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Fatal police shootings were higher in 2013 than they’ve been in two decades, according to new FBI data. But experts say the figures fail to give an accurate picture of police killings.
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR), which collects data voluntarily submitted by police departments, looked only at killings which police considered “justifiable homicide,” defined by the bureau as “the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty.”
There were 461 justifiable homicides reported last year, up from 426 in 2012. But the limited figures pose another question: how many people do police really kill?
As Radley Balko writes at Washington Post, “[U]nofficial attempts to compile a more thorough count of killings by police have put the figure much, much higher —as many as 1,700 since May 2013, and more than 900 so far in 2014.”
The FBI’s numbers “are bullshit,” journalist D. Brian Burghart, who operates FatalEncounters.org, told Common Dreams. “They’re widely known to be inaccurate.” The only approach is for a non-governmental organization to collect the data, as Fatal Encounters, Killed by Police, the Gun Violence Archive, and other dedicated groups are doing, Burghart said.
There is no question that the numbers are wrong, Burghart said. “It’s just a question of how wrong they are.”
As ThinkProgress notes, some states, such as Florida, chose not to report any death count information for years—so the increase in FBI statistics could simply be the result of more jurisdictions reporting, rather than an increase in killings. Likewise, in many jurisdictions, police departments don’t require justifiable homicide reports to include the names of officers or the deceased, Burghart said.
But without accurate information, it is impossible to parse the data. “It is irresponsible that we don’t have a complete set of numbers,” University of Nebraska criminologist Samuel Walker told USA Today. “Whether the numbers are up, down or stable, this (national database) needs to be done. … This is a scandal.”
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“The increase sounds notable, but the underlying data continues to be nearly useless,” writes Reuben Fischer-Baum at FiveThirtyEight. “[T]he FBI’s UCR program undercounts what it classifies as justifiable police homicides (while skirting the issue of non-justifiable homicides), and should not be considered a useful estimate.”
The data within the reports is also unreliable, Burghart notes. In November, CBS reported that Brazilian police kill an average of six people a day, while U.S. law enforcement “killed 11,090 people over the past 30 years.” That amounts to about 369 annually—less than two a day, a lower number than the FBI itself reported since 2008.
The FBI statistics “are so inaccurate,” that to compare them to Brazilian police killings on record is “the height of irony,” Burghart said. “It’s an even greater lie over time.”
ProPublica found in October that young black men were 21 times more likely to be killed by police than young white men. And recent protests and organized actions in Ferguson, Missouri have focused international attention to the issue of institutionalized racism, police brutality, and militarization—which in turn highlighted how little information is available on police killings. As Fischer-Baum pointed out in August, the UCR program has severe limitations:
“Since we don’t have real numbers, we can’t look at different jurisdictions to see what’s most effective, [like] new policies… that decrease numbers,” Burghart told Common Dreams. “We have nothing quantifiable.” Burghart also pointed out that within the UCR reports, police who are involved in killings are often listed as the victims.
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Measuring against a small parameter of justifiable homicide also skirts reporting “deaths by Taser, beatings, ‘medical emergency,’ car crashes, misdemeanor suspects, innocent bystanders, domestic violence victims,” Burghart said. “If [the FBI] presents this information as though it’s real… Americans don’t have as much reason to be upset,” Burghart said. “Four hundred people a year is more ‘reasonable’ than 1,400.”
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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – Has organised civil society, bound up in internal bureaucracy, in slow, tired processes and donor accountability, become simply another layer of a global system that perpetuates injustice and inequality?
How can civil society organizations (CSOs) build a broad movement that draws in, represents and mobilises the citizenry, and how can they effect fundamental, systemic transformation, rather than trading in incremental change?
This kind of introspective reflection was at the heart of a process of engagement among CSOs from around the world that gathered in Johannesburg from Nov. 19 to 21 for the “Toward a World Citizens Movement: Learning from the Grassroots” conference.
Organised by DEEEP, a project within the European civil society umbrella organisation CONCORD which builds capacity among CSOs and carries out advocacy around global citizenship and global citizenship education, the conference brought together 200 participants.
“It is important that people understand the inter-linkages at the global level; that they understand that they are part of the system and can act, based on their rights, to influence the system in order to bring about change and make life better – so it’s no longer someone else deciding things on behalf of the citizens”
– Rilli Lappalainen, Secretary-General of the Finnish NGDO PlatformKey partners were CIVICUS (the World Alliance for Citizen Participation, which is one of the largest and most diverse global civil society networks) and GCAP (Global Call to Action Against Poverty).
The three-day gathering was part of a larger series of conferences and activities that were arranged to coincide during the 2014 International Civil Society Week organised by CIVICUS, which closed Nov. 24.
Global citizenship is a concept that is gaining currency within the United Nations system, to the delight of people like Rilli Lappalainen, Secretary-General of the Finnish NGDO Platform and a key advocate for global citizenship education.
At the heart of this concept is people’s empowerment, explains Lappalainen. “It is important that people understand the inter-linkages at the global level; that they understand that they are part of the system and can act, based on their rights, to influence the system in order to bring about change and make life better – so it’s no longer someone else deciding things on behalf of the citizens.”
The process of introspection around building an effective civil society movement that can lead to such change began a year ago at the first Global Conference, also held in Johannesburg.
The discourse there highlighted the need for new ways of thinking and working – for the humility to linger in the uncomfortable spaces of not knowing, for processes of mutual learning, sharing and questioning.
This new spirit of inquiry and engagement, very much evident in the creative, interactive format of this year’s conference, is encapsulated in an aphorism introduced by thought-leader Bayo Akomolafe from Nigeria: “The time is very urgent – let us slow down”.
Akomolafe’s keynote address explored the need for a shift in process: “We are realising our theories of change need to change,” he said. “We must slow down today because running faster in a dark maze will not help us find our way out.”
“We must slow down today,” he continued, “because if we have to travel far, we must find comfort in each other – in all the glorious ambiguity that being in community brings … We must slow down because that is the only way we will see … the contours of new possibilities urgently seeking to open to us.”
A key opportunity for mutual learning and questioning was provided on the second day by a panel on ‘Challenging World Views’.
Prof Rob O’Donoghue from the Environmental Learning Research Centre at South Africa’s Rhodes University explored the philosophy of ubuntu, Brazilian activist and community organiser Eduardo Rombauer spoke about the principles of horizontal organising, and Hiro Sakurai, representative of the Buddhist network Soka Gakkai International (SGI) to the United Nations in New York, discussed the network’s core philosophy of soka, or value creation.
A female activist from Bhutan who was to join the panel was unable to do so because of difficulties in acquiring a visa – a situation that highlighted a troubling observation made by Danny Sriskandarajah, head of CIVICUS, about the ways in which the space for CSOs to work is being shrunk around the world.
The absence of women on the panel was noted as problematic. How is it possible to effectively question a global system that is so deeply patriarchal without the voices of women, asked a male participant. This prompted the spontaneous inclusion of a female member of the audience.
In the spirit of embracing not-knowing, the panellists were asked to pose the questions they think we should be asking. How do we understand and access our power? How do we foster people’s engagement and break out of our own particular interests to engage in more systems-based thinking? How can multiple worldviews meet and share a moral compass?
Ubuntu philosophy, explained O’Donoghue, can be defined by the statement: “A person is a person through other people.”
The implications of this perspective for the issues at hand are that answers to the problems affecting people on the margins cannot be pre-defined from the outside, but must be worked out through solidarity and through a process of struggle. You cannot come with answers; you can only come into the company of others and share the problems, so that solutions begin to emerge from the margins.
The core perspective of soka philosophy is that each person has the innate ability to create value – to create a positive change – in whatever circumstances they find themselves. Millions of people, Sakurai pointed out, are proving the validity of this idea in their own contexts. This is the essence of the Soka movement.
His point was echoed the following evening in the address of Graca Machel, wife of the late Nelson Mandela, at a CIVICUS reception, in which she spoke of the profound challenges confronting civil society as poverty and inequality deepen and global leaders seem increasingly dismissive of the voices of the people.
Then, toward the end of her speech, she softly recalled “my friend Madiba” (Mandela’s clan name) in the final years of his life, and his consistent message at that time that things are now in our hands.
What he showed us by his example, she said, is that each person has immense resources of good within them. Our task is to draw these out each day and exercise them in the world, wherever we are and in whatever ways we can.
Those listening to Machel saw Mandela’s message as a sign of encouragement in their efforts to create the World Citizens Movement of tomorrow.
© 2019 Inter Press Service
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Farmers, states’ rights activists, and consumer rights advocates gathered in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to protest outside a hearing on a bill they say would gut states’ rights to pass laws requiring the mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
The legislation, introduced earlier this year by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), would give sole authority to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to stipulate labeling requirements for GMO foods and would also allow food manufacturers to use the word “natural” on products that contain GMO ingredients.
Groups that oppose the bill—having dubbed it the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act—argue that under the U.S. Constitution, states and municipalities have the right to pass food-labeling laws to protect the health of their citizens. They say the political discussion has been “hijacked” by large packaged food and biotech companies, who have poured big bucks into blocking such local right-to-know initiatives.
“This bill is a desperate attempt by Monsanto and their supporters to keep the public from knowing when they are buying a GMO product.”
—U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree
“Every citizen in this country, regardless of political affiliation, should be extremely concerned when Congress allows corporations to write laws, and those laws tromp on the rights of consumers and the constitutional rights of state and local governments to pass their own laws to protect their citizens and communities,” said Ronnie Cummins, international director of the Organic Consumers Association.
Currently Vermont is the only state with a GMO labeling law in effect. Maine and Connecticut have passed similar laws, but those laws can’t be enacted unless four or five neighboring states also pass mandatory GMO labeling bills. The DARK Act would make that impossible, leaving the laws in Maine and Connecticut effectively dead. A GMO labeling bill in Oregon just shy of the votes necessary for passage in the November election; the results are currently in a recount.
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Led by the Organic Consumers Association, groups including Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch, the Weston Price Foundation, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, and Food Democracy Now organized buses from across the country to attend a Capitol Hill rally ahead of a 10:15 am hearing on the bill in the Health subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Speakers at the rally included U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine); state representative Kate Webb, co-sponsor of Vermont’s GMO labeling law; author and attorney Jonathan Emord; Randy Hartnell, founder and president of Vital Choice Wild Seafood in Bellingham, Wash.; and Will Allen, a farmer and author from Vermont.
“The message from consumers around the country is loud and clear: They want to know what’s in their food and they don’t want Congress stepping in to block efforts in states like Maine to require GMO labeling,” said Pingree. “This bill is a desperate attempt by Monsanto and their supporters to keep the public from knowing when they are buying a GMO product.”
Participants in Wednesday’s action were Tweeting under the hashtag #StopDARKAct:
#StopDarkAct Tweets
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The United States has spent $1.6 trillion on post-9/11 military operations, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, weapons procurement and maintenance, and base support, according to a report (pdf) issued earlier this month by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
As some analysts point out, that’s more money than the U.S. spent on the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991 all rolled into one.
According to International Business Times, “the $1.6 trillion estimate, which comes to $14 million per hour since 9/11…is up roughly half a trillion dollars from its 2010 estimate, which found that the post-9/11 military operations are second only to World War II in terms of financial cost.”
Of the $1.6 trillion total, CRS specialist Amy Belasco estimates that the funding breaks down as such:
- $686 billion (43%) for Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan);
- $815 billion (51%) for Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn (Iraq);
- $27 billion (2%) for Operation Noble Eagle (providing enhanced security at military bases and military operations related to homeland security);
- $81 billion (5%) for war-designated funding not considered directly related to the Afghanistan or Iraq wars.
The report, dated December 8, states that about 92 percent of the funds went to the Department of Defense, with the remainder split between the State Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other agencies. The key factor determining the cost of war during a given period over the last 13 years has been the number of U.S. troops deployed, according to the report.
To that end, the document says that predicting “future costs of the new U.S. role in countering the Islamic State is difficult because of the nature of the air campaign and uncertainties about whether the U.S. mission may expand.”
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To curtail costs moving forward, the CRS analysis recommends: “Congress may wish to consider ways to restrict war-funding to exclude activities marginally related to war operations and support, and to limit the use of ground troops in Operation Inherent Resolve,” referring to the U.S. military intervention against the Islamic State, or ISIS.
Writing at the Federation of American Scientists blog—where the report was first posted—Steven Aftergood says: “Ideally, the record compiled in the 100-page CRS report would serve as the basis for a comprehensive assessment of U.S. military spending since 9/11: To what extent was the expenditure of $1.6 trillion in this way justified? How much of it actually achieved its intended purpose? How much could have been better spent in other ways?”
Mother Jones notes that “[o]ther reports have estimated the cost of U.S. wars since 9/11 to be far higher than $1.6 trillion. A report by Neta Crawford, a political science professor at Boston University, estimated the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as well as post-2001 assistance to Pakistan—to be roughly $4.4 trillion. The CRS estimate is lower because it does not include additional costs including the lifetime price of health care for disabled veterans and interest on the national debt.”
Speaking to The Fiscal Times, American University professor of international relations and military history Gordon Adams argues that the costs of war are much higher than any report could show.
“All of these figures do not take into account the long-term consequences, in terms of post-traumatic stress disorder or long-term veterans’ bills,” he said. “The costs go on. Iraq and Afghanistan will end up being the gift that keeps on giving because—as we did with Vietnam—we will be living with the consequences for many, many years.”
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The pesticide industry is leveraging its power to push forth a proposal for a pending EU-US trade deal that would put the environment and human health at risk, according to a new report.
The analysis (pdf) by the Washington, DC- and Geneva-based Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) looks at recommendations (pdf) from pesticide lobby groups CropLife America and the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) to negotiators for the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to align regulatory standards by lowering them to US levels rather than increasing them to the stronger safeguards in EU.
The proposal from CropLife America and ECPA, groups that represent the interests of BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta, states: “A harmonized risk assessment framework for pesticide regulation is necessary to ensure the highest level of consumer and environmental protection, while promoting international trade, creating jobs, and enhancing social and economic viability of the EU and the US.”
Erica Smith, co-authof the CIEL reports, stated, “Using words like ‘harmonization’ and ‘cooperation’ the pesticide industry’s proposal hides its true aim: to weaken, slow, or stop efforts to protect people and the planet from exposure to toxic chemicals.”
The report, Smith and co-authors David Azoulay and Baskut Tuncak write, “reveals the extent to which the pesticide industry is willing to go to maximize profits.”
Specifically, the report states, the proposal would:
- Change EU laws to permit the use of carcinogens and other substances of very high concern as pesticides, posing a health hazard to workers, consumers, and communities;
- Allow the import of food from the US with higher levels of toxic pesticides;
- Weaken, slow or stop efforts to regulate endocrine (hormone) disrupting chemicals;
- Obstruct efforts to save bee populations, risking irrevocable damage to the quality and quantity of our food supply;
- Block access to information that is vital to developing non-toxic alternatives;
- Interfere with the democratic process b y usurping the regulatory authority of US States and EU Member States;
- and Install a “regulatory ceiling” hampering global pesticide regulation
Rather than adhering to the EU’s hazard-based approach based on the precautionary principle, CropLife and ECPA’s proposal would open the floodgates in Europe to scores of pesticides that are known carcinogens or contain hormone disrupting chemicals and that are banned in the EU but currently allowed in the US, the authors write.
As for how the groups’ proposal would thwart the development of non-toxic alternatives, the report states that it would encourage the use of “exclusive use” periods. The report explains:
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Also potentially thwarting less harmful alternatives is the industry’s proposal for aligned standards on protection of confidential business information, which would include information claimed by companies as “trade secrets.”
“Access to information regarding the identity of chemicals is vital for the identification of hazardous properties and for the generation of health and safety information regarding those properties, enabling scientists to develop safer solutions,” the report states.
Absent from CropLife America and ECPA’s proposal is any mention of regulatory “harmonization” happening as a result of the US adopting more stringent EU standards, the report notes.
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The US and EU positions on the pesticide industry’s recommendations have not yet been disclosed, CIEL states.
Even without the industry proposal, the TTIP had faced previous criticism by environmental groups based on a leaked text of the deal that included “least trade restrictive” measures that would be a boon to corporations but would threaten fair and safe food for consumers. Further, the Center for Food Safety issued a report on TTIP dangers in May 2014 highlighting that “harmonization” could weaken standards, and put food safety on both sides of the Atlantic at risk.
The European greens have opposed the deal as it stands, as well, based in part on its risk to environmental and food safety. They also warned against giving President Obama fast track authority, also known as Trade Promotion Authority, which would hasten the deal’s passage through Congress. That authority has received increased attention as a result of another pending trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The release of the CIEL report coincides with a step towards transparency regarding the TTIP. Following repeated criticism over the deal’s secrecy, the EU trade commissioner published the EU’s negotiating documents for the trade deal.
The next round of TTIP negotiations are set to take place in Brussels next month.
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A prominent climate change denier and researcher quietly took more than $1.2 million in payouts from the energy industry, including the Koch brothers and other oil lobbyists, for the past 14 years, newly released documents have shown.
Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, accumulated a total of $1.25 million from ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, Southern Company, and a Koch brothers foundation, according to documents obtained by Greenpeace through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings.
For years, Soon’s work has been a go-to source for politicians angling to block climate change legislation, such as Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who has called climate change a hoax. Soon has also testified before the U.S. Congress and appeared on numerous conservative news shows to claim that greenhouse gases are not harmful and that recent global warming trends are not caused by human activity, but by variations in the sun’s energy.
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Soon’s acceptance of oil lobby money was previously known, although he has denied that it influences his work. However, the documents reveal the full extent of his ties to the industry, which was not public knowledge. His single biggest funder was Southern Company, an electricity provider which relies on coal-burning power plants and has lobbied heavily against climate legislation. Southern Company gave Soon a total of $409,000.
He also received at least $230,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.
In addition, the documents confirm that Soon neglected to disclose his close ties to the fossil fuel industry in most of his academic papers on climate change. At least 11 papers published since 2008 do not state any connection to the companies who paid him, and at least eight of those papers may have violated the ethical guidelines of the journals in which they appeared.
In correspondence with his funders, Soon called his research papers and Congressional testimony “deliverables,” which he completed in exchange for the money.
The Guardian reports:
While energy companies have long funded the work of useful allies, the new documents shed light on the role of scientists like Soon who help fuel the debate over climate change and its causes.
The New York Times writes:
Davies told the Guardian, “The company was paying him to write peer-reviewed science and that relationship was not acknowledged in the peer-reviewed literature.
“These proposals and contracts show debatable interventions in science literally on the behalf of Southern Company and the Kochs.”
The Center for Astrophysics does not require its scientists to disclose their funding sources. Both Harvard University and the Smithsonian have acknowledged that climate change is caused by human activity. Harvard remains invested in the fossil fuel industry, despite long-running calls for the university to pull its money from those companies.
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Max Verstappen admitted that second place in today’s Eifel Grand Prix was an accurate picture of Red Bull’s performance at the Nurburgring.
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The team had pushed Mercedes hard in practice and qualifying on Saturday, but didn’t seem to be able to keep up with their rivals when it came to the race itself.
Verstappen qualified in third place and maintained the position over the opening laps of the race, eventually picking up the runners-up spot behind Lewis Hamilton when Valtteri Bottas retired.
“We finished second where I think we belong today, and that’s the most important,” Verstappen told the media after the race.
- Read also: Hamilton takes record-equalling win after Bottas sidelined
“I think overall it was a good race. I was just trying to follow Lewis once Valtteri dropped out. I think the pace was good, just tried to do our own race, they were just a little bit too fast.”
“Lewis was a bit faster throughout the whole race, but from our side I think, overall it was a positive weekend, so very pleased with that. You just keep on working to try and close the gap further.
“We brought new parts to the car, so the car definitely improved,” he added. “We’ll try and get more out of it because of course the weekend was a bit shorter than expected and we’ll try and improve further.
“Hopefully of course next race we can try it all over again,” he added.
Verstappen’s biggest moment of concern was when the race was neutralised behind the safety car while Lando Norris’ car was recovered from the side of the track.
The delay allowed the tyres to cool off in the chilly conditions, which meant everyone lacked grip at the restart and have rise to complaints from both Verstappen and Hamilton.
“The track is very cold, the tyres are already cold when you leave the box and I just didn’t understand why the safety car was out so long,” he said.
“I understand they want to bunch up the field but it’s pretty dangerous with these cars when the tyres are so cold. We’ll look into that.”
Verstappen did have the satisfaction of snatching the bonus point for fastest lap of the race from Hamilton at the very end of the Grand Prix. “Last lap I thought, ‘I’m just going to give it a go and see what happens.’
“The fastest lap in the end was enjoyable,” he admitted. “I didn’t think I would get it, but I was just trying to go flat-out, see what happened and luckily it worked out
“We just managed to get that fastest lap but also that one extra point. I was pretty happy with that.”
Verstappen’s team mate Alex Albon had a disappointing day, suffering multiple lock-ups and flat-spotting his tyres, receiving a penalty for colliding with AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat, and finally retiring with a punctured radiator.
“He was very unlucky in that he picked up some debris that has pierced the radiator on the cooling circuit,” team boss Christian Horner explained.
“We just saw our temperatures starting to go sky high. Before losing an engine it seemed we had no choice but to stop the car.”
As well as a five second in-race penalty, Albon was subsequently handed two penalty points on his F1 superlicence for the incident with Kvyat.
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In less than two years, if current trends continued unchecked, the richest 1% percent of people on the planet will own at least half of the world’s wealth.
That’s the conclusion of a new report from Oxfam International, released Monday, which states that the rate of global inequality is not only morally obscene, but an existential threat to the economies of the world and the very survival of the planet. Alongside climate change, Oxfam says that spiraling disparity between the super-rich and everyone else, is brewing disaster for humanity as a whole.
“Do we really want to live in a world where the one percent own more than the rest of us combined?” asked Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International. “The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast.”
According to the report—titled (pdf):
The report also shows that even among the über-rich there remain divisions, with an outsized majority on the list of the world’s wealthiest people hailing from the United States. And it’s not an accident. The world’s most wealthy, as the Oxfam report documents, spends enormous amounts of their money each year on lobbying efforts designed to defend the assets they have and expand their ability to make even more.
The world’s wealthiest, reads the report, “have generated and sustained their vast riches through their interests and activities in a few important economic sectors, including finance and insurance and pharmaceuticals and healthcare. Companies from these sectors spend millions of dollars every year on lobbying to create a policy environment that protects and enhances their interests further. The most prolific lobbying activities in the US are on budget and tax issues; public resources that should be directed to benefit the whole population, rather than reflect the interests of powerful lobbyists.”
Released on the eve of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam says that the world’s financial and political elite can no longer ignore, and should no longer perpetuate, inequality at this scale.
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“Our report is just the latest evidence that inequality has reached shocking extremes, and continues to grow,” said Byanyima, who was invited to act as co-chair for this year’s Davos summit. “It is time for the global leaders of modern capitalism, in addition to our politicians, to work to change the system to make it more inclusive, more equitable and more sustainable.”
She continued, “Extreme inequality isn’t just a moral wrong. It undermines economic growth and it threatens the private sector’s bottom line. All those gathering at Davos who want a stable and prosperous world should make tackling inequality a top priority.”
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Contained in the paper is a seven-point plan of specific proposals which Oxfam says must be added to the agenda of all world leaders:
- by corporations and rich individuals
- such as health and education
- , shifting taxation from labour and consumption towards capital and wealth
- and move towards a living wage for all workers
- and promote economic policies to give women a fair deal
- for the poorest, including a minimum income guarantee
- to tackle inequality.
On her role as co-chair at the WEF summit this week, Byanyima told the Guardian she was surprised to be invited, because Oxfam represents a “critical voice” to most of the others who attend. “We go there to challenge these powerful elites,” she said. “It is an act of courage to invite me.”
However, part of the message contained in the report is that economic inequality of this magnitude is not just threat to the poor and disadvantaged but also to those who have traditionally benefited from the model of pro-growth capitalism. As growing amounts of research have shown—most prominently in the work of French economist Thomas Piketty—the nearly unprecedented levels of inequality is hurting modern capitalism even on its own terms.
But just as these levels of inequality are the result of government policies that have benefited the rich, Oxfam believes that a change in such governing structures is the key to reversing the trend.
As Byanyima told the Guardian, “Extreme inequality is not just an accident or a natural rule of economics. It is the result of policies and with different policies it can be reduced. I am optimistic that there will be change.”
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Seattle high school teacher, activist and Common Dreams contributor Jesse Hagopian, who was pepper sprayed by police during a peaceful rally on Martin Luther King Day, filed a claim against the city and the police department Wednesday afternoon with the Seattle NAACP.
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Hagopian, who teaches at Garfield High School and is a well-known activist in Seattle, says he had just finished giving a speech at the January 19 rally and was walking to his 2-year-old son’s birthday party, while on the phone with his mother, when he was sprayed.
In a video of the incident, Hagopian can be seen walking past several police officers while on the phone; seconds later, one officer unleashes a torrent of pepper spray at the marchers, seemingly unprovoked, hitting Hagopian in the face and others nearby.
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“I felt the piercing pain through my eye, my eardrum, and my nostril, all over my cheek and face,” Hagopian said at a press conference Thursday. “I yelled out. My mom was in distress as she heard me yell and couldn’t see me and knew that I was in distress.”
NAACP attorney James Bible said Hagopian’s mother had filed a complaint with the Office of Police Accountability, but turned to the civil rights group because she lacked faith in the OPA.
The city has 60 days to respond. If it doesn’t, the NAACP will file a lawsuit.
Supporters launched a petition on Friday calling for Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole to identify the officers who sprayed Hagopian and hold them accountable for their actions, and to put an end to police harassment of peaceful demonstrations like the #BlackLivesMatter protest on January 19.
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The wealthy aren’t paying enough in federal taxes.
So said 68 percent of respondents to a new Associated Press-GfK poll (pdf). Sixty percent of respondents also said that the middle class is paying too much in federal taxes, and 41 percent held that belief about low-income households.
President Obama outlined last month a proposal to raise the capital gains tax on those with incomes over $500,000. A majority of poll respondents—56 percent—said they were in favor of such a proposal.
Obama’s plan was to increase the capital gains tax rate to 28 percent—the rate they were set at under President Reagan— which Dave Johnson of Campaign for America’s Future described as “a huge step in the right direction.”
Widespread support for the plan makes sense, as the majority of Americans see inequality as growing, and a previous study found capital gains to be the biggest contributor to income inequality.
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