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FOCUS: Paige Williams | The Outsized Meaning of the Rittenhouse Verdict
Paige Williams, The New Yorker
Williams writes: "Two portraits of Rittenhouse emerged during the two-week trial. The defense portrayed him as a selfless teen-ager and aspiring law-enforcement officer who wanted to help defend Kenosha and provide first aid. Prosecutors argued that Rittenhouse courted trouble by hubristically inserting himself into a volatile situation."

A Wisconsin self-defense law made it difficult for the jury to convict—an outcome that was celebrated by the Republican Party’s violent fringe.

On Thursday, as the jury deliberations in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial stretched toward day four, the defense appeared worried. Mark Richards, the lead counsel for Rittenhouse—the teen-ager who faced life in prison for killing two men, severely injuring a third, and recklessly endangering the safety of others during last year’s civil unrest in Kenosha—noticed that the jurors were sitting in a new pattern. Richards later remarked to news reporters that perhaps this indicated a divided jury.

The jurors were debating whether Rittenhouse committed felonies or acted in self-defense when, just before midnight on August 25, 2020, he fired an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle eight times. Rittenhouse, who was then seventeen, lived just across the Illinois border. After watching live streams of the violent protests that erupted in Kenosha following the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, he joined his best friend, Dominick Black, in guarding Car Source, a downtown business whose main sales lot had been torched. Both were armed with rifles that they had been keeping at Black’s stepfather’s home in Kenosha.

At trial, Rittenhouse faced a charge of first-degree reckless homicide for killing Joseph Rosenbaum, an enraged but unarmed man who had chased him; first-degree intentional homicide for killing Anthony Huber, a demonstrator who had struck him with a skateboard and then lunged for his rifle; two felony counts of recklessly endangering the safety of the Daily Caller’s video chief, Richie McGinniss, and a demonstrator who had kicked him in the head; and first-degree attempted intentional homicide for shooting Gaige Grosskreutz, a demonstrator and paramedic who was armed with a Glock pistol.

Initially, Rittenhouse also faced a misdemeanor count of unlawfully possessing a dangerous weapon. He was too young to have bought the rifle—Black bought it for him and now faces his own felony trial—but, to the surprise of many, the judge, Bruce Schroeder, dismissed it.

Two portraits of Rittenhouse emerged during the two-week trial. The defense portrayed him as a selfless teen-ager and aspiring law-enforcement officer or paramedic who wanted to help defend Kenosha and provide first aid. Prosecutors argued that Rittenhouse courted trouble by hubristically inserting himself into a volatile situation—he volunteered to help guard property that he did not own, in a city where he did not live, while flaunting, confusingly, both a first-aid kit and a semi-automatic rifle.

The Rittenhouse trial will be remembered for its voluminous video evidence and for live streamers’ role in either documenting, or negatively influencing, historic events. The footage—captured also by demonstrators, a civilian-operated drone, and an F.B.I. surveillance plane—showed every shooting from various angles. The jurors watched numerous clips of Rittenhouse in the moments before and after the shootings. He was interviewed by live streamers and shown yelling, “Anybody need medical?” Not long before the gunfire started, he lied about being an E.M.T. and bragged that, if there was trouble, “I’m running into harm’s way.”

There were also notable, and loud, rebukes. After Rittenhouse’s attorneys moved for a mistrial, accusing the state of overreaching, the lead prosecutor, Thomas Binger, tried to explain himself, but Schroeder boomed, “Don’t get brazen with me!” In one motion, Rittenhouse questioned the integrity of footage that prosecutors alleged showed him provocatively pointing his gun at people first. (One of the prosecutors wearily remarked, “We did not alter the file,” adding, “None of us know how to alter the file.”) The judge acknowledged that the footage made him “very queasy,” but he allowed it.

Putting a criminal defendant on the witness stand is always risky, but Rittenhouse, who had wanted to tell his side of the story since police detectives first questioned him, took the stand for nearly an entire day, last week. When he appeared to break down, his supporters credited his courage; his detractors compared him to Brett Kavanaugh, ridiculing “white male tears.”

The public’s assessments of Rittenhouse’s performance coalesced, predictably, around the hyper-partisanship that distinguished the reactions to the Kenosha shootings from the start. As I reported, in detail, over the summer, opportunists seized on the case—often inaccurately—as a referendum on constitutional freedoms and American racial progress. Schroeder instructed the jurors to treat the defendant like any other witness, assessing him on such factors as credibility, conduct, appearance, demeanor, and apparent intelligence. He told them, “In everyday life, you determine for yourselves the reliability of things people say to you. You should do the same thing here.”

The jurors could be forgiven if they were confused about how to go about their deliberations—the judge sure was. On Monday morning, Schroeder was in the middle of reading thirty-six pages of instructions aloud when he said, “If you decide unanimously that the defendant did not commit the greater crime and was acting lawfully in self-defense”—then stopped. He paused for nineteen seconds, staring off into space and rubbing his fingers together, as he pondered how to explain a pathway to convicting Rittenhouse on lesser counts. Then he said, “I’ve got myself into a midsentence, and I don’t like it.” They worked it out, not to everyone’s satisfaction. At one point, Schroeder declared, “This is a more complicated case than most—than any, frankly, that I can remember.”

Americans had spent the past fifteen months debating Rittenhouse’s culpability, character, proclivities, motivations, and intelligence, and the extent to which he symbolized the country’s shifting relationship with guns—and with one another. The judgment that mattered was that of the seven women and five men of the jury, who were responsible for working through the complexities and nuances of each felony count, one by one.

Around lunchtime on Friday, after four days of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict. The parties were summoned to the courtroom. Rittenhouse took his place at the defense table. His mother, Wendy, and his two sisters, Faith and McKenzie, sat together, in a rear pew, alongside Dave Hancock, a security specialist and military veteran who has become the family’s most visible advocate. Across the aisle, loved ones of the dead clutched one another’s arms. The judge warned the audience to remain unemotional: “Many people do have strong feelings, but we can’t permit any kind of a reaction to the verdict.”

The mood was more tense than at any point during the trial. Rittenhouse, wearing the attentive expression that he had displayed all along, watched the jurors come to their chairs. The forewoman handed a bailiff a set of papers containing each charge—collectively known as “the information”—and each corresponding verdict. Schroeder leafed through the pages, then aligned them with one sharp crack. He said, “The defendant will rise and face the jury and hearken to its verdicts.”

Rittenhouse stood. The court clerk said, “As to the first count of the information—Joseph Rosenbaum—we, the jury, find the defendant, Kyle H. Rittenhouse, not guilty.” Wendy Rittenhouse jolted backward in her seat. By the third “not guilty,” Rittenhouse was losing his composure. On the fifth and final “not guilty,” his knees appeared to buckle.

The jurors were—and are—not required to reveal their calculus. By tradition, even their identities may not be made public. The Rittenhouse jury was known, by sight, only to those who physically attended the trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse. They were not sequestered. They were driven to and from the courthouse in what the judge called a “sealed” vehicle—a bus with blacked-out windows.

It was ultimately impossible to deduce meaning from their demographics or their behavior during the trial—juries are notoriously unpredictable. Was it better or worse—for the prosecution or the defense—that women outnumbered men? What did it mean that the jurors wanted to rewatch certain footage? And that, less than twenty-four hours before issuing the verdict, some of them were smiling? As he dismissed them, the judge told the jurors that they could talk to the media, if they wanted, about their deliberations. But they did not have to. He said, “Your job is done.”

The courtroom was half filled when the trial began, on November 2nd. By the end, the room was crowded, and a “zoo” had appeared outside. The Racine Journal Times clocked the presence of a man in a “pro-Second Amendment hoodie” and an enthusiastic trial watcher in a red fedora and matching boa. Mark McCloskey, the lawyer who pleaded guilty to pointing an “AR” at Black Lives Matter demonstrators, last year, outside his home in St. Louis, materialized in Kenosha, though he is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Missouri.

The public discourse that surrounded the trial bore little resemblance to the matter of law. A “Free Kyle” contingent saw no reason to hold Rittenhouse accountable for any of his actions in Kenosha. The true villains, in their eyes, were Antifa, the Black Lives Matter movement, and Democrats—whose actions, or lack thereof, forced civilians to defend communities against destruction and violence. Rittenhouse rejected the term “vigilante,” but some of his supporters baldly embraced it. On Wednesday night, the right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza told Laura Ingraham on Fox News, “When you don’t have rule of law, when the cops are nowhere to be found, vigilante justice is the only kind of justice you have.” The chyron read “Rittenhouse Trial Reveals a Culture in Decline.”

If the right saw the verdict as an affirmation of vigilantism, so, too, did their opponents. Moments after the verdict, the political consultant David Axelrod tweeted, “A dangerous, dangerous precedent.” Jake Spence, the state director of Wisconsin Working Families Party, called the outcome “an abject failure” of the criminal-justice system, whose presumed goal is “to promote well-being, public safety and justice for all.” The Atlantic contributor David French, a conservative and an Iraq War veteran who has written about his decision to carry a concealed weapon, recently observed that “one of the symbols of the American hard right is the ‘patriot’ openly carrying an AR-15 or similar weapon.” He described Rittenhouse as “the next step in that progression. He’s the ‘patriot’ who didn’t just carry his rifle; he used it.”

President Joe Biden, whose 2020 campaign used an image of Rittenhouse to disavow Donald Trump’s support of “white supremacists,” commented only that he stood by the verdict. His press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters that the President believes “we shouldn’t have, broadly speaking, vigilantes patrolling our communities with assault weapons. We shouldn’t have opportunists corrupting peaceful protest by rioting and burning down the communities they claim to represent, anywhere in the country.”

Rittenhouse did not have formal firearms training, yet Wisconsin’s law allowed him to openly carry a semi-automatic rifle, the type of weapon that is colloquially known as an AR-15. The “AR” stands not for “assault rifle,” as some believe, but rather for ArmaLite Rifle; ArmaLite was the company that manufactured the weapon in the nineteen-fifties, as the Pentagon sought a lightweight alternative to the M14 infantry rifle. As C. J. Chivers explains in “The Gun,” Colt’s firearms division bought the rights to the AR-15 in 1959 and field-tested it in the Vietnam War, promoting its “devastating” ability to penetrate almost anything. Chivers writes that “five to seven soldiers armed with AR-15s produced more firepower and were more dangerous than eleven soldiers provided with M-14s.”

When the patent expired, gun manufacturers mass-produced derivatives. Once the federal assault-weapons ban expired, in 2004, they became the most popular rifles in America. Rittenhouse was armed with Smith & Wesson’s version of the AR-15, which Chivers describes as “small, dark, lean, and synthetically futuristic.” Rittenhouse testified that he wanted an “AR” because he thought it “looked cool.”

In his reflections on the trial, French worried that “a political movement that turns a deadly and ineffective vigilante into a role model is a movement that is courting more violence.” And, in fact, it was far-right figures like the Proud Boys and Marjorie Taylor Greene who appeared most ardent in their support of Rittenhouse. After the verdict was announced, Madison Cawthorn, the North Carolina congressman who has advocated “bloodshed” and “storing up some ammunition” in defense of combatting “tyranny,” released a seven-second selfie-video celebrating Rittenhouse’s acquittal. On January 6th, Cawthorn spoke at Trump’s Stop the Steal rally, moments before insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol. In his Rittenhouse video, he told followers, “You have a right to defend yourself! Be armed, be dangerous, and be moral.” Cawthorn, as well as his colleagues Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar, expressed interest in offering Rittenhouse an “internship.”

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Thursday, November 25, 2021

RSN: FOCUS: Jim Sleeper | The Rittenhouse Syndrome: Has America Crossed the Rubicon?

24 November 21

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FOCUS: Jim Sleeper | The Rittenhouse Syndrome: Has America Crossed the Rubicon?
Jim Sleeper, Salon
Sleeper writes: "Those who celebrate the Rittenhouse verdict don't understand the chaos they've invited - but they crave it."

Those who celebrate the Rittenhouse verdict don't understand the chaos they've invited — but they crave it

Although I participated in the countercultural "revolutions," antiwar protests and racial conflicts of the 1960s, it wasn't until August 2016 that I had my first truly unnerving intimations of a full-blown American civil war: Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump told a rally that if Hillary Clinton "gets to pick her judges, judicial appointments, nothing you can do, folks. Although, the Second Amendment people — maybe there is. I don't know."

By June 1, 2020, Trump's seeming afterthought about "Second Amendment people" had metastasized into something truly scary. He and combat-fatigues-clad Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with Attorney General William Barr, strode from the White House to Lafayette Park, where a peaceful demonstration had been dispersed brutally by National Guard troops.

Trump's insistence only days earlier that the U.S. Army itself should be sent against the protesters — a demand echoed by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton in a now-infamous New York Times op-ed — reminded me of Julius Caesar leading Roman legions illegally across the river Rubicon from Gaul into Italy in 49 B.C. to subdue Rome's own citizens and, with them, their republic.

Kenosha, Wisconsin's closest approximation to the Rubicon is the tiny Pike River, which flows from Petrifying Springs into Lake Michigan. Its closest approximation to a military crackdown was the police mobilization against violent protests after a police officer shot and paralyzed an unarmed young Black man in August of last year. Those police failed to challenge Kyle Rittenhouse, the illegally armed, 17-year-old "Second Amendment person" who shot three men, killing two of them.

And when a Kenosha County jury failed to convict Rittenhouse on even a misdemeanor, sending what the parents of Anthony Huber — one of the men Rittenhouse killed — characterized as "the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street," I couldn't help but wonder what, if anything, will stop armed "Second Amendment people" from showing up near polling places a year from now, as a Republican National Ballot Security Task Force" has done intermittently since 1981, although without brandishing guns.

More unnervingly and urgently, I wonder why a jury of ordinary citizens, along with thousands of others who approved and even celebrated the Rittenhouse verdict are walking themselves across a Rubicon to deliver the message I've just cited, even though they haven't been "demagogued" into doing it by a Caesar or driven to do it by a military force.

New York Times columnist Charles Blow has noted that Rittenhouse was the same age as Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Black youth shot dead in Florida by George Zimmerman, who considered himself a "protector" of his neighborhood and who was acquitted of murder. Blow notes that although Trayvon Martin "was thugified" by Zimmerman and the judicial process, Rittenhouse was "infantilized" by the defense argument that a 17-year-old may be excused for misjudging dangers that he himself has provoked illegally. It's hard to imagine a similar jury accepting similar excuses for a young Black man with an assault rifle, even if he never fired it.

I've contended for years that swift, dark undercurrents are degrading and stupefying Americans in ways that most of us try not to acknowledge. More of us than ever before are normalizing our adaptations to daily variants of force and fraud in the commercial groping and goosing of our private lives and public spaces; in nihilistic entertainment that fetishizes violence without context and sex without attachment; in the "gladiatorialization: and corruption of sports; in home-security precautions against the prospect of armed invasion; in casino-like financing of unproductive economic activities, such as the predatory lending that tricks millions out of their homes; and in a huge, ever-expanding prison industry created to deter or punish the broken, violent victims of all these come-ons, even as schools in the "nicest," "safest," neighborhoods operate in fear of gunmen who, from Columbine to Sandy Hook and beyond, have been students or residents there themselves.

Stressed by this republican derangement, millions are spending billions on palliatives, medications, addictions and even surveillance designed to protect them from themselves. All those vials, syringes, home-security systems and shootings reflect the insinuation of what Edward Gibbon, the historian of ancient Rome, called "a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire" until Roman citizens "no longer possessed that public courage which is nourished by the love of independence, the sense of national honour, the presence of danger, and the habit of command. They received laws and governors from the will of their sovereign, and trusted for their defence to a mercenary army."

Is it really so surprising that some of the stressed and dispossessed, too ill to bear their sicknesses or their cures, demand to be lied to instead, with simple but compelling fantasies that direct them toward saviors and scapegoats — into cries for strongmen to cross a Rubicon or two and for "Second Amendment people" to take our streets?

All 3 Men Found Guilty of Murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Trial Verdict A painted mural of Ahmaud Arbery is displayed on May 17, 2020, in Brunswick, Ga., where the 25-year-old man was shot and killed in February. Arbery was shot and killed by two men who told police they thought he was a burglar. (photo: Sarah Blake Morgan/AP)

All 3 Men Found Guilty of Murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Trial Verdict
Russ Bynum, Associated Press
Bynum writes: "All three white men charged in the death of Ahmaud Arbery were convicted of murder Wednesday in the fatal shooting that became part of a larger national reckoning on racial injustice."

Three men were convicted of murder Wednesday in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the Black man who was running empty-handed through a Georgia subdivision when the white strangers chased him, trapped him on a quiet street and blasted him with a shotgun.

The February 2020 slaying drew limited attention at first. But when video of the shooting leaked online, Arbery’s death quickly became another example in the nation’s reckoning of racial injustice in the way Black people are treated in their everyday lives.

Now the men all face a mandatory sentence of life in prison. The judge will decide whether their sentences are served with or without the possibility of parole.

As the first of 23 guilty verdicts were read, Arbery’s father had to leave the courtroom after leaping up and shouting. At the reading of the last criminal count, Arbery’s mother dropped her head and quietly pumped her fists.

“He didn’t do nothing but run and dream,” Marcus Arbery Sr. said of his son. Outside the courthouse, dozens of Black supporters hugged and cried.

The jury deliberated for about 10 hours before convicting Greg McMichael, son Travis McMichael and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan.

The McMichaels grabbed guns and jumped in a pickup truck to pursue the 25-year-old Arbery after seeing him running outside the Georgia port city of Brunswick. Bryan joined the pursuit in his own pickup and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael fatally shooting Arbery.

The father and son told police they suspected Arbery was a fleeing burglar. But the prosecution argued that the men provoked the fatal confrontation and that there was no evidence Arbery committed any crimes in the neighborhood.

“We commend the courage and bravery of this jury to say that what happened on Feb. 23, 2020, to Ahmaud Arbery — the hunting and killing of Ahmaud Arbery — it was not only morally wrong but legally wrong, and we are thankful for that,” said Latonia Hines, Cobb County executive assistant district attorney.

Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski added: “The jury system works in this country. And when you present the truth to people and they see it, they will do the right thing.”

Travis McMichael, 35, stood for the verdict, his lawyer’s arm around his shoulder. At one point, he lowered his head to his chest. After the verdicts were read, as he stood to leave, he mouthed “love you” to his mother in the courtroom gallery.

Greg McMichael, 65, hung his head when the judge read his first guilty verdict. Bryan, 52, bit his lip.

Speaking outside the courthouse, Ben Crump, attorney for Arbery’s father, repeatedly said that “the spirit of Ahmaud defeated the lynch mob.”

Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, thanked the crowd gathered for the verdict and said she did not think she would see this day.

“It’s been a long fight. It’s been a hard fight. But God is good,” she said, adding that her son would now rest in peace.

Travis McMichaels’ attorneys said both he and his father feel that they did the right thing, and that they believed the video would help their case. But they also said the McMichaels regret that Arbery got killed.

“I can tell you honestly, these men are sorry for what happened to Ahmaud Arbery,” attorney Jason Sheffield said. “They are sorry he’s dead. They are sorry for the tragedy that happened because of the choices they made to go out there and try to stop him.”

They planned to appeal.

Bryan’s attorney, Kevin Gough, said his team was “disappointed with the verdict, but we respect it.” He planned to file new legal motions after Thanksgiving.

Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley did not immediately schedule a sentencing date, saying that he wanted to give both sides time to prepare.

In a statement, President Joe Biden said Arbery’s killing was a “devastating reminder” of how much more work the country has to do in the fight for racial justice.

“While the guilty verdicts reflect our justice system doing its job, that alone is not enough. Instead, we must recommit ourselves to building a future of unity and shared strength, where no one fears violence because of the color of their skin,” Biden said.

Though prosecutors did not argue that racism motivated the killing, federal authorities have charged them with hate crimes, alleging that they chased and killed Arbery because he was Black. That case is scheduled to go to trial in February.

The disproportionately white jury received the case around midday Tuesday.

Soon after returning to court Wednesday morning, the jury sent a note to the judge asking to view two versions of the shooting video — the original and one that investigators enhanced to reduce shadows — three times apiece.

Jurors returned to the courtroom to see the videos and listen again the 911 call one of the defendants made from the bed of a pickup truck about 30 seconds before the shooting.

On the 911 call the jury reviewed, Greg McMichael tells an operator: “I’m out here in Satilla Shores. There’s a Black male running down the street.”

He then starts shouting, apparently as Arbery is running toward the McMichael’s idling truck with Bryan’s truck coming up behind him: “Stop right there! Damn it, stop! Travis!” Gunshots can be heard a few second later.

The graphic video emerged two months later, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case, quickly arresting the three men.

Defense attorneys contend the McMichaels were attempting a legal citizen’s arrest when they set off after Arbery, seeking to detain and question him after he was seen running from a nearby home under construction.

Travis McMichael testified that he shot Arbery in self-defense. He said Arbery turned and attacked with his fists while running past the truck where McMichael stood with his shotgun.

At the time of his death, Arbery had enrolled at a technical college and was preparing to study to become an electrician like his uncles.

Shaun Seals, a 32-year-old lifelong Brunswick resident, rushed to the courthouse to join the crowd cheering the verdict.

“We just came out to witness history,” said Seals, pushing his 10-month-old daughter in a stroller.

Seals, who is Black, called the convictions a victory not just for his community but for the nation.

“It’s not going to heal most of the wounds” from a long history of inequality, he said. “But it’s a start and shows people are trying.”

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RSN: FOCUS: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | Why the Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict Doesn't Matter

24 November 21

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FOCUS: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | Why the Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict Doesn't Matter
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's Substack
Abdul-Jabbar writes: "Ignore those who worship the bloated Rittenhouse balloon as a justification for their white exceptionalism. We need to stay focused on the real evils behind the curtain."

It's a Misdirection to Keep Us from the Real Issue

Kyle Rittenhouse was a seventeen-year-old kid who made a decision to travel to another state, pick up a rifle, and insert himself in a volatile situation—a decision that resulted in the loss of two lives. Both the men he killed would probably still be alive if Rittenhouse had stayed home and let the police do their job. Those are the facts. But these facts seem to be irrelevant to both those who condemn and those who celebrate Rittenhouse’s not-guilty verdict. Instead, both sides have inflated Rittenhouse into a blimp-sized symbol of racial tension in America like a giant cartoon character balloon floating over a used car lot. And like those balloons, it’s all gas with little substance.

Much of that lighter-than-air intellectual gas comes from the conservative media bullhorns gleefully chirping about how the verdict will result in more freedom of self-defense and how this proves that the justice system works. They know none of that is true but the bright, waving Rittenhouse balloon gets your attention so they can launch into their simplistic soliloquies about Freedom this and Freedom that. People of Color are worried about vigilantes who think they’ve just been issued a 007 license to kill roaming the streets looking for targets darker than beige. Their interpretation of the verdict is more realistic since they’ve seen how injustice breeds more injustice.

But this is the wrong case to make into such a massive symbol.

We should start by recognizing that a not-guilty verdict was inevitable, not because of racism but because of the law. Sure, the judge seemed a bit biased at times and of the 20 jurors only one was a Person of Color. But, from what we were able to piece together through news reports, the prosecution did not present a compelling case. The state laws about self-defense did favor Rittenhouse’s actions. In the end, the verdict did not seem to be the result of racial bias that favored him because he was white. The fact that we may not like why Rittenhouse was in Kenosha, or that the police were clearly prejudiced in supporting him as he wandered the streets with a loaded rifle, or that he’s become a poster boy for white supremacists and right-wing pundits, doesn’t justify conviction if the case presented in court doesn’t merit it.

America’s past is too littered with the bodies of people lynched, executed, or imprisoned because of what they represented rather than any legal evidence. We sent 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry to prison camps during World War II as symbols rather than verifiable threats. Two Black Muslim men convicted of the assassination of Malcolm X were exonerated this week, 55 years after their conviction, when it was discovered that the FBI and the NYPD withheld information from the defense that would have likely resulted in their acquittal.

If we are to be outraged by miscarriages of justice in the courtroom, we can’t be outraged by a verdict that is justified based on the case presented. However, if the three defendants who killed Ahmaud Arbery are found not guilty, that would be justified outrage.

Systemic racism in America won’t get worse because of this verdict. Actually, it’s hard to imagine it getting worse. Over 150 years after the end of slavery and Black people are facing legislation in nearly half the states to make it more difficult for them to vote while rampant gerrymandering insures that when they do vote, their effect of their votes will be diluted. Anyone who wanted to know the truth could read the hundreds of studies that prove Black Americans are disadvantaged from birth in terms of education, health, medical care, job opportunities, life expectancy, and the legal system. And if you think this disparity is something from the distant past, Scientific American’s December 2021 issue reveals studies that show how Black children fare worse than white children with routine surgeries because when they are brought into the hospital, they are less promptly diagnosed and less promptly treated than white children. These Black children had medical complications at a rate 18 percent higher than white children and were three times more likely to die. If these statistics were reversed and white kids were at greater risk, hospital reform would be instantaneous.

Hiding, obscuring, and denying these facts about systemic racism from the American public was always the real goal of the right’s obsession with the Rittenhouse trial. When everyone gets into heated arguments about the minutiae of the trial or the possibility of more vigilantism or what would have happened if he’d been Black, we’re distracted from the most important issue involving the case. The right aren’t just celebrating Rittenhouse’s verdict, they’re gloating because to them this proves that the Back Lives Matter protests that inspired up to 26 million Americans to take to the streets in the largest protest in American history had little real-world effect. The actual protest that brought Rittenhouse out of his room from playing Call of Duty to take to the streets gets minimized: Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer (against whom no charges were or will be filed).

The Rittenhouse verdict is the magician’s misdirection. While we’re wringing our hands over the trial, the actual sleight-of-hand was to silence African Americans’ voice in conversations about America. The conservatives’ twisted logic is that if Rittenhouse goes free, that is proof that whatever BLM was protesting is not legitimate. It’s the equivalent of having a doctor tell you that you need to exercise more or you’ll have a heart attack and instead you dig up dirt on the doctor which proves you don’t need to exercise. The doctor isn’t out to destroy you anymore than protests are out to destroy the country but rather to improve it.

There are good reasons to fear vigilantes. Vigilantism has been so romanticized in our culture that we can’t really be surprised when some impressionable kid wants to be a superhero. From Spider-Man to Batman, the Marvel and DC Universes are almost entirely vigilantes. Colorful costumes and angsty origin stories don’t change that. Our heroes are rule-breakers who think they know what’s best for people more than the judicial system or elected officials. That’s what made Trump appealing to so many: he was a soft-core vigilante who thought he knew better than everyone else. He didn’t, and the economy was damaged, civil rights were repressed, and thousands of people died unnecessarily as a result. Ironically, the vigilante and the villain live by the same code that they should be permitted to act outside the law because they alone know what is best. While that makes for entertaining fictional stories, in real life it creates chaos and injustice and we can’t and won’t tolerate it.

Don’t waste any outrage on the Rittenhouse verdict. Instead, be outraged that very few people are still marching for Black Lives Matter, even though all the reasons for it still persist. Be outraged that the restrictive Texas abortion law—being copied by Florida, Arkansas, Ohio, South Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and South Dakota—isn’t bringing millions to actively protest and boycott those states that are taking away women’s rights and treating them as second-class citizens. Be outraged that Critical Race Theory is being demonized as an attack against whites rather than an educational adjustment to school curriculums that deliberately excluded the contributions of most People of Color in American history.

Ignore those who worship the bloated Rittenhouse balloon as a justification for their white exceptionalism. We need to stay focused on the real evils behind the curtain and not get distracted by those making slimy mud pies and thinking its all-American apple pie.

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Wednesday, November 24, 2021

KYLE RITTENHOUSE

From a military legal worker:

I'm seeing a lot of ignorance and misinformation flying around about what happened in Kenosha, and I'm going to set the record straight from a professional legal position... as well as from a former military position. I'm going to explain some things from a more technical angle derived from my many years as a paralegal and from my experience working in federal criminal justice and prosecution.

Legally, if you are in the process of a commission of a crime, it negates your ability to claim self defense if you kill someone. As in, it can't even be entered as your official defense in court. It is similar to getting rear-ended at a red light through zero fault of your own, but you were driving without a license or insurance. It automatically makes you at fault because you weren't even legally allowed to be driving.

That 17 year old in Kenosha had committed two crimes and was not even legally allowed to open carry the rifle he used to shoot three people. This means that he legally cannot claim self defense.

Another key discussion is the Castle Doctrine. Some of you may be vaguely familiar with it, as it is what allows you to use deadly force when someone comes into your house unlawfully, etc. But there are some finer points most people don't realize that you generally have to do some formal legal studies to know.

First, as soon as someone sets foot inside the threshold of your home uninvited that you believe intends to commit a crime, you can legally use deadly force and it is immediately considered self defense, even if they haven't made any violent threats or actions towards harming you.

This is because in every instance outside your home, you are required to retreat and extricate yourself from a dangerous situation if possible. It is a legal mandate, not a suggestion. Your home is considered the final retreat point, and legally you should be safe in your "Castle." There is nowhere else to retreat to, etc. This is why you are able to immediately use deadly force.

However, it is NOT to protect your property, it is for protecting your LIFE. And once the burglar, for instance, has left your home... the threat to your life is considered neutralized, and deadly force is no longer authorized. So if a burglar runs out the door and down the street with your TV, you are no longer allowed to shoot after them because they are not threatening your life. You call the police, you file a claim with your insurance, and you get a new TV. If you shoot a burglar in the back down the street, you can and should be charged with murder.

While you are out in PUBLIC, this means a lot of things obviously. It means that there is far more scrutiny and boxes that must be checked in order to claim self defense. You must be in IMMINENT danger of losing life and limb. Getting into an argument and feeling scared of being punched by an unarmed person? Not likely to be a situation where deadly force is authorized. You MUST retreat.

If someone shoots at you or pulls a knife on you in the street, that is deadly force and can be met with deadly force. But if the person is unarmed, you cannot shoot them because you're afraid of a little scuffle. That is why Rittenhouse illegally shot the first protester, and it is one of the many reasons it cannot be considered self defense. The man threw a plastic bag with trash in it at him AND MISSED, and Rittenhouse shot him. He chased his victim and instigated a fight by brandishing and flagging people with his rifle, because he is an untrained idiot with a gun. The protester was not a threat, and even if he was, all he had to do was retreat back to the police line. He rushed at protesters with a gun drawn to pick a fight, and people are acting as if he were just there to keep the peace.

He fired INTO A CROWD, and it's a miracle he didn't hit more people. More people that hadn't thrown a plastic bag. More people that were just trying to protest police brutality, which is a real issue in this country.

And then when he did finally run away, some more protesters attempted to subdue him after he had already murdered someone, he tripped, and shot two people trying to stop him from shooting others.

The fact that the police didn't arrest him and take him into custody right then and there, even if they suspected it could be self defense, is a grave issue with that police department.

I could further dissect this situation, but for now I'm going to end with people passing around misinformation about the victims being "criminals so they deserved it."

First, there are no actual records of Jacob Blake or the people shot by Rittenhouse being in the official sex offender's registry. None of them raped a 14 year old girl years ago, that is complete fabrication being purposely spread by right wing extremist sites in order to try and justify the shootings.

Jacob Blake was indeed awaiting trial for sexual assault and trespassing, and did have a warrant for his arrest. It was not assault on a child, because that is a different charge with a different title. On the charging document, it would literally say that it was against a child. From what is publicly known, he allegedly broke into an ex girlfriend's house and allegedly assaulted HER, but he is innocent until proven guilty, and still deserves his day in court. He could truly be innocent.

Rittenhouse's victims do not appear to have had any record, and even if they did, he couldn't have known that at the time. You cannot insist a shoot was justified AFTER the fact because "that person was a criminal." Criminals have rights too, whether you like it or not, and it is enshrined in the very documents that built our country. If you don't like the constitution and bill of rights, I don't know what to tell you.

This is also not MY OPINION, this is literally how the criminal justice system and our laws work. I hold a degree in paralegal studies and served 8 years as an Army paralegal. I've worked for the criminal division in the Chicago US Attorney's Office, and currently work in federal law enforcement. This is what I do for a living, and I am not pulling this out of my ass, and my knowlege is a culmination of working in the field and being passionate about justice for 16 years. I'd be happy to send you sources and opines and case law and statutes if you need it. I did not get this from "mainstream media," and I am not brainwashed by the left. I'm an independent progressive.

May he face justice for what he did, and may we find a way to get on common ground before more fuses to this powder keg are lit.

This has been my Ted Talk.

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

RSN: Ken Burns | Being American Means Reckoning With Our Violent History

22 November 21

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Ken Burns | Being American Means Reckoning With Our Violent History
Ken Burns, The Washington Post
Burns writes: "I've been making films about American history for more than 40 years. In all of those years, there's something central that I've learned about being an American: Veneration and shame often go hand-in-hand."

I’ve been making films about American history for more than 40 years. In all of those years, there’s something central that I’ve learned about being an American: Veneration and shame often go hand-in-hand.

Today, however, I fear patriotism is presented as a false choice. It seems that for many, to be patriotic is to remember and celebrate only our nation’s triumphs. To choose otherwise, to choose to remember our failings, is thus somehow anti-American.

But it is not so simple.

When the National Parks Service opened its 391st unit — the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site — the site became the first and only to include the word “massacre” in the title, a reminder of the Nov. 29, 1864, attack on Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people that was misrepresented as a “battle” for nearly a century. In the video above, I reflect on the legacy and contemporary resonance of this massacre.

Being an American means reckoning with a history fraught with violence and injustice. Ignoring that reality in favor of mythology is not only wrong but also dangerous. The dark chapters of American history have just as much to teach us, if not more, than the glorious ones, and often the two are intertwined.

As some question how to teach American history to our children — and even question the history itself — I urge us to confront the hard truth, and to trust our children with it. Because a truly great nation is one that can acknowledge its failures.

Leaked Texts: January 6 Organizers Say They Were 'Following POTUS' Lead' President Donald Trump speaks during a rally protesting the electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President in Washington on January 6th, 2021. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

Leaked Texts: January 6 Organizers Say They Were 'Following POTUS' Lead'
Hunter Walker, Rolling Stone
Walker writes: "Rally planners coordinated closely with the White House before Jan. 6 and readied a dinner party while the Capitol was under siege, according to leaked group text messages."

Rally planners coordinated closely with the White House before Jan. 6 and readied a dinner party while the Capitol was under siege, according to leaked group text messages obtained by Rolling Stone

At 5:30 pm on Jan. 6, police were in their third hour of battle with supporters of former President Trump on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Meanwhile, about a mile away in a suite at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, Amy Kremer, a conservative activist who organized a major pro-Trump rally near the White House that preceded the violence, apparently had hors d’oeuvres on her mind.

Kremer sent her fellow rally organizers a text preceded by three siren emojis. It was an urgent update.

“We ordered dinner again tonight. Sorry, but we forgot to take orders in the chaos of the event this morning, so we just ordered the same thing as last night. I figured that was better than not eating. Lol,” Kremer wrote. “Cheese … Charcuterie should be here at 6PM and dinner around 7PM.”

An emergency curfew took effect and National Guard troops arrived at the Capitol to clear the remaining crowds at roughly the same time Kremer and her fellow organizers received their cured meats. Three sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigations into the rally, told Rolling Stone that, along with food, people were drinking champagne in the suite while rioters skirmished with law enforcement at the Capitol complex.

Kremer’s insurrection night dinner order was detailed in a series of text messages and group chats from January 6 rally organizers that were obtained and reviewed by Rolling Stone. The messages included months of discussions as Kremer’s “March For Trump” group staged a bus tour around the country to protest the former president’s election loss. The conversations revealed new details of the rally organizers’ coordination with the Trump White House.

Kremer’s Jan. 6 rally took place on the White House Ellipse as Trump’s election loss was being certified at the U.S. Capitol. The event featured a speech by Trump where he urged the crowd to “fight like hell,” and indicated he expected them to march to the Capitol complex. Some of the audience at the rally began making the approximately mile-and-a-half long trek to the Capitol as Trump concluded his remarks. The barricades at the Capitol were breached minutes before the former president finished the speech.

Two sources who were involved in planning the Ellipse rally previously told Rolling Stone they had extensive interactions with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. The text messages provide a deeper understanding of what that cooperation entailed, including an in-person meeting at the White House. Rally organizers also described working with Trump’s team to announce the event, promote it, and grant access to VIP guests. A spokesperson for the former president did not respond to a request for comment on the record.

Group chats also provided a glimpse of tensions between rally planners. And the conversations showed how their core group reacted to the chaos that erupted that day in real time, including Kremer rejecting calls to hold a press conference denouncing the violence.

Rolling Stone reviewed the text messages in a phone where they were originally received and timestamped. The messages from Amy Kremer and her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, came from phone numbers that have been used by both women. We are publishing excerpts of these messages as they were originally written including some typos.

Kremer, who began her political career as a Tea Party activist, is the chairwoman of Women For America First, the pro-Trump organization that obtained the permit for the Ellipse rally. Kylie is the group’s executive director.

Along with Women For America First, Amy Kremer was also a leader of March For Trump, a group that was launched in 2019 to protest against Trump’s first impeachment. In late November of 2020, after Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden, March For Trump began a bus tour with events around the country, where Kremer and other conservative activists promoted false conspiracy theories about the election and called for the results to be overturned. On Nov. 28, 2020, the day before the bus tour began, Kremer texted fellow activists in a group chat.

“ Welcome to the March for Trump bus tour,” Kremer wrote. “We are going to save the world!”

Two days later, Kremer texted some of the organizers to let them know she was temporarily getting off the bus to travel to Washington for a White House meeting.

“For those of you that weren’t aware, I have jumped off the tour for the night and am headed to DC. I have a mtg at the WH tomorrow afternoon and then will be back tomorrow night,” wrote Kremer. “Rest well. I’ll make sure the President knows about the tour tomorrow!”

The message describing Kremer’s White House meeting is one of several where she and Kylie, indicated they were in communication with Trump’s team. Both Amy and Kylie Kremer did not respond to requests for comment on the record. Chris Barron, a spokesperson for the Kremers, called Rolling Stone to insist elements of this reporting are untrue.

“You are printing things that are 100 percent factually untrue that we can prove are not true,” Barron said. “You are printing things that are absolutely, factually untrue and, beyond being factually untrue, for anybody who knows Amy are like hilariously preposterous.”

Barron repeatedly declined to answer specific questions about which aspects of the story he wanted to dispute.

The texts reviewed by Rolling Stone reveal that on December 13, 2020, Kremer texted the group to say she was “still waiting to hear from the WH on the photo op with the bus.” On January 1, before the Ellipse rally was publicly announced, Kylie sent a message to another group chat that said she was still working on the permits and “just FYI – we still can’t tweet out about the ellipse.”

“We are following POTUS’ lead,” Kylie wrote, using an abbreviation for the president.

Two days later, on January 3, March For Trump activist Dustin Stockton texted one of the team’s groups to ask who was “handling” rally credentials for VIPs. “It’s a combination of us and WH,” Kylie replied.

Stockton’s fiancee, Jennifer Lawrence, had a similar question when she asked a chat group where media credential requests for the Ellipse rally were going after being submitted on the group’s website.

“To campaign,” Kylie responded in an apparent reference to Trump’s re-election team. “They are handling all.”

Stockton and Lawrence did not respond to requests for comment on the record.

On January 3, Trump tweeted an announcement that he would be attending the Ellipse rally. Trump also retweeted posts from Lawrence and Kremer advertising the event. Some of these messages were excitedly shared in a March For Trump group chat.

“Whoop whoop,” wrote Greg Locke, a Tennessee pastor who was a fixture on the bus tour. Locke added a heart, praying hands, and “100” emoji for good measure. Locke did not respond to a request for comment on record.

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack has subpoenaed documents and testimony from both Amy and Kylie Kremer. The pair were asked to give depositions on Oct. 29. The committee has indicated it will consider criminal contempt referrals against individuals who defy its subpoenas. A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment on whether the Kremers have complied with the subpoena.

Multiple members of Trump’s inner circle — including former White House officials — have also been subpoenaed by the committee as it examines the role the former president’s team played in the events of January 6. An attorney familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the ongoing probe, told Rolling Stone the congressional investigators have obtained “tons of” group chats from organizers.

As the big rally approached, the group chats grew even more excited. On the morning of January 5, Kremer texted the organizers and declared “we are about to be part of a pivotal and historic moment in our nation’s history.”

“Thank you for taking this journey with Women For America First. I love you all and am grateful for each of you,” Kremer wrote, adding, “Let’s go save the Republic!”

But the conversations weren’t all celebratory. The group chats also revealed some of the tensions behind the scenes of the efforts to protest Trump’s election loss.

Kremer and Women For America First weren’t the only ones involved in planning events to protest the election result. Another group, Stop the Steal, which was led by far right activist Ali Alexander, held its own rallies around the country and planned a “Wild Protest” outside the Capitol on January 6. Two sources who were involved in the Ellipse rally planning previously told Rolling Stone they had concerns Alexander’s event could turn violent due to his apparent ties to militia groups and its location directly outside the Capitol. Those sources claimed Alexander initially agreed he would not hold the “Wild Protest” and would allow the Ellipse rally to be the only major pro-Trump event in D.C. on January 6.

The March For Trump group chat conversations hint at some of the tensions between Kremer’s group and the “Wild Protest” planners. On the 6th, the group chats indicate Kremer’s group had a dispute with Alexander over VIP seats at the Ellipse rally.

“Ali trying to rearrange our women for america seats,” wrote one of the group’s volunteers. “Stop that shit,” replied Stockton.

Alexander did not respond to a request for comment on record.

The group chats also show some of the drama that played out within Kremer’s team. On Dec. 31, as the members of the group realized the “Wild Protest” seemed to be moving forward, Kylie posted a series of angry messages accusing the people who were riding the bus of focusing on irrelevant issues and not sufficiently appreciating the work being done to plan the Ellipse event. Kylie dismissed the “Wild Protest” as “all the people who aren’t invited or POTUS won’t be associated with.”

“How do yall not get it? Seriously. Everyone needs to get off that damn bus because you are all going crazy focused on things that don’t matter.”

A volunteer responded that the group’s supporters were uneasy about a lack of guidance since the Ellipse rally plans had not yet been tweeted. Kylie replied with a pair of messages noting how rare it is for events to take place on the Ellipse. She added that she was working with colleagues and “Team Trump” to get the event squared away.

“I am very frustrated and feel like you guys have NO IDEA the hoops we have been jumping through 24-7 lately. Google events at the Ellipse. Send me pictures that you can find of anything other than the Christmas tree light or menorah lighting that are official WH events. THEY DONT HAPPEN,” Kylie wrote. “Y’all this has got to stop. The back and forth. If anyone doesn’t like what … team trump and I are doing then you don’t have to come to January 6th.”

There were also multiple messages indicating alcohol was a source of controversy among some of the organizers. In one group chat message on Dec. 27, 2020, Kremer admonished her daughter for drinking.

“Kylie, you need to slow your roll on the wine RIGHT NOW,” Kremer wrote. “We have so much work to do and not enough time to get it done.”

At another point, Kremer sent a message to the group declaring, “There will be no more drinking on this trip.”

There was plenty of drinking on Jan. 6 at Kremer’s Willard suite, according to multiple sources. The text messages include a menu for a dinner for the organizers on the night before the rally. Menu options included a “Willard Burger” with truffle aioli, red wine braised Angus short rib Beef Bourguignon, steak frites, and a salmon filet with aged balsamic. Based on Kremer’s text about the charcuterie plate, she chose options from the same menu for the organizers on the evening of Jan. 6. The options in the Willard suite also included champagne that Kremer’s guests were drinking just as her organization issued a press release denouncing the violence and calling the group “saddened and disappointed.”

Pam Silleman, the coordinator for the Napa Tea Party in California and one of the VIP guests invited to the event, previously told the website The Uprising, which is written by this reporter, that she drank champagne in the suite with the Kremers and other organizers after the Ellipse rally as the storming of the Capitol played on TV. A member of the March For Trump team suggested some in the suite were “totally sloshed that night.”

According to the March For Trump team member, the Kremers booked one of the nicest suites at the hotel and had a variety of special requests for staff, including fresh lightbulbs. And the team member further suggested the lavish spread at the Willard may have attracted the attention of law enforcement.

“I got the call from someone at the FBI asking why I used my card at the Willard in DC. … It was an exorbitant bill. The suite they were in, it was ungodly expensive because Kylie had to have the presidential suite. That was what made her comfortable,” the March For Trump team member says. “She had to have her waffles every morning. She would check the lightbulbs at every hotel. She would have maintenance change the lightbulbs.”

Another person who worked on the rally and spoke on the condition of anonymity claimed there were approximately 12 to 15 people in the suite on the evening of Jan. 6 and that it was “stocked up with wine.”

“She was shitfaced that night Kylie Kremer was,” the person says.

On the morning after January 6, the group chats show some of the Ellipse rally organizers wanted to hold a press conference or make a statement denouncing the violence. Shortly before noon, Kremer replied that she felt her initial Women For America First statement was sufficient.

“I don’t think it is wise for us to talk to the press or have a press conference. Our statement yesterday was strong enough and we need to leave it at that,” Kremer wrote to the group chat on January 7. “Nothing god will come from us talking to CBS or any other mainstream media outlet. I hope you guys understand and agree.”

About twenty minutes later, Kremer had another problem on her hands at the Willard. She texted the group for urgent help.

“Someone pls come let me out of my bathroom,” Kremer wrote. “I’m locked in here.”

US Added to List of 'Backsliding' Democracies for First Time Anti-Trump protesters gather in New York to call for his impeachment, in December 2019. (photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

US Added to List of 'Backsliding' Democracies for First Time
Agence France-Presse
Excerpt: "The US has been added to an annual list of 'backsliding' democracies for the first time, the International IDEA thinktank has said, pointing to a 'visible deterioration' it said began in 2019."

‘Visible deterioration’ in US civil liberties began in at least 2019, says international thinktank

The US has been added to an annual list of “backsliding” democracies for the first time, the International IDEA thinktank has said, pointing to a “visible deterioration” it said began in 2019.

Globally, more than one in four people live in a backsliding democracy, a proportion that rises to more than two in three with the addition of authoritarian or “hybrid” regimes, according to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

“This year we coded the United States as backsliding for the first time, but our data suggest that the backsliding episode began at least in 2019,” it said in its report.

Alexander Hudson, a co-author of the report, said: “The United States is a high-performing democracy, and even improved its performance in indicators of impartial administration (corruption and predictable enforcement) in 2020. However, the declines in civil liberties and checks on government indicate that there are serious problems with the fundamentals of democracy.”

The report says: “A historic turning point came in 2020-21 when former president Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election results in the United States.”

In addition, Hudson pointed to a “decline in the quality of freedom of association and assembly during the summer of protests in 2020” after the police killing of George Floyd.

International IDEA bases its assessments on 50 years of democratic indicators in about 160 countries, assigning them to three categories: democracies (including those that are “backsliding”), “hybrid” governments and authoritarian regimes.

The organisation’s secretary general, Kevin Casas-Zamora, said: “The visible deterioration of democracy in the United States, as seen in the increasing tendency to contest credible election results, the efforts to suppress participation (in elections), and the runaway polarisation ... is one of the most concerning developments.”

He warned of a knock-on effect, noting: “The violent contestation of the 2020 election without any evidence of fraud has been replicated, in different ways, in places as diverse as Myanmar, Peru and Israel.”

The number of backsliding democracies has doubled in the past decade, accounting for a quarter of the world’s population. In addition to “established democracies” such as the US, the list includes EU member states Hungary, Poland and Slovenia.

Two countries that were on the list last year – Ukraine and North Macedonia – were removed this year after their situations improved. Two others, Mali and Serbia, left the list because they were no longer considered democracies.

While Myanmar moved from a democracy to an authoritarian regime, Afghanistan and Mali entered this category from their previous label of hybrid governments.

For the fifth consecutive year, in 2020, countries veering towards authoritarianism outnumbered those experiencing democratisation. International IDEA expects this trend to continue for 2021.

For 2021, according to the group’s provisional assessment, the world counts 98 democracies – the lowest number in many years – as well as 20 hybrid governments including Russia, Morocco and Turkey, and 47 authoritarian regimes including China, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Iran.

Adding backsliding democracies to the hybrid and authoritarian states, “we are talking about 70% of the population in the world”, Casas-Zamora said. “That tells you that there is something fundamentally serious happening with the quality of democracy.”

The report says the trend towards democratic erosion has “become more acute and worrying” since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Some countries, particularly Hungary, India, the Philippines and the USA, have (imposed) measures that amount to democratic violations – that is, measures that were disproportionate, illegal, indefinite or unconnected to the nature of the emergency,” it says.

Casas-Zamora said: “The pandemic has certainly accelerated and magnified some of the negative trends, particularly in places where democracy and the rule of law were ailing before the pandemic.”

The System Is Broken: Jacob Blake's Dad and Uncle on Kyle Rittenhouse Acquittal for Vigilante Killings Kyle Rittenhouse. (photo: Mark Hertzberg/Getty Images)

The System Is Broken: Jacob Blake's Dad and Uncle on Kyle Rittenhouse Acquittal for Vigilante Killings
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "'This is a tragedy and a slap in the face to all the families that are involved. It made a mockery of the judicial system,' says Justin Blake."

Protests erupted nationwide after a jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin, acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on all five counts for fatally shooting two people and wounding a third last year during protests sparked by the police shooting that left Jacob Blake paralyzed. Kyle Rittenhouse claimed he acted in self-defense when he killed Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum with an AR-15-style rifle. The jury’s decision was announced Friday afternoon after about 26 hours of deliberations. To discuss the significance of their verdict, we speak with Jacob Blake Sr. and Justin Blake, the father and uncle of Jacob Blake, who protested outside the trial of Rittenhouse everyday. “This is a tragedy and a slap in the face to all the families that are involved. It made a mockery of the judicial system,” says Justin Blake. “The system of justice works if I look like Kyle Rittenhouse. It does not work if I look like Jacob Blake,” says Jacob Blake Sr. The Blakes say their family had predicted a not guilty outcome. Jacob Blake Sr. also responds to the Biden’s administration’s decision to not seek federal charges against the police officer who shot his son.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Protests have taken place across the country after a jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin, found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all five charges including intentional homicide. Rittenhouse was on trial for fatally shooting two people and wounding a third last year during racial justice protests that began after police in Kenosha shot and paralyzed Jacob Blake. Kyle Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, claimed he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum with an AR-15-style rifle. Rittenhouse took to the streets after a right-wing group had called for armed vigilantes to patrol Kenosha. The jury’s decision was announced Friday afternoon after about 26 hours of deliberation.

JUDGE: The defendant will rise to face the jury and harken to its verdicts.

PERSON: The state of Wisconsin versus Kyle Rittenhouse. As to the first count of the information, Joseph Rosenbaum, we the jury find the defendant H. Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty. As to the second count of the information, Richard McGinnis, we the jury find the defendant Kyle H. Rittenhouse not guilty. As to the third count of the information, unknown male, we the jury find the defendant Kyle H. Rittenhouse not guilty. As to the fourth count of the information, Anthony Huber, we the jury find the defendant Kyle H. Rittenhouse not guilty. As to the fifth count of the information, Gaige Grosskreutz, we the jury find the defendant Kyle H. Rittenhouse not guilty.

JUDGE: Members of the jury, these are your unanimous verdicts? Is there anyone who does not agree with the verdicts as read? Would you wish the jury polled?

AMY GOODMAN: In a statement, the parents of Anthony Huber, one of the protesters killed by Rittenhouse, said they were heartbroken and angry and that the verdict “sends the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street.” The jury’s decision in the Kyle Rittenhouse case was widely decried by racial justice activists and many politicians. NAACP President Derrick Johnson tweeted, “The verdict in the #KyleRittenhouseTrial is a reminder of the treacherous role that white supremacy and privilege play within our justice system.” California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted, “America today: you can break the law, carry around weapons built for a military, shoot and kill people, and get away with it. That’s the message we’ve just sent to armed vigilantes across the nation.” Many right-wing politicians have hailed Kyle Rittenhouse as a hero. Republican Congressmember Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina has offered Rittenhouse an internship. In a video message, Cawthorn urged his Instagram followers to be “armed and dangerous.”

Today in a Democracy Now! exclusive, we are joined by two guests who have closely followed the trial, Jacob Blake Sr. and Justin Blake, the father and uncle of Jacob Blake, the Black man shot by Kenosha police, sparking protest in the city. On August 23, 2020, a white police officer fired seven shots at point-blank range into the back of Jacob Blake as Blake leaned into his car. Inside the car were Jacob Blake’s three sons, aged three, five and eight. Jacob Blake is partially paralyzed.

Jacob Blake’s uncle Justin joins us from Milwaukee. He stood outside the courthouse every day during the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. And we are joined by Jacob Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr., who is joining us from Charlotte, North Carolina. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Jacob Blake, let’s begin with you. You are Jacob Blake’s dad. You have spent a lot of time in Kenosha, not quite as much as Justin and we are going to talk about that in a moment. But can you talk about the verdict in this case, in the case of the young man, the teenager, armed with an AR-15 who shot to death two protesters who were in solidarity with your son who was shot seven times in the back by a police officer?

JACOB BLAKE SR. Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim. I thank you again, Amy. We love your show. I love you. The verdict is a product of what I described to you the first time we spoke, the two systems of justice. The system of justice works if I look like Kyle Rittenhouse. It does not work if I look like Jacob Blake. The Families United organized all over the United States and because of demographics, my brother, who is locally located in Wisconsin, took on the courthouse of Kyle Rittenhouse. Myself, I was in North Carolina with Cameron Lamb’s family. Jolly-be-good [sp] was in Oklahoma with Julius Jones. We have another group that is going down to Georgia. We understood what was going to happen in Wisconsin, so we understood what my brother’s responsibility was going to be. He took on that responsibility. We got a victory in Kansas City, which we should be talking about more in the national news. Kansas City was momentous.

AMY GOODMAN: We will talk about that conviction in a moment, that conviction of a white police officer for killing an African American man.

JACOB BLAKE SR. Right, 147 years for killing Cameron Lamb. We as a group have been all over the United States standing with these families because of what we went through in Kenosha, understanding that systematic racism is prevalent. We understood.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you talked to your son, Jacob, and what is his response to the verdict?

JACOB BLAKE SR. Yes, Jacob can speak for himself. When he decides to come out and speak about it, he will speak on it.

AMY GOODMAN: How is he doing, Jacob?

JACOB BLAKE SR. From the time we spoke the first time, he is doing much better. He is doing much better. We are praying every day that he will be able to walk again.

AMY GOODMAN: Justin Blake, you stood outside that courthouse every day. Yesterday, you led the protest. You were there along with the fiancée of Joseph Rosenbaum, who was one of the two men Kyle Rittenhouse killed that day. Talk about the significance of this verdict.

JUSTIN BLAKE: Salaam Alaikum, thank you for having us. This is a tragedy and a slap in the face to all the families that were involved. It made a mockery of the judicial system. It just broke the whole city and shattered in many, many pieces, not just through racial divides but we work in organization through LOC, Leaders of Kenosha has helped the Blake family throw over 80 events since we have been in Wisconsin and in Kenosha. This family, we were trying to support so they could focus on their families and what was going on in the courtroom. It has devastated the city. Nobody can believe it at all.

It certainly sets terrible precedents that we would allow for the gun charge to be thrown out, that a 17-year-old kid should be able to carry around a military-style weapon in the midst of chaos. Right prior to this young man hitting the scene, they were peacefully protesting in Civic Park until they were blasted with rubber bullets, gas and other projectiles, which forced them from Civic Park onto Sheridan. Then they forced them into what was almost like an O.K. corral thing with the militias. They forced them down away from the Civic Park where they were peacefully protesting into the masses of the militias. It was a terrible cocktail and it just ended up even worse with this young kid who looked like he was 13 years old with his hat turned backwards. You can see from the video he was way over his head. It was like a deer in the headlights. It was a cocktail that was going to go wrong, and it did and ended in the loss of life to the two young men who were supporting our nephew, Anthony and Jojo, and a severe injury of Gaige.

AMY GOODMAN: We are going to speak with Anthony Huber’s lawyer in our next segment. In fact, your nephew, Jacob Blake, knew Anthony. Is that right? Anthony is well known as a skateboarder in Kenosha and was celebrated in a skateboard park recently.

JUSTIN BLAKE: That is correct. He had some connection with Jake. They were friends. This totally blew his mind what he saw on TV. His only reaction was to use his First Amendment rights to get out there in the streets and voice his opinion, that this was a god-awful attack on little Jake that was shot seven times in the back in front of his children and paralyzed by Officer Sheskey and nothing became of it. He saw that as a brutal attack. His way to stand up for little Jake was to peacefully protest and that led to the end of his life. We can’t allow the Second Amendment to hold the First Amendment hostage. We must continue to fight and get justice for these families as well as little Jake and families all around this nation.

AMY GOODMAN: Justin Blake, you have said that a lot did not come out in the trial. Among other things, we know that the—to say the least—very controversial judge in the case, Judge Schroeder—

JUSTIN BLAKE: Very, very.

AMY GOODMAN: —said that the men who died who were unarmed could not be referred to as victims but could be referred to as arsonists, looters and rioters.

JACOB BLAKE SR. That’s ridiculous. Oh my god.

JUSTIN BLAKE: Not only that, there was a videotape that showed this young man saying he couldn’t wait to shoot somebody and explained the type of weapon he was going to use to shoot somebody. Thirty to 40 days later, he murdered two people with that exact same gun that he was speaking about. He was in a bar throwing up Proud Boy signs after he murdered two people. There was no remorse. There was none on the stand. He said he had the right to defend himself. So this is the push from that side to let them know their stand on gun rights, but this wasn’t a gun rights case. This was a murder case! The outer stories tried to overtake it by saying it was Second Amendment right. It wasn’t that at all. Because I’m a gun guy. So it wasn’t about having guns. It was about the misuse of an illegal weapon by a 17-year-old that had no right to be there and basically put these people in harm’s way. He was flailing the gun around at like eight or ten other people and then decided to murder these two young men.

AMY GOODMAN: Justin, you work with Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push Coalition. There was a release from that organization that said the Justice Department should also consider aiding and abetting charges for Rittenhouse’s mother. Can you explain?

JUSTIN BLAKE: Listen, I am from Chicago. If there is a drive-by shooting, everybody in the vehicle including the driver gets charged, so how could this lady possibly bring this young man across state lines and hasn’t been charged with anything? Furthermore, our family is going to push that the head AG in D.C. pick up little Jake’s case, reopen it, review it and get us justice. When there’s problems in Mayberrys around the United States, it’s when the federal agent comes in and levels the ground for those minorities and those people that aren’t being properly represented. Under a Democratic Party, we feel betrayed by President Biden and sister Harris, Vice President Harris. The Floyd family, Bianca Austin, the aunty of Breonna Taylor, and Jacob Blake, my brother, go all around the country trying to do great work but we put this president in office and we feel terribly betrayed that Biden has not stepped forward and helped these families bring resolution to these severe injuries.

AMY GOODMAN: Jacob Blake Sr., if you would like to respond to some of those points? And also to President Joe Biden, who I believe you met with, didn’t you, at a certain point?

JACOB BLAKE SR. Right. I didn’t talk to him on the phone. We met face-to-face. Some of these things that the president has promised, it is not shown, it has not come to fruition. We sit around and we wait for him to do what he is supposed to do, and he did not. The DOJ turned down my son’s right to be heard federally. They have already said no. So why would they say no—

AMY GOODMAN: No to a federal rights, civil rights investigation to the police shooting of your son?

JACOB BLAKE SR. Right, they said, no, they wouldn’t charge him. What is wrong with America? What is going on that a judge in Kenosha, Wisconsin, could so blatantly be on the side of Kyle Rittenhouse? Blatantly! Is he one of them? That is what it seemed like to us. It seemed like they were stacked, the cards were stacked against us.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play the comments of President Biden. He followed the protests in Kenosha after the police shooting of Jacob Blake during his presidential campaign last year. This was President Biden responding to the Rittenhouse verdict on Friday.

PERSON: Do you have any reaction to Kyle Rittenhouse’s verdict?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I just heard a moment ago.

PERSON: Do you have any reaction?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I didn’t watch the trial, so I—you know.

PERSON: Do you stand by your past comment equating him to white supremacy?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Look, I stand by what the jury has concluded. The jury system works and we have to abide by it.

AMY GOODMAN: Jacob Blake Sr., your response?

JACOB BLAKE SR. The jury system doesn’t work. It may work for those that do not look like me. For my Caucasian counterparts, it works. When it comes to us, it doesn’t work! It worked in Kansas City for the first time in 147 years. So do we have kibbles and bits, they throw us one because it was so blatant in Kansas City that the police—now they cannot tell me that the police do not tamper with evidence. They moved a dead body. They moved a gun, a weapon. They changed reports. It came all out in court. That sets precedent that that’s what they do. And we are caught up in Kenosha when we should have all the national coverage for the Lamb family, for Cameron Lamb. We should have that national coverage because that’s a victory. This here we knew was coming. We knew it was coming!

It's Time for Americans to Buy Less Stuff The global supply chain is expected to be a mess this holiday season. Instead of buying less stuff, Americans are just shopping early. (photo: Jens Büttner/Getty Images)

It's Time for Americans to Buy Less Stuff
Terry Nguyen, Vox
Nguyen writes: "The supply chain crisis has made holiday shopping more unpredictable this year - even if you buy early."

The supply chain crisis has made holiday shopping more unpredictable this year — even if you buy early.

Black Friday, the Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday, once marked the start of the holiday shopping season. In recent years, though, the event has begun to feel like something of a bygone tradition. The holiday retail calendar begins a little earlier every year, but 2021 was especially notable: Some retailers started dishing out early-bird sales and reminder emails as early as September. Shoppers were encouraged to order their gifts as soon as possible or risk having packages arrive late, due to rampant supply chain disruptions and mailing delays. Even books (yes, books!) weren’t safe from the impending shortages.

The pandemic briefly curbed consumer spending, but not for very long: As the country opened back up, Americans felt the urge to get out and shop, an impulse that retailers and marketers happily indulged. The early fall holiday shopping schedule was billed to benefit customers by reducing their annual holiday stress, which is likely compounded by supply chain delays. Yet retailers are still banking on shoppers turning out on Black Friday, despite launching monthslong campaigns urging them to shop early.

Early holiday shopping sprees are good news for retail corporations, logistics companies, and the US economy, which all stand to profit from a protracted shopping period. Consumers, in turn, are conditioned to buy without a second thought, a habit that is bad for the millions of workers caught up in manufacturing, distributing, and shipping the tons of junk we order every day. This year on Black Friday, perhaps we should reconsider America’s great shopping addiction.

When the stuff we want is so hard to get ahold of, why go to such great lengths to buy it? Consumers have the option to not order items manufactured overseas, to source things locally from small businesses or artisans. We also have a choice that eliminates the potential for shipping or supply chain mishaps: We can just buy less.

We know that our collective consumption of consumer goods, from the creation of plastic toys to the fossil fuels that ship them to our homes, isn’t good for the environment. Yes, on a consumer level, our ability to control resource consumption is minimal, but that doesn’t mean there’s no good in a holiday season where gift exchanges don’t require an Amazon Prime account or transit via multiple shipping containers. Mindfulness has its own benefits, especially for affluent consumers, which includes America’s upper-middle class. The higher-income consumers among us use far more resources than the less well-off and are responsible for influencing shopping norms at large.

Americans are now more aware than ever of the global supply chain and its vulnerability to unexpected snarls (like the Suez Canal blockage), raw-material shortages, and shipping delays. Experts predict that these problems, set off by the pandemic, won’t let up until 2022 or 2023. To help reduce supply chain backlogs, the Biden administration has ordered major ports and shipping companies, including Walmart, UPS, and FedEx, to increase their working hours. These domestic efforts, while heartening for consumers, are unlikely to assuage existing supply and demand issues across the world.

Meanwhile, the growing severity of climate disasters threatens to impact how we produce, source, and ship these goods, raw materials, and the food we eat. Product shortages and delays, it seems, are the new normal. At the end of this logistic maze is the shopper, whose buying tendencies are cultivated and incentivized from a young age. The entire consumer enterprise could be summed up in one Ariana Grande lyric: “I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it.”

If these supply chain problems are expected to persist, however, we must be prepared to curb our shopping habits. Conscious or decreased consumption might not move the needle much on climate change or improve the exploitative working conditions faced by those who produce and ship our goods, but that doesn’t mean we have to be trapped in a cycle of thoughtless buying. The alternative isn’t a moral neutral. Must we continue to drown in our unlimited and unfettered need for more stuff, or could we start buying less?

In his book The Uninhabitable Earth, journalist David Wallace-Wells wrote that “there is something of a moral crime in how much you and I and everyone we know consume, given how little is available to consume for so many other people on the planet.”

Shopping, by this logic, is a sin, one that Americans can’t live without. Well-intentioned consumers have tried to do the next-best thing: Shop sustainably. But sustainable shopping is still ... shopping. It’s an oxymoronic act that makes us feel good about the things we buy. True sustainability requires reducing our consumption (and, likely, the country’s economic growth), not through buying “greener” products.

“In an exploitative consumer market, the answer is not buying more. It’s buying less,” argues fashion journalist and activist Aja Barber. “We can’t buy our way to an ethical world.”

Still, most consumers are swayed by the hope of “voting with one’s wallet.” Shopping and boycotting became a means to perform politics in the Trump era and beyond. But consumer activism, or conscious consumerism, does little to impact legislation or corporate policy. The fossil fuel industries, to that end, have weaponized the fallacy of “personal responsibility” to avoid talking about corporate carbon emissions. (An infuriating, oft-repeated statistic from the Carbon Majors Database is that 100 major fossil fuel companies have produced 71 percent of total carbon emissions since 1988.)

As born consumers, we’re faced with a tricky, paralyzing conundrum: Any collective effort will be futile against the scale of climate change, so why should regular people be tasked with modifying their behaviors when the system that runs global commerce is so ubiquitous?

According to one sustainability researcher, intent matters. Making the active choice to think twice before we buy could improve both our happiness and quality of life. It could help shape social norms and influence others toward more-sustainable choices.

Daniel Fischer, an assistant professor at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, wants to reframe the conversation around sustainable living. People, he told me, often assume they’re adopting a lower quality of life by owning and buying less. “We need to flip this narrative around and emphasize how sustainability allows you to have a better quality of life,” Fischer said. “It’s not about renunciation, but choice.”

His sustainability philosophy centers human needs, or how people can meet their needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. In a consumer society, Fischer explained, our base impulse is to desire material goods that satisfy our needs. People have fundamental needs — food, shelter, safety — and more advanced, self-actualized wants. Most people aren’t fully aware of how to discern these motivations, Fischer added. They buy simply because they “feel like it,” without thinking deeply about the lasting purpose of the purchase. Americans, on average, buy more than one item of clothing each week.

Fischer believes people can be trained to break out of this cycle of consumption. They can choose to replace certain shopping “satisfiers” with more sustainable options: buying vintage and used goods instead of new; seeking out hearty, plant-based meat substitutes; purchasing an experiential gift for their loved ones instead of something material. Fischer calls this process social innovation.

“Our basic needs have always been the same and will always be the same,” he said. “The idea that we have to own every single thing in our household is a recent phenomenon, historically speaking. With social innovation, people can improve their level of satisfaction by still meeting their basic needs while [also] reducing environmental harms.”

Fischer’s work examines how practices such as mindfulness and intention-setting can help a person reflect on their needs. It allows them to consider whether a purchase will bring long-term satisfaction — or, as Marie Kondo puts it, “spark joy” in their lives.

For some shoppers, the pandemic was an opportunity to reassess their consumption habits and relationship to material goods. Many “buy nothing” groups proliferated in quarantine as people sought to trade or give away things they no longer needed. Reddit communities like r/frugal, r/anticonsumption, and r/nobuy, where thousands of members discussed ways to reduce unnecessary spending while stuck at home and shared tips on how to shop intentionally, similarly thrived.

Steph, a 30-year-old corporate lawyer in New York, has gone an entire year without buying a new item of clothing. It’s a commitment that may seem antithetical to fashion, but Steph cares about clothes and appearing stylish — she has an entire Instagram account dedicated to slow fashion and styling. Her intent isn’t to be anti-fashion; she just thinks it’s possible to make do with less.

“During the pandemic, I started a challenge called Project 33, where I could only wear the same 33 items of clothing for the next three months,” Steph told me. “That made me curious about how I could maximize the number of wears I get out of the clothes I already own. Eventually, I committed to not buying anything for an entire year.”

She said she felt freed by the challenge, not restricted: “I have more space in my mind to think about other parts of my life,” she said, “rather than just the things I want.”

Social norms are shifting, and some people are starting to push back against thoughtless, unlimited consumption. Consumers are not only aware of the forces that influence them to buy things but are also, like Steph, actively working to combat them. “I like to believe that everything we do, no matter how small it is, has some sort of impact,” Steph said. “You can demand corporate responsibility while making better individual choices. I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive.”

Individual choice has had an outsized role in climate change discussions, even when it’s clear that federal regulation is the best and most direct way to curb global carbon emissions. The “personal responsibility” debate has trapped American consumers in a cycle of cynicism. It’s easy to shrug our shoulders and continue to order from Amazon while we mutter under our breath that “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.”

As citizens of the wealthiest country in the world, Americans’ personal choices do carry some weight. The problem is, it’s hard to quantify the environmental impact of individual actions and lifestyles. Plus, structural systems and social norms make it nearly impossible for people to break shopping habits. About 70 percent of the US economy, after all, stems from consumer spending.

Research has found that a person’s carbon footprint is closely tied to how much wealth they have, even if they’re a supposedly “green” consumer. Wealthy people travel more, buy more stuff, and live in larger, energy-intensive homes. Most “middle class” Americans, according to a 2020 report from Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute, fall in the global top 1 or 10 percent of individuals responsible for blowing through the world’s carbon budget. (For context, anyone earning over $109,000 is categorized in the richest 1 percent of the world, and over $38,000 as within the top 10 percent.) These choices add up over a person’s lifetime, and our tendency to overconsume carries lasting consequences.

On a recent podcast, New York Times opinion writer (and Vox co-founder) Ezra Klein encouraged listeners not to think of their consumption decisions as individual or as only affecting themselves. Rather, they serve as mechanisms for “social, political, and moral contagion.” It’s a mindset that Fischer, the ASU professor and sustainability expert, also champions.

For instance, while Klein admitted his decision to not eat meat is “meaningless” in the context of the global animal trade, it did carry some influence in other people’s choice to go vegetarian or vegan:

It’s in that way that individual attitudes ladder up to social attitudes, and then to social and political change. ... So taking seriously the ideas and morals and views of individuals, that’s not a different sphere than what ends up happening in politics. And it’s not just individual. All of the stuff catches. … I think that a lot of the value of the choices we make is in our willingness to try to use those to change the choices other people see as normal for them to make.

Reducing one’s carbon footprint requires more frugal sacrifices than buying less stuff (such as flying less, eating less meat, using more public transportation), but it’s a good place to start. This holiday season offers a bizarre, supply-chain-induced opportunity to change our shopping habits, to give more thoughtfully, to buy more locally and less overall. Most households are hard-wired to splurge on end-of-year gifts, and it’s unlikely people will ever stop even if the crisis worsens. The supply chain issues can, though, lead us to buy more conscientiously.

The mission to buy less with more intention is achievable for everyone, especially affluent shoppers. It’s incumbent on Americans, the wealthiest people in the world, to cut back on and be critical of their consumption. Plus, if you haven’t ordered that Xbox Series X for the lucky gamer in your life, you might already be out of luck.

Cuba's COVID Vaccine Could End Up Saving Millions of Lives A medical worker displays a dose of Cuba's Soberana 2 vaccine against COVID-19 at a school in Havana, Cuba. (photo: Joaquin Hernandez/Xinhua/Getty Images)

Cuba's COVID Vaccine Could End Up Saving Millions of Lives
Branko Marcetic, Jacobin
Marcetic writes: "Thanks to its public biotech sector and its government's deep commitment to public health, Cuba is now the only low-income country to have made its own COVID vaccine. It's already helped millions of Cubans, and it's poised to help millions more around the world."

Thanks to its public biotech sector and its government’s deep commitment to public health, Cuba is now the only low-income country to have made its own COVID vaccine. It’s already helped millions of Cubans, and it’s poised to help millions more around the world.

Much of the press coverage of Cuba last week focused on the anti-government protests that didn’t eventuate. Less covered has been something of potentially greater global significance: its vaccination drive.

After a dire twelve months, when a too hasty reopening sent the pandemic surging, deaths peaking, and the country back into a crippling shutdown, a successful vaccination program has turned the pandemic around in the country. Cuba is now one of the few lower-income countries to have not only vaccinated a majority of its population, but the only one to have done so with a vaccine it developed on its own.

The saga suggests a path forward for the developing world as it continues struggling with the pandemic in the face of ongoing corporate-driven vaccine apartheid, and points more broadly to what’s possible when medical science is decoupled from private profit.

The Safer Gamble

According to Johns Hopkins University, as of the time of writing, Cuba has fully vaccinated 78 percent of its people, putting it ninth in the world, above wealthy countries like Denmark, China, and Australia (the United States, with a little below 60 percent of its population vaccinated, is ranked fifty-sixth). The turnaround since the vaccination campaign began in May has revived the country’s fortunes in the face of the twin shocks of the pandemic and an intensifying US blockade.

After a peak of nearly ten thousand infections and close to one hundred deaths each day, both figures have now plummeted. With 100 percent of the country having taken at least one vaccine dose by the end of last month, the country reopened its borders on November 15 to tourism, roughly a tenth of its economy, and has reopened schools. This makes Cuba an outlier among low-income countries, which have vaccinated only 2.8 percent of their combined populations. This is owed largely to vaccine hoarding by the developed world and their jealous guarding of patent monopolies, which bar poorer countries from developing generic versions of the vaccines that were produced through public funding in the first place.

Key to this outcome was Cuba’s decision to develop its own vaccines, two of which — Abdala, named for a poem penned by an independence hero, and Soberana 2, Spanish for “sovereign” — were finally given official regulatory approval in July and August. In the words of Vicente Vérez Bencomo, the internationally acclaimed head of the country’s Finlay Vaccine Institute, the country was “betting it safe” by waiting longer to manufacture its own vaccines. This way, it would avoid dependence on bigger allies like Russia and China while adding a new commercial export at a time of ongoing economic hardship.

These efforts are already underway. Vietnam, with only 39 percent of its population fully vaccinated, inked a deal to buy 5 million vaccine doses, with Cuba recently shipping more than 1 million of them to its communist ally, 150,000 of which were donated. Venezuela (32 percent fully vaccinated) also agreed to buy $12 million worth of the three-dose vaccine and has already started administering it, while Iran (51 percent) and Nigeria (1.6 percent) have agreed to partner with the country to develop their own homegrown vaccines. Syria (4.2 percent) has recently discussed with Cuban officials the prospect of doing the same.

The two vaccines are part of a suite of five COVID vaccines Cuba is developing. That includes a vaccine delivered nasally that’s progressed to Phase II of clinical studies, one of only five vaccines in the entire world that have a nasal application, according to one of its top scientists, that could be particularly useful if proven to be safe and effective, given the virus’s entry through the nasal cavity. It also includes a booster shot specially designed to work for those already inoculated with other vaccines, and which was recently trialed on Italian tourists. Since September, Cuba’s been in the process of getting World Health Organization approval for its vaccines, which would open the door to its widespread adoption.

A Different Vaccine

Several aspects make Cuba’s vaccines unique besides their country of origin, according to Helen Yaffe, senior lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow. At the heart of it is Cuba’s decision to pursue a more traditional protein vaccine rather than the more experimental mRNA technology used for the COVID vaccines we’ve become familiar with, which had been in development for decades before the onset of the pandemic led to a breakthrough.

Because of this, Cuba’s vaccine can be kept in a fridge or even at room temperature, as opposed to the subpolar temperatures the Pfizer vaccine has to be stored at or the freezer temperatures Moderna’s vaccine requires. “In the Global South, where huge amounts of the population have no access to electricity, it’s just another technological obstacle,” says Yaffe.

And while the mRNA technology, which has never been used on kids before, has meant a lag between adult and child vaccination in the developed world — and means vaccines for kids under five are still being developed — Cuba aimed from the outset to create a vaccine that kids could take. As of this month, it’s fully vaccinated more than four-fifths of all kids aged two to eighteen.

While roughly two-thirds of all kids were shut out from school in Latin America and the Caribbean as of September, Cuba has now reopened its classrooms. Gloria La Riva, an activist and independent reporter who has been visiting Cuba throughout the year and has been in Havana since mid-October, described the scene at the Ciudad Escolar 26 de Julio as parents and grandparents turned out for the school’s reopening.

“It’s a very big thing for the families,” she says. “Everyone feels this enormous pride.”

The Power of Nonprofit

There’s one more factor that sets the Cuban vaccine apart. “The Cuban vaccine is 100 percent entirely a product of a public biotech sector,” says Yaffe.

While in the United States and other developed countries, lifesaving medicines are developed thanks largely to public funding before their profits and distribution are ruthlessly privatized for corporate enrichment, Cuba’s biotech sector is wholly publicly owned and funded. That means Cuba has de-commodified a vital human resource — the exact opposite policy direction that we’ve seen in these last four decades of neoliberalism.

Cuba has poured billions of dollars into creating a domestic biotech industry since the 1980s, when a combination of an outbreak of dengue fever and new economic sanctions from then president Ronald Reagan forced its hand. Despite a crushing blockade by the United States, responsible for a third of the world’s pharmaceutical production, Cuba’s biotech sector has thrived: it makes nearly 70 percent of the roughly eight hundred medicines that Cubans consume and eight of the eleven vaccines in the country’s national immunization program, and it exports hundreds of millions of vaccines a year. The revenues are then reinvested into the sector.

“All these vaccines that have a very large impact on science are very expensive vaccines, economically inaccessible to the country,” Vérez Bencomo said recently about Cuba’s decision to develop its own vaccines.

The sector is internationally acclaimed. Cuba has won ten Gold Medals from the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for, among other things, developing the world’s first meningitis B vaccine in 1989. In 2015, Cuba became the first country to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis, a result of both the retroviral drugs it had produced and its robust public health care system.

In this way, Cuba has been able to do the unthinkable, developing its own vaccine and outdoing much of the developed world in overcoming the pandemic, despite its size and level of wealth, and despite a policy of concerted economic strangulation from a hostile government off its shores. International solidarity efforts have been vital, too. When the US blockade meant a shortage of syringes on the island, jeopardizing its vaccination campaign, solidarity groups from the United States alone sent 6 million syringes to Cuba, with the Mexican government sending eight hundred thousand more, and more than one hundred thousand on top of that coming from Cubans in China.

A Source of Hope

Even so, there is some uncertainty around Cuba’s vaccines. Their use in Venezuela has met objection from the country’s pediatric physicians unions and medical and scientific academies, on the same basis as other critics, who say the vaccine trial results haven’t been peer-reviewed and published in international scientific journals. The Pan American Health Organization has called on Cuba to make the results public.

For his part, Vérez Bencomo blames an international community hostile to Cuba. In a September interview, he charged that Cuba’s scientists were being discriminated against by major journals, who he said had a history of rejecting submissions from Cubans while later publishing similar research from other countries, and act as “a barrier that tends to marginalize scientific results that come from poor countries.”

These are pretty serious charges from a globally respected scientist. A winner of the Cuban National Chemistry Award and a 2005 WIPO Gold Medal, Vérez Bencomo led the team that worked with a Canadian scientist to develop the world’s first semisynthetic vaccine, creating a more affordable shot to protect against Haemophilus influenzae type B. Upon helping develop the low-cost vaccine against meningitis, he was barred in 2005 from traveling to California to accept an award for it, with the George W. Bush State Department deeming his visit “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” In 2015, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor by France’s then minister of social affairs and health, who commended him for his work and called him a “friend of France.” (Vérez Bencomo did not respond to a request for an interview).

While Cuba’s rebound from the pandemic suggests his and the Cuban government’s confidence in the vaccines isn’t misplaced, it may take some more time for them to get the international scientific community’s official imprimatur. Should it come, it would prove a powerful refutation of the corporate-driven vaccine model that has so far dominated, which holds that, in line with the talking points of Big Pharma, only profit-driven competition can produce the kind of lifesaving innovation the world is desperate for.

Perhaps more importantly, it may be a way for the developing world to finally crawl out of the pandemic-shaped hole it looks no nearer to escaping now, months after vaccines have been rolled out in wealthy countries. Western governments have continued to oppose calls from the Global South to waive vaccine patents and allow them to manufacture or buy cheaper generic versions, leaving the vast majority of the world’s people still vulnerable to the virus — and, ironically, endangering us all, should new, vaccine-resistant strains mutate in the country-sized petri dishes this unbalanced policy has created. In that sense, we should all hope that Cuba’s vaccines are proven as successful as its scientists are sure they are.

Sea Shepherd Finds Endangered Amazonian Dolphins Dead and Possibly Harpooned Scientists and Sea Shepherd Brazil team members examine a dead Amazon river dolphin encountered during their scientific expedition. (photo: Sea Shepherd/EcoWatch)

Sea Shepherd Finds Endangered Amazonian Dolphins Dead and Possibly Harpooned
Tiffany Duong, EcoWatch
Duong writes: "Sea Shepherd recently completed the first scientific expedition of a research campaign focused on the conservation of two species of endangered Amazonian river dolphins."

Sea Shepherd recently completed the first scientific expedition of a research campaign focused on the conservation of two species of endangered Amazonian river dolphins. To their surprise, during the 19-day expedition, they found three dead cetaceans, one with net marks and a possible harpoon injury and another with a possible harpoon mark.

All three individuals appeared rather healthy with no detectable natural cause of death, said Nathalie Gil, the expedition leader and CEO of Sea Shepherd Brazil. Despite being protected under Brazilian law for decades already, dolphins do die when entangled in fishing nets. Fishermen are supposed to free the endangered species "immediately," but, often, when dolphins become agitated, fishermen will harpoon them to prevent them from ripping their nets off, Gil explained.

"Some of them [don't] know it was a dolphin, but some of them kill them even being aware of it," she told EcoWatch.

Sea Shepherd launched the research campaign in partnership with INPA, Brazil's National Institute for Research in the Amazon, to study the tucuxi river dolphin (Sotalia fluviatilis) and the Amazon river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis). The latter is also known as the pink dolphin due to its distinctive coloring. Both freshwater species are classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and therefore protected against fishing and killing. Despite this, recent research by INPA found that their populations are declining by 50% every 9-10 years.

The INPA findings suggest that both species may be more threatened than previously believed, and this latest study hopes to provide critical evidence regarding the actual health of both endemic species of river dolphin in the Amazon basin.

According to Sea Shepherd, the main threats to Amazonian river dolphins include entanglement in fishing nets, populations getting divided by newly-built dams and conflicts with fishermen. For years, the dolphins were seen as "competitors" for fish and killed, explained Gil.

More recently, within the last few decades, the dolphins have been killed to be used as bait to catch Piracatinga (Calophysus macropterus), a type of catfish. Fishing for that scavenger fish has been illegal in the Amazon since 2015, but an "attractive" market in Columbia and Brazil drive the killing of dolphins as bait. This practice appears to have "significantly" decreased the populations of both species of river dolphin, Gil said.

Now, Sea Shepherd is trying to reverse this trend.

"It takes years of specialists pointing to the risk of species to go extinct for people to act," Gil told EcoWatch. She cited the unfortunate history of the vaquita (Phocoena sinus) in Mexico, of which only 10 individuals are believed to remain, and the Baiji dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer) in China, which went extinct. "Sea Shepherd must act now," she added. "We can't take the same risk again… Our objective is to commit to the conservation of these species with them for the long run."

INPA has been studying both the Amazonian pink river dolphin and the tucuxi dolphin for 25 years. The new campaign will complement these studies by providing more depth and data on species population health, Gil added.

The research will be the first long-term study done consistently at several points of the river, the expedition leader said. Calling it "groundbreaking," she noted that the complete campaign, which includes five more expeditions over the next three years, will make it possible to have a better assessment of the true conservation status of these species.

"We urgently need to obtain more in-depth data on the population decline of these cetaceans in order to ensure that laws such as the piracatinga fishing moratorium, which is planned to end in July next year, continues to protect these species, as well as to improve law enforcement in the region," Gil explained.

Currently, all five known species of river dolphins in the world are at risk of extinction. For the two Amazonian dolphins, their slow reproduction rate means they can't recover their population fast. Gil estimated that, at current rates of decline, these species have only a few decades left before extinction.

For Sea Shepherd, the net and harpoon wounds on the three dead tucuxis found on this expedition are proof that the dolphins of the region still face many challenges, many of which involve humans. Research indicates that such encounters should be very rare, so the frequency of the sightings on one expedition indicates that such happenings are more common than previously thought.

"In order for us to prove it, we must show [that] this is a phenomenon [that] is happening with the same proportion across many points of their habitat," she said. "This is why this longitudinal and wide research is so important for the conservation of these species."