New Zealand’s Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has congratulated the Nelson City Council on its vote today to boycott companies which trade with illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories.

The city council (pop. 58,000) — New Zealand’s 15th-largest city — became the latest local body to change its procurement policy to exclude companies identified by the UN Human Rights Council as being complicit in the building and maintenance of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

“Nelson City Council is taking action while our national government is looking the other way”, PSNA chair John Minto said in a statement.

• READ MORE: This year, Arab-American political power came to the fore over Gaza
• Other BDS movement reports

“It is [Prime Minister] Christopher Luxon who should be ending all New Zealand dealings with companies involved in the illegal Israeli settlements.

“Instead, our government is cowardly complicit with Israeli war crimes.”

It is a war crime to move citizens onto land illegally occupied as Israel is doing.

Nelson City Council joins Environment Canterbury and the Christchurch City Council — New Zealand’s second largest city — which both adopted this policy earlier this year.  Other local bodies are believed to be following.

“We also congratulate local Palestine solidarity activists in Nelson who have organised and battled so well for this historic win today. They are the heroes behind this decision,”minto said.

Minto said following the move by Nelson city representatives, “we are renewing our call for the government to act”.

He again called for the government to:

• Ban all imports from the illegal Israeli settlements;
• Direct the Superfund, Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and Kiwisaver providers to end their investments in all Israeli companies and other companies supporting the illegal Israeli settlements; and
• Direct New Zealand government agencies to end procurement of goods or services from all Israeli companies and other companies supporting the illegal Israeli settlements.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Padre Josimo Settlement

From 28 April, heavy rains, strong winds, and widespread flooding have lashed the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, killing over 160 people and impacting 2.3 million. The waters rose and rose again, rushing through houses and fields, erasing not only homes and the memories built there but also many crops in the country’s largest rice-producing state and agricultural powerhouse, the impacts of which are likely to reverberate across the nation.

Meteorological agencies and officials predicted the events with eerie precision. A week into the flood, experts pointed to the extraordinary rainfall as the primary cause. Estael Sias, managing director of the weather forecaster MetSul, wrote that this was not ‘just an episode of extreme rain’, but ‘a meteorological event whose adjectives are all superlative, from extraordinary to exceptional’. The seemingly unending rain, she wrote, ‘is absurdly and bizarrely different from what is normal’. It will take a very long time for this region of Brazil to recover from the flood.

Within the floodwaters are several encampments and settlements of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), about which we published a dossier last month to commemorate the movement’s 40th anniversary. The MST was born from land struggles in Rio Grande do Sul, where it retains a strong presence and has become the epicentre of the MST’s agroecological rice production. These are the same fields on which the MST grew much of the 13 tonnes of food that it donated to the Gaza Strip from October to December of last year and the more than 6,000 tonnes of food that it donated to communities in need during the COVID-19 pandemic, as we write in our dossier. Many of these fields, as well as the facilities used to process their harvests, have been damaged by the flood. Residents of MST settlements such as Apolônio de Carvalho and Integração Gaúcha Settlement have lost immense amounts of their resources.

The images in this newsletter, taken from a report by Brazil’s National Institute of Colonisation and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) using satellite images from the Brazil M.A.I.S. Programme, Ministry of Justice and Public Safety, show some of the MST’s lands before and after the floods – lands now inundated with flood water that has washed toxic materials into the soil. The MST has focused its relief efforts not only on its own members, but also on the people of the region who have lost everything in the face of rising waters from which they cannot escape. If you wish to assist the MST in its flood relief efforts and to rebuild the settlements, you can do so here.

Santa Maria Settlement

Last year, after a much less serious flood impacted Porto Alegre (the capital of Rio Grande do Sul), the Brazilian architect Mima Feltrin, drawing from the work of hydrology professor Carlos Tucci, warned that the state faced an imminent risk of flooding equal to or worse than the historic floods of 1941 and 1967. The analyses of scholars such as Tucci and Feltrin have repeatedly warned about the impact and looming threats of carbon emissions-driven climate change across the world as well as the deficiencies of policies put in place by reckless climate change denialist politicians.

As floodwaters rose in Rio Grande do Sul in 2023, so too did they inundate Derna (Libya), central Greece, southern China, southern Nevada (United States), and northeastern Turkey. The immediate explanation for these floods is that they are caused by carbon emissions-driven climate change, intensified by the refusal of Global North governments to contain their outsized carbon emissions. But the broader explanation is that the climate catastrophe is largely the product of reckless capitalist development, particularly in cities located within areas that are predictably dangerous to inhabit (such as lowland coastal settlements built next to savaged mangrove forests and badly managed river flow or beside forests that face long periods of dry weather). This reckless development is exacerbated by the rampant underfunding of environmental regulatory agencies and the deliberate slashing of budgets that maintain and revitalise infrastructure that is crucial to protect people from adverse climate events. With the flood in Libya, for instance, the state – already destroyed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s harsh bombardment in 2011 and pickled in confusion and corruption – neglected the crumbling dams of Derna. Much the same kind of attitude has been on display in southern Brazil for the past several decades.

Sino Settlement

The two most recent mayors of Porto Alegre, Nelson Marchezan Júnior (2017–2021) and Sebastião Melo (2021–present), as well as the governor of Rio Grande do Sul Eduardo Leite (2019–March 2022 and then January 2023–present) spent their tenures eroding the basic institutions of their administrations. Governor Leite, for instance, undermined 480 rules of his state’s environmental code as part of the anti-environmental agenda pursued by the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022). Meanwhile, Mayor Marchezan Júnior ignored the need to fund flood prevention infrastructure, including the renovation of thirteen pump houses that were central to Porto Alegre’s drainage system, and his administration shut down the entire Department of Storm Drainage Systems (DEP), which had been set up in 1973 to manage drainage. Marchezan Júnior and Melo, along with their predecessor José Fortunati, each cut the number of employees in the departments that managed sewage and water systems.

People such as Leite, Marchezan Júnior, and Melo hold an attitude of disregard for the majority of the population and an attitude of the highest regard for the offshore bank accounts of the wealthy and their friends, the Western investor class. These people have been shaped by Brazilian big business, whose interests are consolidated by groups such as Instituto Liberal, set up in 1983 to further the neoliberal ideas of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, and by intellectuals of the military dictatorship (1964–1985) such as its economic ministers Roberto Campos and Hélio Beltrão. These ideas were brought into the mainstream by Brazil’s former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2003), whose Plan for the Reform of the State Apparatus (1995) used the idea of ‘modernisation’ to undermine state institutions and to start what Professor Elaine Rossetti Behring called a period of ‘permanent fiscal adjustment’. Cardoso, Leite, Marchezan Júnior, and Melo are Men of Austerity, proponents of a counter-revolution against humanity.

Filhos de Sepé Settlement

When the catastrophe comes, as it has in Rio Grande do Sul, these neoliberal officials are quick to blame climate change, as if it were some sort of inevitability in which they played no part. However, when it comes to the climate, these people are the first to advance the agenda of fossil fuel companies and promote ideas and policies that amount to climate change denialism. Their denialism is not rooted in science, but in class interests that prioritise big business over people and the planet. They do not have any scientific arguments to explain the climate catastrophe, since there is no scientific basis for denialism, which seeks – with complete disregard for the fate of the planet – to ensure the upward distribution of wealth.

From 1968 to 1980, the Brazilian poet Mário Quintana (1906–1994) lived in the Majestic Hotel in Porto Alegre, where he wrote beautiful poems of what he called ‘simple things’. Shortly before Quintana died, his supporters and friends built the Casa de Cultura Mário Quintana in the Majestic Hotel, which the state government purchased, restored, and transformed into a cultural centre in the 1980s. This hotel, Quintana’s home, became a haven for writers and artists to show their work. It was inundated by this year’s flood.

In 1976, from that hotel, Quintana wrote ‘A Grande Enchente’ (‘The Great Flood’), motivated by the floods of 1941 and 1967:

Cadavers of Ophelias and dead dogs
stopped momentarily at our doors,
though, ever at the mercy of the maelstrom,
they will continue along their uncertain path.

When the water reaches the highest windows
I will paint roses of fire on our yellow faces.
What does it matter what is to come?
The mad are spared all
and allow themselves everything.

Let us embark, spirit of the Gods.
Over the waters we glide.
Some say that we are merely clouds.
Others, the few, say that we are increasingly dying,
but I cannot see, down below, our dead.

And in vain I look around.
Where are you, friends,
from the very first and last days?
We must, we must, we must continue together.
And so, in one last, diluted thought,
I feel that my cry is but the gasp of the wind.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza.

Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine.

When he met with flotilla participants yesterday, including the Kia Ora Gaza team from Aotearoa New Zealand, he said: “It was not only our efforts in South Africa that defeated the apartheid regime, but it was also efforts in every corner of the world through international solidarity of the anti-apartheid campaign.”

• READ MORE: Other Kia Ora Gaza and Freedom Flotilla reports

Chief Mandla Mandela talks to the Freedom Flotilla.   Video: Freedom Flotilla/Palestine Human Rights

Mandela said that while his grandfather was incarcerated for life imprisonment on Robben Island, he drew “immense inspiration” from the Palestinian struggle.

He added that Palestine “was the greatest moral issue of our time, yet many governments choose to remain silent and look away”.

“Many have been complicit in the genocide, the ethnic cleansing, the war crimes, and crimes against humanity that have been meted out on a daily basis against our Palestinian brothers and sisters — not just the 7th of October, but for the past 76 years.”

— Chief Mandla Mandela

Incredible to see Mandla Mandela address Gaza Freedom Flotilla participants in Istanbul today.

He spoke of his grandfather Nelson Mandela’s deep love for the Palestinian struggle and how Palestine inspired generations of South Africans in their fight for freedom. pic.twitter.com/6aVwwB4fIu

— Aamer Rahman (@aamer_rahman) April 24, 2024

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.

On July 15, several unidentified attackers shot and killed Matus, founder and editor of Lo Real de Guerrero, in a parking lot in the Pacific coast city of Acapulco, in Guerrero state.

Lo Real de Guerrero, a news website and Facebook page, frequently covered crime, violence, and security issues in Acapulco, a city long popular with foreign and domestic tourists.

Matus’ killing occurred just one week after reporter Luis Martín Sánchez was found killed in the northern Mexican state of Nayarit.

CPJ repeatedly called the Guerrero public prosecutor’s office for comment but no one answered, and the office has not posted any information about Matus’ case on its official website.

“Mexican journalist Nelson Matus Peña’s brutal killing is all the more shocking given that his life was taken only one week after another reporter, Luis Martín Sánchez, was found dead in Nayarit,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “Sadly, Mexican authorities continue to prove ineffective at protecting journalists, who are frequently targeted by such attacks.”

Matus founded Lo Real de Guerrero several years ago and also contributed to local media outlets including Alarma magazine, the El Alarmante newspaper, and news website Agora Guerrero. CPJ contacted those outlets for comment but did not receive any replies.

In the days before his death, Lo Real de Guerrero published several stories without a byline covering violent incidents and deadly shootouts in Acapulco.

Matus escaped a potential assassination attempt by unidentified assailants in 2017, and the mother of Lo Real de Guerrero administrator Reina Balbuena was killed that March, news reports said.

CPJ contacted an official with the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists for comment but did not receive any response.

According to CPJ research, at least three journalists were murdered in direct relation to their work in Mexico in 2022. CPJ is investigating the killings of another 10 reporters to determine the motive. 

In a country characterized by corruption and organized crime, CPJ has noted the difficulties in determining which journalists were targeted for their work and which were killed as part of the dangerous environment in the country more broadly. 

Mexico ranked sixth on CPJ’s 2022 Impunity Index, which analyzes countries where journalists are killed and their attackers go free. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

Oz Nelson, photo by Maria Saporta.

When Kent “Oz” Nelson’s death was announced on April 10 at the age of 85, tributes poured in for the former chairman and CEO of the United Parcel Service (UPS), who was revered as a humble, visionary leader of “the world’s premiere package delivery company.” Carol B. Tomé, the current CEO of UPS, led the way in eulogizing Nelson:

Today we mourn the loss of Oz Nelson, our CEO from 1990 to 1996, and a truly visionary leader. Oz helped transform our company into a global logistics powerhouse, aggressively expanding service offerings and connecting customers around the world.

We also remember Oz for leading with his heart. He was deeply committed to people – UPSers and customers around the globe – and the communities where we live and serve, driving the company’s philanthropic and volunteer efforts to new heights.

Many others followed.

Sam Williams, the retired president and CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber declared that, “Oz was a giant of a leader. He brought UPS to Atlanta, and which was one of the first Fortune 500 companies to relocate to Atlanta. And he broke the mold in the way UPS built its headquarters and protected the trees.”

Long-time Atlanta business journalist Maria Saporta recalled OZ Nelson in a way that a future biographer might:

Nelson told me that moving to Atlanta was an amazing opportunity for UPS to give back to the community. In Greenwich, one of the richest cities in America, Nelson said there were limited opportunities to really make a difference in the lives of people in need. To him, the move to Atlanta was an opportunity to become fully engaged in a community with multiple challenges that a corporate leader could help move the needle.

One would almost get the impression that such kind words are for the passing of a living saint devoted to the urban poor rather than the former CEO and board member of a Fortune 500 corporation. This is how the senior management at UPS likes to view itself and project its corporate brand. The mainstream media is largely compliant.

Not be left out, long-time UPS hack Jeffrey Sonnenfeld in Fortune magazine, wrote:

The real Oz Nelson knew how to be tough and persuasive instead of tough and autocratic. As I witnessed myself, when he saw an injustice, he spoke out and led others into righteous battles for truth. At a time of coarsening of public discourse, Oz worked across sectors to show that courage does not require cruelty.

Righteous battles for truth? What is Sonnefeld blathering about? One doesn’t have to dig too deep to find that Oz Nelson’s legacy reveals that he was not simply a humble protector of trees but a CEO that birthed the modern UPS notorious for its brutal workplace practices and worked to undermine the Teamster reformers.

“More Flexibility”

Before Oz Nelson took the helm of UPS, it had already established itself as the leading private-sector shipping company for small packages in the United State, known popularly as “Big Brown.” It pioneered the breaking up of full-time jobs into part-time jobs with a cult-like work culture that pushed its workers beyond what was humanly possible. UPS had easily won major concessions from the old mobbed-up Teamsters creating a two-tier wage structure that paid part-timers significantly and permanently less than full-timers.

It was during Oz Nelson’s tenure as chairman and CEO of UPS from 1990 to 1996, and board member for many years afterward, that these trends accelerated: greater and more dangerous productivity and more part-time work. His time as CEO also coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR. A larger part of the planet opened up to potential investment and exploitation by western corporations, and shipping companies, like UPS, would be one of the major beneficiaries.

To meet this challenge, Nelson true to form demanded and easily received a new wave of concessions during the 1990 national contract negotiations with the Teamsters, the last negotiated by the old guard. UPS was already planning a massive expansion of its air operations with an array of new air hubs across the United States to be staffed with an army of part-time workers.

”We need a little more flexibility,” Oz Nelson told the New York Times on the eve of the national UPS contract expiration date. ”Our competition has flexibility we don’t have.” It became a major issue in the first rank-and-file election of the top leadership of the Teamsters during the summer of 1990. ”It is a concessionary contract,” declared Ron Carey. He added, ”They abuse people with production quotas and make no allowances for people being human.”

Teamsters General President William J. McCarthy, the last of the old guard leaders, actually urged a no vote of the contract and threatened a strike. Yet, UPS-Teamsters passed the contract demonstrating that they had little faith in McCarthy to lead them in battle in the middle of August 1990. Nelson boasted. “We are pleased that we were able to offer a package to our people they obviously found to be fair and responsive to their needs,” Nelson said in a company press release.

This was certainly a low point for the Teamsters, yet it wasn’t surprising given UPS’s menacing campaign for a yes vote. ”Many of the company’s employees were frightened by management’s ability to use permanent replacement workers, or scabs, in the possible event of a strike,” McCarthy said.

While Ron Carey agreed, ”The company has done a good job of intimidating, saying there would be a six-week strike and people would lose their homes,” he also blamed McCarthy. ”There was no plan of action, no leadership.”

The New Teamsters

While Nelson was pleased with the management’s selling of a concessionary contract to its workers—and it reinforced the idea among UPS’s senior management that they were more popular than the union—they were shell-shocked when Ron Carey was declared winner in the three-way race for the leadership of Teamsters in December 1991.

The world had suddenly turned upside down to Nelson and senior UPS management. Greg Niemann voiced UPS management’s view of Ron Carey in his hagiographic Big Brown: The Untold Story of Big Brown, as a “disenchanted former UPS driver” who had somehow “taken over the Teamsters Union in the nineties, and “vowed ‘to get’ UPS.”

The election of Bill Clinton in 1992 with his pledges for labor law reform and boosting funding for OSHA worried many at the highest levels of Corporate America. Oz Nelson set about to defeat any modicum of labor law reform, especially the introduction of any ergonomics standards that made workplaces safer.

Nelson boosted political funding for a band of mad dog Republicans to take over Congress during the Republican Revolution of 1994, who threatened to destroy OSHA. One of those was John Boehner, who said in 1995, “Most Employers would describe OSHA as the Gestapo of the federal government.” By the mid-1990s, UPS had the largest Corporate Political Action Committee (PAC) in Washington, D.C. largely devoted to weakening OSHA.

By the 1990s, when OZ Nelson took over as CEO, UPS was one of the worst violators of workplace safety in the country. Soon after the 1993 contract was settled between Ron Carey and Oz Nelson, Nelson violated the contract by raising the weight limit of packages handled by drivers and inside workers from 70 to 150 lbs. Carey shocked UPS by calling a national safety strike in February 1994 that shut down enough of UPS’s national network that forced some concessions from them on the safer handling of heavier packages.

It became clear to Oz Nelson and the senior management at UPS that Ron Carey and the new Teamster leadership would not be intimidated and look to Teamsters old guard led by James P. Hoffa, Jr. It was an open secret that UPS and other major Teamsters employers along with rightwing Republicans and the conservative business press formed a “get Carey” campaign and looked for a triumph of Hoffa and his allies in the 1996 Teamster election.

Yet, Carey won with a majority of the votes to the fury and frustration of UPS. They began to push their Republican friends in Congress to find a “legal” way to with-hunt Carey out of the leadership of the Teamsters. All of this came to fruition following the 1997 UPS strike after Nelson was out as CEO but still on the board of directors. Nelson laid the foundation for the defeat of Teamster reformers and the restoration of the old guard.

There is little doubt that Oz Nelson was a loyal executive who presided over historic changes in the history of UPS that made it a global behemoth but it was done at the expense of UPS workers.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Joe Allen.

On Wednesday, March 15, the outlet suspended its operations indefinitely, according to media reports and the outlet’s owner, David Boio, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

Boio told CPJ that the decision to shutter Camunda News, which covered current affairs on its website, Facebook page, and YouTube channel, came after months of government harassment.

“Angolan authorities must commit to the development of a free and independent media and refrain from harassing online outlets like Camunda News,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “Instead of censorship through intimidation and archaic licensing requirements, the government should encourage a plurality of media to fulfill the public’s right to access information.”

In October 2022, officials with the police National Criminal Investigation Service, the SIC, questioned Boio about Nelson Demba, an activist and co-host of the weekly current affairs show 360˚ aired on Camunda News’ YouTube and Facebook channels, Boio told CPJ.

Demba is facing charges including incitement to rebellion and outrage against the president, and is presently in hiding, according to reports, which said he believes the charges against him are retaliation for his political activity.

Boio told CPJ that SIC officers had also summoned Camunda News senior reporter llídio Manuel and two other staff members in October. He declined to name those staffers for fear of their safety.

Subsequently, in February 2023, SIC officers called Boio to summon him for questioning as a potential state witness in Demba’s case, according to Boio and those news reports. In that phone call, an investigator warned Boio that an arrest warrant would be issued if he failed to appear and instructed him to bring company documents related to Camunda News.

During three hours of questioning on March 7, Boio told CPJ that he was only asked one question about Demba and that most of the questions were related to Camunda News, its legal status and funding, and his personal life.

Shortly after that questioning, Boio suspended Camunda News’ current affairs video content. On Wednesday, he suspended the entire platform, he said.

“The harassment and intimidation are getting to a point where it could lead to more serious problems, and we know how the system in Angola can be complicated and make up serious accusations, so I need to consider my safety as well as that of all others working at Camunda,” Boio told CPJ.

Manuel, the senior reporter summoned in October, told CPJ that he was unable to hire a lawyer in time and did not attend the questioning, and had not received another summons. He said no details of the case had been disclosed to him.

Boio told CPJ that in May 2020 an SIC investigator had arrived at Camunda News’ offices and asked about its ownership, and the following day the broadcaster received a notification from the Ministry of Telecommunications Technologies and Media requesting the documentation to prove the outlet was operating legally.

“We wrote back to the Ministry explaining that we couldn’t find the legal framework for online content such as what we produced,” Boio told CPJ.

“If we had a license, we would probably be treated the same way the TV channels that got cancelled did, but because there is no legal framework they use SIC to intimidate us,” Boio said. Authorities suspended three TV broadcasters in 2021.

Benja Satula, a lawyer representing Camunda News, told CPJ via messaging app that there is no legal framework covering online content platforms, so there could be no illegal activity warranting a criminal investigation.

SIC spokesperson Manuel Alaiwa responded to CPJ’s requests for comment by phone and messaging app saying that he would call later. He had not responded by the time of publication.

When CPJ called Ministry of Telecommunications Technologies and Media spokesperson João Demba for comment, he said the ministry could not comment because it was awaiting information from the SIC.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

Progressives on Tuesday applauded as U.S. President Joe Biden nominated Julie Su to succeed outgoing Labor Secretary Marty Walsh—a choice the nation's largest federation of unions said will "continue the Department of Labor's historic legacy of pro-union leadership."

"Julie Su is a leader who stands up for dignity, safety, and fair pay for all working families including immigrant and marginalized communities," continued the AFL-CIO, calling on the U.S. Senate to promptly confirm Su, who is currently Biden's deputy labor secretary.

The president noted that before working in the Biden administration, Su "led the largest state labor department in the nation" as California's labor commissioner from 2011-18.

In that role, Su oversaw "a renaissance in enforcement activity" against employers who violated labor laws, according to the U.S. Labor Department. She launched a historic, multilingual "Wage Theft Is a Crime" campaign, using multimedia to reach low-wage workers, inform them about their rights, and encourage them to feel safe speaking out against abuses of labor law.

"Julie Su is the real deal and she will do everything in her power to put working people central to the agenda."

Years before leading California's Labor Department, in the mid-1990s as a recent law school graduate, Su helped defend more than 70 Thai undocumented immigrants who had been enslaved in a garment sweatshop in El Monte, California. The case is widely studied in law school classes and by advocates and rights organizers, NBC News reported in 2021 when Su was nominated to serve as deputy labor secretary.

"What an inspiring pick," Helen Brosnan of the advocacy group Fight Corporate Monopolies tweeted, noting Su's anti-slavery case.

Biden said Su has proven herself to be "a champion for workers" as she has "cracked down on wage theft, fought to protect trafficked workers, increased the minimum wage, created good-paying, high-quality jobs, and established and enforced workplace safety standards."

The president selected Su after reportedly being urged by House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to nominate former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chair Sean Patrick Maloney, who was a member of the corporate-friendly New Democrat Coalition before losing his reelection campaign last year and who has been blamed for allowing the Democrats to lose control of the U.S. House.

"Great to hear that we won't see Sean Patrick Maloney return to power anytime soon," said organizer Joshua Sauberman.

A number of progressives strongly urgedBiden to nominate Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, to succeed Walsh, with Sen. Bernie Sanders(I-Vt.) telling the president in a letter that Nelson "has been a leading voice for worker rights and is a very strong communicator of progressive values."

Nelson has been a vocal critic of a widening gap between CEO and worker pay and was a key negotiator of provisions in the pandemic-era CARES Act, which temporarily banned airline stock buybacks and capped executive compensation.

Despite his support for Nelson, Sanders was one of the first lawmakers to respond to the news of Su's nomination, expressing confidence that she "will be an excellent secretary of labor."

Nelson also expressed strong support for Biden's choice, saying the nomination is "fantastic news for the country!"

Other labor advocates shared their hope that as secretary of labor, Su will push forward efforts to strengthen workers' rights in the fast-growing renewable energy sector.

"Renewables workers—and our planet—need someone like Su at the helm of the Department of Labor to push for and deliver on much-needed change. Right now, renewable energy jobs are scaling up across the country to meet the demand of the Inflation Reduction Act's unprecedented investment in clean energy," said Matthew Mayers, executive director of the Green Workers Alliance. "But the industry still relies on low-road subcontractors and temp agencies, who frequently short-change workers and promise jobs that never materialize."

"This industry—and many more across America—will need to fundamentally change," Mayers added. "Julie Su knows this from first-hand experience. She has been a fighter to win these changes, and we look forward to working with her as we demand more and better green jobs."

Immigrant rights groups have also pushed Biden to nominate Su, with the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) saying earlier this month that her "track record shows her commitment to protecting everyone's fundamental rights at work."

"She's really been a champion her entire career for all workers," Raha Wala of the NILC toldBloomberg Law Tuesday, "regardless of immigration status, regardless of economic status."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

Progressives are looking at U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh's expected departure as an opportunity for President Joe Biden to demonstrate his professed commitment to workers' rights by placing at the helm of the Labor Department a leader who will unabashedly call out the corporate greed that has left millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet in the face of historic inequality.

After hockey news outlet The Daily Faceoff first reported earlier this month that Walsh is planning to step down from the Labor Department to lead the National Hockey League's Players' Association, Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote to Biden to put forward two potential nominees, urging him to select someone who is "a champion of workers."

In a letter dated February 10, Sanders recommended former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who served for four years under former President Bill Clinton and has since written and spoken out extensively about income inequality, or Association of Flight Attendants-CWA International President Sara Nelson, one of the best-known labor leaders in the United States today.

"There are a wealth of potential avenues an ambitious, fearless, hard-nosed labor secretary may take to actually make a real material impact on the survival of the American labor movement."

"Reich," said Sanders, "would hit the ground running. He has been instrumental in advancing workplace protections, workforce development, and worker power for decades."

Nelson "has been a union member for nearly 30 years, has been a leading voice for worker rights and is a very strong communicator of progressive values," wrote the senator, who chairs the Senate committee that would hold confirmation hearings on a nominee.

"She has a thorough understanding of federal labor laws and how these laws apply to workers, and her experience sets her up for success in this job," he added.

Sanders' recommendation of Nelson was bolstered on Thursday by an opinion piece written by Fast Company editor Morgan Clendaniel, who said Walsh's imminent departure leaves Biden with "a renewed chance to fulfill his stated desire to be considered "the most pro-union president you've ever seen," as Biden promised he would be.

Nelson has spoken out against corporate greed, saying the labor movement is "the only check" against an economic system in which CEO compensation surged nearly 1,000% between 1978 and 2018, while workers were paid just 12% more on average.

A deep understanding and engagement with the realities of soaring income inequality could help ensure the Labor Department is helmed by a leader who is on the side of labor, wrote Clendaniel.

"The president talks a good game for workers, and you can see the visceral thrill it gives him in speeches when he calls for the passage of thelabor-friendly PRO Act or when he met with [Amazon Labor Union leader Christian] Smalls and supported his efforts, saying, 'Amazon, here we come,'" he wrote. "But what better way for President Biden to show that he actually has labor's back than elevating Nelson?"

As a union leader, Nelson played a key role in negotiating provisions in the pandemic-era CARES Act that temporarily banned airline stock buybacks, capped executive pay, and tied rules that centered workers' rights to funding for the airline industry.

"U.S. workers deserve a labor secretary that is unapologetically pro-worker," former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, an ally of Sanders, said last week.

Former U.S. Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), has also been suggested by former labor reporter Steven Greenhouse as a possible contender who could draw from his experience as a trade union organizer and leading his state's Labor Department, while Deputy Secretary Julie Su has been named as a likely interim secretary and a potential nominee for the permanent role.

The National Immigration Law Center, National Education Association president Becky Pringle, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have expressed support for Su, who previously served as California's labor commissioner and launched a statewide "Wage Theft Is a Crime" campaign.

Silicon Valley companies Uber and Lyft, which have aggressively campaigned against workers' rights legislation, are reportedly lobbying against Su's potential nomination.

Meanwhile, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is reportedly pushing the White House to nominate former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), a corporate Democrat who progressives have blamed for the party's failure to maintain control of the House after the midterms in November, as he chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at the time.

"Progressives really don't want Maloney, but neither really does anyone else except Pelosi," a veteran Democratic strategist toldThe Hill Thursday. "He has literally absolutely no qualifications for this job and it's so random."

While Walsh was "incredibly" the first labor secretary to stand on a picket line alongside workers without also meeting with anti-union management, wrote independent reporter Kim Kelly at Fast Company on Tuesday, the former Boston mayor's position at the Labor Department amounted to a missed opportunity, according to critics.

Walsh sided with railroad companies over workers during negotiations regarding a contract that employees were ultimately forced to accept, even though it included no paid sick leave, and he has not addressed the Warrior Met Coal strike in Alabama, which has now been going on for nearly two years as workers demand fair pay, benefits, and working conditions.

The outgoing labor secretary "rose to power during a time when the institutions of organized labor grew sclerotic, and privately accepted their own inability to create fundamental change," wrote Hamilton Nolan at MSNBC last week. "In 2022, the percentage of workers who are union members in America declined once again."

Walsh has left the next labor secretary with "a lot of catching up to do," wrote Kelly at Fast Company. "During a moment of historically high public approval for unions and historically low union membership, there are a wealth of potential avenues an ambitious, fearless, hard-nosed labor secretary may take to actually make a real material impact on the survival of the American labor movement."

"Here's hoping we get one of those next time," she added.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

Janine Jackson interviewed UC Santa Barbara’s Nelson Lichtenstein about the University of California strike for the December 2, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Janine Jackson: When it comes to corporate news media coverage of labor actions, there are unfortunately a few tropes to look out for, even in 2022.

First, while strikes in other countries may be presented as signs of freedom, in the US they will often be presented in terms of the disruption they cause.

New York Times (11/14/22)

The New York Times’ November 14 report on the strike by some 48,000 University of California teaching assistants, researchers and others gave skimming readers the shorthand “highlight” that these people “walked off the job Monday, forcing some classes to be canceled.”

“Classes were disrupted, research slowed and office hours canceled,” the paper noted, “only a few weeks away from final examinations.”

Whatever an article goes on to say, the “harmful disruption” presentation encourages readers to understand that the status quo before the action was not harmful and did not disrupt, and that worker actions are therefore willful, selfish and possibly malignant.

Elite media’s other big idea in these circumstances is to present the idea that, as CNN had it in their very brief mention, UC workers are “demanding higher pay”—”workers demand/owners offer” being among the hardiest perennial media narrative frames. It implies a context of scarcity in which we are to imagine that the money needed to allow academic employees to make their rent would have to be swiped from the pockets of small children or something.

Of course, the major weapon big media have is the spotlight, which they can shine or shutter as they choose.

So here to help us see what’s happening and what’s at stake in the largest strike in the history of American higher education is Nelson Lichtenstein. He’s professor of history at the University of California/Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy.

He’s also author or editor of a number of books, including Beyond the New Deal Order: US Politics From the Great Depression to the Great Recession, and A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism, which is forthcoming in 2023.

He joins us now by phone from Santa Barbara. Welcome to CounterSpin, Nelson Lichtenstein.

Nelson Lichtenstein: Glad to be here.

Truthout (6/10/19)

JJ: Pay is absolutely a key part of this labor action at the University of California, but it’s not as though these are people who are really well-off and looking for still more. The folks teaching at these elite institutions, some of them are living in their cars, but many of them, enough of them, are seriously struggling, as I understand it, to keep a roof over their heads.

So when we say it’s about money, it’s about the money it takes to live a life, right?

NL: Right. I mean, this strike has been developing for several years, and the one spur to it has been the enormous increase in housing costs and rents.

And that’s partly pandemic-induced. That is, lots of people who used to work in downtown LA or New York, they want to, “Let’s get a house on the California coast, or something, and Zoom in to work.” Well, that’s jacked up, generally, housing costs in California. And so that’s one spur to it.

I think everyone in California, from the left to the right to the governor on down, knows that housing is just an enormous crisis. And here, of course, teaching assistants and other graduate students, they’ve seen their rents go way, way up. And there’s been an erosion in their pay, small as it was, over the last decade or so. And in the last two years, the inflationary spike has done that.

Now, it used to be that there was an implicit kind of ivory tower bargain: OK, you go to the university, you work for five or six years at low pay as a kind of apprentice, and then you end up with a good job, a high-prestige job, a tenure job, etc.

Dissent (11/22/22)

Well, that bargain has been broken for decades. And the UC’s (I think admirable) recruitment of working-class people and working-class people of color into the university has exacerbated that, because they aren’t ivory tower types, they aren’t Ivy League types. They’re working Americans.

And so this pressure for a recalibration of the wages and working conditions of thousands and thousands of the people who really stand at the heart of the university—the tenure track professors, they just become a minority, a small minority.

And it takes these academic researchers, postdocs, mainly in the sciences, and then of course the teaching assistants, to really make the university go. And we can no longer have this contingent labor model that people accept because there’s some reward at the other end. That’s not the case.

This is their life. And if you’re in your 20s, you have the right to get married, to have kids if you want to. We don’t live in a kind of Victorian Era anymore.

So this strike is quite large. It has support. Your introductory comments were on target, but this strike actually has support from an enormous range of people.

The Los Angeles Times endorsed the aims of the strike. And I think it has the potential to really transform, not just higher education, but really well beyond that.

JJ: And the strike does have support, which I think is so key, in part because that support is in the face of, if we just talk about big media, a kind of, “Oh, this doesn’t work. This is a problem.”

The wave of labor actions that we’ve seen in the last couple of years have been such a heartening sign of people, not just standing up for their rights, but also talking back in the face of a narrative that’s been pushed on us for a long time.

And part of that has been, as with Uber drivers and others, and certainly with journalists, we’ve seen a lot of “they aren’t even workers,” and the workers themselves saying, “Well, we’re not workers, we’re individuals; it’s not like we’re building cars.”

And there’s kind of a push against organizing among so-called culture workers or intellectual workers.

NL: Right. Glad you brought that up, because I think one of the many sins of former President Trump was to recreate an imagery of what a worker was, a very retrograde image: you know, a white male coal miner or steel worker or something like that. Those are the only people who are really workers.

And of course, that’s so antiquated and out of date. American culture and political culture has to come to terms with the fact that, today, the heart of the working class in the United States are people who are in the service sector, who do everything from retail work, but also to hospitals, to the media, the universities, etc.

I mean, the biggest unions in the country today are the teachers unions—mainly secondary, but also higher education.

So, yes, this is very important. Just to get your head around a sense of “who is a worker?” And take them seriously as a person who works for a living.

My spouse, Eileen Boris, who teaches feminist studies, did a wonderful little kind of performative act at a rally where faculty were urged to wear their academic regalia, which really comes out of the medieval time.

So we’re all wearing our gown and our hats, and my spouse, she said, “OK, yes, I’m a distinguished professor, with a chair and everything.”

And then she took off her gown, and there was a union T-shirt. “But really, I’m a worker.”

And I think that’s what has to happen in the whole cultural world, that whether you’re museum curators or in the university or any other area of cultural production, that, really, we are in fact workers.

Prosaic demands for wages and better working conditions are important.

By the way, the interesting thing about this strike is that the people who are actually on strike are very variegated, cultural, political, racial, gendered, very hip kind of people. But what is their demand? The demand is extraordinarily conventional. It is for higher wages. Nothing could be more conventional than that in terms of labor.

But that’s essential to their dignity and their capacity, actually, to do their jobs. To write, for example, a dissertation, you have to have time to do it. You can’t be bussing dishes at a restaurant in addition to your job as teaching assistant. You have to have time to write.

So this is what they’re really demanding.

JJ: And then in terms of broader implications, I read an article that said, “Campus-area housing has long been a policy concern, vexing state lawmakers and inciting town/gown legal battles.”

Now, I’m not saying that that’s inaccurate, but it does make it sound like a fight that I don’t necessarily have a dog in, you know?

But there are broader implications of this strike that go beyond the workers, extending, minimally, to all of their students and their potential students.

One source says, “I can’t in good conscience tell anyone to come here for their PhD,” because “the cost of living is unsustainable.”

Nelson Lichtenstein: “This is the way issues get put on the agenda, on the state and the national agenda, by making social disruptions.”

NL: Yes, right, yeah. The housing crisis is really a labor question in California. I mean, people commuting from the Central Valley to work in Silicon Valley, that’s a two-hour commute. Well, why are they doing that? Because they can’t afford the housing in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Obviously that’s also true in the university. We have people, both staff and academic people, who are commuting 40, 50 miles to work at the university.

This is all because of housing. Everyone recognizes in California this gigantic crisis. It’s this great state with tremendous industries and a really liberal political culture. But the Achilles heel of this state is housing, the housing crisis. And the students here at UC, grad students and others, are really putting this on the agenda, as “you have to do something about it.”

Now, one way is, you pay us more, you know? OK. And if you don’t want to do that, then you have to figure out some way to reduce the cost of housing. Housing’s at least 40% of the inflationary spike, probably more in California. So something has to be done.

And I think this is the way issues get put on the agenda, on the state and the national agenda, by making social disruptions.

And that’s what’s been happening for the last three weeks here at UC.

JJ: I wanted to point out one article, a New York Times piece by Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, and it was not about UC; it was about adjunct strikes at the New School (where I got my graduate degree).

And it was unusual, because it introduced the topic of administrator salaries, and it quoted someone who had looked at compensation data, saying, “The administrators seem to view themselves as essential and everyone else as inessential.”

New York Times (1/16/22)

Without that kind of context, reports on the strike, and “these workers want more pay,” it’s kind of like giving the ball score, “Red Sox six,” you know. You’re missing the context in which more money is being called for.

And it makes it sound like they’re asking for money to be created out of thin air, when we’re talking about power.

NL: That’s true. Administrators proliferated. But I would make this point: Some on the left who are supportive of the strike, and supportive of the grad students, would say, “Oh, the money is there. Let’s just take it out of this bloated administrative overhead.”

And that’s true. You can get some of it. But that’s not going to solve the problem.

What will solve the problem is we’ve had 40 years of austerity from state legislatures, and the national government as well, in terms of funding higher education.

What we need to do is to go to the legislatures and have progressive taxation. We have Elon Musk here in California. We have the Facebook people, etc.

We need to have a revision of the tax code which returns us to the world of 1955, which was a much more progressive era when it came to taxes. And that’s where the money is. That’s where the really big money is. That’s where the billions and billions are.

And stop this starving of higher education; decade by decade, a smaller portion of the actual operating funds of all the state universities have come from the general tax revenues. We need to reverse that. And a strike like this puts that issue on the agenda, and I think that’s where the money’s going to come from.

JJ: Let me just ask you, finally, and you’ve just hinted towards it: Do you have thoughts about what truly responsible, thoughtful news media coverage would look like, things it would include, and maybe some things it would leave out?

NL: Well, yes, actually you indicated that the obstacle to this settlement of the strike is the administration, the people who run it, who want to maintain and continue this untenable model of a kind of impoverished, precarious, large group of grad students in a kind of limbo, they want to continue that, and think that’s tenable. It’s not tenable.

We need a breakthrough which is going to transform the meaning of what it means to be an academic worker. The status quo is untenable. And I think the facts of this crisis needs to be up front in terms of media coverage of this strike, and many others of that sort.

We’ve come to a period of increasing inequality and increasing stress at work, and the pandemic demonstrated that, but it’s there. It’s untenable for the future.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Nelson Lichtenstein. His article, “The Largest Strike in the History of American Higher Ed,” can be found at DissentMagazine.org. Nelson Lichtenstein, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

NL: You’re welcome, Janine.

The post ‘We Need to Transform What It Means to Be an Academic Worker; the Status Quo Is Untenable’ appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Dissent (11/22/22)

This week on CounterSpin: Former Vice President Mike Pence recently said with a straight face that Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, was “the most dangerous person in the world.” “It’s not a close call,” he said. “If you ask, ‘Who’s the most likely to take this republic down?’ It would be the teachers unions, and the filth that they’re teaching our kids.” More evidence, were it needed, that the current struggle for pay and dignity by teaching assistants and adjuncts and researchers at the University of California is really part of a bigger fight about whether educators, at whatever level, are actual workers—and who’s looking out for their rights. We hear from labor historian and UC Santa Barbara professor Nelson Lichtenstein about what’s happening at the University of California.

Truthout (11/29/22)

Also on the show: Some elite media are expressing concern that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito may have leaked the Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling ahead of time to evangelicals looking to make hay from it. But as Sarah Posner put it at MSNBC.com: While figuring that out matters, it won’t necessarily address the deeper problem, that the court’s conservative majority itself “was deliberately cultivated to expand religious freedom for conservative Christians at the expense of the rights of those deemed less worthy of protection.” We talk with legal expert and author Marjorie Cohn about that.

The post Nelson Lichtenstein on UC Strike, Marjorie Cohn on Evangelicals’ Supreme Court Lobbying appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by CounterSpin.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape has sent his condolences to the family of the policeman killed in Hela province.

He called on the suspects to surrender and for witnesses to assist police with their investigation into the killing of Senior Constable Nelson Kalimda.

“I call upon all persons with information to come out. Arrests must be made to the criminals and the full story behind the officer going missing and [being] killed be established,” Marape said.

• READ MORE: Missing PNG cop found dead, police chief vows ‘swift justice’
• Other PNG police and violence reports

“My sympathies to the wife, children, relatives and rest of the members of the Royal PNG Constabulary.

“We will assist police to bring the criminals to justice. Going forward we will amend laws to bring higher penalties to those who offend [against] police personnel.”

Marape condemned the actions of the criminals.

“If police personnel are not respected, this is not good and police personnel must be given full respect and appreciation by the community.

Drove out by himself
For Hela’s case where the officer drove out by himself without letting his colleagues know and to be found dead a few days later, this demanded a full investigation from police, Marape said.

“I appreciate the Hela provincial government led by Governor Undialu who assisted police with the investigation and location of vehicle and now the body .”

Hela Governor Philip Undialu and Koroba-Kopiago MP William Bando also expressed their sympathies to the family of the dead policeman.

Undialu said:“Hela people and the Hela provincial government are also in grief and share our deepest condolences for this gruesome killing.

“We condemn this animalistic behaviour in the strongest terms possible and appeal to police to come hard on those responsible.

“We have assisted so far and are committed to support the repatriation of the body back to the family and fulfill customary obligation.

‘State of shock’
“We are also committed to ensure that those responsible are captured and face the law.

“The Police Commissioner [David Manning] in his press statement acknowledged our support so far and I assure the family and police force that we are with you in this time of sorrow, grief and state of shock.

“The police located the vehicle but communities identified the culprits and retrieved the body. Hela people will hold a haus krai in Tari and will hand over the body to the family.”

Bando strongly condemned the act and called for an investigation to be carried out to establish the cause and reason for the murder.

He said it was sad losing a life but not all Hela was “at war”, nor were they all responsible for the killing.

Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister of Finance Grant Robertson used today’s post-cabinet briefing to discuss the shifting ownership of the national Kiwibank and flooding in the South Island districts of Nelson and Marlborough.

But they also faced questions over rogue Labour MP Dr Gaurav Sharma and planned protests tomorrow at Parliament.

Cabinet this week was expected to consider further support for flood-affected communities, including in Nelson and Marlborough after Ardern and Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty examined the damage today.

• READ MORE: Parliament protest: Barricades erected, public urged to plan ahead

Ardern said she was always mindful that visits to significant weather events — like those in Nelson — and natural disasters only gave a snapshot, often several days into the response and after some of the clean-up had begun.

“With all of that in mind there is no question that the rain in the region has been devastating. Homes have either become uninhabitable or they have large slips sitting precariously behind them,” she said.

The recovery would take some time, but she saw a very tight-knit community working hard to help out one another.

“Scones being brought to workers, the woman who delivered chocolates to the digger operators. I asked one woman if her home was okay. ‘Yeah, we’re absolutely fine,’ she said, ‘except for the car hanging above it.’

“It transpired that she couldn’t return home, but she seemed much more worried about everyone else, much more so than herself.”

Ardern said one of the biggest concerns in the Marlborough region at the moment was reconnecting those who had been cut off from the usual transport routes.

Watch the media conference

After discussion with McAnulty, the government will be kicking an initial $100,000 into the Marlborough relief fund, which was expected to be further extended.

The Nelson mayor had also requested a further $100,000, which took the Nelson fund to $300,000.

These funds were for immediate response, and were highly discretionary on the part of the mayors.

Ardern highlighted that they did not amount to the full recovery cost, and came separately to things like the funding for repairing roading, or support from the Ministry of Social Development.

Government taking control of Kiwibank
Ardern said it was both exciting and reassuring that the government had secured Kiwibank’s long-term future in New Zealand ownership, with the crown taking over from crown-owned NZ Post, Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and the NZ Superannuation Fund.

“Not only will this safeguard all future profits to stay in the country — unlike the Australian-owned banks — it will also continue to enhance competition in the banking sector,” she said.

“The government is fully committed to ensuring Kiwibank is supported to meet its full potential and that includes ensuring access to capital, so the bank can be a genuine and credible competitor … which operates independently of the government but that is able to compete on a level playing field with the big Aussie operators.”

Robertson said the move honoured the purpose and intent of Kiwibank when it was set up in 2002.

“This transaction has come about as the circumstances for the shareholders since 2016 — New Zealand Post, ACC and the New Zealand Super Fund, all crown-owned — their interests in Kiwibank have diverged … since this time.”

He said the acquisition would not change the overall value of the crown’s balance sheet, but owning shares in Kiwibank did not fit with NZ Post and ACC’s long-term plans, including NZ Post’s goal of growing its core delivery business, and ACC’s long-term investment strategy has evolved beyond owning shares in a bank.

NZ Super Fund was interested in a majority holding, but withdrew its interest as it did not align with the government’s ownership objectives.

New Zealand public ownership of the bank was a bottom line for the government, Robertson said, as it was for the previous National-led government.

“Kiwibank will continue to operate independently and at arm’s length from the government with the crown’s ownership of Kiwi Group Holdings through a newly incorporated schedule for a company, Kiwi Group Capital.”

Robertson said Kiwi Group Capital would be governed by a board of directors and the shares would be held by shareholding ministers as usual.

“At one level the acquisition is a straightforward transfer of assets … the government does have to fund this transaction and this will be through the government’s multi-year capital allowance.

“This means that the cost to purchase is already reflected in the borrowing programme we announced at Budget 2022 and has no impact on the crown’s overall debt forecasts.”

He said part of the transaction would include a special dividend payment to the crown, which was yet to be determined by the board.

Robertson rejected the suggestion the Kiwibank ownership model was changing because New Zealand Post was struggling with its business model.

“What this is, is making sure that a banking institution, that we think’s got a really important role in New Zealand, stays Kiwi-owned, and when the five-year exit limit came off last year we began discussions.”

The Super Fund had wanted a level of flexibility which would have allowed foreign ownership or final sale to foreign entities, “which we simply couldn’t do because our bottom line was to stay Kiwi-owned”.

He believed the bank remained an important part of New Zealand’s banking landscape.

Ardern said after 20 years of operation for Kiwibank, it was an exciting milestone.

Labour backbench MP Gaurav Sharma
Labour’s caucus will tomorrow consider expelling Hamilton West MP Dr Gaurav Sharma.

Ardern said there had been no basis to a lot of the claims that had been made by Dr Sharma, “and I think we do need to have thresholds before we launch into things like inquiries that of course come at considerable expense and of course stress and anxiety to the staff that have been drawn in”.

Dr Sharma provided a recording of someone he said was a senior MP in the caucus to Newshub, who called him after a meeting he was not invited to.

Ardern said she did not think the fact it was secretly recorded was appropriate and she did not intend to chase down details of who it was.

She said it was her personal belief the person who contacted Sharma was trying to help the situation.

A message from minister Kiri Allan, shared to the caucus, which Dr Sharma shared with media in a screenshot he claimed showed backbench MPs were being advised on how to avoid the Official Information Act, had been taken out of context, Ardern said.

“What you can see there is a minister who is concerned — as a decision-making minister, Minister of Conservation, remember … she needs to ensure that no one seeks to compromise that decision-making. It’s only appropriate to remind MPs that it wouldn’t be appropriate to lobby a decision-making minister.”

Ministers worked hard to ensure, where they did have decision-making powers, they treated those decisions very seriously, she said.

“We often can be judicially reviewed on the basis on which we make decisions, we do need to make sure that we undertake those decisions with due caution and it’s important to make sure colleagues know how seriously we take that as well.”

Responding to further questions about Sharma’s claim that MPs were being taught to avoid the OIA, Ardern said it was important that MPs had knowledge about how to handle information.

“A question was asked where an MP raised a situation where a constituent’s information was released in an OIA and was concerned about that … we find ourselves in a conversation where we’ve got a complete misrepresentation of the situation.”

She said whether or not Dr Sharma was expelled would be decided by caucus tomorrow.

The rules dictate that a member facing expulsion must be granted the right to attend and speak, “and of course we follow our rules closely”.

She said Sharma had, to date, not chosen to offer a defence to the caucus, nor had he taken up the offer of mediation.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Residents of Nelson in Aotearoa New Zealand’s South Island are cleaning up and counting the cost of flood damage across the region, while authorities work to fix roads, clear slips and rebuild infrastructure.

More than 400 homes had to be evacuated over the past few days after the Maitai River burst its banks and a state of emergency was declared in Nelson-Tasman and West Coast districts.

RNZ has collated photos showing some of that destruction caused by this week’s “weather bomb”.

• READ MORE: Hundreds evacuated in NZ’s South Island floods – state of emergency
• SEE MORE: RNZ’s images of the devastating damage

Nelson’s mayor Rachel Reece said: “it will take years, not months” for the city to recover.

The overflowing Oldham Stream in Atawhai caused a footbridge to collapse, splintering the stream to the playground on one side, and through a neighbour’s property on the other.

An Atawhai local person edging on the overflowing Oldham Creek said the pedestrian bridge collapsed yesterday and the build up of debris had sent water gushing either direction, flooding their properties.

His neighbour, who lives next to the creek, evacuated yesterday.

Worried about high tide
He said they were worried for what might happen once high tide comes back, the forecasted downpour later today, and if more debris piles up.

Other locals that spoke to RNZ said they had never had flooding like this.

Either side of the bridge is a park and a cycle track. A pump track, fundraised by the local community, is ruined.

Meanwhile traffic has piled up from Atawhai into Nelson as multiple slips block parts of State Highway 6 — the only connection road for Atawhai.

A state of emergency was also declared in Marlborough, with more heavy rain expected to fall on the water-saturated region overnight.

Mayor John Leggett said it would ensure the emergency response team had the resources it needed to support communities affected by heavy rain.

Heavy rain causes multiple slips in Wellington https://t.co/WlOvkBvq7J

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) August 19, 2022

In the capital Wellington, the ongoing heavy rain caused multiple landslips.

Wellington City Council said more than 40 incidents were reported around the city today, on top of about 20 incidents yesterday.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Hundreds of people in Nelson in Aotearoa New Zealand’s South Island spent the night out of their homes and a state of emergency was declared after the Maitai River burst its banks.

Occupants of 233 homes near the Maitai River were evacuated and cordons put in place at Tasman and Nile Streets.

Soldiers have been patrolling the streets to keep an eye on evacuated properties and all residents are being asked to stay home if possible.

• READ MORE: Building in flood-prone locations needs to stop, insurer IAG says
• Follow RNZ’s state of emergency live blog

The country’s largest insurer, AIG, said building in flood-prone areas had to stop.

IAG has released a three-part plan to try speed up efforts to reduce flood risk from rivers.

It said climate change was having an enormous impact on the insurance sector, and there needed to be simple, practical, concrete actions quickly.

IAG has released a three-part plan to try speed up efforts to reduce flood risk from rivers.

There have been 10 major floods in the past two years with total insured losses of about $400 million, while the wider economic and social costs extend into the billions.

People in 160 homes in low-lying parts of Westport were been asked to leave so they would not have to be rescued if their homes were flooded.

On the West Coast, the Buller River levels are dropping but civil defence remains on alert with more rain forecast.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Evacuated Nelson residents wait to discover extent of flood damage https://t.co/wTXwBuWJor

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) August 17, 2022

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior and was authored by Andrea Chalupa & Sarah Kendzior.

This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior and was authored by Andrea Chalupa & Sarah Kendzior.

Explosive new data shows the sea level is rising twice as fast as previously thought in some parts of Aotearoa, massively reducing the amount of time authorities have to respond.

The major new projections show infrastructure and homes in Auckland and Wellington — as well as many other places — risk inundation decades earlier than expected.

For example, in just 18 years parts of the capital will see 30cm of sea level rise, causing once-in-a-century flood damage every year.

• READ MORE: Other climate change reports
• NZ SeaRise’s online tool — available here from 5am, today May 2.

Previously, councils and other authorities had not expected to reach this threshold until 2060 — halving the time to plan for mitigation or retreat.

The new information comes from a programme comprising dozens of local and international scientists called NZ SeaRise, which also includes GNS Science and Niwa.

It combines data about where land is sinking with the latest international sea-level rise projections.

The new information is a game changer, and will likely have serious consequences for climate adaptation planning, and could impact property prices.

Globally the sea level is expected to rise about half a metre by 2100 — but for large parts of New Zealand it could more than double that because of land subsidence.

Victoria University of Wellington professor and SeaRise programme co-leader Dr Tim Naish said: “We have less time to act than we thought.”

Wellington: Just 18 years or less before serious effects
Dr Naish said he was surprised how soon impacts would be felt in parts of Auckland and Wellington.

Some areas are sinking 3mm or 4mm a year — about the annual rate at which the sea is rising.

“[This] doubles the amount of sea level rise and it halves the time … you thought you had to deal with the sea-level rise that was in the original guidance documents that councils were using.”

Dr Naish described a case study of the road connecting Petone and Eastbourne in Lower Hutt, which would see 30cm of sea level rise by 2040.

This threshold is important because at that level a one-in-100 year storm which closes the roads and damages infrastructure could happen every year.

He said local and regional councils have been making plans for this threshold to be reached in 2060, giving 20 fewer years to plan and adapt accordingly.

Other places on Wellington’s south coast such as Ōwhiro Bay, Lyall Bay, Seatoun among others are also subsiding.

“You are going to see the impacts of quite damaging sea level rise much sooner than we thought …. roads and properties inundated.”

He said road and rail infrastructure on State Highway 2 at the Korokoro interchange in Petone is another highly vulnerable area.

The largest overall increases in the whole country are on the southeast North Island along the Wairarapa Coast.

Here, the sea level could be be up well over one and a half metres by 2100.

About 30cm of sea level rise is unavoidable because of the amount of climate gases already in the atmosphere.

Homes and crucial infrastructure in Auckland in the firing line
Dr Naish said vulnerable places in Auckland included the waterfront around the bays, Tamaki Drive, the Viaduct, areas around the Northwestern Motorway at Point Chevalier, St Heliers and Mission Bay.

He said many of these places already have issues during king tides, are close to sea level, and are sinking.

At the Viaduct the land is sinking about about 2.5mm a year.

“That almost doubles the rate of expected sea-level rise and halves the time you have.

“The city council, [and] the port authority are all going to have to start looking closely in terms of their future activities at this new information.”

He said in many parts of Auckland the sea-level would rise 30 to 50 percent faster than what was previously thought.

Meanwhile, he said parts of Thames township is also very vulnerable, and the sinking happening in the Hauraki plains means the stopbanks there have a shorter lifespan than previously thought.

Richmond in Nelson a hotspot
A major worry is the suburb of Richmond and nearby parts in the Nelson area which is subsiding at about 5mm a year.

“That whole area there has been a lot of development, new subdivisions, housing … the airport is very exposed, and that road around [the coast to Richmond] is vulnerable,” Naish said.

He said local and regional councils in the region have known for a long time there could be issues there with sea-level rise.

“There is going to be some really big challenges for that region.”

Online tool lets residents, authorities check
New Zealanders will soon be able to see for the first time how much and how fast sea-level will rise along their own stretch of coast.

The entire coastline has been mapped down to a 2km spacing.

The new advice combines data about where land is sinking with the latest international sea-level rise projections.

It will be an major new tool for councils, businesses and homeowners to assess risk from erosion and floods.

New data shows that sea levels are rising twice as fast as expected in New Zealand https://t.co/TUj5Vdr4nk

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) May 1, 2022

‘Information is power’
Dr Naish said the new data was important information and people should try not to be too overwhelmed.

“Information is power, so don’t be afraid of it.

“We still have time … but we don’t have time to sit on our hands anymore.

“If you’re a [council representative] or you’re a developer, or you’re a decisions maker in the coastal areas of New Zealand you need to start thinking right now what the plan is for adapting to that sea-level rise.

“Yes, it is a bit terrifying but there is still time and I think that is the way to look at it.”

The information is timely, coming hot on the heels of the climate change draft adaptation plan released last week.

It asks for public input on the plans, and on so-called ”managed retreat'” – abandoning areas where it is not possible or financially viable to live any longer.

Uncertainty about predictions laid out in tool
Dr Naish said uncertainty about the predictions were clearly laid out in the tool — but he said there was no question that there would be a response from property owners, the insurance and banking sectors to the new information.

GNS Science Environment and Climate Theme Leader Dr Richard Levy said until now, the risk from sea-level rise has been quite poorly defined for New Zealand.

“Current sea-level projections in the Ministry for the Environment coastal hazards guidance do not take into account local vertical land movements.”

Most of the information about sea-level rise was more or less extrapolated out from the global average.

NZ SeaRise is a five-year research programme comprising local and international experts from Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, GNS Science, NIWA, University of Otago and the Antarctic Science Platform.

It is funded by the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment.

Climate change and warming temperatures are causing sea levels to rise, on average, by 3.5 mm per year.

This sea level rise is caused by thermal expansion of the ocean, by melting land based glaciers, and by melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Explosive new data shows the sea level is rising twice as fast as previously thought in some parts of Aotearoa, massively reducing the amount of time authorities have to respond.

The major new projections show infrastructure and homes in Auckland and Wellington — as well as many other places — risk inundation decades earlier than expected.

For example, in just 18 years parts of the capital will see 30cm of sea level rise, causing once-in-a-century flood damage every year.

• READ MORE: Other climate change reports
• NZ SeaRise’s online tool — available here from 5am, today May 2.

Previously, councils and other authorities had not expected to reach this threshold until 2060 — halving the time to plan for mitigation or retreat.

The new information comes from a programme comprising dozens of local and international scientists called NZ SeaRise, which also includes GNS Science and Niwa.

It combines data about where land is sinking with the latest international sea-level rise projections.

The new information is a game changer, and will likely have serious consequences for climate adaptation planning, and could impact property prices.

Globally the sea level is expected to rise about half a metre by 2100 — but for large parts of New Zealand it could more than double that because of land subsidence.

Victoria University of Wellington professor and SeaRise programme co-leader Dr Tim Naish said: “We have less time to act than we thought.”

Wellington: Just 18 years or less before serious effects
Dr Naish said he was surprised how soon impacts would be felt in parts of Auckland and Wellington.

Some areas are sinking 3mm or 4mm a year — about the annual rate at which the sea is rising.

“[This] doubles the amount of sea level rise and it halves the time … you thought you had to deal with the sea-level rise that was in the original guidance documents that councils were using.”

Dr Naish described a case study of the road connecting Petone and Eastbourne in Lower Hutt, which would see 30cm of sea level rise by 2040.

This threshold is important because at that level a one-in-100 year storm which closes the roads and damages infrastructure could happen every year.

He said local and regional councils have been making plans for this threshold to be reached in 2060, giving 20 fewer years to plan and adapt accordingly.

Other places on Wellington’s south coast such as Ōwhiro Bay, Lyall Bay, Seatoun among others are also subsiding.

“You are going to see the impacts of quite damaging sea level rise much sooner than we thought …. roads and properties inundated.”

He said road and rail infrastructure on State Highway 2 at the Korokoro interchange in Petone is another highly vulnerable area.

The largest overall increases in the whole country are on the southeast North Island along the Wairarapa Coast.

Here, the sea level could be be up well over one and a half metres by 2100.

About 30cm of sea level rise is unavoidable because of the amount of climate gases already in the atmosphere.

Homes and crucial infrastructure in Auckland in the firing line
Dr Naish said vulnerable places in Auckland included the waterfront around the bays, Tamaki Drive, the Viaduct, areas around the Northwestern Motorway at Point Chevalier, St Heliers and Mission Bay.

He said many of these places already have issues during king tides, are close to sea level, and are sinking.

At the Viaduct the land is sinking about about 2.5mm a year.

“That almost doubles the rate of expected sea-level rise and halves the time you have.

“The city council, [and] the port authority are all going to have to start looking closely in terms of their future activities at this new information.”

He said in many parts of Auckland the sea-level would rise 30 to 50 percent faster than what was previously thought.

Meanwhile, he said parts of Thames township is also very vulnerable, and the sinking happening in the Hauraki plains means the stopbanks there have a shorter lifespan than previously thought.

Richmond in Nelson a hotspot
A major worry is the suburb of Richmond and nearby parts in the Nelson area which is subsiding at about 5mm a year.

“That whole area there has been a lot of development, new subdivisions, housing … the airport is very exposed, and that road around [the coast to Richmond] is vulnerable,” Naish said.

He said local and regional councils in the region have known for a long time there could be issues there with sea-level rise.

“There is going to be some really big challenges for that region.”

Online tool lets residents, authorities check
New Zealanders will soon be able to see for the first time how much and how fast sea-level will rise along their own stretch of coast.

The entire coastline has been mapped down to a 2km spacing.

The new advice combines data about where land is sinking with the latest international sea-level rise projections.

It will be an major new tool for councils, businesses and homeowners to assess risk from erosion and floods.

New data shows that sea levels are rising twice as fast as expected in New Zealand https://t.co/TUj5Vdr4nk

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) May 1, 2022

‘Information is power’
Dr Naish said the new data was important information and people should try not to be too overwhelmed.

“Information is power, so don’t be afraid of it.

“We still have time … but we don’t have time to sit on our hands anymore.

“If you’re a [council representative] or you’re a developer, or you’re a decisions maker in the coastal areas of New Zealand you need to start thinking right now what the plan is for adapting to that sea-level rise.

“Yes, it is a bit terrifying but there is still time and I think that is the way to look at it.”

The information is timely, coming hot on the heels of the climate change draft adaptation plan released last week.

It asks for public input on the plans, and on so-called ”managed retreat'” – abandoning areas where it is not possible or financially viable to live any longer.

Uncertainty about predictions laid out in tool
Dr Naish said uncertainty about the predictions were clearly laid out in the tool — but he said there was no question that there would be a response from property owners, the insurance and banking sectors to the new information.

GNS Science Environment and Climate Theme Leader Dr Richard Levy said until now, the risk from sea-level rise has been quite poorly defined for New Zealand.

“Current sea-level projections in the Ministry for the Environment coastal hazards guidance do not take into account local vertical land movements.”

Most of the information about sea-level rise was more or less extrapolated out from the global average.

NZ SeaRise is a five-year research programme comprising local and international experts from Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, GNS Science, NIWA, University of Otago and the Antarctic Science Platform.

It is funded by the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment.

Climate change and warming temperatures are causing sea levels to rise, on average, by 3.5 mm per year.

This sea level rise is caused by thermal expansion of the ocean, by melting land based glaciers, and by melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Legendary filmmaker Stanley Nelson’s new documentary “Attica” has been nominated for the first Oscar in his three-decades-long career documenting the Black American experience. The film tells the story of the deadliest prison uprising in U.S. history, when men at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York rebelled on September 9, 1971, overpowering guards and taking over much of the prison to protest conditions, before they were brutally suppressed. Attica is one of the most “important American events that happened over the last 50 years,” says Nelson. He also has an upcoming film focusing on the racist origins of police and discusses the hate crimes trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers and the condemnation of police in New Jersey who broke up a fight by violently arresting a Black teen while allowing an older white teen to remain free. “These things are not just happening for the first time. These things are being filmed for the first time,” says Nelson.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Well, I started the book right after I finished a book of mine about cruelty. I started it back around 20—I don’t know, gosh, a long time ago. I was working on the book before I wrote The Argonauts, my last book. So, it was actually a matter of going back to my files after The Argonauts was written. So, I would say probably 2013, something like that.

Freedom is a broad concept, one that’s recently associated in America with conservatism and protecting the status quo. Would you say this book was an attempt to reclaim freedom’s more progressive or subversive allowances?

I’m a kind of thinker who tends to not trust simple reclamation gestures or like, “I’ll take that back from you.” I think it became not like, “Hey, that’s bad liberation, here’s good liberation over here. Let me tell you about it.” Or, “We seem to have forgotten freedom’s progressive or social justice value.” I think that I wanted to consider, rather than partition. The book considers a more marbled version of freedom that could incorporate many different strands within it.

You make a distinction in the book’s introduction between freedom as a future achievement rather than an ongoing present practice. Can you elaborate a little on what that means to you?

I think that it means that in any given moment, whether it’s in a movement or in a pandemic, or in a relationship, in a sexual encounter, whatever it is, we have choices and we have constraints, and sometimes they’re more dire in terms of their injustice than others. But, a practice of freedom to me involves a kind of active engagement with looking at what our choices and what our constraints are at any given instance and trying to flip the constraints that aren’t working for our goals, that aren’t working for us, and seeing how fixed some of them are and how stubborn and how moveable.

So, that’s a little bit different than perseverating on a time and a place when we will be free. It’s a more down-to-earth kind of practice. The two don’t obviate each other. You can aspire towards future versions of more liberation while also having practices of freedom. It’s not really an either-or, it’s more that the book focuses on one over the other.

What does that ongoing present practice look like for you right now, and how do you imagine it might look in the future?

I hate to sound pedantic, but part of the point of the book or part of the notion of that negotiation is that it doesn’t look the same in all places. So, I think it looks like ongoing negotiation. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. Like I said, it really depends on the enterprise. I mean, some of it is affective, mood-related, like when we tend to tell ourselves things can’t ever change or they’re doomed. And sometimes it involves understanding that those are actually mental constraints that we put on ourselves, that serve psychic purposes but aren’t necessarily based in an empirical… doomed or not doomed is not necessarily an empirical reality judgment that all people would agree upon.

So, some of it’s affective labor, as we all have been doing in the pandemic under incredible constraints, trying to figure out the old classic, “What things can I control and have power over and what things can I not?” And some of it’s how to agitate for change: where I want to see it and how to also live with the limits of what I can do and find feelings of more freedom in places that otherwise feel completely constricted.

You began writing this book a long time ago. Did any of the events in the intervening years, including the pandemic, affect your process or your state of mind while writing it?

Oh, sure. I mean, how could they not? The pandemic hit after most of the book had been written, so thankfully I didn’t have to have the presence of mind to be doing all that scholarly labor and coming up with new thoughts in the middle of a really tense time. But I did edit the book in that time.

I began the book before Trump ever got on those stairs and announced his candidacy. But in the United States, as you’ve mentioned, [freedom] has been associated with repressive or autocratic forces. And that is absolutely not new, not at all. So, nothing about the book is like, “Wow, look at the last five years.” I wouldn’t say anything has been a surprise.

It was actually difficult, in a way, because the pandemic made certain concepts that I was trying to write about more fulsomely a little tinny. Things got reduced in the public discourse to a kind of hollering about obligation versus individual freedom. It was clarifying, but it was also distorting in the sense that any binary that begins to calcify and that you begin to see every day, it can shut down thought.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you have any general advice that you would give to writers working on a long project or artists working on something that takes a long time to produce, during which time passes and their feelings on the topic are subject to change?

Fortitude. Yeah, fortitude. Also, one of my good friends and mentors gave me the best advice I’ve ever gotten about this. He said, “Remember, your feelings about the work don’t determine the value of the work.” You can feel frustrated, disgusted, agitated, hopeless, every day, on and off, but you can’t necessarily believe all your moods. You just have to keep on working.

Yeah, not believing in your moods. That’s a quote from Emerson, I might add. “Our moods do not believe in each other.” Which is one of my favorite quotes because when you feel despair, despair doesn’t believe in joy. And that can be very hard as a writer. If you feel like you open up your files and everything looks like shit and you’re upset, that mood is going to make you want to invalidate your whole project. You just have to get kind of Buddhist about it and recognize all that is weather.

The book has some references to a Buddhist thinker. That seems to be a through-line.

Yeah.

In the “Art Song” chapter, you suggest that a fear, be it paranoid or more valid, of shaming or of institutional censorship might affect the process of art-making, even unconsciously. What might we lose collectively when our art is affected by fear or paranoia, and what might we gain?

I think in general, every age and every moment has people self-censoring in different ways. You have people making art in times when they’d be burned at the stake. Like, in Spain, even still, you can’t paint certain things about the king or whatever.

So, I think it’s foolhardy to imagine a state of total freedom in which art persists. It can be a fine line between hyperventilating about a so-called censorious atmosphere in the way the rightwing gins up this phantom, while at the same time acknowledging that a lot of people… As a teacher, I find this in my students, and I find it in my friends, that a lot of people do feel concerned with what they might want to express, and worried about if it’s wrong or if it’s not perfect.

I think there’s a lot to be gained. I think a lot of the reckoning happening with thinking about what we’re making and putting different lenses of criticality onto it, can actually make for better art. At the same time, there’s an idea that I think bled over from the academy. I say “from the academy” because I think a lot of times academic politicized writing tries to see things from all sides. If there’s a painting or a show or a movie that focuses on one thing, the easy charge is, why didn’t it focus on X, Y, or Z, as if a platonic work of art could be everything.

I think what you can lose is… If people feel put on the planet just to focus on art, and if they feel that there’s something wrong with that… I think people should continue to do their work, while also bringing really hard, critical lenses to their impulses, which may be, like all impulses, less interesting under scrutiny than they originally might think. You may actually really get somewhere with being harder on what you thought was what you really wanted to emanate.

The book considers various ways in which art has historically engaged with, or currently engages with, taboo, and it considers why this aspect of art-making is worth protecting.

I do try to talk about art as a place for exploration of taboo, or images or things that might be unacceptable elsewhere. I think that there’s value in that, and I think that makes for a certain risk, that art has to take a certain risk. Not all art, necessarily, in the same way, but I think if it doesn’t take some of those risks, it is probably not living up to all it could be. And with risk comes failure. I think that is built into the process, and I think that’s okay, even when it’s appalling. Taken on a broad level, I think it has to be a part of the process.

Failure is also subjective. There occasionally can be works of art where everyone agrees it’s terrible and worthless. But I learned a lot in working on The Art of Cruelty and talking to people at events and emailing with people. I really did learn that people have different needs and preferences about what they’re going to art for. And this book tries to be explicit about what it might mean to honor that heterogeneity.

This books draws less from your own life than some of your earlier books, including The Argonauts. Was that a deliberate choice?

My books flip-flop all around in terms of ratio. They take up the idiom needed for that particular project, and sometimes that means it’s a more lyrical or personal project, and sometimes it means otherwise. In this particular case, I didn’t have a lot to say about my personal experiences of liberation, but I had lots to say about the things that it talks about.

The last chapter, “Riding the Blinds,” does feel a bit more personal, though. Was it important to you to discuss your own life as it relates to climate change?

This book ended up involving a lot of thinking about freedom and its relationship to time. I think because climate change is a temporal problem, and because, like I say in that chapter, the figure of the child is easily used as a way of thinking about futurity. It felt natural to write about parenting around the climate. But I’m also very aware that it’s a trope. Like, “what will we leave our children?”

You discuss throughout how restraints can be a form of freedom. Can you elaborate on that?

I think restraint is an undervalued form of freedom. It kind of relates to what we were saying before about impulse, in that, a lack of impulse control, whether it be addiction to substance or fossil fuels, is a certain kind of freedom, but it can often actually be a compulsion that doesn’t actually lead to the state that we desire or the state that would cause less suffering and make us feel more free.

Again, not to be Buddhist-cheesy, but a lot of meditation practices have as a goal, learning how to insert periods of pause, even three seconds, in between impulse and action, so that one can not just act out of impulsive anger, impulsive aggression. To import in real time moments of miniature restraint that allow you to make decisions about what you want to do and not be ruled by instinct. So, I think, scaled up, that can mean being like, “Whoa, we really want to burn all our fuel in the ground?” Because when I’m running from my house in a wildfire and can’t breathe, I don’t feel very free.

It’s difficult to talk about these forms of freedom as adult versus child freedom, this idea of the impulsive child who doesn’t wait for the marshmallow or something like that. I’m not sure that’s a good frame because it seems like it has shaming built into it. I think I’m less interested in being like, “We’ve got to grow up.” That’s why I prefer this frame of learning as a practice to insert delays. I think it’s less judgmental, and it gives us more options, and it doesn’t make us feel like we’re graduating out of an immature state to a mature state.

It reminds us, again, that this is an ongoing practice and that certain forms of restraint are not constraint necessarily. Restraint usually is something that you perform to yourself as opposed to something put upon you by an external power. In that sense, it’s a choice. Therefore, anything that feels like a choice and not an imposition tends to give us a feeling that we’re in control of our freedom.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Maddie Crum.