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The Georgia senator vowed to continue the fight to get voting rights legislation passed in this Congress as he reflected on his reading of Dr. Kings Letter from Birmingham Jail in Congress.

Sixty years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s Letter from Birmingham Jail was published, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators read Kings famous dispatch in an annual tradition on Capitol Hill commemorating the civil rights leaders message of moral conviction and standing up against injustice.

In this March 1965 photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (center) and his wife, Coretta Scott King (right) lead a civil rights march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital, Montgomery as diplomat Ralph Bunche (left) listens to King. Successful movements, said Sen. Raphael Warnock, dont always begin with lawmakers. (Photo: William Lovelace/Express/Getty Images)

In the 1963 letter, in which he famously wrote, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, King indignantly addressed white clergymen who criticized his nonviolent campaign against racism and racial segregation in Birmingham.

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia was among the lawmakers who took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to read portions of Kings letter, which he told theGrio he first encountered as a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, where King also attended.

That letter is as relevant now as it was when he wrote it in the 1960s, Warnock said.

As a recent example, he pointed to the expulsions of Democratic Tennessee state Reps. Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones. The young Black legislators and their white colleague, Rep. Gloria Johnson, collectively known as the Tennessee Three, were admonished for joining a state capitol protest against Republican inaction on new gun restriction legislation.

Sen. Raphael Warnock speaks at an April 2021 Washington news conference after Democratic lawmakers weekly policy luncheon. This week, he was among a bipartisan group that read parts of Dr. Martin Luther Kings Letter from Birmingham Jail in the Senate. (Photo: Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)

A legislature in Tennessee failed to respond to the issue of gun violence, even in the wake of, once again, precious young lives [being] taken, said Warnock, referring to the late March school shooting in Nashville that killed three children and three adults.

Rather than passing gun reform, he said, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee came down with [a] kind of draconian response to legislators who were trying to push their colleagues to do the right thing.

A similar attempt to oust a Democratic lawmaker happened recently in Montana, where state Rep. Zooey Zephyr the states first transgender legislator was expelled from the state House floor for speaking out against her Republican colleagues over a bill that bans gender-affirming health care.

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Warnock rejected the legislative targeting of the trans community, telling theGrio, We have to stand up against the kind of politics of fear and fear-mongering that has convinced us that we ought to be afraid of each other.

I say be afraid of politicians who tell us to be afraid of each other, he continued, whether were talking about people of color or people in the LGBTQ community or immigrants who have made this country great.

Reflecting on what many described as GOP attacks on the democratic process in states like Tennessee and Montana, Warnock said the country is in need of leaders and civilians willing to stand up and to bear witness to the American covenant.

The Tennessee Three (from left), state Reps. Justin J. Pearson, Gloria Johnson and Justin Jones, stand together April 12 before marching to a Shelby County Board of Commissioners meeting in Memphis. Sen. Raphael Warnock called Republicans response to the Democratic legislators gun-control appeals draconian. (Photo: Chris Day/The Commercial Appeal via AP)

In the face of a seemingly more divided America, where Republican-controlled states are restricting access to voting and drawing partisan district maps that dilute Black voting power, the Georgia politician and pastor said he will continue to use his influential U.S. Senate seat to combat anti-democratic forces trying to steal the peoples voices.

Without enough Republican support, Democrats failed to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act in the last session of Congress. The legislation would restore previous voting rights protections, expand access to voting and add more federal safeguards against voter suppression and corruption.

Despite setbacks on Capitol Hill, Warnock vowed to continue the fight to get voting rights legislation passed in this Congress.

At a January 2022 rally outside the Capitol, a demonstrator holds a sign supporting voting rights. Though legislation lacked the Republican support needed for passage, Sen. Raphael Warnock said he would not give up the fight. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Im not about to give up on America, he declared. Which is why we have to vote. We have to continue to stand up for voting rights.

Like the 1960s demonstrations led by King, Warnock pointed out, successful movements are not necessarily from the inside, but from the outside, saying, Im focused not only on the work I do here in the Senate, but on the kinds of grassroots movements that strengthen what we can get done here.

Warnock also reflected on the conservative efforts behind a wave of abortion bans and anti-LGBTQ legislation over the past year.

The acid test of the depth of ones commitment to faith is measured by your commitment to the most marginalized members of the human family, he said. It is that ethic that informs my work every day in the Senate.

Beyond religion, the reverend added, We need people of conscience who do not necessarily claim any faith tradition at all, but believe in justice, compassion, empathy, mercy.

[Its] building what Dr. King called the beloved community, said Warnock. We need that now more than ever.

Gerren Keith Gaynor

Gerren Keith Gaynor is a White House Correspondent and the Managing Editor of Politics at theGrio. He is based in Washington, D.C.

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Two years ago, a majority of Republican Twitter users in the United States said the site had a bad impact on American democracy. But today, following Elon Musks takeover of Twitter, their views have become much more positive, while those of their Democratic counterparts have grown more negative.

Pew Research Center conducted this study to gain insight into Twitter users views and attitudes about the platform. This survey was conducted among 10,701 U.S. adults from March 13-19, 2023. This analysis focuses on those who answered yes to the question, Do you use Twitter?Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Centers American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about theATPs methodology.

Here arethe questions usedfor this analysis, along with responses, andits methodology.

The share of Republican and Republican-leaning Twitter users who say the platform is mostly bad for American democracy has dropped from 60% in 2021 to 21% today, according to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted March 13-19, 2023. At the same time, the share of Republican Twitter users who say the site is mostly good for democracy has risen from 17% to 43%.

Democrats views have moved in the opposite direction. The percentage of Democratic and Democratic-leaning Twitter users who say the platform is good for American democracy has decreased from 47% to 24% in the past two years, while the share who say it is bad for democracy has increased though more modestly from 28% to 35%.

Still, growing shares in both parties say Twitter isnt impacting American democracy. In 2021, roughly a quarter each of Republican and Democratic Twitter users said the site had no impact on American democracy. Those shares increased to 36% among GOP users and 40% among Democratic users in the latest survey.

Twitter has undergone several prominent changes in the past year, ushered in by Musks $44 billion acquisition of the site last fall. Musk has been a vocal advocate for preserving free speech on the site, reinstating banned users such as former President Donald Trump and taking on cancel culture. But critics have raised concerns that these changes could lead to misinformation and harassment going unchecked on the site.

In addition to asking Twitter users about the sites impact on democracy, the Centers new survey measures their views about potential issues that may occur on the platform. It finds that Democratic and Republican users are growing further apart in their worries about misinformation, harassment and civility.

Democratic users are now far more likely than Republican users to say inaccurate or misleading information (68% vs. 37%), and the tone or civility of discussions (50% vs. 27%) are major problems on Twitter. Democratic Twitter users have become more likely to say each of these things since 2021, while Republican users have become less likely to do so.

There is also a widening partisan gap in assessing the severity of harassment on the platform. Roughly two-thirds of Democratic users (65%) say harassment and abuse from other users is a major problem on Twitter, compared with 29% of Republican users a difference of 36 percentage points. This gap was just nine points in 2021.

Additionally, there has been a double-digit increase in the share of Democratic Twitter users who think limiting the visibility of certain posts and banning users are major problems on the site. Conversely, fewer Republican users cite bans as a substantial issue on Twitter, while the share who name limiting posts visibility as a major problem is statistically unchanged since 2021.

Still, these free speech-related concerns remain far more common among Republicans on the platform. Among Twitter users, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say its a major problem that the site limits the visibility of certain posts (53% vs. 32%) and bans users (43% vs. 19%).

Note: Here arethe questions usedfor this analysis, along with responses, andits methodology.

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After Musk's takeover, big shifts in how Republican and Democratic Twitter users view the platform - Pew Research Center

LAWRENCE Winston Churchill famously said, Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.

However, that presumes people agree on what the term actually means.

Not everybody understands what democracy is, and understanding of democracy is tied to support for it, said Valery Dzutsati, visiting assistant professor of political science at the University of Kansas.

Moreover, misunderstanding is also tied to not supporting it.

His new article titled Under the Veil of Democracy: What Do People Mean When They Say They Support Democracy? uses global cross-national survey data that demonstrates individual variation in the understanding of democracy is linked to democratic support across countries and regime contexts. The results suggest one must consider divergent conceptualizations when analyzing opinions of democracy. Its published in Perspectives on Politics.

Co-written by Hannah Chapman of the University of Oklahoma, Margaret Hanson of Arizona State University and Paul DeBell of Fort Lewis College, the article notes there is no such thing as a perfect democracy.

There cannot be because we as humans are not perfect, Dzutsati said.

So what country is closest to the textbook definition of this system of government?

Thats a controversial question because specialists also have very different views on what is a democracy, how to define it and how to rank it, he said.

Dzutsati points out, for example, how some of the most celebrated democracies (the U.S. included) often end up with a two-party system. And, theoretically, these should be less effective since they feature limited choices.

But at the same time, we do see multiparty systems in Europe which are so multiparty that they become dysfunctional, he said.

Coalitions are hard to build because there are so many parties and each of them holds a small share of votes, so it is easy to block decisions. It is perhaps a better democracy in a way, but its not functional. You want to live in a functional society because roads need to be built and things need to be kept in order.

The researchers based their findings on the last three waves of the World Values Survey, including the most recent one from 2017-2022. The analyzed data encompasses 85 countries. According to their conclusions, an individuals knowledge of democracy is fairly low on average.

A significant proportion of respondents conflate things like army rule or religious cleric rule with manifestations of democracy, Dzutsati said.

What it means for us as educators is we need better education so that people understand what a democratic political system is. And, by the way, the U.S. is not an exception. A lot of Americans who say they support democracy also say they support a strong mans rule a strong man who is a man of action who does things no matter what, disregarding the legislature and elections if needed.

Then should America still be deemed a democracy?

With a fair amount of confidence, I would say yes. Why? Because voting still matters, he said. You can disagree with a variety of things, but you cannot disagree with the fact that this country can change very significantly through voting.

Dzutsati was raised in North Ossetia (in the southwest of European Russia). As part of the former Soviet Union, his countrys official system of government described itself as democratic centralism. Interestingly, he said the Soviet Union had voting but didnt actually have elections.

That was because for every electable position there was only one candidate, he said.

You did go to voting booths, and it was made like a public holiday held usually on Sundays. There would be events and food. People would come and cast their ballot, which didnt mean anything. It was simply a confirmation of the existing order.

Contemporary Russia is in a very similar situation absent the Communist ideology, he said. Many Russians do not see a better alternative to Vladimir Putins regime, which vigorously promotes the belief of Putins indispensability along with the idea that no true democracy exists anywhere. Incidentally, support for democracy is among the lowest in Russia according to World Values Survey data.

Dzutsati earned his doctorate in political science from Arizona State University. He is an expert in politics and conflict of Eurasia and Eastern Europe, and his past work includes Secessionist conflict as diversion from inequality: The missing link between grievance and repression and Russias Syria War: A Strategic Trap? (co-written with Emil Souleimanov).

He said the last decade has been quite insightful when researching the ebbs and flows of democracies, particularly in the U.S.

One big error we had a few years ago is we had this kind of linear view of development. The world and this country are becoming more and more democratic. Everything is fine. You dont have to do anything. Sit and relax. Thats not the case, Dzutsati said. I hope we have learned this lesson.

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Last week, the Republican-controlled Montana House of Representatives voted to bar Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the states first transgender woman lawmaker, from the floor for the rest of the session. Her offense? Telling GOP lawmakers that they had blood on their hands for supporting a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors.

Zephyrs expulsion from the floor is the latest example of a Republican-run state legislature wielding its supermajority to silence democratically elected lawmakersunder the guise of decorum.

Montana Republicans say that Zephyr isnt beingexiled, because she will still be able to vote remotely. But the American Civil Liberties Union disagreesand is helping Zephyr sue.

The lawsuit aims to allow Zephyr to return to the House floor, arguing that the House leadership has denied Zephyrs constituents their right to representation in state government.

The effort by House leadership to silence me and my constituents is a disturbing and terrifying affront to democracy itself, Zephyr said in a statement. The Montana State House is the peoples House, not Speaker Regiers, and Im determined to defend the right of the people to have their voices heard.

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Rep. Zooey Zephyr Sues Over Removal From Montana State House Floor Mother Jones - Mother Jones

In reality, Netanyahu and his Justice Minister Levin were bent on subordinating Israels Supreme Court to the whims of a simple majority in the Knesset, and the appointment of judges to a committee with an increased number of representatives handpicked by his government. Should such legislations come to pass, it will be tantamount to giving the government unlimited power without any checks and balances, destroying the very foundation of democracy on which the country was founded and in which Israelis take special pride.

The irony here though is that whereas the majority of Israelis believe that their country is a democracy and fervently poured into the streets to preserve it, and often refer to it as the only democracy in the Middle East, what escapes them is that no country can claim to be a democracy and be an occupying power at the same time. Indeed, applying two different sets of laws and rules, one that governs Israeli citizens (including Israeli settlers in the West Bank) that accords them protection and social, economic, and political freedoms, versus the military rules that govern the Palestinians under occupation, depriving them of their basic human rights, is totally inconsistent with democracy by any definition.

The question is, why have the Israelis grown so comfortably numb to the ruthless occupation and have not once protested against its continuation, as if it were a normal state of being that has no effect or repercussions on either the occupier or the occupied?

Public acrimony: To begin with, successive Israeli governments, especially since the second Intifada in 2000, during which conservative governments were largely in power, have systematically engaged in acrimonious public narratives against the Palestinians, portraying them as being an irredeemable foe. Depicting the Palestinians as such was deliberate, albeit every Israeli government knew only too well that the Palestinians will never be in a position to pose a credible existential threat against their country.

Nevertheless, they continue to promote their denunciation of the Palestinians for public consumption, knowing that they have been nurturing hatred and cultivating hostility against the Palestinians, which now defines the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. Acrimonious public narratives that set one people against another obviously fosters conflict rather than cooperation, which is essential to a functioning democracy.

Lack of awareness: Most Israelis have very little firsthand knowledge about the ruthlessness of the occupation and the pain and suffering the Palestinians are enduring day-in and day-out. If the Israelis could witness the night raids that terrify young and old, arbitrary incarcerations, demolition of houses, forced evictions, confiscation of private land, uprooting of trees, humiliating checkpoints, vandalism by settlers, and trigger-happy soldiers who shoot to kill, they would certainly have a better grasp as to why the occupation is not and cannot be sustainable, but is contrary to every human value they hold so high.

Had even some of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who stood tall to fight for the preservation of their democracy experienced for one day what the Palestinians endure every day under occupation, they would realize how broken Israels democracy is and how shameful it is to demand that they are entitled to live in a free society while the Palestinians live in servitude.

Living with the status quo: After 56 years of occupation, a mounting number of Israelis have given up on finding a solution to the conflict with the Palestinians and have come to accept the status quo as a permanent state of affairs with which they comfortably live. Successive right-wing governments led by Netanyahu openly state that there will be no Palestinian state under their watch, preferring to maintain the status quo regardless of the frequent flareups of violence, which Israel learned how to control at an acceptable cost.

The notion that the status quo can be sustained indefinitely is completely misguided, as there is absolutely no sign and no reason to believe that the Palestinians will ever give up their right to establish a state of their own. In recent years the oppressive occupation has become increasingly unbearable, resentment against and hatred of the Israelis is piercing, violence targeting Israelis is escalating, and hopelessness and despair is all-consuming, leaving the Palestinians with little left to lose. The Israelis helped to create this explosive environment. Now it is only a matter of time when the next explosion will happen. This is not how democracy works and the Israelis must sooner than later face this bitter reality.

The Palestinians ambition to destroy Israel: Successive Israeli governments have been brainwashing the public by promoting the notion that even if the Palestinians establish their own state, it will only be the first stage in their ultimate objective to eliminate Israel altogether. But then, not a single Israeli leader who opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state has ever provided any evidence to make their case, other than using the empty rhetoric of some Palestinian militants who state that this is in fact their national goal. One might ask though by what means, military or otherwise, will the Palestinians ever be in a position to realize such an illusion against the formidable Israeli military machine that can crush any violent provocation deemed threatening to Israels existence?

By promoting such an absurd narrative, however, the Israeli government can justify not only the occupation but its drive to annex more territories, expand existing and legalize illegal settlements, uproot Palestinians, and clear huge areas of its Palestinian inhabitants for military training. These activities are done systematically all in the name of national security, and unfortunately a growing number of Israelis are buying into this sinister scheme.

Normalizing the occupation: To understand the gravity of how the occupation became for most Israelis a normal state of affairs, one single statistic tells the story: 80 percent of all Israelis were born after the occupation began in 1967. For every single Israeli citizen under the age of 56, be that a soldier, a student, a scholar, a military commander, a medical doctor, a builder, a carpenter, a curator, a businessman, an engineer, or a government official, the occupation is normal. Those who want to end it have largely grown to be numb; many are even afraid to talk about it publicly, let alone openly advocate for the absolute necessity of creating an independent Palestinian state to end the conflict.

The killing of Palestinians almost daily has become routine and many Israelis only temporarily awaken when a militant Palestinian kills an Israeli Jew. Calls for revenge and retribution echo, especially by extremist right-wing Israelis, security forces immediately line up for the search of the perpetrators, often a gun battle ensues, Palestinian militants are frequently killed, and sadly innocent Palestinian civilians are often caught in the crossfire and end up paying with their lives. And of course, leave it to the settlers to do their own cruel deeds by taking revenge against any Palestinianguilty or innocent is of no concern to them. The settlers pogrom against the Palestinian village of Huwara offers a chilling example of their brutality. A day or two later everything is forgotten by Israeli Jews, but the vicious cycle continues. This is Israeli-style democracy.

It is critically important to emphasize that the normalization of occupation has made the young Israelis increasingly numb to the Palestinians plight, and as a result of their schooling and training they have become impervious to the people who live in servitude with little or no hope for a better and promising future. But when this indifference to the pain and suffering of the Palestinians becomes a normal state of mind for Israeli youth, it robs them of their own humanity and dignity. They do not realize how they were psychologically inculcated to become so callous and apathetic towards their young Palestinian counterparts who live in fear and uncertainty while hatred, revenge, and retribution become their only way to maintain their resistance.

None of the above suggests that the Palestinians are innocent by any standard. They have made many mistakes. They have frequently resorted to violence and have missed many opportunities in the past to make peace as they went for all and ended up with nothing. That said, it is now up to Israel, as the dominant power, to change the dynamic of the conflict by declaring its willingness to seek peace based on a two-state solution and demonstrate to the whole world its intent while putting the Palestinians to the test. Otherwise, Israels social fabric will continue to disintegrate, its regional violent conflicts will intensify, and its international standing will wane. Israel will end up being nothing but a pariah state, shattering the Jewish dream of having an independent, free, strong, and just state with which every Jew takes pride, admired by its friends and envied by its enemies.

The beacon of Israels democracy began to fade with the start of the occupation. It is time for the hundreds of thousands of Israeli demonstrators, who have poured into the streets to protect their democracy, to face the truth: the occupation is depriving three million Palestinians in the West Bank of everything the protesters want for themselves.

Even if the protesters prevail over Netanyahus menacing judicial scheme, they will not save Israels democracy unless they relentlessly pour back into the streets and this time demand an end to the occupation and make Israel once again a beacon of democracy in the Middle East and beyond.

ByDr. Alon Ben-Meir

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.

This is a "Viewpoint" opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or position of The Helsinki Times. This column is not fact checked and HT is not be responsible for any possible inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article.

HT

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An occupying power cannot be a beacon of democracy - Helsinki Times