Marathas vs The Dalits: The Seething Caste War In Maharashtra

ndtv |  Lakhs of people from Maharashtra's most powerful caste group, the Marathas, held a muk or silent rally in Pune on Sunday to protest the rape and killing of a 14-year-old girl from the community by three Dalit boys in the village of Kopardi in Ahmednagar district in July. Similar demonstrations have been held since the incident in almost every major town of the Marathwada region dominated by Marathas and are now spreading to the rest of the state under the banner of a newly floated non-political outfit, the Maratha Kranti Samiti.

The clout of the new agency is derived partly from its success in bringing on board older groups that have represented the upper caste Marathas - groups like the Akhil Bharatiya Maratha Mahasangh, Sambhaji Brigade and the Maratha Seva Sangh. They want the death penalty for the accused Dalits. They are asking for the abolition of the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Prevention of Atrocities Act (POA) 1989 because they say this law, which is meant to prevent and punish violence against Dalits and Adivasis, is being misused by these groups to target the Marathas. "The Dalits receive financial compensation for any atrocity committed on them under the Act. To be able to get this money, they have started filing false cases against the Marathas," alleged a young boy at the Pune rally.

But official figures reveal just the opposite. That despite the Act, Maharashtra's weakest castes have little access to justice and continue to be victims of discrimination.

Dalits and Adivasis constitute 19% of the state's population, but last year, only 1% of all FIRs registered by the police were filed by members of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Of these, the Atrocities Act was applied in less than 40% of the complaints. The conviction rate under the Act has been even more dismal, an average of 7% in the last five years. A staggering 87% of the cases are still pending trial.

Which leads many to believe that while Maratha anger may have justifiably been provoked by the Kopardi rape and killing, the demand to scrap the Atrocities Act and restore their honour is directly linked to the community's deep resentment of the government's reservation policy of guaranteeing jobs and seats in educational institutions to lower castes.

Dutertism: Human rights: ‘only for good guys’

guardian |  At the Philippines national police headquarters, even the police themselves admit active officers could be behind a number of the vigilante killings. A police briefing document on project Double Barrel shows that from 1 July to 16 August, 250 officers were relieved from their duties in metro Manila because of suspected links to the drug trade.

But any official relationship between police and vigilantes – such as the one described by the officer to the Guardian – are denied.

The Philippine National Police was contacted on numerous occasions by the Guardian to comment on the allegations detailed in this story. Although they did acknowledge requests from the Guardian regarding the matter, no official comment was forthcoming.

But the previous responses from Duterte himself to allegations of involvement in death squads have been strong.

He has called them lies and “accusations of a madman” and previously stated that there were “no Davao death squads”.

Martin Andanar, Duterte’s communications secretary, said of the Davao allegations: “The Commission on Human Rights already conducted an investigation years ago, when the president was still a mayor, and charges were not filed, they did not see any direct evidence.”

When contacted by the Guardian to respond to the specific allegations of the police officer, presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said he was unable to comment.

“I cannot make any comments regarding that,” he said. “There are so-called sources and we cannot verify what they are saying, they have not made an affidavit. I cannot make any statement because it is not verified.”

For Arsenio “Boy” Evangelista Jr, spokesman for the group Victims against Crime and Corruption, the denials and no comments mean little.

“Who would have the skills and the guts to do this?” he says when he talks about the mass killings.

“I am talking of police skills, all the skills, like intelligence, proficiency in handling firearms,” says Evangelista, who six years after his son was killed in a brutal crime is still waiting for someone to be charged. “Because that’s what is happening lately. It’s practically perfect. No witnesses – it is being done very accurate, swift.”

At the Philippines Commission on Human Rights, Chito Gascon, its chairman, is asked about the allegations of police acting as judge, jury and executioner. He too is unfazed.

“I am not surprised, I have heard of this. But the problem is we need to prove it.

“And it probably follows a playbook that has been used before, like in Davao.”

Gascon says he is grappling with the new president’s apparent take on human rights: if you’re a good guy, you get them; if you’re a bad guy, you don’t.

It’s a slippery slope but this appears to be the logic at the heart of the surge in killings: the justification necessary to rid the country of the scourge of drugs and crime, the end that justifies the means.

everyone gets what he deserves...,

princeton |  ‘The great tragedy of science,’ the Victorian biologist Thomas Huxley said in 1870, ‘is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.’ At the risk of being unfashionable, we part ways with present-day methodologists and go back to simpler times, in which theory, to be considered valid, had to accord with experienced reality. Confronting theory with evidence is not simple or easy, and we do not mean to dismiss the many writers who point this out. One of us has tried it himself, confronting George Akerlof’s economic theory of ‘the market for lemons’ (recognized by a Nobel Prize in 2001) with the facts of the historical used-car market, the subject of Akerlof’s article. 3 A key premise was found to be wrong, the theory as stated was not genuinely testable, and some of its predictions were not borne out. Our reason for insisting on reality is that theory is not only about how to understand the world (epistemology), or how the world is constituted (ontology)— it is also about how life should be conducted, that is, theory is ‘normative’. So much hangs on the benefits and sufferings that economics has the power to inflict that we have to insist on asking, ‘Is it true and does it work?’ 4 Other sources of authority can do without that kind of justification: commitment and inner belief have no need for external confirmation. Authority is often resistant to argument and evidence. Officials, priests, prophets, and leaders do not always submit to the test of consequences. But the Enlightenment in Europe and America ordained a quest for truth by means of critical argument and evidence. The sciences abide by this method, and economics, when it aspires to the same esteem, is presumed to do so as well.

What are the ‘norms’ that economics lays down? They start from the laudable principle of maximizing well-being, or ‘welfare’. Welfare, however, is defined merely as what individuals want, and only that. That is the principle of ‘methodological individualism’. A social improvement takes place when somebody can get more of what they want, without depriving anybody else. This is a ‘Pareto improvement’ (after Vilfredo Pareto, the Italian economist). When there is no slack, nobody can gain without somebody else losing. We get there by means of exchange: people sell what they want less of (including their labour), and buy what they want more of. Everybody has something to sell. If everyone trades freely, the system achieves a benign equilibrium, which is ‘Pareto efficient’. This was supposedly anticipated in the eighteenth century by Adam Smith as being like the work of an ‘invisible hand’. 5

In such a system, everyone gets the value of what they can sell, and what they get is what they are due. This imaginary marketplace belongs with a larger set of doctrines, ‘Just World Theories’. The concept comes from social psychology, but is used differently here. 6 The idea is simple: a Just World Theory says that everyone gets what he deserves. If the Spanish Inquisition burned heretics, that was only what they deserved. If peasants were starved and exiled in Soviet Russia, they got what they deserved. Likewise the Nazis and the Jews. Just World Theories are ubiquitous; they are political, religious, ethnic, gendered, and cultural. They justify the infliction of pain.

mass-incarcerating Granny Goodness peddling end-to-end criminal justice reform...,

politico |  In her remarks, Clinton was careful to couch her call for reforms with support for law and order. “We must not forget that violence has touched the lives of police officers,” she said. “From Dallas to Baton Rouge to Philadelphia, the families of fallen officers have been dealt a great blow.”

But the focus of her address was to the hurting black community. “We need to fix a system where too many black parents are taken from their kids and imprisoned for minor offenses,” she said.

On Sunday, Pastor Dwayne Walker underscored the importance of voting, noting that stacks of voter registration cards were available at every church entrance. “Some people are just skeptical — they’ve heard so much, they’ve seen so much, and they have been hurt so many times, because people will say one thing and do another,” he said.

Clinton, sitting in a pew near the front, nodded in agreement.

architects of mass incarceration now pretending at criminal justice reform...,

democracynow |  AMY GOODMAN: Ava DuVernay’s new documentary, called 13th, is being released by Netflix on Friday. It premiered at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center here in New York. Part of the documentary looks at how ALEC, the America Legislative Exchange Council, has played a central role in the expansion of the U.S. prison system—ALEC’s work with states to write legislation promoting the privatization of prisons, in addition to pushing for harsher, longer sentences.

Joining us now is Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, who is also featured in 13th.

Talk about the thesis of the film 13th. It’s not just about the 13th Amendment, but the clause within the 13th Amendment that goes from slavery in the amendment of 1865 to mass incarceration today, and then how private corporations play a role in this.

LISA GRAVES: Well, this film is a magnificent, incredible meditation about race and crime in America, and it really tells new stories. One of the stories it tells is about how that amendment, where it says that you can’t be enslaved or you can’t be put in involuntary servitude unless you’re convicted of a crime, except as punishment, has really manifested in the 21st century and the 20th century through a lot of criminal justice policies.

And one of the things that Ava DuVernay brilliantly shows is the role of corporations in joining in this effort, this very racialized criminal justice system, how corporations, through ALEC, have helped advance their own bottom line. And one of the things that she helps document is the role of the Corrections Corporation of America within ALEC. It was a member of ALEC for a number of years, as we’ve written about. It was the chair of ALEC’s crime task force for a number of years, and ultimately it left ALEC after it was disclosed that CCA was in the room when corporations were voting on the SB 1070 legislation in Arizona that would have put—that was designed to put more immigrants in detention facilities and jails for immigrants. And CCA is just one of the many corporations that has been part of ALEC as it has pushed forward both for privatization of prisons, as well as measures to make people go to jail for longer—longer sentences.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain how ALEC works. You’ve got the private corporations, like CCA, and then you’ve got the legislators, who introduce the legislation written by the—or co-written by the corporations.

the unsurprising face of american fascism clamping down in a public library...,

kcur |   Kansas City Public Library Executive Director R. Crosby Kemper III said off-duty police officers "over-reacted" when they arrested Steve Woolfolk, the library's director of public programming, along with community member Jeremy Rothe-Kushel during an event at the Plaza branch in May.

The incident took place on May 9, but despite the presence of hundreds of witnesses, it gained no media attention until it was reported last week on the Bill of Rights Defense Committee's website.

The story detailed Woolfolk's arrest during a library event headlined "Truman and Israel," featuring Dennis Ross, a special envoy to the Middle East who who had served in the Obama, Clinton and George H. W. Bush administrations.

As soon as the question-and-answer session started, Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, identified as a local peace activist, asked Ross a question. As Rothe-Kushel tried to reply to Ross, one of the private security guards grabbed him. In an audiotape provided to KCUR by the library, Rothe-Kushel clearly says he will leave voluntarily.

Woolfolk tried to intervene and was charged with interfering with the arrest of Rothe-Kushel, who was charged with trespassing and resisting arrest.

Kemper was not at the event. Afterwards, he said, he got a phone call from Carrie Coogan, the library's deputy director of public affairs, explaining what happened.

"I went to bail Steve out and helped Jeremy Rothe-Kushel get bailed out of jail as well," Kemper told Central Standard host Brian Ellison on Monday.

The event was sponsored by the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City and the Truman Library. The library was sensitive to security concerns because of shootings at the Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom a year earlier, Kemper said, and agreed to the hiring of off-duty police.

"They over-reacted. We've had hundreds of events, with much more raucous disputation. Nobody's ever put their hands on a questioner," Kemper said.

"We have tried to resolve it. It happened on May 9, and it's now October 3. We are trying to resolve it with the least amount of damage to everyone," Kemper said, describing the arrest of the questioner at a public event, and the librarian who intervened, as "silliness."

the haunted smile: a brave comedian ridicules the armed faction of american nazism...,

rawstory |  “Snow White wasn’t afraid of apples before she bit into that really bad one. But I’ll tell you, the next time an old lady comes at her with a piece of fruit, Snow is going to get the f*ck out of there.”

That argument, he said, “has some real problems.” Many “good apples,” he said, are forced to enforce bad laws and policies that systematically persecute non-whites. Furthermore, police aren’t being forthcoming with accurate statistics.

“Even some of the most basic questions are hard to answer,” he said, as FBI Director James Comey pointed out when he said before Congress that “We can’t have an open discussion because we don’t have the data.”

Oliver said that some schools are teaching students how to interact with police in order to minimize the chance of being shot, which he called “f*cking depressing,” but noted that this is the only class students take where they don’t wonder when they’ll get to use these lessons in real life.

The “bad apples” argument, he said, does a disservice to the issue and to the people who police are sworn to protect.

Nazi Overseers Grinning and with Hard-Ons About Military Raids on Private Residences...,

WaPo |  There are no children at the residence, the lead officer assures his colleagues. (There were.) There would be a significant quantity of illegal drugs at the house, another says. (There weren’t.) The tactical team then proceeds to raid the home of a black family in Richland County. Most officers storm the front door with their guns while one shatters some side windows as a distraction. Minutes go by. The officers’ body language eventually shows signs of frustration as their search for contraband continues to come up empty. Finally, someone finds a book bag with traces of marijuana at the bottom — not enough to smoke, much less sell. They arrest a young black man with long braids for possession.

“I never one time said you’re a bad person,” the lead officer tells his arrestee, with an odd cordiality. “I just have a job to do, and you happen to be in the middle of it.”

The officer also seems to know that the man is a student at a local technical college. He’s working toward a degree in construction. The man also runs a landscaping company to help pay for his education. The man later tells the officer that he was on his way to pick up some lawnmowers that morning. Knowing that he’s about to be arrested, he asks the officer if he could tell his employee that he was arrested and won’t be able to pick up the lawnmowers. He then gives the officer $876 in cash and asks it to give it to his employee to go pick up the mowers, along with a weed-eater.

Instead, the officer confiscates the money under civil asset forfeiture laws. There is no obvious connection between the money and the pot residue. The man volunteered the cash, mostly because he didn’t want his arrest to hurt his business. In doing so, he provided ample evidence that the cash had nothing to do with illegal activity. Still, if unchallenged, the $876 will go back to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, even if the man is never charged with a crime. The cost of hiring an attorney for such a challenge would likely exceed $876.

Meanwhile, the man’s father asks the officers whether the police would pay for the windows they just shattered. The lead officer tells him that breaking the windows was a tactic, then adds, “The moral of the story is, don’t sell drugs from your residence.” Perhaps realizing that he had no evidence for what he had just accused the man of doing, he tried to correct himself. “I didn’t say you were actually doing it, I just said — said you were associated with … ” and then there’s some mumbling.

The striking thing about the footage is, again, the utter mundanity of the raid. A family was just violently raided over an immeasurable amount of pot. A man was arrested over that pot. The money he needed for his business was taken from him. Yet there’s no shame or embarrassment from the officers. There’s no panic that the whole thing was captured on video. That’s when it hits you.  They don’t think they’ve made a mistake. This is what they do. The lead officers later tells the camera, matter-of-factly, that the raid turned up “a personal use amount of marijuana.” Perhaps realizing that he was also on camera back at the police station promising a much larger stash of drugs, he adds, “It happens. Drug warrants are, you know, 50-50.”

The documentary also eschews voice-overs and talking heads and simply lets law enforcement officers speak for themselves. You don’t need a civil rights activist or ACLU attorney to tell you about the threats posed by militaristic, aggressive policing when law enforcement officers can make the point unintentionally — and thus more powerfully and persuasive — when they’re speaking freely.

For example, the directors attended one of the many SWAT competitions across the country. One SWAT cop officer reflected on his first raid. “I was just trying not to smile. I thought it was so fun. I thought it was so cool,” he says. Since then, he says, he always loves to watch the “SWAT pups” (his term for first-year SWAT officers) on their first raid. “They’re always just smiling from ear to ear. They’re just on top of the world.” At risk of stating the obvious, the officers he’s describing are about to stage an armed, potentially lethal invasion of a private residence.

Notsee's Fix They Mouth to Claim Naked Dutertism Open to Interpretation...,

LATimes |  A graphic police video that appears to show two Sacramento police officers trying to run over a mentally ill homeless man with their cruiser has sparked tough questions from both city leaders and some law enforcement use-of-force experts who say it might be hard to justify the behavior.

Patrol car recordings related to the July 11 fatal shooting of Joseph Mann were released by police Sept. 20. But it wasn’t until last week that enhanced audio from one dash camera inside a police cruiser revealed one officer using an expletive and saying,  “I’m going to hit him.” The other officer can be heard saying, “Go for it" as the patrol car turns sharply toward Mann. 

Mann died less than a minute later after officers chased him a short distance on foot and opened fire, striking him 14 times. Police were pursuing Mann after receiving reports of a man wielding a knife in the neighborhood. 

Two experts in police tactics said the video and audio recording raised several troubling questions about the officers’ actions. They note that for most of the pursuit, officers were safe inside their cars and no members of the public appeared near Mann.

Ed Obayashi, a Plumas County sheriff’s deputy and legal advisor on police use of force, called what he saw on the videos "Lone Ranger-ish." He was most concerned by the officer stating his intention to harm Mann half a block away from the suspect, even before seeing what Mann was doing.

"I have a real issue with officers declaring their intent in the heat of the moment,” he said.

"The issue [is] ... the use of lethal force with the radio car as a weapon. That is tough to defend,” said Charles "Sid" Heal, a retired Los Angeles County sheriff's commander.

“It is impossible to be definitive because the situational awareness is developed beyond what the video depicts, but without substantial provocation and urgency, deciding to employ lethal force before confronting the suspect is going to be difficult to defend,” Heal said.

Former Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Greg Meyer, a prominent use-of-force expert, cautioned that the officers' comments are open to interpretation. The remark "I'm going to hit him" does not necessarily mean "run him over,” Meyer said Sunday.

The desire to fit in is the root of almost all wrongdoing

aeon |  Imagine that one morning you discover a ring that grants you magic powers. With this ring on your finger, you can seize the presidency, rob Fort Knox and instantly become the most famous person on the planet. So, would you do it?

Readers of Plato’s Republic will find this thought experiment familiar. For Plato, one of the central problems of ethics is explaining why we should prioritise moral virtue over power or money. If the price of exploiting the mythical ‘Ring of Gyges’ – acting wrongly – isn’t worth the material rewards, then morality is vindicated.

Notice that Plato assumes that we stray from the moral path through being tempted by personal gain – that’s why he tries to show that virtue is more valuable than the gold we can get through vice. He isn’t alone in making this assumption. In Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes worries about justifying morality to the ‘fool’ who says that ‘there is no such thing as justice’ and breaks his word when it works to his advantage. And when thinking about our reasons to prefer virtue to vice, in his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) David Hume confronts the ‘sensible knave’, a person tempted to do wrong when he imagines ‘that an act of iniquity or infidelity will make a considerable addition to his fortune’.

Some of history’s greatest philosophers, then, agree that wrongdoing tends to be motivated by self-interest. Alas, I’m not one of history’s greatest philosophers. Although most assume that an immoral person is one who’s ready to defy law and convention to get what they want, I think the inverse is often true. Immorality is frequently motivated by a readiness to conform to law and convention in opposition to our own values. In these cases, it’s not that we care too little about others; it’s that we care too much. More specifically, we care too much about how we stack up in the eyes of others.

We are all in some sense becoming, by necessity, desensitized to Duterte's language

reuters |  Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to liken himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Friday and said he would "be happy" to exterminate 3 million drug users and peddlers in the country.

Although the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama played down the remark, Duterte's comments triggered shock and anger among Jewish groups in the United States, which could create pressure on the U.S. government to take a tougher line with the Philippines leader.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a news conference following a meeting Southeast Asian defense chiefs in Hawaii that he personally found Duterte's comments "deeply troubling", though the matter wasn't discussed at the meeting.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner had earlier described Duterte's remarks, made in a rambling speech in Davao City, as "a significant departure" from America's partnership with the Philippines "and we find them troubling."

Duterte told reporters that he had been "portrayed to be a cousin of Hitler" by critics.
Noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, Duterte said, "There are 3 million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them.

"If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have ...," he said, pausing and pointing to himself.  

On Friday, reacting to critical comments on his war on drugs by U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy and Benjamin Cardin, Duterte said: "Do not pretend to be the moral conscience of the world. Do not be the policeman because you do not have the eligibility to do that in my country."

Jewish groups quickly condemned Duterte's Hitler comments.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Digital Terrorism and Hate project, called them "outrageous".

"Duterte owes the victims (of the Holocaust) an apology for his disgusting rhetoric," Cooper said.
The Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish group based in the United States, said Duterte's comments were "shocking for their tone-deafness".

"The comparison of drug users and dealers to Holocaust victims is inappropriate and deeply offensive," said Todd Gutnick, the group's director of communications. "It is baffling why any leader would want to model himself after such a monster."

Duterte has said there will be no annual war games between the Philippines and the United States until the end of his six-year term, and his hostility may make Washington's strategy of rebalancing its military focus toward Asia in the face of an increasingly assertive China more difficult to achieve.
 

California Joins New York and New Jersey in Outlawing Criticism of Israel

yournewswire |  California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a new law that prevents companies from engaging in actions that could be deemed critical of Israel. 

The new law prevents companies that boycott or discriminate against any country, including Israel, from doing business with California.

Richardedmondson.net reports:

Brown signed Assembly Bill 2844 on Saturday afternoon. The State Senate approved the bill by a vote of 34 to 1 on August 24, and the State Assembly passed it by 69 to 1 on August 30.

An earlier version of the legislation banned the state from making contracts worth over $100,000 with companies boycotting Israel.

In order to satisfy critics, who said it violated the constitutional right to boycott, the bill was modified to include reference to other countries as well.

The approved version does not prohibit companies working with the state from boycotting Israel. Rather, companies have to certify that they do not violate California civil rights laws in boycotting a foreign country – including Israel, the only country mentioned by name – according to The Jewish Journal.

“We commend Governor Brown for signing this bill,” said Janna Weinstein Smith, American Jewish Committee’s Los Angeles Regional Director, in a statement.

An Intriguing Link Between Police Shootings and Black Voter Registration

wired |  What we found was staggering. The number one determinant of over-representation in fatal police shootings—after controlling for all other aforementioned indicators—was the percentage of eligible black Americans registered to vote within the state in question. In other words, the higher the percentage of eligible black Americans registered to vote, the lower the over-representation ratio in a given state. Furthermore, states suffering from increased rates of income inequality (i.e. Gini index, median household income) demonstrated higher over-representation ratios, while states with increased diversity (i.e. percentage of noncitizen residents) demonstrated lower over-representation ratios.

What does this all mean? In addition to promoting diversity and reducing income inequality, these preliminary results suggest that increasing voter registration among black Americans could potentially reduce the risk of fatal police shootings of black victims.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Minority groups are routinely excluded from voter registration drives due to higher rates of unlisted individuals. Furthermore, most states require voters to register several weeks before Election Day—a practice that disproportionately suppresses minority registrants. (Voter registration remains open in most states ahead of Election Day 2016; check whether you’re registered to vote here.)

Despite controlling for several socioeconomic variables, these results don’t conclusively imply causation. But they’re a reasonable starting point. Expanding on that knowledge and finding other potentially actionable mitigation strategies will require reframing the issue as a public health crisis, with a focus on data-driven research and policy recommendations.  Fist tap Dale.

When America Becomes South Africa?

unz |  “Elections to be meaningful presuppose a certain level of political organization. … The primary problem is … the creation of a legitimate public order. Authority has to exist before it can be limited, and it is authority that is in scarce supply in the modernizing countries,” warned Samuel Huntington in “Political Order In Changing Societies.” Little did Huntington consider that, with enough tinkering by its ruling elites; a modern and mighty country like the U.S. could devolve into an atavistic and dangerous place.

Not nearly as hopeful as Horowitz was that “noted student of nationalism” Elie Kedourie. “If majority and minority are perpetual, then government ceases to have a mediatory or remedial function, and becomes an instrument of perpetual oppression of the minority by the majority,” concluded Kedourie. It was after a visit to South Africa that he wrote the following, in the November 1987 issue of the South Africa International:

The worst effects of the tyranny of the majority are seen when parliamentary government on the unalloyed Westminster model is introduced into countries divided by religion or language or race. Such for example was the case of Iraq … where an extremely heterogeneous society came to be endowed with constitutions which made no provision for diversity, and where the result was tyranny of one groups over the other groups in the society.

A prerequisite for a classical liberal democracy is that majority and minority status be interchangeable and fluid in politics; that a ruling majority party be as likely to become a minority party as the obverse. By contrast, in South Africa, the majority and the minorities are politically permanent, not temporary.

America’s Founding Fathers had attempted to forestall raw democracy by devising a republic. Every democratic theorist worth his salt—Robert Dahl and Elaine Spitz come to mind—has urged that the raw, ripe rule of the mob and its dominant, anointed party be severely curtailed under certain circumstances fast approaching in the United States of America. These are “whenever people of different languages, races, religions, or national origins, with no firm habits of political co-operation and mutual trust, are to unite in a single polity.”

In other words, multicultural America.

Is There an "Economic" Basis for the Colonization of Space?

WaPo |   In 2002, SpaceX basically consisted of carpet and a mariachi band. That was it. That's all of SpaceX in 2002. As you can see, I'm a dancing machine. And, yeah, I believe in kicking off celebratory events with mariachi bands. I really like mariachi bands.

“But that was what we started off with in 2002. And really, I mean, I thought we had maybe a 10 percent chance of doing anything, of even getting a rocket to orbit, let alone getting beyond that and taking Mars seriously. But I came to the conclusion if there wasn't some new entrant into the space arena with a strong ideological motivation, then it didn't seem like we were on a trajectory to ever be a space-faring civilization and be out there among the stars. Because, you know, in '69 we were able to go to the moon and the space shuttle could get to low-Earth orbit, and then after the space shuttle got retired.”

On how the first people going to Mars might die:

“Well, I think the first journey to Mars is going to be really very dangerous. The risk of fatality will be high. There's just no way around it. So I would not suggest sending children. It would be basically are you prepared to die, then if that's okay, then, you know, you're a candidate for going.

“But really this is -- this is less about, like, you know, who goes there first or -- it's -- the thing that really matters is making a self-sustaining civilization on Mars as fast as possible.”

On how what SpaceX is doing is a lot like the early days of the United States railroad system:

“The goal of SpaceX is really to build the transport system. It's like building the Union Pacific Railroad. And once -- once that transport system is built, then there's a tremendous opportunity for anyone who wants to go to Mars and create something new or build the foundations of a new planet. So it's like who wants to sort of be, you know, among the founding members of a new planet and, like I said, build everything from iron refineries to the first pizza joint. You know, we will want them all.

“And then things on Mars that people can't even imagine today that might be unique or would be unique to Mars. And -- but that's really where a tremendous amount of entrepreneurship and talent would flourish. Just as happened in California when the Union Pacific Railroad was completed. And when they were building the Union Pacific, a lot of people said, ‘Well, that's a super-dumb idea because there's no -- you know, hardly anybody lives in California.’ But now, I mean, today, [it's] the U.S. epicenter of technology development and entertainment. And it's the biggest state in the nation. But you need that transport link. If you can't get there, then none of those opportunities exist. Our goal is just to make sure you can get there.”

On why the return trip to Earth will be free:

“I think it's pretty important to give people the option of returning. The number of people who would be willing to move to Mars is much greater if they know that they have the option of returning, even if they never actually return. I mean, most of the people that went to the original English colonies in North America, they never returned to Europe, even once.

“But some did. And just knowing that if you don't like it there, that you can come back, I think makes a big difference in people's willingness to go there in the first place.

“In any case, we need the spaceship back. So it's coming. You can jump onboard or not. It's cool. You get a free return trip, if you want.”

why there is Trump

theautomaticearth |  It’s over! The entire model our societies have been based on for at least as long as we ourselves have lived, is over! That’s why there’s Trump.

There is no growth. There hasn’t been any real growth for years. All there is left are empty hollow sunshiny S&P stock market numbers propped up with ultra cheap debt and buybacks, and employment figures that hide untold millions hiding from the labor force. And most of all there’s debt, public as well as private, that has served to keep an illusion of growth alive and now increasingly no longer can.

These false growth numbers have one purpose only: for the public to keep the incumbent powers that be in their plush seats. But they could always ever only pull the curtain of Oz over people’s eyes for so long, and it’s no longer so long. 

That’s what the ascent of Trump means, and Brexit, Le Pen, and all the others. It’s over. What has driven us for all our lives has lost both its direction and its energy.

We are smack in the middle of the most important global development in decades, in some respects arguably even in centuries, a veritable revolution, which will continue to be the most important factor to shape the world for years to come, and I don’t see anybody talking about it. That has me puzzled.

The development in question is the end of global economic growth, which will lead inexorably to the end of centralization (including globalization). It will also mean the end of the existence of most, and especially the most powerful, international institutions.

In the same way it will be the end of -almost- all traditional political parties, which have ruled their countries for decades and are already today at or near record low support levels (if you’re not clear on what’s going on, look there, look at Europe!)

This is not a matter of what anyone, or any group of people, might want or prefer, it’s a matter of ‘forces’ that are beyond our control, that are bigger and more far-reaching than our mere opinions, even though they may be man-made.

whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me...,

weburbanist |  Former mayor of the world’s second-largest refugee camp, humanitarian Kilian Kleinschmidt notes “the average stay today in a camp is 17 years. That’s a generation.” These places need to be recognized as what they are: “cities of tomorrow,” not the temporary spaces we like to imagine. “In the Middle East, we were building camps: storage facilities for people. But the refugees were building a city,” Kleinschmidt said in an interview. Short-term thinking on camp infrastructure leads to perpetually poor conditions, all based on myopic optimism regarding the intended lifespan of these places.

Many refugees may never be able return home, and that reality needs to be realized and incorporated into solutions. Treating their situation as temporary or reversible puts people into a kind of existential limbo; inhabitants of these interstitial places can neither return to their normal routines nor move forward with their lives.. On the one hand, assert experts like Kleinschmidt, planners need build up refugee camps to be durable and sufficient places in their own right. On the other, they also need to move refugee migrants toward countries and regions where they will end up virtuously integrated into struggling economies, including (though controversially): areas of nearby Europe with unused housing and high labor needs.

 

No Knowledge, Ability, Skill, or Money? You and Yours MUST BE Left Behind

cnbc |  SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk spilled the details on his plan to colonize Mars. 

Musk revealed the plans for an "interplanetary transport system" Tuesday at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. 

In his address, Musk said that the goal of SpaceX's planned missions to Mars is to turn humans into a "multiplanetary species." Musk has said in the past that making humanity "multiplanetary" is his primary reason for starting SpaceX. 

The ship in the video is what the company intends the actual craft to look like, Musk said. It would need to fit about 100 people, and enough cargo to build self-sustaining colonies on the planet, with "iron foundries, pizza joints, you name it." 

sciencealert |   A rocket engine to get to Mars

This isn't the first the world has heard about the Raptor engine, but it's allegedly the first test-firing of the device – and definitely the first photo we've seen of it.

The image shows a static fire test, which is when a cone-shaped rocket engine is hooked up to a fuel source, ignited, and pushed to the limits to measure its performance.

The Raptor's fuel is almost certainly methane burned with liquid oxygen, based on SpaceX's previous intimations about its Mars rocket system, previously called the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT) – and before that a self-descriptive "Big F**ing Rocket" (BFR).

Musk shared a few of the Raptor's test-firing details on Monday morning as well, including a beautiful image. "Production Raptor goal is specific impulse of 382 seconds and thrust of 3 MN (~310 metric tonnes) at 300 bar," Musk wrote on Twitter.

only the most visible, vocal element of the Left Behind phenomenon?

kunstler |  As a blog-writer, I correspond with some interesting people. One of them is a middle-aged black man who has worked for a long time in the Baltimore black ghetto. He is one of those rare Americans these days not susceptible to pre-cooked ideas about what is actually going on in this country. He would prefer to remain anonymous for reasons that ought to be self-evident, but I want you to see his interesting theory about what is going on in the black community vis-à-vis the police shooting meme. The subject line in his email to me was “Trauma programming.”

Its a type of narcissism designed to compensate for [the] fact nobody (of any value) really wants to deal/interact with them; therefore, they gladly adopt this false narrative that “somebody is after us and wants to kill us…”

See how that raises their value by claiming somebody “wants us?”

Its like the ugly fat girls obsessed with getting raped/sexually assaulted.

Truth be told, because so many black people are not useful to each other and/or other people… they end up only a liability. Therefore, most people spend a significant amount of time trying to dodge them. (but the police can’t do this)

This increases their sense of worthlessness, which forces them to cling ever so tighter to this false narrative of “the police are after us and want to kill us…”

(nobody wants you and we wish you would just go away)

But wait,

it gets worse.

At this point, some black people decide, “try as you might, I’m NOT going to allow you to ignore me, because I’m going to act like a belligerent a-hole until I force you to deal/interact with me…”

NOW you gotta call the police.

And when the police show up, the black person says:

“see, here come the police; they are always after us because they want to kill us…”

But at the end of the day, the key is; the “Long Emergency” is generating increasing numbers of superfluous people; black people are only the most visible, vocal element of this phenomenon.

the most important issue facing this generation

robertscribbler |  The 2016 presidential candidates’ stances on the most important issue facing this generation couldn’t be clearer.

Donald Trump believes climate change is a hoax, wants to increase fossil-fuel burning until the planet bakes and the oceans putrefy, plans to shut down the EPA, wants to back out of the Paris Climate Agreement, can’t wait to kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan, and has a noted penchant for attacking climate change solutions like wind power. Trump’s stances on climate change are so appalling that 375 of the world’s top scientists, including Stephen Hawking and 30 Nobel Prize winners, issued an open letter to the U.S. electorate, essentially pleading that we not vote for Trump on the basis of climate change alone.

The letter notes:

The United States can and must be a major player in developing innovative solutions to the problem of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Nations that find innovative ways of decarbonizing energy systems and sequestering CO2 will be the economic leaders of the 21st century. Walking away from Paris makes it less likely that the U.S. will have a global leadership role, politically, economically, or morally. We cannot afford to cross that tipping point.

Hillary Clinton, by comparison, wants to push a big solar energy build-out, support electric vehicles, cut carbon emissions, and ensure that policies like COP 21 and Obama’s Clean Power Plan are enacted and enhanced. Though some climate hawks might not be completely satisfied with Clinton’s record on climate change (we’re going to have to do quite a bit more than what Clinton is shooting for), the reality is that Clinton’s proposed climate policies are aimed at building on and improving Obama’s initial plans.