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In Seoul, Korea, a metropolis of 10 million, a steady stream of Mercedes sedans pulled up to the valet, disgorging their fashion-forward passengers, in front of the Seoul outpost of a fashionable New York-based gallery, the New York Times reported yesterday. Seoul now has its share of high-end contemporary art galleries and collectors, and after months of lockdown, everyone was ready to see some art.

The art they were seeing was by Billy Childish, a long-time art world rebel and working-class leftist, not to mention garage band rocknroller. His work is now fetching prices cresting beyond $25,000, which he himself considers a matter of luckafter 40 years, the curators and dealers who championed him had finally seized the reins at major institutions, he told the Times.

After experiencing the little tingle that comes when I see the prices politically progressive artists are commanding in the rarefied art marketplace, I marveled at another statistic in the story. Seoul, with more than double the population of Oregon, has recorded only two deaths due to Covid-19.

Two. Deaths.

South Korea jumped immediately into the appropriate pandemic response. The country locked down early, it embraced social distancing, it distributed N-95 quality masks to all of its people, it tested widely, and when people tested positive for Covid-19, it traced and isolated those who came into contact with them. The public took this regime seriously.

Whether or not South Korea can keep its discipline when and if the careful attempts at reopening lead to more outbreaks, is another question. But the successful responses in New Zealand and Hong Kong, in addition to South Korea, show that humans can organize themselves well enough to minimize the damage.

Just not American humans. In our cities, for the most part, Americans sheltered in place and distanced themselves from each other. And outside of New York, we managed to dodge the worst of Covid-19. But after that, nothing went right. No masks, no testing, no tracing, no isolation of those exposed. America once had a public health system (as opposed to private healthcare) and an emergency response system that were arguably the worlds best. That was a while ago, back before the decline of democracy here really took hold. More than half of us, even now, would vote for restoring our public health and emergency response systems to their previous heights. But that never seems to come up for a vote, and thats one good measure of how broken our democracythe distance between the wishes of the people and the governments public policy.

I have some reservations about my sense of the whole. When the slogans of one political party include Were all going to die sometime and Granny is willing to sacrifice herself so that the transfer of wealth to the tiny top of the pyramid can continue unabated, it does give me pause. But, America, I see you staying at home and social distancing. Youre not entirely crazy. You understand the simple argument that we protect ourselves by protecting each other. (Please, wear a mask!)

So, if you think that American democracy and American society have hit a dead end, youre not alone. Covid-19 presents us with a daily reminder of our inability to deal with a general health crisis. And as so many other observers have noted, it exposes crises of other sorts, too, much deeper ones that will keep us from ever responding appropriately to emergencies. Climate change will drop many plagues upon us. A pandemic with a death rate that seems to hover around two percent may be a picnic compared to what could be coming our way. The more democratic we are, the better the chance well have to deal with them.

*****

American democracy was not the subject of my conversation with George Thorn, arts consultant/advisor extraordinaire, late last week. We were talking about Portland arts organizations, though more general matters also came up, including our local government.

Since the pandemic lockdown in Portland, Thorn reckons that hes talked to staffers from at least 40 arts organizations. The bottom line: Everybody is being hurt by this, and some really, really badly.

Each group has different problems, but they are all calculating how many staffers they can keep on, a difficult calculation when no one knows how much federal support they will get (or whether they will get any at all), and how to keep enough money set aside to start up again when the stay-at-home restrictions are loosened. And what the world will be like when they do: Each organization needs to envision what this new reality will be, Thorn advised.

How much can they count on the City of Portland? I dont think the City cares about what happens to arts and culture organizations, Thorn said. That assertion led me to consider whether or not society and democracy in Portland had also hit a dead end. I think most of us DO care what happens to arts and culture organizations in the city. Thats because, unlike our leaders, we understand the many roles the arts play in a city and in our personal lives.

The arts have never been needed more than they are today, Thorn said. The arts are how we come together. They ask, how do you want to shape the new reality?

What everyone is trying to figure out, thats what artists do every day, he continued. Artists move from idea to vision to process to procuring resources. The idea evolves, the problems are solved, theres never enough time, people or money. And yet, something arrives on the stage, concert hall, gallery wall, page, or some other platform. Often enough, something amazing. When we re-embrace the practicality of artists, their creativity and problem-solving, then well be able to mask, test, trace and isolate. This isnt something we dont know how to do.

We cant wait to be in a room together with artists; we all want to be back in a room together, Thorn said.

And what are the artists saying, I asked him. Stay with us. Were going to need some help.

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Starting Over: Masks and democracy - Oregon ArtsWatch

I call upon the world to keep an eye on Beijings oppression. We can all step up for Hong Kong right now, said Joshua Wong this week, in front of a digital crowd of activists from across the globe.

In a highly emotional address, his words came at a pivotal time in Hong Kongs struggle after dozens of pro-democracy activists and opposition politicians were arrested for protests organised and carried out during 2019. Among them was Martin Lee, dubbed the Father of Democracy in Hong Kong.

Such a clampdown would have been utterly unthinkable just a few weeks ago, when such an attempt would have been faced by riots across the city state. Yet in the midst of a pandemic and with little international attention focused on crackdowns on democracy and freedom, Beijing moved swiftly, knowing that its act of force would have lied unmet. Covid-19 has paralysed protesters.

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In this situation, campaigners fear the cancellation of the legislative elections due in autumn, or even more nightmarish prospects, such as a move of the legislative council of Hong Kong to mainland China, which would, according to Wong, result in a tremendous erosion of the universal values of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is not an exception. Across the world, governments are using Covid-19 as an opportunity to crack down on rights, democracy, and freedom. In Hungary, for example, the parliament handed unlimited powers to prime minister Viktor Orbn, enabling him to rule by decree indefinitely. From intrusive surveillance methods to overstretched police powers, some of the oldest and most established democracies are now considering measures that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.

The battles of 2019 for democracy and freedom across the world seem to be long forgotten. When seeing photos of army trucks removing bodies from hospitals in Italy, mass graves dug in the US, and billions of people quarantined, it became clear that coronavirus had shifted international attention away from crackdowns on rights and democracy.

However, there are consequences to this mass distraction. If public opinion does not hold those who govern under scrutiny, our freedoms might disappear quicker than we think even in established democracies. At the same time, authoritarians might use this opportunity to continue their grab on power.

For months in 2019, Hong Kong protests gathered international attention and admiration;Wongs face was on the cover of magazines and newspapers across the world, and hashtags of support flooded social media. Thats also because his personal story is quite remarkable: from high school activism to being imprisoned for his beliefs, he embodied the Hong Kong struggle and gave people hope. So even when Edward Leung, one of the localist leaders in Hong Kong, was sentenced to six years imprisonment he kept on hoping that after the storm, the sun would rise again. I am optimistic that Hong Kong will one day enjoy freedom and democracy, and a government elected by people, he said.

In September 2019, Western powers started to listen, and sometimes even act. The US Congress passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, imposing sanctions and linking the former British colonys special trade status to its continued autonomy from Beijing, among other measures. Hong Kong protestors brought the fight to the global stage, and the international community played ball.

But though the spotlight has shifted away from the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and the people singing for universal suffrage during the pandemic, the fact remains that international support and lobbying for the cause was inadequate even before the outbreak of coronavirus. Trade has bound countries to Beijings will with a double knot; many are unable to show any disagreement beyond weak letters of condemnation. Even the UK, the guarantor of Hong Kongs freedoms, has failed to take any meaningful action. Intergovernmental organisations mirrored nation states inability to do anything more than call for investigation, and communicate their uneasiness through letters calling for restraint.

In todays interconnected world, one peoples struggle quickly becomes a global issue. Hong Kongs tireless pursuit of democracy represents the fight for a fairer and freer world. Hong Kongers need the support of the international community, from countries and intergovernmental organisations, as well as from grassroots mobilizations. While citizens from all over the world showed their support online, too little pressure has been applied on governments. It is time for people of the world to pressure their governments to stand firm and safeguard Hong Kongs future, by passing laws all over the world comparable to the US Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. And the clock is ticking.

I hope that Hong Kong can be one of the remarkable cases to inspire people around the world to be the change we want to see, said Joshua, in the aftermath of the latest arrests of those refusing to stand down to Beijings iron fist.

So lets turn inspiration into action. As the hymn of Hong Kong protesters goes: Is there a world you long to see? Then join in the fight that will give you the right to be free.

Andrea Venzon and Colombe Cahen-Salvador are co-founders of Now!, a global movement pushing for humanity to work as one to solve the biggest challenges of our time

Originally posted here:
While the world is distracted by coronavirus, China is clamping down on Hong Kong's pro-democracy campaigners - The Independent

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions argues if the push to use federal power to require voting by mail as an election offering is successful, it could threaten democracy in the United States.

During a telephone town hall with the Tuscaloosa County, AL Republican Party, Sessions, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Alabama, explained how changing the election process would be a deviation from American traditions.

That is a huge threat to democracy, he said. It is unthinkable that Congress would agree to such a demand, and if they stand firm, the Democrats will have to back down, for sure. Only if they weakened, could that be successful. Look, historically Election Day was a day that in every hamlet, village, farm and city people went to a polling place on the same day and they cast ballots. Then people decided if you were sick or if you were out of town, you should be able to vote absentee ballot.

The ideal of all of the nation gathering on a given day to decide the future of elected official is an important American value, Sessions continued. What the Democrats would do, ideally theyre saying they want to close polling places and send out ballots by mail. So, if your brother Billy is not here, or your mother passed away, or somebody has dementia these ballots can be sent to a home, and anybody can cast them and send them in. People can intercept ballots if they are voting for someone who is not legal.

Sessions, who also served as a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama during the Reagan administration, explained that he had once prosecuted election fraud cases involving absentee ballot and was aware of the risks of having voting take place outside of a precinct.

Another danger that I saw in Alabama and I prosecuted voter fraud cases in Alabama, Sessions explained. One of the things we saw was that people would come to your house and talk to you about the campaign, and the next thing you know, theyre at the kitchen table, coercing the homeowner to give up the privacy of their ballot, and being told how to vote. A lot of people who arent strong-willed tend to getannealed to that kind of pressure. Theyll pick up the ballot, and theyll mail it. They have even done things and opened ballots, and scratched out the way it was marked, and vote for somebody else. A case like that, I prosecuted.

He insisted that if he is elected to the U.S. Senate in November, he will fight against any move to make vote-by-mail a reality.

These are the kind of things that are a danger and is not good, he added. and weve already got concerns about the integrity of our ballots. This would be going in the exact wrong direction. Now you can vote absentee, but you have to be sick or out of town basically, the main reason to vote absentee. If Im in the Senate, theyll pass this over my dead political body. Im telling you this is a fight that cannot be lost, and must not be lost.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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Fmr AG Jeff Sessions: Vote-by-Mail a Huge Threat to Democracy Theyll Pass This Over My Dead Political Body - Breitbart

When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total.

President Trump uttered these words at a news conference on April 13. Who knows how much he meant them? They were a seeming inversion of recent partisan politics as much as a false reading of the U.S. Constitution. As a friend of mine quipped, In what world do we live where Democrats advocate for local and state authorities, and Republicans are for expansive national authority against states rights?

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But Mr. Trump may have spoken for many world leaders.

Around the world, governments are taking on new powers in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Elections have been postponed in at least 50 countries around the world. Governments have won expanded surveillance powers to monitor infected individuals in China, South Korea, Singapore and Israel. And there are new limits on freedom of speech (ostensibly to stop disinformation about the pandemic) in places like Hungary and Thailand. In Chile, Serbia and other countries, the military has been deployed to enforce public order.

[Explore all of Americas in-depth coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]

The temporary expansion of such powers is often necessary. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and even democracies sometimes need swift and robust responses from executive leaders and agencies. President Lincolns expansion of executive power and actions like the suspension of habeas corpus arguably saved the Union during the Civil War. But the violations of free speech and mass arrests by the federal government during the red scares after World War I and World War II seem less defensible in retrospect.

There is rarely a guarantee that new powers will be ceded after a crisis is over, and in some cases, the crisis may be used as a pretense for long-desired moves toward authoritarianism. The most-discussed example during the pandemic has been Hungarys Viktor Orban. The Hungarian prime minister is now essentially ruling by decree, with no oversight by the National Assembly and elections suspended indefinitely. And some of the powers granted to him by the Assembly seem to have little to do with the public health crisis, including enhanced control over the press.

Safety or public health crises should not become a pretext to tear down democratic institutions and practices, but that is often precisely what they are used for. They are what some social scientists call critical junctures: moments of fluidity and uncertainty when political actors can change institutions to their liking. In situations where the normal rules no longer seem to apply, the people in power can create their own rules.

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It is admittedly hard to regulate when and how such emergency powers are used. By their very nature, such powers must often be broad and indeterminate. But we must define limits.

Carl Schmitt, a political theorist who supported the Nazi regime in Germany, is famous for his notion of a sovereign as he who decides the exception. This terse formula means that in moments of crisis, when the written rule of law is deemed inadequate for governance, the true sovereign brushes aside the liberal trappings of separation of powers, parliamentary democracy and so forth. That is, a great leader can and must act on his own will. His will is not bound by the law; it is the law.

But this theory, often called decisionist because of its emphasis on the decisions of romanticized leaders, fetishizes the will to the exclusion of reasonand especially the will of a strongman who seeks to remedy all the deficiencies, real and imaginary, of democracy. Such theories also normalize apocalyptic thinking: framing a theory of governance based upon the most extreme circumstances.

National governments should do what they think best in crises. This does not necessarily mean suspending democratic norms. Germany, for example, has been expanding testing for the coronavirus and vigorously enforcing social-distancing rules without having to give more policy-making powers to Chancellor Angela Merkel. But when a crisis calls for giving a national leader wider latitude, oversight and electoral accountability are key.

Legislatures and courts should do what they can to supervise the executives use of expanded powers, such as imposing sunset provisions that require the regular reauthorization of such powers. Looking to the post-pandemic future, they should investigate not only how those powers were used (or misused) but also how their countries can be better prepared for future pandemics.

But without such oversight, the truth of Mr. Trumps statement will come out. As the political scientist Greg Weiner said on Twitter, The thing is, his authority *is* empirically absolute if Congress or, here, governors decline to exercise countervailing power.

Mr. Weiner is pointing out the obvious: Throughout U.S. history, the presidency has grown in moments of crisis, most recently with the response after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to terrorism, and at each step of the way, Congress has been most obliging, through statutory delegation or the failure to exercise its oversight role. And as Mr. Weiner implies, a federal political system only works if state governments fight against the centralization of power in Washington, D.C. In other words, even if you disagree with some of the actions of, say, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, you should be grateful that he is offering a countervailing force to the national government.

That brings us to the most fundamental source of democratic accountability: voters. In nations with functioning democratic institutions, it will ultimately be up to voters to hold elected officials accountable for their use of power. But while Westerners sometimes view voters as atomized individuals, in fact they are part of families, neighborhoods, unions, parishes and other civil society groups. These are the forms of social life that so many around the world have missed during the pandemic, and hopefully the gradual end of social distancing will lead to their renewal. They will be needed to debate the policies enacted in response to the pandemic and to ensure that democratic values are restored and respected.

Recent decades have not been kind to democracy, and the pandemic threatens another rollback. It should be a clarion call for citizens around the world to take a more active role in the shifting fortunes of democracy in their countries and for international actors to play a supporting role in places where the absence of effective civil rights and liberties prevent an active civil society.

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Around the world, democracy is at risk from the coronavirus - America Magazine

First, consider the bold display of guns along with the presence of far-right militia groups. Disturbing photos of men carrying assault rifles suggest meanings far beyond an assertion of the right to bear arms. Instead, these acts create an atmosphere of threat. I read them as a statement about the readiness to use violence as a political tool.

Poll: Most WA voters wary of reopening economy too soon

Some speakers made explicit threats. Take, for example, state Rep. Robert Sutherland, a Republican from Granite Falls, who spoke at the rally in Olympia on April 19 with a pistol tucked into his pants. Sutherland warned the governor, You send men with guns after us when we go fishing, well see what a revolution looks like. He then added, You send your goons with guns, we will defend ourselves. At a protest at the Arizona state Capitol, a speaker was recorded threatening violence against Democrats, should they not be voted out of office.

I am not alone among my friends who fear that if Trump loses the November election, violence will follow. In a country that has already experienced multiple deadly eruptions of politically motivated and hate-filled violence, any mixture of a display of armed force with a political event should be loudly condemned. I could find no statements from the network of right-wing organizations promoting the protests that disassociate themselves from the brandishing of weapons.

Never forget how violence has been used throughout history as a technique to terrorize subjected peoples, intimidate opposition, create an atmosphere of crisis and acquire power. Violence should be understood as a crucial instrument of far-right movements. Fascists in the 20th century employed violence with great success.

Second, although stated in a way that relies on plausible deniability, Trumps tweets calling on protesters to LIBERATE Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia should be viewed as incitements to violence. Gov. Jay Inslee got it right in responding that Trumps statements are fomenting domestic rebellion and could lead to violence. Weve seen it before, he added.

Yes, we have from Trump himself on several, well-documented occasions. I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldnt lose any voters, he once declared. Trump wasnt asserting a legal point that as president he could not be prosecuted; he directly linked an imagined act of violence to his popularity. Last year, he warned that his supporters among the police, military and bikers dont play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad. On the campaign trail in 2016, he urged people to beat the crap out of protesters. At a rally for a state senator in Missouri in 2018, Trump said his opponents were lucky that were peaceful. Inslee understands that when gun-toting demonstrators are encouraged by the president, they gain legitimacy and momentum. Lone terrorists have already taken the cue.

Finally, we need to ask: Liberate from what? Everyone wants the lockdowns to end. The right-wing Trump agenda, however, attempts to turn our collective suffering into resentment directed at Democratic governors. It is one dimension of a larger politics aimed at the so-called deep state, claimed to be an oppressive force that robs individuals of their liberties and personal responsibility. Democratically controlled state governments not Trumps failure of leadership are now held responsible for the painful consequences of state efforts to mitigate the pandemic.

At bottom, the radical demand to reopen the economy in spite of public health entreaties relies on an implicit and unstated brutality. How many people would the radical reopeners be willing to sacrifice? How many parents and grandparents would be allowed to perish? How many medical workers and other first responders? How many Black and Latino citizens? Are they simply in denial or have they adopted the ruthless logic of social Darwinists and eugenics? Thankfully, most Americans want the restrictions to continue until safety can be assured.

Lets not confuse the need to reopen the economy as soon as humanely possible with the crass opportunism of these far-right and Trump-promoted protests. In a life-threatening and life-taking pandemic, our first obligation is to protect the healthy and treat the sick. Social solidarity requires protection of the most vulnerable among us, as well sustainable cash assistance and food aid to the millions of people hurt by the shutdowns.

Lastly, may we embrace the radical hope that the lessons of social solidarity will stay with us beyond our present crisis. Are the demands for economic and racial justice, and preventing climate catastrophe,any less urgent? Or the need to confront those who would destroy our democracy in service of power and greed?

Once again we must reclaim the prophetic voice of Martin Luther King Jr., who in 1967 called upon Americans to end the unjust and life-destroying Vietnam War: We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.

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Opinion | Protesting stay-at-home orders threatens our health and democracy - Crosscut