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Category: policy
De-Arrest Every Single One, Free Them All
It's not clear what the legacy of Donald Trump's presidency will be. A lot is contingent on whether he leaves in 2021 or 2025 (or maybe stays beyond that, who really knows). It could be his links with the fossil fuel industry during the key period to avoid climate catastrophe. It could be his disgusting personality and history of sexual harassment and violence. I don't think it'll be his potential links to Russia, but I may be wrong.
Right now, July 15, 2019, it's clearly the concentration camps.
A concentration camp for migrants and asylees, El Paso, Texas. Credit: Reuters
The debate of what to call these horrid human misery camps is tired. They are concentration camps, much like Japanese internment camps were, and the early Nazi-era camps that existed as eventual pipelines shuttling people to death camps. The term is over a century old, and historians nearly-universally see the term as being used fairly like people like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
So with that being established, what are we obligated to do about them? The liberal response, which is focused on symbolic protest and use of electoral politics is, to me, fundamentally flawed. Mass symbolic protests like the Women's March have had no long-term effect on Trump administration policy. Electoral victories in Congress did not yield a solution, as Nancy Pelosi gave a blank check to the administration to create more camps (or, more likely, keep the camps as-is and increase enforcement and apprehension, creating further crowding and misery). The Democratic Party is hopelessly divided on what to do about the border, with many having bought into the idea that there is a non-manufactured 'border crisis' with record unlawful crossings. The truth is more about clogged immigration courts, performative cruelty by the administration as a deterrent to crossing the border, and wasting taxpayer money sending soldiers to the border to do nothing in the heat.
Not to say that there are not urgent crises in countries that produce a large number of migrants. The Obama administration's support for a coup in Honduras that entrenched military rule, corruption, and gang power, which he nor Hillary Clinton were ever held meaningfully accountable for, has had a domino effect on the region. Mass migration, including unaccompanied minors, rose sharply during the latter half of Obama's administration. The crisis is a mixture of interventionist, illegal foreign policy and purposefully cruel domestic priorities. The end result is a humanitarian nightmare.
So what do we do? While Donald Trump certainly flirts with fascist ideas, there is certainly more space to plan resistance than existed in 1930s and 1940s Germany and Italy. ICE is used to targeting individuals and small groups with the element of surprise- they rely on heavily-armed police to deal with actions like the Portland ICE occupation. There are certainly mainstream actions that can be taken to deal with these injustices. Winning district attorney and mayoral races with progressive candidates that firmly (actually) refuse to cooperate with federal immigration is important. ICE depends strongly on the consent and active assistance of state and local law enforcement- if such support is removed, the house of cards is revealed. Further occupations of ICE buildings, the homes of senior officials, and contractors that do business with the agency could be effective- assuming activists have a clear strategy for victory and do not fall into lifestyle activism like occupation camps have often been criticized for becoming going back to Occupy Wall Street and before.
A Lights for Liberty vigil. July 12, 2019. Credit: AP
But will history be satisfied with that? Are future generations going to be okay with "I voted" and "I went to a vigil"? Would we be satisfied with that in any prior period with concentration camps? Are we willing to live with hypocrisy?
With that said, let's talk about de-arresting.
De-arresting has two distinct meanings. One is when one is released from arrest without certain information being filed. The other, which I'll be referring to, is a form of direct action where a person or persons who have been detained or arrested are freed by protestors using various methods, including force. Given the high amount of illegal arrests at events like the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, it can be said that de-arresting can be justified, assuming we do not start from a position that the only legitimate power is state power, and that law enforcement officers (and prison guards, ICE officials, federal agents, Border Patrol, etc.) are always justified in the actions they take. This is uncomfortable territory for the political center and mainstream, even if they strongly disagree with mass arrests, deportations, child separations, and concentration camps. This is the electoral-direct action divide. Plenty of people have one foot in each camp, but many refuse to cross it. The reasons are complicated- they include personal sympathy with law enforcement ("my brother is a police officer!"), class interest, internalized bigotry, and simple lack of initiative.
Let's also say that de-arresting is not strictly about the use of force. In Gene Sharp's 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, which has been used in the color revolutions across Europe and the Caucuses, the Arab Spring, and in the Hong Kong democracy movement, among many others, we see ostensibly nonviolent means that still support actions like de-arresting, given certain circumstances. I'll bold some I think are particularly relevant:
16. Picketing
66. Total personal noncooperation
67. "Flight" of workers
68. Sanctuary
69. Collective disappearance
139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
141. Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws
143. Blocking of lines of command and information
144. Stalling and obstruction
145. General administrative noncooperation
146. Judicial noncooperation
170. Nonviolent invasion
171. Nonviolent interjection
172. Nonviolent obstruction
173. Nonviolent occupation
175. Overloading of facilities
176. Stall-in
177. Speak-in
196. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws
197. Work-on without collaboration
198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government
183. Nonviolent land seizure
Now, in the streets, when a migrant is being detained by ICE, or held in a concentration camp, or separated from their children, the lines between "nonviolence" and "force" blur a lot. What if a police officer charges you with a baton? Do you resist or not? If an officer is dragging someone towards a car, is it violent or nonviolent to distract or intimidate them into letting them go, or pursuing you instead? It's why principled pacifism has problematic aspects. I still believe nonviolence has clear advantages- there are clear problems with the actions of anarchist Willem Van Spronsen and his "propaganda of the deed". These things are best done in massive groups, in which soldiers or police are outnumbered heavily. The more people there are, the less likely authority figures will risk using force, lest they lose control of the situation entirely. There is a long history of mass occupations and civil disobedience, including the mutiny of soldiers- such as the 1986 Peoples' Power Revolution in the Philippines, and the retreat of riot police from the federal building in the 2000 Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia, leading to the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević. These were mass movements, broad coalitions ranging from the mainstream to hardened activists, to the authorities themselves. Their united actions and planning exposed rifts within the ruling class, which were then isolated and dismantled piece by piece, like the storming of the Bastille 230 years ago yesterday.
The situation is fairly straightforward. Thousands of people are in concentration camps where they don't belong. Their conditions are horrific. Children are separated from parents, sometimes to be adopted by American families without parental consent. We have to get them out. They have been arrested and detained, but their 'crimes' are unjust for any level of imprisonment. They are held and dehumanized as an act of pure cruelty, just like the Boers in South Africa, the Roma, Communists, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals across Europe by Germany, and the Japanese in the United States and Canada.
They need to be de-arrested. The camps must be dismantled. Their leaders need to be tried and convicted of their crimes. How does one do that? You can gather a dedicated coalition and use raw numbers to do the job. You can try to fight the soldiers, police, and agents- though that is the terrain they are most comfortable with, and regular people are least comfortable. You can wait until 2020 and hope Donald Trump loses a partially-rigged election and relinquishes authority. And hope a Democratic president doesn't maintain such terrible detention facilities.
There are multiple paths, with one goal. Which way will it be?
Author Andrew MackayPosted on July 15, 2019 Categories Conflict, Corporations, Justice, Occupy, police, policy, Politics, Poverty, Protest, Race, racismTags 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, 2020 election, anarchism, asylum, asylum seekers, Barack Obama, concentration camps, coup, de-arresting, detention centers, diversity of tactics, donald trump, gene sharp, Hillary Clinton, honduras, ice, leftism, liberalism, lights for liberty, migrants, Nancy Pelosi, nonviolence, occupy ice, occupy wall street, protest, socialismLeave a comment on De-Arrest Every Single One, Free Them All
A Unitarian Universalist Pipeline to the Right? II: Feedback and Insight
Five days ago, I released my first blog post in a long time (a very long time if we're talking about UU-related content), "A Unitarian Universalist Pipeline to the Right?". I've had one other UU post be as popular as this prior, 2014's "Remaking Unitarian Universalism: Go big, or go home". So it's interesting five years later to see the same viral-like spreading of my post throughout social media. Like before, people I know tell me they've read it without me showing it to them. It's already in their circles.
I could tell that people were reading, based on the slight uptick in blog views in the past few days:
Unfortuately, since UUs predominately use Facebook, most of the shares (and thus comments) of this piece, 37 shares in all, are private and I can't learn from them or give you any sort of meaningful response to them. I've had some listserv messages, blog comments, Facebook messenger contacts, and the UU Discord server. But a lot of what's been said, I can't see. I respect their privacy if these conversations wanted to remain hidden, but also if they're critical comments in particular, I can't give any sort of apology or explanation here.
Here's what I've learned:
I'm not crazy. People generally agree that a) alt-right language appears in conversations in UU circles, both in real life and online, and b) this is not confined to a few very loud cranks. What I see is the surface of something that happens in many congregations. Since we're a strongly local-power faith, what the UUA leadership says and the congregational leadership do can be very different.
People are fed up. The alt-right language and citing of people like Jordan Peterson or alt-right pipeline people makes some people really ticked off. The current state of things is not sustainable- I'm reminded of the opening to W.B Yeats' "The Second Coming:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity
This kind of language and conduct cuts across demographics. Seminary students are reading Peterson, older congregants talk down about identity politics, people of all gender identities and sexual orientations are possibly drawn to these arguments. It's not just about dialogue of a certain group- solutions need to be much more nationally-scaled.
Let me respond to what I think is the one critique I was sent that I think was made in good faith and is not just white fragility manifesting itself. My post was not meant to be ageist, if you felt it was, I'm sincerely sorry. Let me quote myself to show how I think I argue specifically against the ageist explanation:
I think a simple generational model isn't sufficient. It's not that older congregants are stuck in the past, and younger congregants have a clearer understanding of anti-racism in 2019. People can learn and evolve, and younger people can inherit older ideas of thinking about anti-racist action from their families or the mainstream narratives in schools and society at large. There's also a large group of people who are too young to have been socialized in the 1960s, but aren't millennials and aren't being socialized now. The end result is a jumble. Pretty much everyone knows that, this isn't new.
I think a good-faith reading of that indicates a lack of age prejudice. The people specifically calling it 'ageist' have bones to pick with me on both religion and politics, so I think it may be more a weapon to win a debate than a substantial critique.
Here are some more solutions that I came up with talking with people about the piece:
Establish covenants of right relations. These covenants establish standards of behavior within a congregation and open opportunities for dialogue, and calling us back to shared values. It also sets definitions and consequences of disruptive behavior. Setting these covenants up before people bring in alt-right rhetoric and its associated harmful actions is preferable to dealing with disruptive congregants ad-hoc, which can lead to the appearance of, or reality of, unfairness.
Establish a more robust UU social media presence. Many congregations record services, either audio or video. Every congregation that records material should publish it, edited well, each week on YouTube and link to it on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The Church of the Larger Fellowship, the UU Discord, or another group could also use the streaming service Twitch to hold virtual services and religious education. The robust chat service in Twitch rooms allows for people all over the country to join in worship, conversation, and education. It's also an excellent fundraising platform- a leftist YouTuber named HBomberguy raised $340,000 recently for a trans charity by playing Donkey Kong 64 for over two days.
Decide how to deal with provocative speech that seems to have some sort of right-wing or alt-right definition or nature to it. The Gadfly papers hurricane at General Assembly this year indicates that there are good and bad ways to try to start a conversation about controversial ideas. Had it been written in a different tone, with different vocabulary, and introduced and distributed earlier with more forewarning, I bet it would have been more fully engaged with- rather than the intolerant gunk it turned out to be.
Decide as a congregation, if someone comes up using alt-right language, what is the protocol? Is there a committee of communications set up? Is there a person to report to that's not a minister? How does a congregation determine a) whether such language is alt-right in nature, b) how disruptive it really is, and c) if it could lead to unhealthy action.
These are only a few ideas. If people have further feelings, feel free to tweet at me or DM me on my Twitter (@MackayUnspoken), or join the UU Discord where I'm user "LeftistUU'. I feel that there is a need to have a dialogue that doesn't concede to the right, and in the process jeopardize our Principles, but also recognizes that people whose language and behavior has negative impacts on communities of color may have good intentions. We have to move beyond intentions, to impact. Because unless the impact is positive, an action cannot be morally defended in a complete way.
Author Andrew MackayPosted on July 14, 2019 July 14, 2019 Categories Justice, Meta, policy, Politics, Race, racism, Religion, Social Science, Sociology, Unitarian Universalism, World ReligionsTags alt-right, anti-racism, ben shapiro, dave rubin, jordan peterson, politics, racism, religion, right-wing, Unitarian, unitarian universalism, unitarian universalist, UU, UUA, white fragility, white supreamcy4 Comments on A Unitarian Universalist Pipeline to the Right? II: Feedback and Insight
Bernie Sanders and the Graveyard of Social Movements Part 2: Will it be different?
A bit over three years ago, I published "Bernie Sanders and the Graveyard of Social Movements" on this site, the day of the Iowa caucuses. It represented my evolving view of the Democratic Party, as I went from a 2008 Obama campaign volunteer to a 2011 Occupy activist, to a 2014 member of a Marxist organization most known for electing a socialist as a socialist, outside the two party hegemony. I decided to revisit the post and see how my analysis panned out, given what we know about the 2016 primaries, and the development of a social democratic/democratic socialist presence within the Democratic Party that has never been as loud and disruptive to entrenched party power.
To begin with, here's a quote I pulled for the article by Lance Selfa, author of The Democrats: A Critical History:
The 2016 primaries came in a markedly different economic and social period than the 2008 election. Democrats benefitted greatly from the Bush administration's quagmire in Iraq, the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, and the swift economic collapse that began in earnest about three years before Election Day, and rapidly intensified during the party primaries and the general election campaign.
By 2015, when candidates were announcing for the election the following year, there had been eight years of President Barack Obama. His ultimate legacy is difficult to pin down- it's too early, and he benefits from being sandwiched between two historically terrible presidents. But while there was at some level an economic recovery- unemployment dropped steadily through his entire presidency- there were still severe and systemic problems.
Job recovery was largely part-time, contract, and freelance work with lower pay and benefits than the jobs that were lost in the Great Recession. Deindustrialization and the loss of blue-collar (and often unionized) jobs continued. Urban areas continued to feel the effects of Clinton-era welfare reform that made people 'time-out' of benefits, or never be able to get them in the first place. And while the ACA did improve coverage for some and reduce the overall uninsured rate, it failed to achieve price stability or affordable, usable insurance for those that could only afford the low-level plans. Deportations skyrocketed, despite Bush still being seen as the anti-immigrant president. Obama never withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving the country in the same violent stalemate that defined his predecessor, and indeed the post-9/11 era as a whole. Drone warfare was escalated in several countries, particularly Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
The response to the crisis by the Democrats was neoliberalism with a human face- progressive rhetoric masking a policy package marked by cuts and anti-labor practices. Into this void stepped Donald Trump, who made promises that this would all go away- the legacy of Obama would be swept away, the jobs would come back, and everything would return to some vague past encapsulated in "Make America Great Again."
Returning to the article:
This is a meandering way of getting to the relationship of Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Party. As Matt Karp writes today, the inner core of the Party has been nearly unanimous in endorsing Clinton, or at least not endorsing Sanders. Even second and third-tier primary candidates of elections past got at least a small handful of national figures, even if they never polled in the double digits.
Sanders is far from the first major candidate that the leading cadre have despised. The Democrats did have a chance to move leftward (to essentially the social-democratic politics that Sanders triumphs) in the late 60s and early 70s, but conflict with the conservative establishment caused so much chaos that there was little time to, ya know, campaign and win elections. If you're wondering whether the Party will ever embrace a truly different direction, ask whether the people that control it would benefit from higher corporate taxes, more regulation, and eliminating industries like private health insurance.
This still holds true. The Party leadership remains firmly against the social democratic programs Sanders advocated for, even as more Democratic politicians (and even more so, the party base at large) embraces them, at least in form if not in substance. Sanders in the 2020 race will still have to contend with low levels of prominent party endorsements, and a leadership that aims to stymie his political programs. We can see this in Nancy Pelosi's attitude to Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. No matter what polling says, Sanders will never be a frontrunner in the classical sense. The party leadership will not rally around him now, and there is a non-zero chance they will never do so. The spectre of a moderate Michael Bloomberg or Howard Schultz torpedoing Sanders in the general election remains real. Finance capital has made it clear what the acceptable spectrum of candidates. Sanders (and possibly Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard) are not in that range, and they will face an uphill climb the whole way unless they capitulate.
Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat and has never been one. I've run into plenty of people for whom party identification is a core part of their personal identity. They are Democrats. Their parents and grandparents, going back to the New Deal, were Democrats. Partisanship has an ideological component, but it also has the same nationalist substitute you get with sports teams and Kirk v. Picard. The instant Sanders decided to run as a Democrat he entered foreign turf that he doesn't fit into well.
The 2016 primaries definitely did see that many people were willing to vote for an independent in the Democratic primary. But the establishment in the media and among party loyalists still do not trust him- and they will use this as a cudgel when possible. That the question of party affiliation came up in the CNN town hall (which, given how it was stacked with party officials and lobbyists, represented what will become standard among attacks on Sanders' program and character) indicates it remains unresolved.
If history is our guide, the Sanders movement is not going to fundamentally change the structure. My stance on the Party has been consistent to the point that friends are surprised when someone else invokes it- "the graveyard of social movements." The radicalism of groups since the 19th century has been neutered to the point that once the most militant of working class organizations run away from any genuine progressive politics. Clinton, who has never supported a $15/hr minimum wage, won the endorsement of the SEIU. Currently, their signature campaign is Fight for 15. Much of labor has been so institutionalized that its leadership will choose party loyalty, even if it undermines fast food workers who have lost their jobs advocating for $15.
This is the meat of the thing. Anecdotally, the Sanders supports I know have made strides in becoming party delegates and influencing (or outright taking over) local and state party committees. However, there are still hard limits that have not been overcome. The DNC core is still much like it was in 2016. There was no Bernie-esque left challenge to Nancy Pelosi, despite her great power and opposition to most social democratic programs. And while more modest ballot referendums on the minimum wage and marijuana legalization have fared well, the ones that Sanders and his supporters invested the most time into, like Proposition 61 in California (2016) and Issue 2 in Ohio (2017) that aimed to control prescription drug prices, and Proposition 10 in California (2018) on rent control, failed. In the latter two, quite badly. If the progressive left of the Democratic Party wants things that can be reconciled with capital (like marijuana legalization), they will find a relatively easy path. If their policy goals directly cut into profits, look only at the $100,000,000+ spent by industry on the two California propositions.
Inertia should always be considered:
The best predictor of the future is the past, and the Democratic Party has been around for about two hundred years now. American party politics has flipped multiple times, but the Democrats were never radicals.
The Sanders insurrection, and the new figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that continue the spirit, are not trying to take the party back to some sort of mythic progressive past. They lionize the New Deal, but the New Deal was an attempt to stymie further radicalism. It was a compromise with capital that has since been mostly reversed. A true social democratic (or, gasp, democratic socialist) Democratic Party would be a heretofore-unseen force in American politics. It would be by far the biggest shift in American politics since the Civil Right Movement.
It would. But will it?
Can Bernie Sanders end up President, and not in the graveyard of social movements?
Author Andrew MackayPosted on March 2, 2019 March 2, 2019 Categories Capitalism, Corporations, Justice, policy, Politics, Poverty, ProtestTags 2020, AOC, bernie sanders, democratic party, democratic socialism, DSA, election, Ocasio-Cortez, sanders, sanders 2020, social democracy2 Comments on Bernie Sanders and the Graveyard of Social Movements Part 2: Will it be different?
The Democratic Party: No litmus test, no foundation, no point
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's rejection of single-payer as a litmus test for Democrats, which follows from a similar statement with similar language about abortion rights indicates what many of us have known for years- the Democratic Party has no ideological foundation, thus no political base, thus no hope of enacting meaningful change. How the leadership expects this to increase turnout and win political power remains a deep and profound mystery.
It should be obvious that the Democratic Party is not the party of working people. It is barely a party at all. In the absence of a clear purpose it simply reflects and enforces the status quo: neoliberalism, austerity, and whatever the rich people that fund the party want at any given time.
Author Andrew MackayPosted on September 13, 2017 Categories Healthcare, policy, PoliticsLeave a comment on The Democratic Party: No litmus test, no foundation, no point
The Democrats and the death of SB 562
Over here in California, a considerable wave of excitement was building around SB 562, a bill that would can the current healthcare system in the state and replace it with a single-payer structure. For supporters, there was budding optimism. The current national framework created by the Affordable Care Act seems doomed, either through legislation or executive neglect. Polls indicated strong support, and though support dropped when the prospect of new taxes was raised, studies showed that implementation was probably not nearly as expensive as projected. The Democratic Party holds the governor's office and has big majorities in both houses of the legislature. And single-payer had been passed twice during the Arnold Schwarzenegger administration.
But it died this week when Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon shelved the bill. Activists I know are, as expected, absolutely livid. Part of the anger comes from how illogical SB 562's death was. There was the means, motive, and opportunity to change things, but that didn't happen. Political paralysis in a one-party state.
There are two ways to look at this. The first, pretty common among lifer Democrats, is that this was a bug in the system- SB 562 should have eventually become law, and there needs to be a couple small changes to make sure the next time (whenever that is) it succeeds.
The second is that this failure is a feature of the political system. A key piece of evidence is that single-payer has gotten through the obstacles that doomed it this time around, but in a different context:
Similar bills passed the legislature fairly easily in 2006 and 2008, only to be vetoed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. At a time when premiums were rising and there were few other proposals out there, it was an easy vote for Democrats certain of the governor's veto.
When legislators craft bills that are guaranteed to receive a veto, what they produce is more marketing than ideology. Republicans and their endless ACA repeals passed between 2010 and the end of the Obama administration were this- political theater. In the theater, the chains of pharmaceutical and insurance influence are invisible. It tells activists that the Democratic Party can be the vehicle of progressive action, even if that never happens when cards are on the table. The California Democrats haven't lifted a finger on higher education affordability, the housing shortage, and healthcare. The main shift since Brown took office is from purely symbolic action to milquetoast half-measures, which are passed but don't change the trajectory of any social problems.
The failure of SB 562 will make Rendon a convenient boogeyman. There will undoubtedly be a campaign to remove him from office, or his position of power in the Assembly. It will disguise the truth: that both major parties take cash from the only groups that lose out in single-payer.
The Democratic Party feeds on the dreams of its most active members- it is the fuel that makes everything else happen. SB 562 didn't die immediately, preserving the idea that the future is within the Party, and that the important thing is the next election. More time, more money, and what was promised will be fulfilled.
Author Andrew MackayPosted on June 26, 2017 Categories Healthcare, Justice, policy, PoliticsTags aca, activism, Anthony Rendon, california, democratic party, healthcare, Obamacare, progressive, Rendon, SB 562, single-payer, trumpLeave a comment on The Democrats and the death of SB 562
The Status Quo Time Loop
The one unifying characteristic of both Donald Trump's campaign and those who have mobilized to stop him is the concept of change. This is not piercing insight. Trump promises to remake how America relates to both itself and the rest of the world. Most of "the resistance" talks about unprecedented organization, a new type of activism. This rhetoric remains the same, whether the speaker is a loyal Democrat or an ardent revolutionary.
But one must always be wary of false promises. The opposition linked to the Democratic Party may march alongside radicals, but at the end of the day their participation is linked to getting people and money to win the 2018 midterms. Policy is not a major part of the pitch. Stop Trump, priorities #1, #2, and #3.
This focus on becoming the opposition to a person, rather than an ideology, is dangerous. Fortunately, we have lessons from history. In David Broder's piece in Jacobin, "Being Anti-Trump Isn't Enough", he takes the example of Italy, whose politics have been dominated for over twenty years by Trump-esque populist Silvio Berlusconi. In a short time, the former Communist Party had shifted so far to the right that they mirrored the Democrats, both in their party name and outlook. They upheld neoliberalism and austerity, and focused on Berlusconi's scandals and outrageous statements, attempting to win disaffected conservatives. The Left atrophied, no longer being seen as a way to power. And all this concerted campaign against one man did was reinforce the status quo and produce weak, unstable governments.
The election of Tom Perez as DNC chair, along with subsequent events, shows that the Democratic establishment wants to roll into 2018 with the same outlook and message that lost them the 2016 election (well, and the 2010, 2012, and 2014 ones too, minus Obama's re-election). The energy created by Trump's election among progressives is fuel for an attempt to reintroduce the status quo. And if the Democratic Party gets its wish, the time loop restarts- the status quo doesn't work for many people, right-wing populist seizes on this disaffection, gains power, creates opposition, opposition funneled to Democratic Party.
Whatever your opinion on Bernie Sanders and his presidential campaign, he was offering a possible way out of this time loop. Fixing the major social and economic problems in the country, or at least trying to, helps prevent another Trump down the line. With the current strategy, the Democrats aim to fight the same divisive election every two years, with climate change and a hundred other serious problems charging through unfixed.
Author Andrew MackayPosted on April 29, 2017 Categories Justice, policy, PoliticsTags 2018, David Broder, democratic party, democrats, donald trump, elections, jacobin, opposition, politics, populism, resistance, right-wing, Silvio Berlusconi, status quo, time loop, Tony PerezLeave a comment on The Status Quo Time Loop
Resistance v. Collaboration in the Trump Era
Since the election of Donald Trump this past November, the term "resistance" has been everywhere. His policies must be disrupted and a new, stronger opposition must coalesce. While Democratic political leadership pledge resistance, the facts state otherwise.
When an oppressive force takes over a country, the opposition gravitates towards two ends of a continuum. On one side stands resistance, the other, collaboration. Erik Loomis correctly points out that building trade unions want to collaborate with Trump, despite the existential threat to the environment and unions themselves. It's as if the Reagan administration never existed.
But it's not just the conservative unions with memberships that swung towards Trump in the Rust Belt. Progressive champions are also guilty. Sens. Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren, who liberals usually speak fondly of, both say they support the utterly unqualified Ben Carson for Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary. All but one Democratic senator confirmed Gen. James "Mad Dog" Mattis for Secretary of Defense. This despite Mattis having what can only be called bloodlust; a military man who can't wait to kill foreigners. These same senators will in a year's time decry what Mattis does in office, but they chose to approve him. This is not resistance, not even close.
When the Germans invaded France in 1940, every person had a choice to make. Many rejected the Nazi occupation. They banded together to undermine enemy control, through intelligence gathering, noncooperation, and sabotage. The French Resistance was integral to Allied victory and the end of the Nazi state.
Others decided to seek peace and coexist with the occupation. Philippe Pétain, perhaps France's greatest living military hero, turned the destroyed republic into a puppet regime based in the city of Vichy. Some collaborators were authoritarians eager for the chance. But others thought they were doing noble work, shielding France from the world of the Nazis. They were willing to work with a power that history knows was irredeemable.
Because the middle ground is treacherous between resistance and collaboration, accommodation, whatever you want to call it. For the last half century, activists have been trying to change the Democratic Party from within. This strategy failed in the past, and some Bernie supporters and Black Lives Matter activists are trying again today. But today's activist can easily be tomorrow's apologist, as social movements are co-opted. Given how much progressive work and resources went into campaigns like Warren's senate run, it is disturbing to see her choice to work with Trump. If there is widespread belief that Trump is an illegitimate, dangerous precedent, confirming his extremist nominees and having chummy meetings to talk about pipeline jobs is not the way to go.
Those in the streets, blocking streetcars and shutting down intersections, they see Trump for what he is. To have a "wait and see" approach is a privilege many do not have. Women, people of color, LGBTQ+, indigenous peoples, they are under attack now. Accepting Trump as legitimate is to sanction their oppression. Green card holders and dual nationals are being denied entry to the US, creating international chaos and showing that whatever promises were made prior to Jan 20, they should be considered null and void. The progressives in Congress have rolled over and confirmed the officials who will defend the refugee ban. They had no problem spotting the neo-fascists an administration, and then maybe trying to fight that once it was built.
Total resistance is the only way forward. But the front lines need dedicated people. And as much as the Women's March was a show of opposition, it seems to be headed towards more symbolic resistance that colors within the lines and plays friendly with authority. The economic and political structures that hold Trump and his ideology up are never under threat.
Just after the election, the Daily Beast, a 'progressive' media outlet tied to Chelsea Clinton, wrote this:
But if he is our next president, we will not question his legitimacy or hope he fails.
Instead, we will count ourselves members of the loyal opposition—loyal to the United States of America and opposed to the policies proposed by the president-elect during his campaign. And we will reflect on what has led so many of our fellow Americans to embrace such a messenger.
How does that strategy look today?
Author Andrew MackayPosted on January 28, 2017 January 28, 2017 Categories Justice, policy, Politics, Protest, Race, racism, ReligionTags collaboration, Dakota Access, democratic party, democrats, donald trump, elizabeth warren, fascism, Keystone XL, LGBT, muslim ban, protest, refugees, resistance, sherrod brown, trump administration, Vichy, women's marchLeave a comment on Resistance v. Collaboration in the Trump Era


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Q: setInterval inside another setInterval speeding up over time I spent a long time trying to figure out how to animate a symbol on a polyline with the Google Maps API with CSS-style easing functions. I got this to work with this Gist and this Google Maps API example. Now I'm trying to run a setInterval(myFunc, 10) every ~5 seconds. Here's the relevant code snippet:
function animateCircle(line) {
    var count = 0;
    let refreshRate = 10;
    let countFunc = EasingFunctions.easeInOutCubic;
    let perc = 0

    function moveCircle() {
      count = count < 1 ? (count + 0.005) : 0;

      perc = countFunc(count) * 100 <= 100 ? countFunc(count) * 100 :  countFunc(count) * 100 - 100
      perc = perc >= 0 ? perc : 100 + perc
      perc === 0 ? window.clearInterval(moveCircInterval) : ''
      // console.log(count + " // " + perc)

      var icons = line.get('icons');
      icons[0].offset = perc + '%';

      line.set('icons', icons);
    }

    var moveCircInterval = window.setInterval(moveCircle, refreshRate);

    window.setInterval(() => moveCircInterval = window.setInterval(moveCircle, refreshRate), 5000)
  }

And a full JSFiddle to see it in action.
This code is not great, but nearly working. On my end, it speeds over time, especially if you navigate away from the tab and go back.

A: If I understood your concern correctly we can tweak your code like below:
function animateCircle(line) {
    var count = 0;
    let refreshRate = 10;
    let countFunc = EasingFunctions.easeInOutCubic;
    let perc = 0

    function moveCircle() {
      count = count < 1 ? (count + 0.005) : 0;

      perc = countFunc(count) * 100 <= 100 ? countFunc(count) * 100 :  countFunc(count) * 100 - 100
      perc = perc >= 0 ? perc : 100 + perc
      if (perc === 0) {
        clearInterval(moveCircInterval);
        setTimeout(() => {
            moveCircInterval = setInterval(moveCircle, refreshRate);
        }, 5000);
    }

      var icons = line.get('icons');
      icons[0].offset = perc + '%';

      line.set('icons', icons);
    }

    var moveCircInterval = setInterval(moveCircle, refreshRate);
  }

Please try it and let me know if it works for you!

A: I ended up doing this:
function animateCircle(line) {
  var remove = window.setInterval(function() {
    var count = 0;
    let refreshRate = 20;
    let countFunc = EasingFunctions.easeInOutQuint;
    let perc = 0
    var now, before = new Date();
    var move = window.setInterval(function() {
      now = new Date();
      var elapsedTime = (now.getTime() - before.getTime());
      var icons = line.get('icons');

      if (elapsedTime > refreshRate + 5000) {
        // reset if navigate away from tab
        count = 0.005
        window.clearInterval(move)
      } else {
        count = count < 1 ? (count + 0.005) : 0;
      }

      perc = countFunc(count) * 100 <= 100 ? countFunc(count) * 100 : countFunc(count) * 100 - 100
      perc = perc >= 0 ? perc : 100 + perc
      perc === 0 || perc === 100 ? (window.clearInterval(move)) : ''

      icons[0].icon.path = svgTrans(perc)
      icons[0].offset = perc + '%';

      line.set('icons', icons);
    }, refreshRate)

  }, 5000)
}

here's the JSFiddle

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Q: Issue while fetching data from Oracle stored procedure with cursor in ssis I have a stored procedure in an Oracle database with a cursor output which returns a result of 14 columns and more than 100 rows.
When I execute the procedure in Oracle directly, it is working fine and returning the result in variable output pane.
How to get the same cursor output of the data in SQL Server table using SSIS?
Thanks in advance.


of cream cheese to make the world's best Jalapeo dip. This jar also comes with directions for a great tasting party dip & roll-ups/Pinwheels.
Also great on a burger or topping off nachos.
Ingredients: Jalapeos, sugar, apple cider vinegar, onions, corn syrup, salt, mustard seed, spices, celery seed, tumeric.
Longhorn Bread & Butter Jalapeo Dip - "First there were bread & butter pickles; now it's bread & butter Jalapeo peppers! These Jalapeo peppers are the Texas version! You'll say these bread & butter Jalapeos are all about TEXAS!" Mix 1/3th (or more, to taste) of a jar with an 8 oz. block of cream cheese to make the world's best Jalapeo dip. This jar also comes with directions for a great tasting party dip & roll-ups/Pinwheels. Also great on a burger or topping off nachos.


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MonsterMegs Now Offering CloudFlare Railgun.
Home » MonsterMegs Now Offering CloudFlare Railgun.
March 08, 2015 By Kevin 0
As a CloudFlare Optimized Partner, we are thrilled to offer the CloudFlare Railgun™ technology to all our customers FREE. Railgun is CloudFlare's latest performance optimization technology that gives you significant improvements in site load times. To activate Railgun, log into your control panel and select Railgun "On". Read on for additional details and instructions:
Railgun ensures that the connection between our network and the CloudFlare network is as fast as possible. Railgun achieves a 99.6% compression ratio for previously uncacheable web objects by using techniques similar to those used in the compression of high-quality video. The average website can expect a 1.43x performance increase.
When a request is made to a CloudFlare server for a web page that is not in cache CloudFlare makes an HTTP connection to the origin server to request the page. It's that HTTP connection that Railgun accelerates and secures.
Even highly dynamic websites change slowly
Railgun works by recognizing that uncacheable web pages do not change very rapidly. For example, during an experiment, the CNN.com homepage HTML was captured once, and then again after 5 minutes and then again after one hour. The page sizes were 92,516, five minutes still 92,516 and one hour later 93,727.
CNN sets the caching on this page to 60 seconds. After one minute, it is necessary to download the entire page again. However, looking inside the page, not much has changed. In fact, the change between versions is on the order of 100s of bytes out of almost 100k. Here's a screenshot of one of the binary differences between the CNN home page at five minute intervals. The yellow bytes have changed, the rest have not.
Experiments at CloudFlare have revealed similar change values across the web. For example, reddit.com changes by about 2.15% over five minutes and 3.16% over an hour. The New York Times home page changes by about 0.6% over five minutes and 3% over an hour. BBC News changes by about 0.4% over five minutes and 2% over an hour.
Although the dynamic web is not cacheable, it is also not changing quickly. That means that from moment to moment there's only a small change between versions of a page. CloudFlare Railgun uses this fact to achieve very high rates of compression. This is very similar to how video compression looks for changes from frame to frame; Railgun looks for changes on a page from download to download.
Railgun Technology
Railgun consists of two components: the sender and the listener. The sender is installed at every CloudFlare data center around the world. The listener is a software component that MonsterMegs manages on our local network for our customers.
The sender and listener establish a permanent TCP connection that's secured by TLS. This TCP connection is used for the Railgun protocol. It's an all binary multiplexing protocol that allows multiple HTTP requests to be run simultaneously and asynchronously across the link. Or in other words, a persistent connection is opened between CloudFlare's network and ours and eliminates the overhead of TCP.

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Let's be honest, we all need help sometimes. That's why having awriting mentor is always handy to have.
A writing mentor isn't necessarily an editor per say. It's more of a casual relationship that it is a formal one – writing mentors are there to assist you as you progress throughout your written pieces, having hints, advice and feedback that ensure you are writing at your best.
So how does one go about obtaining a writing mentor? Well, its simple, just ask! The worst they can say is 'no' right?
In terms of finding them, going to writers group or getting touch with your local writers centre is always a good idea, as they can refer you to their contacts and any writing groups that specialise in this. Every state has one, so its simply a matter of using google to find which one is closest to you.
There is actually a site dedicated to writing mentors, check it out here. It could be a good place to start!
Also have a read of these steps on how to land a writing mentor.
There is always the age old debate of whether or not freelance writers should be paid for their work, and now you can be part of the conversation! Writers Victoria are holding their 'Pay the Writers' manifesto event on 30 July. More details here.
Social media is an excellent way to network and put yourself out there, but where do you start? Fret no more, because NSW Writers Centre are holding a seminar about social media for beginners! RSVP here.


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Security fears snag Fansipan cable car
Great heights: A group of young adventures on the Fansipan Peak. Once operational in April 30, a three-rope cable car system will carry passengers from the bottom to the highest point of the mountain. — Photo Facebook Hoi Nhung Nguoi Thich Leo Dinh PhanXiPang
LAO CAI (VNS) — The world's longest three-rope cable-car system, extending from Lao Cai Province's Sapa Town to Fansipan peak, is expected to open in April.
However, the public has begun to doubt of the security of the cable system after Lao Dong newspaper reported that the project was begun in November 2013 before the Sun Group corporation, the project's investor, received the necessary licence papers from the Lao Cai Construction Department.
On December 16, 2014, the provincial Construction Department issued an official document saying that the investors should not ask for licence papers because the project was ratified by the local People's Committee.
Based on this document, the local People's Committee issued an official document affirming that the works in this project were exempt from licence papers.
But on December 30, 2014, the local Construction Department issued an other document saying that the work could not be exempted. It then asked the investors to follow the right process to apply for the papers.
It's difficult to know if the Construction department is right or not, but it seems clear that investors carried out construction before it got an official opinion from the Construction Department and the Lao Cai People's Committee on whether it was entitled to exemption.
In an official document issued on October 29, 2014, the local Construction Department affirmed that it had not ratified the project to build the 7.75ha station leading to the peak of the Mount Fansipan and the cable buttress tower. However, by then, the work on the station and the buttress were already almost finished.
Many people wonder why, when the provincial Construction department recognised this mistake of the investors, it didn't think of imposing any fines.
Considering the grandiose scale of the project, the licence and safety problems worried many people. Experts warned that to ensure the security of visitors, investors should have strictly respected construction conditions.
The construction of the cable car is being carried out during the first phase of the Fansipan Sapa tourism complex.
The project has a total investment of VND2.6 trillion, or nearly US$110 million.
The 6.5km long cable car can carry a maximum of 2,000 passengers an hour, with each cabin accommodating 34 passengers.
Once operational, the cable car will transport passengers from the base of the 3,143-metre Fansipan mountain to its highest point in 15 to 20 minutes. Currently, it takes one to two days to trek to the top of the mountain.
According to Tran Minh Son, vice president of the Sun Group corporation, investor of the project, the total weight of the cable cars can be as high as 400 tonnes. But several experts are afraid that it would be difficult to ensure the safety of a car when the peak of Mount Fansipan is swept with violent winds.
Even before the construction of the cable system, opinions were very divided on the cable car.
The Fansipan-Sapa cable car will form part of a major new tourism complex also set to include luxury hotels, entertainment facilities, restaurants and a golf course. The total project is expected to cost around VND4.4 trillion (US$208 million).
Contacted by a Viet Nam News reporter, Nguyen Ngoc Sinh, chairman of the Viet Nam Association for Conservation of Nature and Environment, declined to express an opinion on how the project would impact on the nature and sight of the beauty spot.
He said that it would need a council of scientists to assess the project's influence on the environment.
"When a construction project is carried out, the investor must make a research to evaluate the impact of the construction on the environment and find optimal solutions to make sure it does not have a bad influence on the environment and landscape," he said.
Ta My Duong, a well-travelled architect told Viet Nam News, that building a cable car takes away the true meaning of mountain climbing to Fansipan. "Anyone who cannot climb the peak can stay well sound and safe at home," he wrote in an e-mail. — VNS


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text:
2014. március 16-án Szerbiában előrehozott parlamenti választásokat tartottak. Ez volt a 10. választás a többpártrendszer 1990-es bevezetése óta. A választást a kormányzó jobbközép Szerb Haladó Párt (SNS) nyerte elsöprő fölénnyel.

Előzmények
A 2012-es választásokat megnyerő Szerb Haladó Párt koalícióra kényszerült a harmadik helyezett Szerbiai Szocialista Párttal (SPS). A létrejött Dacsics-kormányban Alekszandar Vucsics SNS-pártelnök belügyminiszter lett, és határozott korrupcióellenes intézkedéseivel egyre népszerűbbé tette pártját, az ország pedig 2014 januárjában megkezdhette az európai uniós csatlakozási tárgyalásokat. Eközben a korábbi kormányzópárt, a 2012-es választásokon második helyezett és ellenzékbe kényszerült Demokrata Párt (DS) szétesett. A erőviszonyok ilyetén való átalakulása miatt az SNS vezetése új választások megtartása mellett döntött. 2014. január 29-én Tomiszlav Nikolics államfő feloszlatta a szerbiai parlamentet, és március 16-ra kiírta az előrehozott választásokat.

Választási rendszer
A parlament 250 tagú. A listaállításhoz 10.000 támogatói aláírásra van szükség. A választás egyfordulós, arányos, az egész ország egy körzetnek számít. A bejutási küszöb 5%. A kisebbségek listái könnyített feltételekkel juthatnak mandátumhoz.

Szerbia területén 8262, Koszovóban 90, világszerte pedig 20 országban 35 szavazóhelyen lehet voksolni. A 250 mandátumért 3020 jelölt indult.

Induló pártok, pártkoalíciók és a listavezetők
Az aláírások összegyűjtéséhez rendelkezésre álló időszak 2014. február 4-től február 28-ig tartott. A Köztársasági Választási Bizottság (RIK) 19 listát hagyott jóvá (K: kisebbségi népcsoport listája):

1. Alekszandar Vucsics – A jövő, amiben hiszünk
 Szerb Haladó Párt (SNS)
 Szerbiai Szociáldemokrata Párt (SDPS)
 Új Szerbia (NS)
 Szerb Megújhodási Mozgalom (SPO)
 Szocialisták Mozgalma

2. Ivica Dacsics – Szerbiai Szocialista Párt (SPS) – Szerbiai Egyesült Nyugdíjasok Pártja (PUPS) – Egységes Szerbia (JS)

3. Szerbiai Demokrata Párt (DSS) – Vojiszlav Kostunica

4. Csedomir Jovanovics – Liberális Demokrata Párt (LDP) – Szociáldemokrata Unió – Szandzsáki Bosnyák Demokratikus Közösség

5. Vajdasági Magyar Szövetség (VMSZ) – Pásztor István (K)

6. Szerb Radikális Párt (SRS) – Dr. Vojiszlav Seselj
 az Obraz és a Naši Szerb Nemzeti Mozgalom jelöltjei is helyet kaptak a listán

7. Szerbia Egyesült Régiói (URS) – Mlagyan Dinkics

8. A Demokrata Párttal a demokratikus Szerbiáért
 Demokrata Párt (DS)
 Új Párt
 Vajdasági Horvátok Demokratikus Közössége
 Összefogás szakszervezeti egyesülés
 Gazdag Szerbia

9. Szerb Hit Mozgalom (Dveri) – Bosko Obradovics

10. Szandzsáki Demokratikus Akciópárt (SDA) – Dr. Szulejman Ugljanin (K)

11. Borisz Tadics – Új Demokrata Párt (NDS) – Zöldek, Vajdasági Szociáldemokrata Liga – Nenad Csanak, Együtt Szerbiáért mozgalom, Együtt a Vajdaságért, Vajdasági Magyarok Demokratikus Közössége (VMDK), Roma Demokratikus Baloldal

12. Harmadik Szerbia – Minden Értékes Emberért

13. Montenegrói Párt – Joszip Broz (K)

14. Nemzeti Közösségek Listája – BDZ-MPSZ-DZH-MRM-MEP – Emir Elfics (K)
 Bosnyák Demokratikus Közösség (BDZ)
 Magyar Polgári Szövetség (MPSZ)
 Horvátok Demokratikus Közössége (DZH)
 Magyar Remény Mozgalom (MRM)
 Magyar Egység Párt (MEP)

15. Ebből Elég – Szasa Radulovics

16. Nemzetek és Nemzetiségek Koalíciója (RDS–SDS) (K)
 Ruszin Demokrata Párt (RDS)
 Szlovák Demokrata Párt (SDS)

17. Hazafias Front polgári csoport – Dr. Boriszlav Pelevics

18. Orosz Párt – Szlobodan Nikolics (K)

19. Demokratikus Cselekvés Pártja (PDD) – Riza Halimi (K)

Kampány
Szakértők szerint a kampány nem szolgált emlékezetes momentumokkal.

A pártok a DS és a DSS kivételével folyamatosan azt hangsúlyozták, hogy a kormánykoalíció része kívánnak lenni.

A vajdasági magyarok politikai megosztottsága továbbra is fennmaradt: a 6 magyar párt közül 5 indult csak a választáson, és azok is 3 külön listán.

Közvélemény-kutatások
Az egyes pártok/listák támogatottsága (százalékban):

Eredmények

Politikai következmények
A várakozásoknak megfelelően az előrehozott választásokat elsöprő fölénnyel megnyerte a kormányzó Szerb Haladó Párt vezette koalíció, de a korábbi miniszterelnököt adó kisebb pártszövetség, a Szerbiai Szocialista Párt vezette koalíció is megőrizte súlyát. Számos régi, nagy hagyományú párt azonban kiesett a parlamentből. A Demokrata Párt súlyos visszaesést könyvelhetett el, viszont a volt miniszterelnök Borisz Tadics új pártja éppenhogy még bekerült a parlamentbe. A VMSZ egy mandátummal 6 képviselőre növelte parlamenti jelenlétét, a többi szerbiai magyar párt nem tudott bejutni a törvényhozásba. Az új miniszterelnök Alekszandar Vucsics lett. A VMSZ 5 államtitkári pozíciót kapott az új kormányban.

Érdekességek
 Az Egyik Sem A Felkínált Válaszok Közül nevű kisebbségi párt indulását a RIK elutasította, mivel a február 28-án éjféli határidő lejárta után egy perccel adták le listájukat. A párt szerint éppen fordítva, a határidő lejárta előtt egy perccel adták le listájukat, és panasszal éltek az alkotmánybíróságnál.
 Novi Pazarban szabálytalanság miatt bezártak egy szavazóhelyet.
 Ugyanezen a napon Belgrádban helyhatósági választásokat is tartottak.

Jegyzetek

Külső hivatkozások
 Köztársasági Választási Bizottság
 Szerbiai választások: vajdasági magyar pártok a rajtvonalnál – Kitekintő, 2014. január 31.
 Választási földrengés – Magyar Szó, 2014. március 18.

Szerbia politikai élete
Szerbiaiparlamenti

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