaging of Trump’s egregious actions is the appointment of Scott Pruitt as the head of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Prior to assuming the leadership role as its 14th administrator, Pruitt had sued the EPA 14 times as Oklahoma’s attorney general. Time and again, Pruitt has refused to acknowledge the scientific consensus that human activity is a primary contributor to climate change. As attorney general, he had taken the position of a “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.” It is a travesty of justice that Pruitt is now heading the EPA.

Pruitt wasted no time in changing the agency soon as he assumed the helm. The phrase “the United States plays a leadership role in working with the other nations to protect the global environment” was removed from EPA’s updated mission statement. This categorically announced to the world that America no longer intends to be a leader on climate change. The Trump administration unequivocally announced a plan to pull out of the historic Paris Climate Agreement, signed by all but two countries — Syria and Nicaragua (both of which have since committed to the accord.)

A comparison of the current EPA website with the one that existed before Pruitt’s administration took over shows how unabashed the administration is in its parochial view of America’s short-term well-being over humanity’s long-term survival. Gone from the EPA are the stated priorities in seven areas to address the environmental challenges facing the world.

The first year under Pruitt’s leadership has seen unprecedented number of environmental regulations rolled back. A recent New York Times article mentions 67 regulations that have been reversed or are in the process of being rolled back. The list includes a freeze on coal leases in public lands; anti-dumping rule for coal companies; offshore drilling ban in the Atlantic and Arctic; decisions on Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines; endangered species listings; a hunting ban on wolves and grizzly bears in Alaska; and protections for whales and sea turtles. The breakdown of these regulatory rollbacks across the board by the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit watchdog advocating effective enforcement of environment laws, makes for a depressing and terrifying read.

The Myth of “Clean Coal”

“Clean coal” is a political lobbyist term popularized in 2008 by the coal industry to influence public opinion. It actually refers to the nascent technology, carbon capture and storage or carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). CCS traps 90% of carbon dioxide emissions produced from using fossil fuels for generating electricity and other industrial processes, preventing it from reaching the atmosphere. This is an expensive technology still in its infancy, being used at just one coal plant, Petra Nova, in Texas.

In a sad reflection of the current state of affairs, President Trump touts clean coal that he interprets in the most literal sense — coal that is washed and cleaned. Notwithstanding Trump’s understanding of the term, even America’s coal baron, Robert Murray, admits that clean coal is “neither practical nor economic.” Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence linking global warming to carbon dioxide emissions, Scott Pruitt refuses to acknowledge the connection. Instead, he recommends that we should “continue to debate, continue the review and analysis.”

Upon careful analysis, it will become clear that the position and view point of Trump administration on global warming, carbon dioxide emissions and clean coal have several contradictions. If, as Pruitt believes, carbon dioxide emissions are not a contributing factor to global warming, then what would be the need for the expensive CCS technology? The problem CCS solves is essentially trapping 90% of carbon dioxide emissions and preventing them from entering the atmosphere. By promoting clean coal, the political synonym for CCS, Pruitt effectively acknowledges carbon dioxide emissions are indeed a contributing factor to global warming, even if he refuses to say so in as many words.

After being a climate change denier for years, Pruitt took a different tack in his recent interview with KSNV News 3 Las Vegas, where the head of the EPA questioned if global warming “is necessarily a bad thing.” Discussing whether climate change is an existential threat or not, Pruitt said: “I think there’s assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that necessarily is a bad thing. Do we really know what the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100, in the year 2018? That’s fairly arrogant for us to think that we know exactly what it should be in 2100.” This statement is an implicit acknowledgment  by Pruitt that temperatures are indeed rising as a consequence of global warming, even though recognizing climate change is anathema to him.

In the same interview, Pruitt mentions several times the role of the EPA as a regulator is one of administrator of statutes, “recognizing federalism, partnership with states, focusing on process.” He also adds that the EPA overstepped its role to “declare a war on coal and fossil fuel industry,” something that the Trump administration had just ended. Since Pruitt is so particular about procedure, it would only be appropriate if he steps aside when it comes to interpreting scientific findings and let scientists do their work. Pruitt would do well by being the bureaucrat that his role demands, not conducting exercises challenging science that is beyond his comprehension.

To Leave the World a Bit Better

Pulling out of the Paris accord with the excuse that it is a bad deal for America is an arrogant display of misguided nationalism. America is the largest consumer of resources in the world and the second largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world. It is only fair and appropriate that in any reduction of excesses America leads the way by doing more than its share in the international community, not walk away from it.

The actions of the Trump administration in rolling back environmental regulations, pandering to business interests with flimsy excuses and shortsighted economic growth, is a brazen attack on humanity, not just Americans. It is a sad irony that the perpetrators will be long gone when the consequences of their actions are faced by the future generations.

If only Pruitt and Trump would reflect on this poignant Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote that “To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived — that is to have succeeded.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: 24Novembers / Shutterstock.com

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Behind the warm smile of your favorite restaurant’s waitress and the friendly welcome of the host lies a dark truth about how they earn their wages. The fortunate ones from the seven states of California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Montana, Alaska and Minnesota get paid the state minimum wage. Any tips they earn is additional income, the way it should be. In the remaining 43 of America’s 50 states, the unfortunate workers rely on tips to cover the difference between the subminimum cash wage — mandated by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) —and the state minimum wage.

At a quick glance, the established business practice in these 43 states may sound fair, even business-friendly. A careful analysis of the situation will expose the harsh facts of the restaurant industry.

The FLSA-mandated subminimum wage is a paltry $2.13 per hour for tipped workers, a figure that was established in 1991 and has not been revised since. On average, the dollar has experienced an inflation of 2.28% between 1991 and 2017. In other words, prices are 79.7% more expensive than they were in 1991. Even the federal minimum wage has moved up from $4.25 in 1991 to $7.25 today. But the FLSA subminimum wage for tipped workers has remained stagnant for 26 years.

In 17 of the 43 states, the subminimum wage is the FLSA-mandated $2.13. In the remaining 26 and the District of Columbia, the subminimum wage is higher than $2.13 but lower than the state minimum wage. Restaurant workers are expected to earn this difference from tips.

Including any tips that restaurant workers earn in the minimum wage essentially expects customers to subsidize the restaurant business while exposing the workers to the vagaries of the patrons. These workers are not only at the mercy of customers, but rather their employers to treat them fair.

Pitfalls of including tips as part of minimum wage

In an ideal world, restaurant employers would treat their workers in a fair and equitable manner. The reality is far from ideal for most restaurant workers. Even if we consider incidents of labor trafficking as not the norm, research has determined that waiting tables is a highly stressful job.

Stories of bad tipping by unreasonable and highly demanding patrons are plenty. Creating a cash flow problem for those who can ill afford it, relying on tips exacerbates the economic issues these workers typically face. With no room for slack, waiters and waitresses must turn on their charming smile and put their best foot forward with the next customer, no matter how they were treated by the previous one.

Most restaurants add on a standard gratuity, typically between 18% and 20%, for parties of six or more. One would think that waiters ought to be guaranteed tips at least when they serve large groups. Sadly, it is not safe to assume that the gratuity will make it into the hands of the waiter as tips. Restaurants can choose not to pass on some or all the gratuity to the waiter.

© Paul McKinnon

When tips are paid along with the food and drinks bill and charged to a credit card, the restaurant can choose to deduct any fees owed to the credit card company from the tip due to the employee. This workplace fairness guide explains the complexities of how the wage is computed for tipped employees and what rights they have.

There aren’t many jobs where you are expected to pour your heart out, only to find out that you have the short end of the stick when it comes to being paid.

Even more disconcerting is the sexual harassment they undergo as part of their job. In a 2014 study on sexual harassment in the restaurant industry, a staggering 66% experienced harassing behavior from management, 80% from co-workers and 78% from customers. Women and transgender workers are particularly more susceptible to sexual harassment, the study points out.

If the harassment that restaurant workers endure in a normal environment is not enough, the 1990s saw the advent of “breastaurants,” a concept pioneered by Hooters, which amplify the sexual harassment that waitresses could face in the line of work. To wait tables predominantly patronized by men, waitresses are required to dress skimpily, wear makeup, mascara and more. Hooters girls are also required to sign an acknowledgement that they would accept sexual innuendo as part of their work. This business model exploiting women, particularly young girls, has been emulated by several new franchises, each one vying to differentiate themselves with practices that further demean women.

Alternate models to tipping

Restaurant workers, especially waiters and waitresses, can have a better work life if tips are decoupled from their wages. Although this may challenge a longstanding tradition of the American way of life, there are restaurants that have started adopting alternate models to tipping.

Packhouse Meats in Newport, Kentucky adopted a no-tipping policy, while guaranteeing its employees an hourly wage of $10 and offering them a chance to make more by earning 20% of their total sales in a shift. When Packhouse Meats switched to no-tipping service, it received a lot of criticism from ill-informed customers who thought the company was exploiting its workers. It took courage from the management to stand their ground and educate patrons that their workers were treated more like partners than employees.

More than 20 upscale restaurants nationwide have adopted a no-tipping service model. An all-inclusive price for menu items, calling out service charges separately or a hybrid model — these offer three alternative options to the well-established tipping custom. While a no-tipping model may work out in an upscale restaurant, how will it play out in smaller establishments?

Cicero’s Pizza: A family owned self-serve restaurant

Cicero’s pizza is a popular family-owned small business in San Jose/Cupertino boundary in California. Tipping is optional in this self-serve restaurant that employs about 35 people. I spoke to Rik Jones, co-owner of Cicero’s, to understand the business practices that have allowed it to be successful and to hear his take on the no-tipping model for restaurants.

Jones, who majored in economics, is knowledgeable, hardworking and humble with no airs about him. He was cleaning the restaurant and getting it ready for the day’s business as we had our chat. Not afraid to roll up his sleeves anytime there is a need, he believes that the work ethic of the owners and managers will directly influence workers’ behavior.

Pointing out that tips are a good incentive for waiters to work hard, he agreed that the cons outweigh the pros. Acknowledging the sexual harassment issues, he also highlighted the possibility of unscrupulous customers seeking favors from waiters, compromising the integrity of the workplace.

Cicero’s is successful because it treats employees the way they like to be treated — and by knowing its customers, understanding their needs and providing them a great product at a great value. Having successfully navigated the past increases in minimum wage, it is my sense that Cicero’s is ready to tackle the challenges with rising wages as California heads steadily toward $15 per hour by 2022.

Fair wages and a safe workplace

Tipping is a custom that will not be easy to shed in America. However, it is also clear that the seemingly nice gesture has more ills associated with it, exposing restaurant workers to unsafe and unfair working conditions. It is time for restaurants to seriously consider a no-tipping model.

And until such a time when the tipping revolution comes to pass, there is no reason for the FLSA-mandated subminimum wage to be any different than the state minimum wage. It is only fair that workers are paid what is due to them by their employers, without having to bank on tips.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: bezikus / Shutterstock.com

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In the wake of yet another senseless shooting that took the lives of 58 people and injured more than 500, America is displaying its true colors. That this self-proclaimed leader of the free world is a nation of people who value their right to own guns more than the right of people to live; that it is a racist nation with selective memory of its bloody past on which the country was built upon; that it is a self-aggrandizing nation which refuses to take collective responsibility toward society in the name of protecting individual rights.

On October 4, I attended a town hall meeting hosted by Evan Low, a member of the California State Assembly. Low is a Democrat with strong views on having strict firearm regulations. In his prepared address, he mentioned that his views on gun control have consistently earned him an F grade from the National Rifle Association (NRA). During the individual discussion session, I asked if he would go as far as saying that guns have no place in a civilized society, even if it meant challenging the very core of the Second Amendment. Not surprisingly, his reply was in the realm of political correctness, reiterating his views on gun control and that we would have to make incremental progress in the fight against the proliferation of firearms.

From the blue state of California, which has some of the most stringent gun control laws, Low typifies the best that one could hope for — when it comes to politicians — in the fight against guns in America.

The worst mass shooting in American history?

Media headlines are ablaze with the claim that the Las Vegas attack was the worst mass shooting in American history. Is it indeed the case? Should we ignore the Colfax massacre in 1873, soon after the end of the civil war in which 150 African-Americans were brutally murdered by white supremacists? Should we overlook the Wounded Knee massacre of 300 Lakota Native Americans in 1890 because it was carried out in the name of war? Should we also conveniently forget the 1917 East St. Louis massacre and the 1921 Tulsa race massacre just because the victims were black?

The previous incident that laid claim to the worst mass shooting in America was the 2016 Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando. The media narrative ignored America’s bloody history even then. In fact, The New York Times published this article elaborating how historians and police rely on technicalities to justify the claim.

The list of incidents where black and Native Americans have been murdered by white men are many, but they never seem to make the mainstream narrative of today’s media. This selective amnesia reflects the deep-rooted racism in American society even today.

A culture of violence fueled by individualism

America thrives in a culture of violence that is fueled by individualism. This is at the crux of why it is impossible to challenge the grip that the NRA has on American politicians and, by extension, the country.

America’s favorite pastime and sport, football, is nothing short of a modern-day gladiator spectacle. Studies have conclusively established the effects of concussions on football players. Yet 64% of Americans glue themselves to the TV and throng the stadiums every Sunday in fall and winter to enjoy this gladiator sport.

If it is violence that society craves for even in sport, then the remarkable resistance Americans have when it comes to giving up firearms should come as no surprise. If the death of 20 innocent school children at the hands of a disturbed young man with easy access to firearms does not tug at the nation’s conscience to make amends, then nothing will. Deadly shootings will continue to occur at regular intervals, as with the Orlando killings and the Las Vegas attack. Politicians, impotent under the NRA’s vice-like grip, will express their shallow grief with guarded statements, and they will lay low while the storm blows over. As the dust settles, policymakers will do exactly what they have in the past when it comes to gun legislation: nothing.

Repeal Second Amendment

The Second Amendment gives the majority a convenient anchor to protect their craving for violence. In the late 18th century, the country may have well needed a regulated militia to protect the free state, thus necessitating the right to bear arms and the Second Amendment. But do we need a well-regulated militia that is distinct from the US Army and individuals to bear arms in 21st-century America?

The real dialog the country should be having is not about gun control. Rather, it must be about repealing the Second Amendment, which has no relevance today.

Shackled to its past, real progress has been hard to come by in America. We may have abolished slavery in 1865, but racism is widely prevalent even today. Women’s suffrage came to pass in 1920, thanks to the 19th Amendment, and they may have earned the right to vote, but they continue to fight for gender equality even today. But when it comes to having a rational discussion about the Second Amendment, even small incremental progress becomes a challenge as people become dogmatic about their beliefs and stubborn in their resistance to change.

An individual’s right to own firearms is guarded with such fervor that even the murder of innocent school children couldn’t make a dent in it. How can a country consider itself great if its social beliefs are tied to a document written two centuries ago?

There are many Americans, politicians and even Supreme Court judges who proudly state that they are pro-Second Amendment. On the flip side, the voice of the anti-gun lobby is certainly louder today than it was few decades back. However, what we need are leaders who will spearhead the effort to repeal the archaic Second Amendment. Borrowing a popular phrase from contemporary politics, we need to “repeal and replace” it. Incremental progress in gun control at the state level, with nothing substantial happening in Washington, will leave America exposed to gun violence for decades, if not centuries.

American politicians, including its presidents, never lose the opportunity to display a brash arrogance that borders on crudeness, irrespective of their political affiliation. More than one presidential campaign has been run on the slogan, “Make America Great,” most recently by its current leader, Donald Trump.

Guns have no place in a civilized society. The collective effort should be focused on making America civilized, rather than great.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: PopTika / Shutterstock.com

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Bangladesh is not rich by any means. In fact, it is one of the world’s poorest nations, with more than a third of its population living under the poverty line. That is a staggering 50 million people in one of the most densely populated nations who get by life making less than $2 per day. If feeding 163 million people is not challenging enough, Bangladesh has seen an influx of Rohingya refugees who are fleeing persecution in Myanmar. An incredible 800,000 Rohingya Muslims have crossed the border to find safe haven in Bangladesh. A significant portion — at least 430,000 — of this migration happened after August 25 when violence against them escalated in Myanmar.

Bangladesh has welcomed the suffering Rohingya in the most humanitarian way possible. After visiting the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhiya, a border town in the Cox’s Bazar district, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made the statement, “We have the ability to feed 160 million people of Bangladesh and we have enough food security to feed the … refugees.”

Timely, heartwarming gesture

Hasina has also offered 2,000 acres of land in Cox’s Bazar to house the Rohingya refugees. One cannot but admire the timely and warm gesture that Bangladesh has extended to one of the most persecuted people in the world today. It is true that, in the past, Bangladesh had been reluctant to deal with the plight of the Rohingya. However, it is also a fact that when the calamity reached untenable levels in recent times, Bangladesh has risen above politics to gallantly confront with the situation.

I also cannot help but wonder what would the reaction be from the US and its Islamophobic president should half a million Muslim refugees try to enter America fleeing persecution elsewhere.

The Rohingya crisis is not new. Atul Singh, the founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of Fair Observer, has authored a brilliant piece on the history of the Rohingya and how their problems have taken a turn for worse since the turn of the century. The ramifications of what has been happening in Myanmar are spreading across South Asia, especially the neighboring Bangladesh. The impact this has had on that country is worth reflecting on.

An analogous situation happened in Tamil Nadu, the southern state in India, during the late 1980s. Tamil Nadu was generally a peaceful and easy place to live prior to the crisis of Sri Lankan Tamils and the impact it had on the Indian state. Tamil Nadu saw an increase in violence with a culture of guns permeating society. The freedom struggle of Sri Lankan Tamils and their plight against the powerful Sri Lankan army had an indelible effect on the life of people in Tamil Nadu. At the height of the problem, the state witnessed the assassination of India’s former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991 at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai.

In a similar way, the turn of events in Myanmar and the persecution of Rohingya are having an enduring effect on Bangladeshis. Singh mentions in his article how Bangladeshi scholars and policymakers have confided to him that “the persecution of the Rohingya is radicalizing their country and threatening regional peace.”

Against this backdrop, reacting to the escalating violence against the Rohingya, Bangladesh has not only opened its border to over 430,000 refugees since August alone, but it has also offered shelter and food to them. Individuals and ordinary citizens of Bangladesh are taking the lead in assisting the Rohingya — some giving up their entire savings to help them. These actions by the Bangladeshis could not come at a more appropriate time for the stateless Rohingya.

As Bangladesh steps up to this challenge, however, it is placing a few logical constraints on how it would accommodate the refugees. Any country that deals with an influx of nearly half a million people in less than a month ought to, lest there be mayhem and chaos.

However, the world must realize that the Rohingya crisis is not for Bangladesh to solve on its own. It is a humanitarian crisis of tremendous proportions, and the onus is upon the leaders of the region to find immediate relief for the refugees, perhaps taking a cue from the average Bangladeshi’s generosity. At the same time, the United Nations ought to work with Myanmar to find a lasting and permanent solution for the Rohingya.

Rohingya burns while Aung San Suu Kyi watches

The Rohingya have been stateless and without citizenship since 1982. Decades of inhuman treatment in their country has caused them to flee to several states, with Bangladesh bearing the brunt.

Myanmar, in the meantime, has become a fledgling democracy, earning its political leader and human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi a Nobel Peace Prize. During her struggle to liberate Myanmar, the whole world stood by her and admired her courage. Today, the same people who held Suu Kyi in high regard are shocked by her attitude toward her fellow country people of a different ethnicity.

In an interview with the BBC in April, she refused to describe the systematic eradication of the Rohingya from Rakhine State as ethnic cleansing. In the same interview, she also made a statement that is characteristic of what one would expect from US President Donald Trump. “It is not just a matter of ethnic cleansing as you put it — it is a matter of people on different sides of the divide, and this divide we are trying to close up,” she said.

Her comments mirror Trump’s speech following the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides.”

Suu Kyi ought to be stripped off her Nobel Peace Prize. For her to stay silent on the Rohingya issue instead of condemning it is simply shameful. For her to defend the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya as a “matter of people of different sides” is reprehensible, putting her on par with Trump. She does not deserve her Nobel Peace Prize.

Bangladesh rises where Myanmar fails

Myanmar has failed the Rohingya, an ethnic minority that belongs in its Rakhine region. Suu Kyi’s deafening silence speaks eloquently to the kind of person she really is: an Islamophobe and a racist. Together, their actions have created a refugee problem of immense proportions, caused instability and a rise in violence in the region.

Where Myanmar and Suu Kyi have failed, Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina and ordinary citizens have risen admirably. Their actions have demonstrated to the world what a bit of compassion and empathy can do. While the international community grapples with a solution to the Rohingya crisis, we ought to recognize the timely humanitarian gesture by Sheikh Hasina and Bangladesh.

Today, Bangladesh stands tall in the eyes of the world.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Hafiz Johari / Shutterstock.com

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Much of America is wondering what is happening to the country with a despot for its leader whose behavior and decisions continue to leave everyone flummoxed. There are 800,000 “Dreamers” worried about their future after Donald Trump repealed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Thousands of refugees and Muslim nationals from seven countries were literally left hanging high and dry when Trump tried to implement his first travel ban soon after taking office in January. With his fingers on some of the strongest weapons of mass destruction, Trump is engaged in an unwise war of words with a bellicose North Korea and its enigmatic leader, Kim Jong-un. Even Republicans lawmakers are left wondering what happened when Trump struck a deal with the Democrats, extending the debt ceiling along with funding for the victims of Hurricane Harvey.

Amidst all this, the loser of the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton, wants us to focus on what happened to her and why she lost last year. There is a time to dwell in the past. However, when the country is facing incredible challenges, both natural and self-inflicted, it is certainly not appropriate to do so. Not in the least for someone who professes to care for the country. Yet Clinton has spent her time on authoring a book lamenting on her failed presidential bid and people to blame her failings on.

Lasting impression on American voters

In her book, What Happened, Clinton blames Senator Bernie Sanders for causing “lasting damage” to her campaign as a reason for her losing the presidential election. Anyone who followed the Democratic Party nomination process would appreciate what the Democratic National Committee, then-chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz and even former President Barack Obama did to tilt the scale against Sanders and in favor of Clinton.

Senator Sanders’ beliefs may be grounded in socialism, but he ran an issue-oriented campaign that he continues to fight for even today. His strong voice on single-payer universal health care, raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, tackling the growing income inequality, combating climate change, addressing gender equality and racial justice, and tackling big money in politics challenged the ugly status quo in America that neither established party was willing to take on.

For Clinton to state that the issues Senator Sanders talked about caused “lasting damage” to her campaign reaffirms the disingenuous person that she is. Sanders’ campaign did not cause lasting damage to Clinton’s campaign. On the contrary, it has succeeded in creating a “lasting impression” in the minds of American voters, especially the next generation of them. During his campaign against Clinton, Sanders kept his message focused on issues. In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, when confronted with Clinton blaming his campaign for her loss, Senator Sanders refused to get dragged into a blame game and instead concentrated on what is important.

A recent opinion piece in The New York Times takes a close look at the impact that socialist leaders like Sanders are having on millennials.

America needs leaders who are problem solvers

The Republicans have demonstrated time and again that they have little political will to govern effectively, whether they have a majority in the House and Senate or not — regardless if America has a Democrat or Republican in the White House. American people have a responsibility to elect those who are capable of governing in Congress. We need elected officials who can rise above party politics to deal with the innumerable issues facing the country.

The Senate ought not to have room for people like Jim Inhofe, who tried to debunk climate change theory with a snowball in the Senate floor. Worse, a president who thinks climate change is a hoax and pulls America out of the Paris Accord, joining Nicaragua and Syria as the only countries not committed to the deal. An Earth defiled will cause catastrophic storms and disastrous droughts, sparing no one.

A nation of immigrants ought to have compassionate and empathetic policies treating every human with respect. Not throw the lives of nearly a million people in disarray by retracting DACA without having a comprehensive immigration reform plan in place.

The country is being torn asunder with its racial wounds. Instead of helping bridge the divide, President Trump’s tweets and words have only widened it. His sympathy for racist, white supremacists has emboldened right-wing groups like the Ku Klux Klan to come out in the open and spread their message of hatred.

If Hillary Clinton really cares about America, she must find a way to contribute positively to these and more issues the country is grappling with. It absolutely serves no purpose to dwell into what happened in 2016 that caused her to lose the election to Donald Trump. It is also highly irresponsible of her to blame Bernie Sanders and his issue-oriented campaign as a reason for her defeat.

Clinton’s actions only portray her as a poor loser and a mendacious politician. It is time to move on.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Trevor Collens / Shutterstock.com

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It is 152 years since the bloody civil war that tore America apart ended and slavery officially abolished. While blacks are no longer slaves today, are they truly free? In a country where all are equal, why would we still need movements like Black Lives Matter?

The truth is America has not really come to terms with its ugly, racial bigotry and injustices. Certainly not in the way South Africa has managed to heal and rebuild after enduring one of the most brutal racial divides of the 20th century. South African poet and writer Don Mattera explains succinctly how a nation can take collective responsibility in righting the wrongs of its past: “Sorry is not just a word — it’s a deed, an act.” It took leaders of the stature of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu to not only lead South Africa out of apartheid, but aid in its subsequent healing.

In strong contrast to that caliber of leadership, America has elected Donald Trump as its 45th president. His rise to ascendancy was driven by a campaign that not only lacked basic human decency, but was filled with xenophobia, Islamophobia and misogyny. His hateful rhetoric has successfully managed to stoke the simmering racial tensions in the country, culminating in the events in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12.

Sensationalism over substance

American media have never helped the nation look within and confront the ghosts of the past. While it is no surprise that right-leaning media choose to turn a blind eye to the truth, it is disappointing that the left-leaning ones also choose sensationalism over substance. The handling of Trump’s campaign and his ill-thought-out tweets has made a mockery of news, creating a reality presidential show.

Still, when it comes to describing hate perpetrated by white men, the media choose their words carefully. You will not hear the words terrorist, racist and riots when it comes to describing actions of white men. Instead, you will hear the phrases freedom of speech, shooter and mentally disturbed. A year after the Charleston church shooting massacre, covering the trial of the racist, white supremacist perpetrator, CNN’s headline read: “Mass shooter Dylann Roof, with a laugh, confesses, ‘I did it.’”

Yet when it comes to protests driven by the need to stand up for basic human rights and dignity, riots and unruly behavior are the terms that will dominate the airwaves. You will be hard pressed to find a headline that describes the incidents in Ferguson following Michael Brown’s death as “unrest.” The killing of Brown, who was shot dead by Officer Darren Wilson, caused the Ferguson unrest in August 2014. When a grand jury comprising nine white and three black people did not indict the police officer, a second wave of unrest followed in November. While there are innumerable instances of blatant racism, what happened in Ferguson epitomizes the racial injustice prevalent in America today.

Freedom to hate?

While the First Amendment guards an individual’s right to free speech, should it also protect extreme viewpoints that espouse hatred toward others? Certain aspects of speech such as obscenity, defamation, blackmail and threats are considered unprotected.

What happened in Charlottesville, Virginia was not an expression of freedom of speech. Calling themselves white supremacists and assembling to “Unite the Right” to take back the country is a veiled threat that ought not to be considered free speech. That this rally was organized to protest the dismantling of Confederate statues speaks to the lingering racial tensions from decades past that have never been properly quelled.

A compilation by the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified that there are 917 hate groups functioning within the US. These groups hate others in the name of race, religion, color and sexual orientation. The explosive growth seen in the number of hate groups since the turn of the century is in part attributed to the rise in immigration and the prediction that by 2040, whites will no longer be a majority in the country.

America is at an inflection point today. Led by a combative president who unabashedly aligns with white supremacists and an attorney general who promises to toughen its already broken criminal justice system, it is now up to the people of this nation to take on healing this racial divide lest it becomes an insurmountable chasm.

Collective Responsibility

A nation of immigrants that committed unspeakable acts of horror that virtually decimated the indigenous people of the land has no moral right to exclude people fleeing persecution elsewhere or seeking to improve their economic well-being by coming to America. The collective responsibility of the nation, its lawmakers and the president is to welcome them with compassionate policies, perhaps taking a measured approach, rather than build walls around us.

Abolishing slavery in 1865 did not mean the dawn of equality. On the contrary, America witnessed systematic racial and ethnic cleansing aimed not just at African-Americans, but Native Americans and Chinese-Americans during the lynching period until 1930s. African-Americans were also subjected to persecution and segregation by Jim Crow laws until 1965. In the post-civil rights era, racial tensions are high strung from the War on Drugs and police brutality against African-Americans. The period since 1980 has seen a staggering increase in incarceration rates following the War on Drugs with a disproportionate amount of African-American and Hispanic population being locked up.

With so much blood in its hand, America will, at some point in time, have to stop everything in its tracks to acknowledge its failings and atone for sins of its past.

Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights given to all human beings. Not just white men. Pursuing happiness in life cannot be at the cost of hating others because of their race, color or sexual orientation. And if we must explicitly call out hateful rhetoric as no longer protected by freedom of speech, it is our collective responsibility as a nation to make it happen.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Christopher Penler / Shutterstock.com

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For the millions of Americans who do not receive medical coverage from their Employer Sponsored Insurance (ESI), finding something that works tends to be a nightmare. In spite of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), whose provisions went into effect in 2014, more than 28 million people were not insured in 2015. A study by Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) will corroborate the fact that between 2013 and 2015, the number of uninsured people went down, while the number insured through a non-group coverage went up proportionately. During the period of study, the number of Americans receiving medical coverage through ESI stayed at around 50%, those receiving Medicare at 14% and Medicaid at 20%.

Everyone understands America’s health care system has issues. However, with the majority of Americans having little incentive to fix it, the plight of the 16% comprising the uninsured and those seeking non-group coverage has not changed much, even with ACA.

Affordable Care Act: Flawed, But Redeemable?

ACA (aka Obamacare) is flawed in many ways. Instead of providing health care, President Barack Obama focused on providing medical insurance for Americans. Since ACA went into effect in 2014, the choices available to consumers in terms of insurance have dwindled, with several companies refusing to participate in the marketplace. Each year, premiums have also shot up around 25%. Part of the funding needed to run ACA is actually a tax couched in the form of a penalty, specifically on the 16% of uninsured and individuals seeking non-group coverage.

This grim commentary does not mean Obamacare has failed summarily. A significant accomplishment of ACA is the provision that ensures insurance companies cannot turn down people with preexisting medical conditions.

With Medicare providing coverage for the elderly and Medicaid providing coverage for low-income families, ACA’s primary focus is on the 16% segment—a staggering 50 million Americans—by helping more of them come into the fold. But what Americans really need is health care, not a flawed system that mandates getting medical insurance with limited choices, high premiums and a tax couched as a penalty.

Medical Insurance: Complicated and designed to fail the consumers

Medical insurance today is way more complicated than necessary. Anyone shopping for insurance will minimally have to wade through and understand the following terms: bronze plan; coinsurance; copayment; deductible; gold plan; preferred provider organization (PPO) plan; exclusive provider organization (EPO) plan; health maintenance organization (HMO); in-network provider; out of network provider; point-of-service (POS) plan; maximum plan dollar limit; maximum out-of-pocket expense; platinum plan; premium; primary care physician (PCP); silver plan; and usual, customary and reasonable (UCR) charges. In fact, the complete terminology used by the National Compensation Survey runs eight pages long.

It is not uncommon for a provider to accept a plan from an insurance company when it is administered as part of ESI and reject a different plan from the same insurance company that is administered for individuals and families. Complicating matters further, toward the end of each calendar year, medical providers and insurance companies go through a prolonged negotiation process that can and frequently does leave several people no longer being able to see a doctor who they were able to before.

It would be easier to understand these points with a concrete example. Palo Alto Medical Foundation, part of the Sutter Health Organization, accepts a variety of insurance plans from Anthem Blue Cross, but only if they are part of an ESI. Any individual and family plan (IFP) from the same insurance company, Anthem Blue Cross, is not accepted by this provider. Each year, Sutter Health goes through a negotiation process with different insurance companies. On January 4, the organization agreed* a three-year renewal with Blue Shield.

Transparency of health care costs is the first casualty in this battle for control between health care providers and insurance companies. It is virtually impossible to find out exactly how much your insurance company would pay for a particular treatment beforehand. On the flipside, it is equally impossible to understand the real cost of a particular treatment from a medical provider. Every provider accepts differing amounts for the same treatment from different insurance companies. The discount each insurance company receives from the provider is the crux of the negotiations between these two entities. An individual seeking care from the provider directly is expected to pay the full amount.

Mental Health and Insurance

If navigating through the world of physical health care and insurance seems fraught with problems, the situation gets remarkably more complex when it comes to getting adequate and appropriate care for mental health issues. In a survey conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2004, more than half American households experienced some kind of mental health issue, but 87% pointed to a lack of insurance coverage as a reason for not getting appropriate treatment.

Significant problems remain even today with insurance and costs associated with mental health, resulting in 56% of American adults in need of mental health care not receiving it. This situation is not surprising and is unlikely to change with insurance companies acting in blatantly unethical fashion, knowing fully well their actions are protected in the eyes of the law.

Take the case of this family, insured by Blue Shield with a Gold PPO plan in 2016, costing them a fortune in premiums for the flexibility of getting the care they choose. Circumstances were such that they had limited choice when they were forced to enroll their teen in an Intensive Outpatient Treatment (IOP) with a provider not in Blue Shield’s network.

With the maximum out of pocket cost per individual at $9,200, the family thought they knew the cap on their expenses. The treatment cost $17,400, while Blue Shield determined that their UCR for that treatment was $1,320 and paid the family $660. It is bizarre that the provider bills the cost of the treatment at $17k; Blue Shield, a non-contracted insurance company, considers it to be $1.3k; and a different insurance company that is contracted with the provider places its worth at $9.5k. Having to pay the full amount, the family was further in surprise when they learnt that the maximum out of pocket cost computation is based on UCR, not the actual cost incurred by them.

The family filed a complaint with the Department of Managed Healthcare (DMHC). DMHC’s mission is to “protect consumers’ health care rights and ensure a stable health care delivery system.” DMHC’s investigation found Blue Shield to be in compliance with its obligations. Blue Shield’s allowed amount (UCR) for the services received was determined to be 3.8% of the total cost of the services provided.

The family had gone ahead with the treatment, knowing that Blue Shield was not a contracted insurance company with the provider. Still, a lack of transparency of the costs involved, unclear information on what the insurance would pay, and ambiguous information on how the maximum out of pocket cost would be computed all added up to flaws in a system designed to fail the consumer. And there was nothing DMHC could do to help this family or protect their health care rights.

With a majority in Congress and Senate, Republicans and Donald Trump can wreak havoc on an already flawed system in their politically misguided attempts to fix it. What America needs is universal health care, a socialist concept that would never come to pass. For the foreseeable future, Americans have no choice but to live with their broken health care system and hope they do not fall sick.

*Editor’s note: This article was updated on January 16, 2017, to provide clarification on latest developments. Sutter Health came to an agreement with Blue Shield of California on a three-year contract on January 4, 2017.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Leo Patrizi

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On June 2, the Stanford University rape case ruling came in from Judge Aaron Persky. His ruling showed no empathy for the victim and showed extraordinary leniency to Brock Turner, the perpetrator who has expressed no remorse over his actions. In fact, Turner’s father characterized his behavior as “20 minutes of action.”

A shocked nation and world swung into frenzied action. Outraged against Judge Persky’s ruling, more than 1 million people globally signed a petition calling for his recall. In Santa Clara County, Persky’s recall motion is being led by a Stanford law school professor hoping to get the 60,000 signatures needed for the recall to proceed.

I don’t know what will come of it—perhaps Judge Persky will indeed lose his position in disgrace. Or not.

But make no mistake about it: This outrage too shall pass. In a year’s time, this incident will be distant memory for most people except the victim.

Meanwhile, every two minutes, another sexual assault will continue to happen in America. That is a staggering 290,000 number each year. America had the dubious distinction of holding the number one position for sexual assaults until South Africa recently took that position with a mind numbing 500,000 sexual assaults each year. Of the 290,000 assaults in America, more than 65,000 of them happen in a college setting against young women.

How many of you are still eager to send your daughter off to that Ivy League college across the coast? Have you ever paused to think about these numbers and wonder why this disgraceful crime continues to happen year after year?

Well, we have people like Dan Turner to thank for it. For him, rape is “20 minutes of action.” We have the media to thank for it. For them, women are nothing more than sex objects. We have the nearly $100 billion porn industry to thank for it, of which more than $10 billion of business happens in America. We have a patriarchal society to thank for it, which has never treated women as equal to men and worse, and blamed them for the fact that men can’t keep their libido in check.

© Shutterstock

Rape Crimes

Eight of the top 10 countries with rape crimes are from the so-called civilized Western world. Denmark, Finland, Sweden, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and, of course, the United States of America make a near clean sweep of this disgraceful list. Rounding off the top 10 are Zimbabwe and South Africa as well as the country of my birth, India.

In India, over 33,000 rapes were reported in 2014 alone. It’s anyone’s guess how many thousands go unreported. That’s at least one in every 20 minutes. New Delhi, the capital of India, could very well be the rape capital of the country too.

In 2012, Delhi was the center of world’s attention when Nirbhaya, a college girl coming home with her boyfriend from a movie, was brutally gang raped and murdered. India and the whole world were outraged. Media was at a frenzied height. Yet the number of reported rapes went up from 24,000 in 2012 to 33,000 in 2013 after all that attention and hue and cry.

I have no solution to offer other than genetically reengineering men and their libido. But will that ever happen?

Every so often, a case like the one in Stanford will catch the public’s attention. The reality drama will grip people. When justice doesn’t prevail, as in the Stanford case, people will even revolt. A judge may even lose his job.

But this outrage too shall pass. Make no mistake about it. This outrage too shall pass.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Vava Vladimir Jovanovic

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America is a nation that is setting a new standard in apathy. Gun violence has become so commonplace that people have become completely inured to it. After each incident, like clockwork, social media lights up with prayers for the victims and their families. President Barack Obama, a gun control proponent, makes a somber speech. Opinions on gun control and the defense of the Second Amendment quickly follow. After the heat of the moment, things die down until the next shooting, and then the cycle repeats itself.

Over here, the death of 20 young children at the hands of a 20-year-old with easy access to a gun is considered perfectly acceptable. The death of a 2-year-old at the hands of her 5-year-old brother handling a 0.22 caliber rifle gets brushed aside as an unfortunate accident. Sure, this is disturbing and troubling to a small segment of society, but as a nation, the majority is unwilling to make any change to remove guns from it.

In less than three years since the Sandy Hook shooting, killing 26 people, there have been 144 school shootings in America. On average, that is one per week. In 2013, 69.5% of homicides were done using firearms, and 51% of suicides were done using firearms. If the tragic loss of 20 innocent lives cannot tug the nation’s conscience, it is no wonder that the killing of ten black parishioners by an armed white supremacist did not lead to any change whatsoever to that apathy. And the fact that 75,000 American lives have been lost to gun violence since the ill-fated Sandy Hook elementary school shooting has become just another statistic.

Whether people want to believe it or not, institutional racism is a way of life in America. Data from an Office for Civil Rights study points out that even though African American students represent only 18% of preschool enrolment, they receive 48% of the one-day suspensions. These are just 4-year-old black children. The same study finds that across all age groups, black students are suspended and expelled three times more than white students.

The prejudiced racial treatment meted out to preschool black students follows them throughout life. In Ferguson, Missouri, an unarmed black male, Michael Brown, was shot dead by Officer Darren Wilson in 2014. Wilson pumped 12 bullets into Brown and he was not even indicted. In New York, another black man, Eric Garner, lost his life to the chokehold he was subjected to by Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who was also not indicted. In Texas, Eric Casebolt, a McKinney Police Department officer, rough handled a 14-year-old black girl in a swim party and eventually resigned due to public pressure. In 2012, black teenager Trayvon Martin was shot dead by vigilante George Zimmerman. After nearly getting away with it, Zimmerman ended up facing murder charges six weeks after the shooting, only to be acquitted by the legal system.

George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton / Flickr

America is a nation that is gripped by paranoia and intolerance. When self-professed liberals like Bill Maher defend the arrest of a Muslim teenager in school for displaying creativity, one can only surmise that Islamophobia is at its peak. America’s Islamophobia reflects its Middle East foreign policy irrespective of the president’s party affiliation. Their internal politics and bickering notwithstanding, Democrats and Republicans come together only when it comes to war mongering in the guise of world leaders. If President George W. Bush led America into a wasteful war in search of non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, his successor President Obama outdoes him by killing scores of Muslims using drones.

America is a nation that is being torn asunder with gun violence, racial tension and intolerance ripping apart its very core. Is it possible to change the minds of the scores of Americans who unwaveringly stand by the Second Amendment and believe in their rights to bear arms even though guns need to play no part in a civilized society today? Is it possible for America to atone for its crimes against blacks and seek their forgiveness as a nation? How can America of today become tolerant of the world around it, whether it is Muslims or blacks who stoke their paranoia and hatred? Can America stop all this madness and heal itself?

Stop Being a Bully

Acknowledging problems and their root causes is the first step. It is no surprise that today, America is not respected internationally. Far from being leaders, the world sees the country for what it is: a bully.

Chest thumping and angry screaming are behaviors appropriate to animals, not humans. Yet that is what is celebrated in every sport this nation has engineered. Trash talking and ruthless killing of competition are not attributes of true leaders. Yet that is what even successful leaders resort to doing here. Only last month did the talented Elon Musk demean himself when he referred to Apple as Tesla’s graveyard—in the context of Apple hiring Tesla engineers. Braggadocio and tough talking define the American way be it in sports, politics or the corporate world. Unfortunately, America has to learn that bullying is not leadership.

A bigger issue lies in America’s multibillion dollar gun economy. This is an industry with blood in its hands and a $42 billion impact on the US economy. The gun industry kindles and stokes the basic animal instincts in human beings, the only animal that kills for sport. Not only does America shamelessly profit from the wars it has created in the Middle East, but the country’s irrational love for guns has made it a huge importer of firearms in spite of being the largest gun manufacturer in the world. America does not need gun control. America needs to replace the gun economy with something else that the whole country can fall in love with.

The sum of $42 billion may seem like a huge number. But that is insignificant when compared against America’s $18 trillion GDP. The 260,000 people employed by the gun industry may seem like a substantial number, but that is just a fraction of its $156 million labor force. If America wants, it can reinvent itself and replace the gun industry with something else. Even Colombia, a country ravaged by violence from drug cartels, changed its ways over the last decade to get its tourism industry humming. Surely, America can break free from the clutches of National Rifle Association and give up its irrational love for guns and war mongering.

America does not have to rewrite its moral fabric. It just needs to stop being a bully. As a nation, it needs to find a non-deadly sport to fall in love with and replace nationalistic jingoism with genuine care for human lives.

When it does this, the world will look to America for leadership without fear of being bullied. America will have no reason to be paranoid of the Muslim world. Who knows, in the whole process, America may even heal its racial wounds.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: The White House / Kenishirotie / Shutterstock.com

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We are in the middle of a four-year drought in California, and no one knows if next winter will produce enough rain and snow to break out of it. Water usage and conservation have become heavily debated topics, with opinions ranging far and wide. The governor of California has mandated a 25% reduction in water usage statewide.

In this backdrop, our local water supplier, San Jose Water Company (SJWC), is imposing quotas for residential customers and restrictions on how they can use water—and there will be penalties for not complying.

This article is not about the drought and water conservation; I am fully appreciative of the seriousness of the drought. My family has reduced our water consumption by 38% in 2014, compared to 2013, and we will make every effort to further reduce our consumption in 2015.

This post is about regulated monopolies and SJWC, in particular. Regulated monopolies such as Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) and SJWC serve large customer bases with essential resources. PG&E supplies electricity and natural gas to 16 million customers in residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural sectors. In California, SJWC supplies water to nearly 230,000 metered connections, which serves around a million people. It’s a Hobson’s choice for customers who need electricity, natural gas and water in their home or office.

Monopolies such as SJWC and PG&E have their customers at their mercy. PG&E and SJWC know this as they rake in higher guaranteed revenues. Consumers supposedly have the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) protecting their interests and regulating rate increases from these monopolies—hence the category “regulated monopolies.” But the idea of regulated profit-oriented monopolies is a flawed one.

Ineffcient System That Doesn’t Work

Let us understand PG&E and SJWC. Both businesses involves two key aspects: procuring and/or producing the resource be it water, electricity or natural gas; and distribution.

PG&E either procures or produces electricity and natural gas, while SJWC is a water retailer that procures water from Santa Clara Valley Water District. It would not make sense for multiple companies to run power, water and gas lines to homes and businesses. In order to attain efficiency, the distribution tends to be a monopoly. The good news is that once the infrastructure is laid, the cost of distribution is relatively flat and fixed over a long period of time.

Procuring and producing the resource for distribution has an associated market. For instance, the cost of electricity generation from wind, solar or fossil fuel is different. Any fluctuation in rates should solely be dependent on the actual cost of resource acquired.

However, this is not the case. My water rate has gone up by 31-48% over the past five years. In the same period, SJWC’s market capitalization has gone up by 30%. Between 2012-14, SJWC’s revenues rose by 22% and net income increased by 132%, as seen in SJWC’s 2014 annual report. All of this happened under CPUC’s watch.

For 2015 and beyond, SJWC has proposed four rate increases with the CPUC that I am aware of: a surcharge of 3.4% in 2015 (Advice Letter 468); a proposal to increase the rates by 12.2% in 2016; a 3.1% increase in 2017; and a 5.3% rate hike in 2018. SJWC is also proposing drought surcharges of 100-200% over the above mentioned rate increases as stated in Advice Letter 473.

This system of regulated profit-oriented monopolies is flawed as it is inefficient, and it does not work. This can be illustrated by the following two applications from SJWC to CPUC.

As per Advice Letter 468:

“The CPUC authorized SJWC to establish [Mandatory Conservation Revenue Adjustment Memorandum Account] MCRAMA to track the revenue impact of mandatory conservation upon SJWC’s quantity revenue resulting from mandatory conservation instituted by the State of California and Santa Clara Valley Water District. As directed by the CPUC’s Water Division, the increase will be recovered via a surcharge on the existing quantity rate for a period of 12-months from the date of the CPUC approval.”

In this example, CPUC asked SJWC to institute a surcharge, and SJWC filed an application with CPUC for authorization. There is no reason for CPUC to refuse this, which makes the whole process inefficient. Since the imposition of this surcharge is guaranteed, it is inefficient for the companies to formally go through this charade.

An analysis of the General Rate Case increase application 15-01-002 reveals that the rate increase is used to replace the aging SJWC’s systems and facilities. “SJWC is proposing this rate increase due to escalating operating expenses related to water quality and safety requirements, as well as significant system infrastructure replacement requirements as the water system ages over the next several years.”

As mentioned before, SJWC’s net income has gone up by 132% from $22 million to $51 million between 2012-14.

As a responsible customer, I do not have issues paying for required rate increases. What I fail to understand is how much of this increased revenue will feed into SJWC’s profits and how much will go to fix the infrastructure issues previously mentioned.

For that matter, why are the operating margins not lowered to fix the issues mentioned without passing the buck to the customer? If SJWC was a nonprofit organization, the operating margins could be lower and a rate increase request such as this would never be viewed with suspicion.

I attended a meeting with SJWC’s officials on May 28 in San Jose concerning the drought surcharges. It was a perfunctory meeting as SJWC merely went through the CPUC process. Neither did the representatives record the conversation, nor were there any notes. As a result, no transcript was produced. To even suggest a 100-200% surcharge simply indicates to me that SJWC’s interest is not water conservation, but revenue generation.

Possible Solutions

Any problem can be fixed if we put our minds to it. Let me explore a couple of ways by which we can improve this specific situation.

Is there a need for two sets of organizations, one that is profit-driven, publicly traded and answerable to Wall Street, while the other is a government entity—overseeing the profit-oriented company—with the primary interest of fairness and protecting consumers? Can we not have one organization that runs in a transparent manner and sets its rates based on the actual cost of procuring and distributing the resource, as well as taking into account its operating costs? It is likely that such an outfit may turn out to be a government entity. A segment of the population will shoot down this idea by stating that this is another way of promoting big government and the inefficiencies that come with it.

What about giving customers the freedom to choose their utility provider? After all, with fixed distribution costs, one can argue that customers should have the choice to play in the free market of producing and procuring the resource. The other segment of the population will shoot down this proposal, arguing that water, natural gas and electricity are essential resources that cannot be given over to complete privatization. I am sure there are many other alternatives, but it would require strong political will to fix this issue.

The current situation can be summed up by the adage: “One foot here, another foot there … on a road to nowhere.” For now, we are stuck with the flawed system of profit-oriented regulated monopolies.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Eddie J. Rodriquez / Shutterstock.com

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