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Kathleen Enright on Philanthropy's Role, Importance and Impact
Posted December 17, 2019, By the Annie E. Casey Foundation
This episode of CaseyCast features Kathleen Enright, president and CEO of the Council on Foundations. The Council — a long time partner of the Annie E. Casey Foundation — works to provide philanthropies with the opportunities, talent and tools needed to expand their capacity to serve the greater good.
Before joining the Council earlier this year, Enright spent 17 years as the president and CEO of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, a nonprofit devoted to helping grantmakers realize meaningful change.
The Foundation's Lisa Hamilton recently spoke with Enright about the philanthropy sector, the power of the lived experience, how foundations are veering outside their longstanding lanes, and where the field still has room to grow.
A big thank you to Enright for chatting with us!
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In This Episode on the Philanthropic Sector, You'll Learn
The role that the Council on Foundations plays in the world of philanthropy.
Common misconceptions about philanthropy.
The differences — and similarities — between charities, nonprofits and foundations.
What the term impact investing means.
Challenges facing the field of philanthropy.
How the philanthropic landscape can better engage the people and communities that they're seeking to serve.
Where philanthropy isn't making an impact — but should be.
Conversation Clips
In Kathleen Enright's own words…
"Philanthropy is a form of speech. Where you give your money and how it is given, it's a form of democratic voice."
"I think one of the misconceptions overall is that philanthropy is just for elite, uber-wealthy folks. That's just not — at all — the case. Philanthropy is embedded in the DNA of our country."
"I think philanthropy would be well served to explore how we can create conditions for broader economic prosperity for all."
"I'm seeing more and more foundations look holistically at all that we can bring to bear to advance our missions. We're using our voices more effectively. We're collaborating. We're aligning our strategies and resources with other foundations. We're lifting up advocacy and lobbying and policy change when we think that that is the best way to effect change."
"The research proves out that diversifying the rooms where decisions are made improves the decision making."
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Lisa Hamilton:
I'm Lisa Hamilton from the Annie E. Casey Foundation… and this is CaseyCast.
My guest today, Kathleen Enright, is president and CEO of a philanthropic-serving organization called the Council on Foundations. The Council, a longtime Casey partner, is best described by its mission, which is to provide opportunities, talent and tools to philanthropies, so that they can expand their capacity to advance the greater good.
Prior to joining the Council earlier this year, Enright served for 17 years as the president and CEO of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. She also speaks and writes regularly on issues of nonprofit and grant maker effectiveness to executives across the nation.
Kathleen, welcome to CaseyCast.
Kathleen Enright:
Thanks so much, Lisa. It's great to be here.
Wonderful. Why don't we talk about what led you to a career in philanthropy. Few people have a straight line into this profession. Why don't you tell us how you got started in philanthropy?
I actually knew that I wanted to be in the nonprofit sector as early as junior year in college. So, mine was a much more direct path than most. I had an internship here in Washington, D.C. with this amazing advocacy organization. It was working for runaway and homeless kids. And I just saw the power and potential of an organization like this to do incredible good. It was really the embodiment of that Margaret Mead quote, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, because indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
I was sparked up and I realized that that's where I wanted to be. From there on I've been working in the nonprofit sector, and soon after graduate school found my way to philanthropy.
Fantastic. I'm glad you had a straight route. Mine was more circuitous. It is a wonderful area to be in, to be able to be in the business of doing good. And you've been doing it for a long time.
Almost everyone's path is more crooked than mine.
When we talk about philanthropy, not many people are quite sure what exactly it means. First, I want to ask you, what does philanthropy mean to you? How do you define it? Is it just about money?
No. Absolutely not. There are so many ways to give. You can give your money, of course. But you can give any part of yourself. Your time, your talent. I have a very open definition of philanthropy. And I'm hoping that more people feel that way as well. Our communities are enriched every single day by the multitude of ways that people give.
But you often work today with a certain kind of giver: Institutional foundations. Talk about the Council on Foundations and who you represent and what kinds of organizations they are.
Yes. Absolutely. The Council does principally work with those who have formalized their giving through an institution like the Annie E. Casey Foundation. And, so, these groups are donors, often times they're individual donors or folks who have made their money through private industry. Sometimes they have come about in other ways like some are health conversion foundations, meaning a nonprofit hospital that has been privatized. So, they have hired staff and they have decided that they're going to become sophisticated about the way that they're giving away their money. We try to help them find peers and partners and get even more sophisticated more quickly.
Any sense of the number of foundations in the country?
Yes. There are about 8,000 staffed foundations in the country at any given time. There are a lot more folks out there doing philanthropy through donor-advised funds, by putting money into their church plate every Sunday, by giving through other online vehicles. So, nearly everyone is a philanthropist.
Tell us what misconceptions people have about the field of philanthropy.
I think they have misconceptions big and small. I think one of the misconceptions overall is that philanthropy is just for elite, uber wealthy folks. That's just not at all the case. Philanthropy is embedded in the DNA of our country. It has been with us since the very dawning of the United States. In fact, one of the Council's board members told me the most moving story about her family's history with philanthropy. Her name is Stephanie Bell-Rose, and-
I know Stephanie.
You know Stephanie. She's in philanthropy, she run the TIAA Institute, and she talked about her great-great-grandfather, who back in the 1800s, right after the Civil War gave him his freedom from slavery, donated the land to found the St. Thomas AME Zion Church in North Carolina. So, he became a philanthropist right after he got his freedom. From there, his family has been philanthropists ever since. I think a misconception about philanthropy is that it's for really wealthy folks, that it's out of reach for everyday givers, and I think that's a myth I'd like to bust.
That's great. I was interviewed recently about who inspires me in philanthropy, and I noted Osceola McCarty, the wash woman in Mississippi who saved her resources and gave a scholarship at the University of Mississippi. And, as you said, it's an opportunity for everybody to give in lots of different ways. I'm glad you are a proponent of a broad definition of philanthropy.
Great. I'm not sure people always understand the differences between philanthropy and charity and nonprofits. Could you talk about how these are similar and maybe some of the ways that they might be different?
Philanthropy is kind of the work of foundations and the act of giving, either money or time. That is often the word that folks use, it's sort of a fancy word. You could just call it giving. And then charity and nonprofits are the institutions that often receive that kind of money. So, they're set up in society in service of the public good or the greater good.
Thank you for that differentiation. So, you manage a philanthropy network. You try to bring foundations together so they can learn from one another and implement best practices. What do you find is the value of having this kind of philanthropic community? What can networks do compared with just a single foundation, for example?
Oh, yeah. Lisa, the earliest philanthropists understood that they were working on issues that none of them could solve alone. That's why they created groups like the Council. They wanted to come together because they were trying to do really hard work. Warren Buffet very famously said, when he gave his initial gift to the Gates Foundation, that these are issues that have already defied both intellect and money. Solving poverty, working on childhood obesity, all of these things are harder than the typical work that a corporate enterprise does. Creating the spaces and the places where institutions can share what they're learning, where they can come together, where they can combine their resources, where they can add to one another's strategy, is going to help us make faster progress on these really important societal issues.
I think that's so important. You led, for a long time, an organization that was focused on grant maker effectiveness. I imagine part of what can happen when you bring organizations together is that they learn how to do their work better, not just how the strategy of problem-solving works but how the business of giving could be better. Say more about being an effective philanthropy, what that entails.
How much time do we have left?
It's more complicated than people imagine.
Yes ma'am.
It seems odd whenever I say that giving away money is hard. But, the challenges are tough, and the business of philanthropy is tough.
Giving away money well is incredibly hard. Those who take it seriously feel the burden of that. They feel the burden of wanting to do it well. Because when you think about it, the risk is really borne by the people that you're serving. If you give the money away to ill effect, if you aren't actually achieving what you set out to achieve, it's not the foundation that suffers.
It's the people.
It's the mission.
It's the mission that suffers. It's the kids who aren't served well. It's the community who does not get the effect.
I think that the people inside foundation who are very serious and trying to operate with the highest integrity bear that on their shoulders. When you ask me about what it takes to do philanthropy well, there's a whole host of things. I think at the core, it's being guided by values.
Some of those values are about listening really hard and connecting with those closest to the problems that you're trying to solve, and ensuring that you're operating with humility, and that you are making the adjustments necessary over time when you are discovering that your initial inclinations are not-
May not be right.
Yes. Maybe are not getting you where you thought that they were going to get you.
When we started talking this afternoon, one of the topics that came up was racial equity. It's an issue that Casey has been grappling with and will continue to grapple with for a long time. I see the field grappling with it as well. Is there any insight that you have into how grant makers are trying to be effective on complicated issues like racial equity?
Yes ma'am. Actually, that's one of the things that is the absolutely most core to effectiveness. When you think about any of the most basic issues that foundations are trying to work on, education, health, fair housing, economic equality. If you look at those disaggregated by race, you see how big those gaps are, how big those differences are. So, if you are not paying attention to your strategies based on race, then you're not being the most effective.
Thank you for the perspective, Kathleen, on how we can all think about being more effective, particularly around racial equity. We know that there are lots of strengths in today's philanthropic landscape. What are we doing well in philanthropy?
One of the evolutions that I've seen and I'm really excited about is that more foundations are using all of the assets at their disposal. I think in decades past it was more typical for foundations to focus merely on their grant making assets and that 5% that we had at our disposal to give out. I'm seeing more and more foundations look holistically at all that we can bring to bear to advance our missions. We're using our voices more effectively. We're communicating. You're doing this podcast, that's so exciting. We're collaborating. We're aligning our strategies and resources with other foundations. We're lifting up advocacy and lobbying and policy change when we think that that is the best way to effect change.
It's exciting to see more foundations think about the role they can play in policy, and not just in programs. I think to your point there are many more foundations who are realizing that's an appropriate and acceptable tool that they can use to advance their mission.
Absolutely. There are multiple pathways to grow your impact. I think in the past we always just looked at the programmatic pathway, but you can try to scale impact by thinking about changing a policy or by growing an idea. There are multiple ways. But additionally, many are deploying the 95% of their endowment resources in different ways.
I'm on a group with other philanthropic leaders about the impact of-
U.S. Impact Investing Alliance.
Absolutely. That's very exciting. These are frontier initiatives where we are thinking through how we, in totality, can have a broader impact on the world, and not just stay in what we thought of as our own lanes. The lanes that we saw as where we should be.
Could you say more about impact investing, just for listeners who may not know what that is or how it works? Just so that people understand the difference between the 5% that we were talking about and the 95%.
That's a little bit of insider speak, sorry about that.
That's okay.
In a lot of endowed grant making foundations, they spend out 5% of their assets every year in grants. That's where all the programmatic work typically happens. But then the rest of the money is invested.
What first started happening is that those invested assets were screened for things that maybe folks didn't want to have in their investments. They were screened positively or negatively, meaning things were taken out. There are terrific efforts like the divest/invest, where they're divesting from things like fossil fuels and investing in things like clean energy, depending on what the institutions' missions are.
There are other efforts like trying to diversify asset managers. ABFE, which was formerly known as the Association of Black Foundation Executives, they're now just known as ABFE but for those who don't know the field very well I thought I would spell that out. They're encouraging the diversification of the investment manager, so more women and people of color who are managing the money. That's another way that people are trying to change the game there.
But also using that 95% of resources to get multiple returns. Social returns as well as economic returns. So, it could be investing in low-income housing that also produces some profits. There's a multitude of vehicles for impact investing, but that's a small enough snapshot that gives people enough of an impression.
Thank you, thank you. I didn't know if there were other ways that you saw the field being effective that you wanted to highlight.
Yeah, one that I think is so… it's like a fundamental shift that will catalyze a lot of other shifts, which is finding ways to engage and incorporate those with lived experience on the issues and causes that we're trying to affect. By seeking their feedback, by hiring them into our staffs, by recruiting them onto our boards. There is nothing like the felt or lived experience of whatever you're working on. Poverty, having been a refugee or an immigrant, any of these sorts of things, to enable you to make better decisions about the work.
We're all limited by our own experiences. I think that is one of the ways we can be most effective, is to bring the insights and perspectives of others into our decision making.
Absolutely. The research proves that out.
I think that all of these are increasing the sophistication of our sector and of the individual organizations that make up our sector. That is only going to be to the good of-
Of the business of good.
Of the world. Yes, of the business of good. I like that, yes.
Wonderful. Let's shift, then, to talk about what isn't working. What do you think are some of the major challenges that are slowing us down in philanthropy?
I guess I'll say that this is an industry… you mentioned that lots of people come into this work through the side door, or through a less than typical path. But one thing that frustrates me is that people are making unforced errors. There are things that are known about how to do philanthropy well, and many have been doing this work for decades. Books have been written about this work.
We've made the mistakes. Let's not make them again.
Yes ma'am, that's exactly it. So, if we just are willing to show a little humility and a little curiosity about what has happened and about how we can do the work better, and how the work is already being done better, then we can spend these precious public resources, these are resources that are tax-advantaged and therefore we have a trust.
We're stewards.
We're stewards of a public trust, we can spend them better if we're willing to do that. So, groups like the Council and our colleagues and other philanthropy work, serving-organizations, will do our best to make those lessons more accessible, more digestible, more actionable. But those making philanthropic choices have got to show that curiosity and that humility to want to learn.
I think, unfortunately, it's easy to be successful in one realm of life and believe that the same things that make you successful in business are the same skills or attributes that can make you successful in philanthropy, or could lead to problem solving on social issues. I see you nodding. That's not always true. There isn't an app for poverty.
What's that book, What Got You Here Isn't Going to Get You There? It's almost entirely true that the same skill sets that are going to make you successful in, name the field, are not ... it could be academia, it could be government, it could be whatever the field is. Or it could be software development ... are not going to be the same skills that are going to make you a successful philanthropist. Those really smart people can learn and pivot, though. I know they can.
Other philanthropies like Casey and others work hard to try to share our lessons with others. We write more than I think people could ever read, in terms of trying to share the mistakes that we've made, or the successes that we've had and what's contributed to them. To your point, I think the Council is a fabulous intermediary to help all of us in the field learn from one another in faster, more powerful ways.
The one other thing that I have to say, because it's one of the most frustrating things, along those same lines that this field does not seem to progress as quickly as the evidence and the data would seem to-
Permit.
Suggest, or permit, which is that nonprofits have been pleading for decades for the kinds of support that they need to be successful, which is that they need flexible dollars.
.They have been in this starvation cycle where they can't fund the things that they need to be high performing, and they're kind of on this treadmill, barely keeping up, all of the time. Some of this is because government money comes with such low overheads and so many restrictions, and that is very clearly part of the problem, a big part of the problem.
I personally worked on this challenge for 17 years, and I can say that I… I can't say that I understand the rationale, to be frank. The businesspeople who create these foundations clearly understand the expenses necessary to run a top rate enterprise, of course they do. I'm just not sure why they would restrict, or cherry pick the expenses that they are willing to pay for when attempting to fund a top-rate organization that's doing work that's much harder than the typical for profit.
Foundations like Casey often support, not just a programmatic work of an organization, but also lots of capacity building. We realized that in order for our organizations to deliver results, they've got to be strong organizations. We provide investments that help them get better on data, or help them get better on communications, or help them get better on racial equity. It seems like by increasing the overhead it contributes to their ability to fund their own, or manage their own, capacity building in some ways.
Absolutely. I ran an organization that was completely committed to all of those things. Capacity building, evaluation, all that. And in my perfect world, the organizations would be getting the flexible dollars they need to self-support whatever kind of capacities that they need in order to be high performing. There's the counter argument that nonprofits are so conditioned, culturally, to underfund that stuff that foundations need to provide those incentives. That is true. We do need a shift that will take some time, because nonprofits have been in a system that's broken for too long. We do need to shift the system, and then have them believe that the system has been shifted in order for it to be real.
Thank you for that perspective, both the celebration of the things that we seem to be doing well in philanthropy, and the call to action and the challenge for us to continue to push ourselves to do more.
You started talking about this question of engagement, and I want to explore that a little more. In modern America, wealthy individuals can make an undemocratic impact through philanthropy. What can we do to ensure that the sector is engaging in more meaningful ways with the communities and the people that we are seeking to help?
Absolutely. That's one of the major arguments of some of philanthropy's critics right now, is that philanthropy's being done by plutocrats. It is a form of speech. Philanthropy is a form of speech. Where you give your money and how it is given, it's a form of democratic voice.
To my mind, the more that we can open up and enlarge who has access to be a philanthropist in first order, the more democratic it becomes. I'm concerned about the fact that tax reform cut off that ability, to some extent. Because when we reduce the number of people who itemize their taxes by so much, so many fewer people receive any sort of benefit from giving to nonprofits. Therefore, it really is the higher income folks who are getting the most tax benefits. And so, the Council will be working hard to try to create a broader benefit for more folks and for more people with more regular incomes to make philanthropy more democratic.
Additionally, we said that you need to stay connected to those who are affected by the issues that you're working on. Some of the best regarded organizations in our sector have been calling out for that kind of connectivity for years and years. Some people talk about it as getting proximate, others have written publications called Do Nothing About Me Without Me. People are talking about feedback loops.
Participatory research.
Participatory research. Folks are talking about it in so many different ways. Not only do you need to ask for, but you actually have to take and incorporate and make real the feedback that you're seeking.
One of the things when we are doing our work is the balance you have. You have paid staff that you have charged with helping to figure out how to make investments on their behalf, but then you know how important it is to engage communities. There is a lot of work that has to be done to help your staff understand what their role is in both making grant making decisions but also engaging communities, in informing and providing support for those kinds of decisions. There is a dance to be done in trying to manage both paid staff and community members that you want to have a voice in what you're doing.
Lisa, you sound like you've already got that balance. Your understanding of that balance and you're talking about it in a really nice way. I think where it goes a little bit askew is when foundations charge their staff with being the expert. Because then they think they have to have the answers. That's terrible for them. Those poor foundation staff that think that they have to have the answers, and then present it in a whole little package to their foundation leadership. Of course, they're going to get resistance from the nonprofits they fund and from the communities that they serve. Because, again, they weren't consulted.
I don't want to pretend that we have it all figured out. We're practicing. Philanthropy is a practice.
Of course, absolutely.
Not a performance. We are every day trying to do that balance, but I think people often come to philanthropy imagining that their role is to have an expert answer. There are often people who are accomplished in the fields that we work in. Helping them build new muscles to be rather engaging, to be folks who engage community and are listeners and not just deciders is really a new muscle that you have to build for folks in philanthropy.
As you said, it can be a black box. People aren't always sure what it means when you come into philanthropy. But I think it can be eye opening to realize, my job is often really to reveal the insights and solutions that those we seek to serve have. I think you're right, that's a really important part of our practice we have to get much, much better at.
We can also hire for it, though. We can hire people in who are already good at that. That is, it's a key skill.
Or who have lived experience. It doesn't have to be outside/inside situation.
That's great. Let me shift and ask you, what's one area that you'd like to see philanthropy taking on a larger role so we can have a greater impact? It feels like philanthropy is a part of so many fields. Are there some spaces where you think we are a bit absent?
Absent is probably not the right word. But when I think about the fact that philanthropy exists because some individuals have resources that far exceed their needs while others are struggling and suffering, I think philanthropy would be well served to explore how we can create conditions for broader economic prosperity for all.
Last question, do we have a new generation ready to take on the helm of philanthropy? I don't think folks imagine young people are as often leaders in philanthropy, but I know your organization does lots of work to try to build the talent pipeline into philanthropy. What does it look like?
Oh, yes, absolutely. There are incredibly values-driven generations coming up. I've been so excited to see how many leaders in philanthropy have been coming from within the field. You're one of them, Lisa, which is so exciting.
Because this is an industry, as I've said, and there are skills that you need. There's context. There's deep learning that helps you be a more successful leader in this work. It's exciting to me that people are finding career paths in philanthropy, that they're sticking to it, that we're creating cultures where more folks are wanting to stick in our sector. I'm hoping that that will continue to be the case, particularly for people of color. There was a very disturbing report several years ago that ABFE produced called Exit Interviews, which was about how Black people were leaving foundations at an incredibly rapid rate because the cultures were not working for them. That has not been repeated recently, but the Council cares very much about diversity in the sector.
We have a Career Pathways program that is explicitly about getting folks who are mid-career into the C-suite in philanthropy, people from all sorts of the dimensions of diversity, including racial diversity, but also people who might come from a rural background or people who come from low socioeconomic status or what have you. We're very excited because those cohorts fill up very quickly and there's a lot of success of people who have been in Career Pathways who are now in CEO roles in philanthropy.
That's fantastic. It seems like we are getting ready and there is an energetic crop of leaders ready to step into leadership here.
Absolutely. I think that there is plenty of leadership to be had for the nonprofit sector and for philanthropy. I think they're ready, they're willing, and we just need to let them loose.
That is so exciting. Kathleen, it has just been phenomenal to have this conversation with you, to hear what you see is happening in philanthropy, both the opportunities that lie ahead of us and some of the challenges that we need to be mindful of, so we can be as effective as we can in doing this business of doing good. Thank you so much for joining me on CaseyCast today.
Thank you so much for having me, Lisa.
Thank you to everyone listening today.
If you enjoyed this episode, go to Apple Podcasts to rate the show or share your feedback on Twitter using the CaseyCast hashtag. As always, more information on CaseyCast, this interview, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation's work is available at AECF.org/podcast.
Until next time, I wish all of America's kids — and all of you — a bright future.


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When Acting Is Not Enough: CSI "Kitty" Review
Kick Gurry (Clikk) Torrey DeVitto (Kitty / Susan McDowell) his Italian bombshell girlfriend, on CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION, Wednesday, Feb. She's Dating the Gangster (NR)Release Date: July 25, Cast: Stephen Moyer, Radha Mitchell, Caitlin Stasey, Torrey DeVitto, Dale Dickey Cast: Johnny Knoxville, Juliette Lewis, Elizabeth Banks, David Koechner, Kick Gurry. to the Head / Куршум в главата () Hercules / Херкулес () Kick-Ass 2 Ancient Empire / Истории за древната империя () Dating the Enemy Bob Elliott Ray Goulding Eric Gurry B.J. Barie Ari Meyers Benjamin H. Carlin . O'Donoghue Marta Gastini Arianna Veronesi Andrea Calligari Torrey DeVitto.
The decorative foyer features images of flora, fauna and Aboriginal art.
Face masks of well-known scientists from the late 19th century and early 20th century are featured on the walls as a reminder of its previous incarnation as the Institute of Anatomy. The building also features a courtyard, theatre and research centre 4.
Kick Gurry
Noonan grew up with a background in classical music, with her mother Maggie being a well-known opera singer. She studied opera and jazz at the Queensland Conservatorium, after graduation, Noonan began fronting the pop-rock group george, along with her brother Tyrone Noonan.
Noonan founded george with her brother, with whom she shares lead vocals, george won the Breakthrough Artist ARIA award in and performed the song Breathe in Now at the award ceremony. Noonan founded the jazz trio Elixir inwhich released their debut self-titled album inelixirs second album First Seed Ripening was released on 5 August Reviewer Murray Black said, The undoubted highlight of the evening was guest vocalist Katie Noonan, here is a rare talent with a voice of extraordinary beauty and versatility.
In most of her solos, she sounded like a soprano as she soared over the orchestra with a spine-tingling. Consisting of words written by Dorothy Porter, the tracks the mysterious shifts. Noonan recorded an album entitled Skin at Sydneys Linear Recording in Following the success of the remix of Time To Begin, Noonan collaborated with John Course, the collaboration involved the re-recording of Noonans vocal tracks and a dance version of her solo album was released under the title Second Skin.
Csokas has a brother, Robert. He appeared in one episode titled Technical K. Inhe starred in the drama film Broken English. From tohe maintained a role in Xena, Warrior Princess, portraying Xenas past love. The following year, he appeared in the action horror Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. Also inCsokas played the role of the villain Nicolai Itchenko in The Equalizer and that same year, he starred as Sam Steele in the Discovery Channels scripted miniseries Klondike.
Csokas began dating French actress Eva Green after meeting on the set of Kingdom of Heaven inafter three years in a long-distance relationship, he moved to London in to live with her 6. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, in the yearhumanoid robots serve humanity, and humans are protected from the robots by the Three Laws of Robotics.
Spooners critical injuries were repaired with a left arm, lung.
Robots and Mechanical Men, Dr. Calvin protests that this is impossible, as no robot can violate the Three Laws, Sonny also appears to have emotions and dreams. While pursuing his investigation of Lannings death, Spooner is attacked by a USR demolition machine and his boss, Lieutenant Bergin, worried that Spooner is losing his mind, removes him from active duty.
Spooner and Calvin sneak into USR headquarters and interview Sonny and he draws a sketch of a recurring dream, a leader, who Sonny believes to be Spooner, standing before a large group of robots on a hill near a disintegrating bridge. When Robertson learns of Sonnys immunity from the Three Laws, he orders Calvin to destroy him by injecting nanites into his positronic brain, Spooner recognizes the landscape in Sonnys drawing as Lake Michigan, now a dry lake bed and a storage area for defunct robots.
Upon arriving there, he discovers NS-5 robots dismantling older models, the takeovers proceed, the government, military, police, and public are overwhelmed by the robots. Spooner rescues Calvin, who was being held captive in her apartment by her own NS-5 and they reenter USR headquarters and reunite with Sonny, who was spared when Calvin, unable to carry out Robertsons order, destroyed an unprocessed NS-5 in his place.
The three head to Robertsons office, only to find him murdered by robots controlled by the mastermind behind the takeover and she has concluded that humans have embarked on a course that can only lead to their extinction. VIKI unleashes an army of robots to stop them, as the others battle the robots, Spooner dives into VIKIs core and injects the nanites, destroying her positronic brain 7. Knowing film — Knowing is a science fiction thriller directed by Alex Proyas and starring Nicolas Cage.
The project was attached to a number of directors under Columbia Pictures. Production was financially backed by Summit Entertainment, Knowing was filmed in Docklands Studios Melbourne, Australia, using various locations to represent the films Boston-area setting.
Knowing met with mixed reviews, with praise for the performances, visual style and atmosphere. Instudent Lucinda Embry hears whispers as she stares at the Sun, when her class is chosen to contribute to the schools time capsule, each child is asked to draw what they believe the future will look like.
Lucinda writes a page of seemingly random numbers and adds it to her elementary schools time capsule, Lucindas teacher, Miss Taylor, calls for the pupils to finish but Lucinda continues until her teacher takes the page off her desk unfinished.
Lucinda then goes missing after the capsule is dedicated, and is found by her teacher in a utility closet scratching numbers into the door with her fingernails bleeding. InCaleb Koestler is a pupil at the elementary school.
Torrey DeVitto
Most Popular Titles With Nick Baillie
Filmography: Ri
When the time capsule is opened, Caleb is supposed to read, hes given the page of numbers written by Lucinda. The last three sets of digits on the page are dated in the immediate future, in the following days, a car drives by the family home with two strangers.
They give Caleb a small smooth stone, John witnesses a plane crash on a freeway on the day that the paper had predicted that a disaster would next occur. He tries to save victims, but he is unsuccessful. He then learns that the remaining unexplained digits on the paper are the coordinates of the location of each disaster predicted on the paper.
Caleb then has a vision of one of the strangers in his bedroom, the stranger shows him the world on fire with burning animals. John tracks down Lucindas daughter Diana and granddaughter Abby, John then gives up his son to his sister.
Soon afterwards, there is a subway crash in New York which John fails to prevent. Diana then believes John and visits him and she says that her mother used to hear voices, and that the next date in the document, October 19, was the day Lucinda always said Diana would die 8.
It was released on August 21, by Elektra Records and it was the groups first recording to feature its new bassist Jason Newsted, and also the bands first release following the death of second bassist Cliff Burton.
With Metallica scheduled to play the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington, Newsted used his construction experience to install soundproofing on Lars Ulrichs garage in El Cerrito, California, where the band would rehearse. The Wait was omitted from the UK pressings in order to conform to local music-industry rules regarding the length of EPs, the EPs sleevenotes are noteworthy as a nomination for the first use of the word hella, James Hetfield is quoted as saying that the studios hella sucked.
Warner describes this band on his website as Australias first punk band, Warners song writing created his first version of Suburban Boy in He gained a popularity with his next band, From the Suburbs. The band gained a following and was subsequently signed by Mushroom Records. After This is My Planet, Warner diversified from writing and performing music full-time, instead, he started to write plays, novels and screenplays.
Inhis revue, The Sensational Sixties started to tour large suburban hotels, written and produced by Warner, the show was successful.
Paul Wesley & Torrey Devitto funny moments . ( Part 1 )
InWarner wrote and appeared in a musical, The Sixties, later that year Planet Pres, a rock musical written by him, was produced by the WA Theatre Company, and performed at the Playhouse Theatre. Inside the house Doc Robert David Hall comes out in person cos he knew her and she was a good woman. As DB Ted Danson later tells him, the good always pay for the bad.
Ri Filmography | QuickLook Films
DB finds a laptop on the bedroom floor and a woman appears inside of it, then everything disappears. If Berman had moved out of the house and taken his clothes with him, what was the laptop doing there.
She's finally given clearance and has a spat with the pilot of the airplane, thinking she's getting special treatment by her having them fly her there. Thus he may have been at the firing range since he's a member. Berman is shocked that his wife has been killed and when questioned by Brass, his lawyers prevent him from talking. He makes the lawyers leave and she knows that he was having an online affair with her. Nick gives Hodges's Wallace Langham name since it's a good name and she finds out he's been on sites but not this particular one.
He explains it's cos of his fiancee, but she doesn't need to know. Pulling up Kitty on the website, she works out Kitty isn't real but is an avatar. That's what I said, she didn't look real from her movements. She's used men agents and others to chat with Kitty but she only responds to those who have money.
She finds that Berman was online and was being watched whilst she talked about sex, from which she earlier discovered is all Kitty talked about.
She also finds footage of Berman telling her he's not going to pay anymore and that he wants to meet by the Blue Diamond with the money, but to leave his family alone, when Kitty threatens them. Nick checks out Berman's car and finds that the empty bag could have been used to make a payoff to the real killer even if he didn't actually kill her.
Filmography: Na
Also that he manually programmed the address of the Blue Diamond into the car. The dog is from a shelter and Nick also finds CCTV footage of the man who rescued the dog from the shelter.
Hodges and Greg both saying it's Nick with a pooch. Hodges says that Greg will be looking after her. Security would have thought he was just another man. They finds the killer's abandoned car at the airport and he's in the wind.
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Japanese Soccer Star, Transgender Advocate Marries Girlfriend in U.S.
One of Japan's most visible LGBT athletes . . .
U.S.-based Japanese soccer player Kumi Yokoyama revealed Tuesday that they married their girlfriend in the state of Virginia. A tweet from the athlete announced the marriage and showed a photo of the two smiling newlyweds holding their marriage license. Yokoyama, who uses "they" pronouns and publicly came out as a transgender man in June, has been a long-time advocate for LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage, in Japan. Yokoyama has joined a growing cadre of athletes advocating for policy changes in Japan, a movement that has gained momentum around the Tokyo Olympics, and popular support for LGBT equality is growing.
Advocates see setbacks as part of a bigger picture . . .
Many activists had been looking to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to spur social and legal changes, in part because of a promising bill put forth ahead of the Games declaring discrimination against LGBT individuals "unacceptable." But the bill was struck down in the spring, and a subsequent watered-down version failed to pass in the summer. Following that blow to the LGBT rights movement, two candidates expressed openness to same-sex marriage in the autumn presidential race. But the leading socially conservative Liberal Democratic Party chose Kishida Fumio to lead the party (and thus become Prime Minister), dashing hopes for significant changes around this issue. Still, many are optimistic that changes are on the horizon in a country where outright anti-gay violence and sentiment are relatively rare, and the constitution does not explicitly mention that marriage must be between a man and a woman.
Pro-LGBT sentiment soars in recent years . . .
Japanese attitudes around same-sex marriage have shifted dramatically in recent years, up from around 40 per cent in 2015 to 65 per cent today. LGBT pride marches that once struggled to attract participants now have corporate sponsors like Mizuho, Panasonic, and Fujitsu. Some 130 Japanese municipalities now have systems to recognize same-sex partnerships. In March of this year, a district court in Sapporo declared the national prohibition of gay marriage unconstitutional. Analysts will be looking to a series of other important Japanese court cases around LGBT equality, with rulings expected in the coming months.
CBC: As Olympic spotlight shines on Japan, LGBT advocates call for change
The Economist: Support for gay rights in Japan is gaining momentum
Kyodo News: Transgender footballer Kumi Yokoyama marries girlfriend in U.S.


The fit was a bit too big and the material was way too thin bordering on being see through.
It wasn't made using a good quality material. Not what I expected at all. It looks and feels cheap.
The size did not match up to the sizing chart. The pants don't fit so it is sad that I bought them. Its okay though (: IF the pants were bigger I'd enjoy them.
Great fit, but they shrink after washing. Tried drip drying. It doesn't shrink.
The material is very thin with little support. The pants are good for warm weather workouts.
The capris had a hole in them from the seams not being sewn correctly~ very poor quality!
Item had hole! Not what I wanted. Very unsatisfied. Not a huge fan of group on.


text:
Tag: austerity
October readings
Source: ROAR Magazine
So much has happened around the world this month, it's hard to keep up. From massive protests around the world that toppled whole governments and won people's demands against austerity, to Turkey's attack on Rojava, to massive wildfires in California (again). But that's exactly why we put together this newsletter for you! This month, we feature some excellent analysis on what links these global protests against austerity, and on-the-ground analysis of protests in each country. We offer many stories that can help inform you about what's going on in Rojava, and how we can respond to Turkey's invasion and the US role. After Extinction Rebellion protesters tried to block commuters in London, a debate ensued about appropriate forms of direct action, which we feature here. Now that California is up in flames again, we offer some timely analyses on the economic system and built environment that have led to its current ecological crisis. We also highlight a few analyses from inside the movement for local democracy in North America, with several reflections on the Symbiosis Congress of Municipal Movements this September. There was also a lot of analysis about the role of corporations in the climate crisis, including Silicon Valley's funding of climate change denial.
On the whole, a thread running through this month's events was the perceived conflict between working class demands and environmental policy. Reminding us of France's Yellow Vest protests, in Ecuador, social movements rose up against rising gas prices; in London, Extinction Rebellion was mocked for blocking a commuter train in a working class area. In California, austerity has led to the failure of its energy companies to provide energy for millions of people, targeting the poor. What are the opportunities for environmental policies to meet people's needs, and at the same time reconstruct the world system ecologically? How can environmentalists, especially those in the Global North, appeal to the global working class? These are some key questions going forward.
Shrink the military, shrink injustice | Link | The US Green New Deal must be anti-imperialist
A Green New Deal for an ecological economy | Link | Introducing a series of proposals for a truly transformative GND
Designing for a world after climate catastrophe | Link | While architects are often told they will change the world, a new book fails to imagine what a world after capitalism could look like
Degrowth should be a core part of the just transition | Link | A review of Degrowth by Giorgos Kallis
Utopia, not futurism: Why doing the impossible is the most rational thing we can do | Link | This 1978 speech by Murray Bookchin is strikingly relevant today
The US city preparing itself for the collapse of capitalism
New bubbles, mounting debt: preparing for the coming crisis
Post-capitalists must understand the role of migration in global capitalism. "When reading and hearing of ambitious programmes for social transformation, it is our task to consider whether or not such programmes have a sense of the 'real' determinants of economic development that Marx recognised: international relations of production, the international division of labour in a world market, exploitation of resources and emigration of displaced people, and at the forefront of these processes, the inner structures of middle and working classes and relations between them."
The stories we need: pan-African social ecology
Why mental health is a political issue, by Mark Fisher. "Depression is the shadow side of entrepreneurial culture, what happens when magical voluntarism confronts limited opportunities."
Unprecedented' murder charges for loggers in deaths of indigenous activists. Two timber executives and three loggers charged in shooting deaths of activists who battled illegal logging in Peruvian Amazon.
Fishery collapse 'confirms Silent Spring pesticide prophecy'
Indonesia finds one-fifth of palm oil plantations are illegal
Maquiladoras and the exploitation of migrants on the border
Understanding extinction: humanity has destroyed half the life on Earth
Dutch development bank is financing land theft, intimidation and Landless: How the Dutch development bank marginalises farmers.
'Consumers are not aware we are slaves inside the greenhouses'
Higher temperatures driving 'alarming' levels of hunger – report
Indigenous Mapuche pay high price for Argentina's fracking dream
Cambodia's Bunong reel from deforestation
History threatened as Turkey prepares to flood ancient city
Harvard and TIAA's farmland grab in Brazil goes up in smoke
Worldwide uprisings against austerity
Analysis of the common threads in global uprisings:
The revolution isn't being televised
Prole Wave: climate change, circulation struggles and the communist horizon
Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon: Global protests are fueled by deeper discontent
Revolts against the neoliberal world order
The Interpreter: The global protest wave, explained
Why democracy is crumbling in the West
And analyses of protests in each country:
Massive protests in Chile force repeal of fare hikes and Chile doesn't need to rebuild, it needs to be restructured. Also: Debt and neoliberalism: The global roots of Chile's crisis
The Algerian Hirak: Young people and the non-violent revolution
Lebanon's 'October Revolution' must go on!
As protests grow, Lebanese are 'reclaiming' public spaces
Lebanon is experiencing a social revolution
Update from Catalonia and "Be water": Catalonia protesters learn from Hong Kong
Social and political earthquake in Ecuador and a piece by Diana Vela Almeida, contributing editor at Uneven Earth: The fight against the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies in Ecuador: Lessons for environmental and social justice
Extinction Rebellion: Critique and defense
Resources on colonialism, racism, and climate justice for Extinction Rebels
The flawed social science behind Extinction Rebellion's change strategy
How seven thousand Quebec workers went on strike against climate change
It is not just a bunch of flowers
Don't use XR tube action to attack the climate rebels
Extinction Rebellion has a politics problem
Revolution in Rojava
Trump's betrayal of Rojava
This Vermonter's theories laid the groundwork for revolution in Rojava
The Kurds—a history of agony
PKK letter to the American people and President Trump
The Rojava revolution in peril
What the world loses if Turkey destroys the Syrian Kurds
New education system was central to the Kurds' Rojava Revolution in northern Syria – now it's under attack
Turkish attack on Syria endangers a remarkable democratic experiment by the Kurds
Not just ethnicity: Turkey v. Kurds and the great divide over political Islam v. the secular Left
This isn't the first time the US has abandoned the Kurds
The annihilation of Rojava
Reflections on the Symbiosis Congress
Grassroots democracies form North American coalition
Symbiosis: federating municipalist movements in North America for real democracy and en français: L'émergence d'un municipalisme nord-américain
Of egg and chicken: A report back from the Symbiosis Federation Congress
Report back from the Symbiosis Congress of Municipal Movements
We do it badly, or not at all: reflections on the Congress of Municipal Movements
California's wildfires and ecological crisis in the United States
It's the end of California as we know it. "Our whole way of life is built on a series of myths — the myth of endless space, endless fuel, endless water, endless optimism, endless outward reach and endless free parking."
Ordinary life has vanished in fire-ravaged California
'I'm standing right here in the middle of climate change': How USDA is failing farmers
California's power shutdown was primed by climate change
Corporations and climate injustice
Global climate laws threatened by rise in investor-state disputes
Revealed: the 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions
Fossil fuel firms' social media fightback against climate action
Money to burn: How iconic banks and investors fund the destruction of the world's largest rainforests
Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers
In its insatiable pursuit of power, Silicon Valley is fuelling the climate crisis
How to pay for climate justice? Tax the rich, say the rich
Free Trade Agreements are fueling and shaping the oppression and injustice against women
The act of giving and the chance of life on a finite planet
Has capitalism become our religion?
Being busy is eliminating the joys of shared free time
The past is still present: why colonialism deserves better coverage
Digital dystopia: how algorithms punish the poor
Humans will not 'migrate' to other planets, Nobel winner says
The real reason scientists downplay the risks of climate change
Mining is destroying the planet
Ancient farmers irreversibly altered Earth's face by 3000 years ago
Climate is missing the point. We have an ecosystem emergency
How capitalism 'solved' the nitrogen crisis
'Racism dictates who gets dumped on': how environmental injustice divides the world. The Guardian launched a year-long series, Our Unequal Earth, investigating environmental injustices: how ecological hazards and climate disasters have the harshest impacts on people of color, native tribes and those on low incomes.
As sea levels rise, so do ghost forests
'Like a sunburn on your lungs': how does the climate crisis impact health?
Against 'consumption' . We must shift our perspective from reducing consumption to radically reorganising society.
Professional-managerial chasm and On the origins of the professional-managerial class: An interview with Barbara Ehrenreich
Connecting trade and climate chaos
Reflections on Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch, by Peter Linebaugh
Depoliticization is a deadly weapon of neoliberal fascism
A growing anti-racist network takes on the rise of far-right politics in Germany
Uganda's eco-feminists are taking on mining and plantation industries
Saving Aru: The epic battle to save the islands that inspired the theory of evolution
Burial ground acknowledgements. Land acknowledgments as acts of institutional inclusion obscure the antagonism that follows from genocide.
Farewell to the World Social Forum? And an oldie but goodie: Mzonke Poni on the World Social Forum
Germany's big green mood lacks radicalism
For the sake of life on Earth, we must put a limit on wealth
The other Marx. Why the Communist Manifesto is obsolete
"Every time a civilization is in crisis, there is a return of the commons" – Interview with Michel Bauwens
'One of the biggest, baddest things we did': Black Panthers' free breakfasts, 50 years on
What living well means for the Tseltal and Tsotsil Maya of the Chiapas
Property owners can do basically whatever they want to homeless people now. In San Francisco, they're even getting the government's help.
A new kind of housing co-op emerges in San Francisco
Can our 'global city' offer transnational solidarity?
'Van homes' aren't romantic – they are proof of our horrifying housing crisis
India builds homes to resist climate-linked floods
An Athenian remedy: the rise, fall and possible rebirth of democracy
The urban shepherd of Paris – photo essay
Degrowth!
Techno-fix futures will only accelerate climate chaos – don't believe the hype
A Green New Deal between whom and for what?
Why degrowth is essential: A rejection of Left ecomodernists Phillips, Sharzer, Bastani, and Parenti
Climate futures: Renewable energy vs. technologies of degrowth
Sci-fi and the near future
Angela Davis, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Nikita Dhawan: Planetary utopias
Reclaiming sci-fi's lost history
We need more imagination in the face of climate catastrophe
Comrades in deep future
The rise of Indigenous horror: How a fictional genre is confronting a monstrous reality
Posted in Monthly links, Monthly linksTagged austerity, degrowth, environmental justice, extinction rebellion, radical municipalism, rojava, social movementsLeave a Comment on October readings
The 8th of December, the end of the month, and the end of the world
"End of the world, end of the month, same struggle. Photo: Il Est Encore Temps on Twitter
by Anya Verkamp and Riccardo Mastini
Saturday 8 December 2018 is a day that will likely go down in history for many social movements. The streets of many European cities were filled with demonstrations against the most pressing social issues of our time: growing inequality, useless mega infrastructural projects, and climate breakdown. While these issues may seem unrelated, they have common origins in neoliberalism.
The demonstrations that most captured the collective imaginary and the headlines are those of the gilets jaunes – or 'yellow vests' – in France. The past five weekends have seen protests rising against Macron's government. Although the movement was sparked by a new tax on petrol, the 'fuel' keeping the movement alive is resentment towards 'the President of the rich' who recently reduced the solidarity tax on wealth, an iconic policy of French socialism.
Other notable resistance protests marking that weekend include those in Italy against the 'useless mega infrastructural projects' such as the TAV, TAP and the MUOS military antenna – major proposals of private industrial infrastructure that devastate ecosystems and the health of citizens. The TAV is an example of how transport becomes a threat to ecology and society when privatized rather than run as a public service. The TAV is the result of a historic wave of the neoliberalization of transport, energy and telecommunications industries, through the privatization and deregulation of publicly-owned enterprises.
The Gilets Jaunes ("Yellow Jackets") taking over the Champs-Elysées, Paris. Photo: Christophe Becker on Flickr
At the same moment, international policy-makers convened in Katowice, Poland to negotiate how to implement the Paris Agreement at the COP24 UN climate conference. Or, in the case of some parties, such as the US, Russia, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, the conference was about negotiating how not to implement the Paris Agreement. For delegates of poorer nations and small island states in the Pacific that are on the frontlines of climate change, the objective was to negotiate their own survival. This year could be the last opportunity for international policy-makers to take the necessary measures to avoid climate apocalypse. The result has been an unprecedented wave of climate marches in recent weekends, including the biggest some countries have ever seen.
It is therefore evident that ecological issues are an ever-stronger underlining force for many social movements. Ironically, it is precisely in France – whose President was recently recognized as a UN "Champion of the Earth" – where it has become evident how the neoliberal establishment privileges the wealthy through climate policy while neglecting the working class.
As human ecologist Andreas Malm argues, Macron is today the champion of neoliberal rhetoric on climate change in upholding the tenet that all individuals are indiscriminately responsible for climate change and must be encouraged to consume sustainably through the imposition of value-added taxes (VAT). Such is the logic behind the fuel tax initially proposed by the French government. However, an increase in VAT is the most regressive way to drive the ecological transition we need. This is because the tax assumes that purchasing power is equal for all citizens. The real impact of the tax would be felt in the wallets of the poorest citizens who cannot afford to abandon their old vehicles – their only lifeline to access work and services in rural areas where public transport is sorely lacking. Meanwhile, overall C02 emissions would remain substantially unchanged since the wealthy can afford the tax and the poor have no other transport option but to keep driving.
Police firing tear-gas on protestors in Paris. Photo: Olivier Ortelpa on Flickr
This is why the streets of Paris have been ringing with the chant "The end of the world and the end of the month, same perpetrators, same struggle". In response to the protests, Naomi Klein tweeted, "Neoliberal climate action passes on the costs to working people, offers them no better jobs or services + lets big polluters off the hook. People see it as a class war, because it is." As an example of how taxes should target the big polluters, we need only consider aviation transport in France. , While the car is the most widespread means of transport among all social classes, 75% of French people never fly and half of the total domestic flights in France are made by just 2% of the population, presumably the upper classes. Yet kerosene, the fuel used for commercial airliners, is not taxed. Higher taxes on kerosene would be a way to reduce emissions quickly and more fairly.
The climate crisis has its roots in the rapid accumulation of capital wealth associated with burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow. Continued centralization of decision-making within a neoliberal order can only offer solutions such as the construction of new pipelines for natural gas, the TAV, and the fuel tax. Instead, the ecological transition must also be a social transition, and a quick one at that. The IPCC special report on 1.5°C warming warns us we must halve global emissions in the next 12 years and reduce them to zero by the middle of the century.
TAV street protests in Turin, Italy. Photo: EYE DJ on Flickr
Maybe we can give Macron some hints in the right direction. To ensure mobility and energy access in times of transition, we must return them to public oversight with devoted resources commensurate to the urgency of climate breakdown. This requires a massive expansion of affordable public transport in the urban, semi-urban periphery, and rural areas, with support of alternative forms of transport, such as bicycles and electric carpooling. We must also bring the electrical grid under democratic control through nationalization, or still better municipalization, to encourage the supply of renewable, locally-managed energy sources. Preferably, this public management would be coupled with advances in participatory democracy at the municipal level. A great example is Barcelona Energía, the city's new publicly owned grid of renewable energy soon to supply 20,000 homes, implemented under the municipalist politics of Barcelona en Comú.
It would be useful if the automotive industry was ordered to transform its industrial production for what we need: wind turbines, solar panels, electric bicycles, trams, etc. Just as the American automobile factories were converted to churn out tanks in World War II by order of the Roosevelt administration, so today they could be converted to supply the technology needed for a renewable energy transition.
More and more progressives around the world – from Corbyn to Sanders – are already following Roosevelt's footsteps by calling for a Green New Deal, as a government led investment in low-carbon infrastructure, providing training and employment so that the energy transition simultaneously tackles income inequality. To finance this new era of large public investments, we need more progressive taxation since a close correlation exists between wealth and quantity of emissions. This will be necessary to take back the private wealth accumulated in recent decades to avoid the socio-economic and ecological collapse that climate change guarantees.
But these issues won't be a priority for the European ruling class, unless the people force a change in the agenda of the ruling class. Another important lesson of the past few weeks is that any progress on the climate front will only come from public pressure. This does not refer only to street demonstrations, but acts of civil disobedience like those carried out in central London in November by the Extinction Rebellion movement. As long as Macron or other European leaders of the current neoliberal ruling class are unwilling to implement the measures required for system change, mass direct action must continue to demand it. A convergence des luttes is essential for shaping a common vision and catalyzing political action.
Anya Verkamp is an activist and media producer on environmental justice, political ecology, and a just transition. You can follow her on Twitter.
Riccardo Mastini is a PhD candidate in the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Posted in Essay, StrategiesTagged austerity, climate change, climate justice, climate movement, collective action, environmental justice, France, gillets jaunes, neoliberalism, social justice, social movements, yellow vestsLeave a Comment on The 8th of December, the end of the month, and the end of the world
"Docs Not Cops"
Photo: Emily Hatcher
by Sophie Lewis
Who works indirectly for the UK Border Agency? Volunteers help burn down migrant camps in Calais and elsewhere. In part due to cuts to its maritime services, bodies continue to wash up on EU shores. And as a result of recent policies, the government has made it clear that it would like the border control team to include landlords, neighbours, teachers, bank clerks, social workers, welfare administrators, and doctors. It is increasingly clear that the enforcement of the UK border is not limited to its ports of entry.
But the activists and medical trainees who go by "Docs Not Cops" are not going to comply. In the context of the EU's ongoing inadequate and even murderous response to migrants, I interviewed activists at DocsNotCops for Uneven Earth.* This group of medical workers and activists represent just one example – in Britain – of a struggle against border regimes that exclude and stigmatize migrants, to the detriment of everyone.
Why DocsNotCops?
The UK National Health Service (NHS), a system of socialized healthcare introduced in the aftermath of World War II, has been universally operative and "free at the point of use" since 1948. But advocates of privatizing public infrastructure (as pioneered by Margaret Thatcher) are gaining ground in their longstanding assault on the NHS.
In the years since, millions of people have taken to the streets to defend "Our NHS" against those who would tamper with it. The campaign of opposition to "our" NHS has been multi-pronged—involving de-funding, speculation, and propaganda—but the consensus is that it seeks to convert a public good currently organised along principles of universal welfare into a lucrative and stratified medical marketplace based on private care and insurance premiums, similar to that of USA.
In 2015 and 2016, it is the NHS doctors on the "junior" contract, which Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is threatening with reform, who have occupied the bulk of the spotlight within the wider social conflict over healthcare provision. In his attempt to impose the exploitative new terms, Hunt has come up against a tireless wave of resistance he visibly did not expect. Although public sentiment in support of a fully public health service was known to be high, the junior doctors surprised many by handing their union, the British Medical Association, an extraordinarily strong mandate for taking strike action against the government: the ballot showed that 98% of more than 37,000 in England had voted in favour of full strike action. Perhaps even more surprisingly, doctors on strike have consistently been found to enjoy full support from a vocal majoritarian cross-section of society.
Most of those involved with DocsNotCops are also heavily involved in the junior doctors' struggle. One interviewee, who asked not to be named, explained the current state of affairs for the fightback against Hunt's reform: "The vast majority of its members have said they're willing to escalate things. Unfortunately the BMA (our trade union) has been dragging its heels and not wanting to appear too militant. We're seeing many medical staff talking about simply quitting the National Health Service, or even quitting the profession altogether. They're still a minority, those suggesting a mass exodus, but it's catching on, and it's a terrible argument for many reasons—most of all because it would play right into the hands of privatizers. At this point, any "emergency meetings" the government tries to have with our BMA reps will be stormed by activists so as to ensure that continuous, 48-hour plus, strike action is on the table."
The [Immigration Act] enlists doctors themselves in a closing of the borders.
But, specifically, DocsNotCops came into being in response to the passing of the UK Immigration Act. Hotly contested and repeatedly blocked prior to its approval in 2014, the Immigration Act was justified by a series of xenophobic discourses in mainstream newspapers (from the Daily Mail to the Guardian). These ill-substantiated anti-migrant narratives, fuelled by soundbites from politicians across the party spectrum, connected widespread ill-feeling generated by austerity policies and slow post-crisis economic recovery with a supposed immigration and asylum-seeking crisis. According to them, an unsustainable influx of both "medical tourists" and refugees has "swamped" Britain's capacities to provide care at taxpayers' expense: supposedly "stretching" the NHS to its breaking point.
The bill enlists doctors themselves in a closing of the borders, inside institutions. It changes the fundamentally unpoliced nature of public medical provision by introducing unprecedented screening, designed to identify those the state deems (as above) "undesirables" at the point of healthcare provision, in order to charge them fees, exclude them, or else dissuade them from seeing a doctor in the first place. In other words, the bill – as they see it – essentially turns civil, medical and caring professionals into agents of harm: "cops"; border agents; spies and debt collectors.
The policy changes have already produced tragic effects. Reem Abu-Hayyeh (DocsNotCops) cites, for example, "the sad case of Dalton Messam (44), an undocumented migrant who died in 2013 in East Ham from an unknown illness, too afraid to seek medical treatment in case he was deported, is testament to the potentially fatal consequences of limiting or cutting off access to healthcare for migrants."
The energetic ad-hoc network came together to prevent this kind of shameful occurrence from ever being repeated. In their own words, the aim is "a society in which people aren't scared of illness." One trainee doctor and DocsNotCops activist observed: "As we move on with this fight, we've all been obliged to re-think the question 'What is cost, in the NHS?' Because we're constantly confronting the fact that it's the capitalists themselves who are putting the numerical value on what happens to people's bodies under this system."
The activists frequently point out in their written materials that Aneurin Bevan, the minister who founded the NHS, understood this profoundly. Bevan famously affirmed: "Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalized, but a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community". For these reasons as much as epidemiological ones, as DocsNotCops maintain, if a health system isn't for everyone, it just won't work.
The Immigration Act: paving the way for more austerity and privatization
As one of their first initiatives, DocsNotCops devised a consciousness-raising survey: How will the Visitor & Migrant NHS Cost Recovery Programme affect you? By responding to the survey's prompts, anyone can easily learn that the government's proposed measures include the introduction of charges attached to accessing A&E and general practice. There is also now a £200 surcharge on work visa applications, even though the majority of migrants already pay for the NHS in various ways: taxes, VAT, National Insurance, tuition fees.
Are hospitals simply complying? No. Unofficial protocols, for now, still operate in most places to simply go ahead and provide care to those with the wrong documents (or none).
So, it's not universal charges for the time being, but rather, charges for some of us—those of us who don't meet certain residency and citizenship conditions. Rhetorically, this is justified in the language of 'sacrifice' with reference to overcrowding and balancing the budget. Yet it requires that hospitals work with the UK Border Agency's data to scrutinize people – everyone, not just some of us – for their legal status, rather than just their illness. They must, of course, acquire the computer and bureaucratic staff capability to do so. DocsNotCops sees the introduction of this kind of administrative functionality as the thin end of a wedge that is designed to kill off any collective sense of entitlement to "no questions asked" medical care.
Are hospitals simply complying? No. Unofficial protocols, for now, still operate in most places to simply go ahead and provide care to those with the wrong documents (or none). To combat this resistance, as Sophie Williams (DocsNotCops) notes: "The Act states that NHS Trusts will receive 'financial incentives' to recoup costs. This could mean pressuring staff to racially profile patients … those deemed eligible for free care, and those not." The 'Overseas' debt-collection teams now being introduced in many hospitals look set to start transforming UK healthcare into something more like the world's infamously chaotic, ineffective, and inhumane for-profit models.
On a case-by-case basis, pro bono UK legal workers have argued for waiving medical fees on behalf of denied asylum-seekers awaiting appeal, and various other vulnerable people such as undocumented and mentally ill homeless migrants. Enormous quantities of time, money and energy have had to be invested for every individual in court in order to prove the principle: "can't pay, won't pay". In 2015 DocsNotCops found out via a Freedom of Information request that one hospital's eight such full-time staff, dedicated exclusively to recouping costs from migrants, succeeded with just 10% of invoices.
Perversely, increases in pointless salaried administrative staff, who are hostile to patient care and an encumbrance to those delivering it, are completely typical of 'cost-cutting' privatization drives across institutions.
Perversely, such increases in pointless salaried administrative staff, who are hostile to patient care and an encumbrance to those delivering it, are completely typical of 'cost-cutting' privatization drives across institutions. Similarly, both of the recent attempts to trial the type of computer system that is required to terrorize newly convalescing people in this way (linking the Home Office and NHS records), and thus supposedly enable savings, incurred a cost of around £10 billion and ended in complete failure. On the other hand, NHS workers found that the government had "inflated six-fold" the NHS 'cost' of migrants. These precedents make clear that, even if the figure for the "savings" represented by denying migrants free care were true, introducing the requisite computer system would likely be a financial fiasco that completely buried that sum.
With the advent of DocsNotCops, theatrical "border controls" ("Checkpoint Care" stunts) have appeared outside hospitals. Asylum-seeking Virgin Marys—unable to pay the £5,000 fee for maternity care for non-resident migrants—were symbolically prevented from giving birth at Christmas, and videos circulated in which a white coat is peeled off to reveal a border guard's badge. These protests expose the introduction of selective charging in the NHS as racist, a perversion of care, and detrimental to all. As the manifesto states: "Instituting this scheme will drive vulnerable migrants away from NHS services. … No doctors should have to police the people they treat. … Charging migrants for healthcare is the first step to normalising charging for everyone".
NHS workers found that the government had "inflated six-fold" the NHS 'cost' of migrants.
It is important to stress that the punitive UK border already existed to an extent within the National Health Service, insofar as it permeates British society in the form of immigration controls, raids, checks, and xenophobia. A 2015 report by Doctors of the World found that, contrary to xenophobic tabloid narratives, the majority of migrants have felt deterred from using the NHS. And that's before the Immigration Act had even been announced.
At a Docs Not Cops rally in April 2015, one doctor (active with Tower Hamlets Keep Our NHS Public, or KONP) was contemptuous of these reforms, which she referred to as racist: "This is an NHS which entirely depends on foreign workers. [Yet] a real hatred of foreigners is being stirred up in the country and in the NHS. … Our borders exist for rich people only when it suits them. … And they have the cheek to say that … people who come in to work in the country in poorly paid jobs are not entitled to healthcare! … We have to say no to this. We need to have humane care, we need people to come and work in our health services, and we need to have borders that are open for people."
Photo: Mark Boothroyd on Twitter
"Making both arguments at once": Connecting migrant justice and politics of care
Belief in the possibility of universal welcome and care for all is not utopian. For decades, among the ranks of public health-workers, it's been practiced and substantiated – and that includes all sorts of workers, not only those who swear to do no harm. Pitted against their values and experience are the border regimes that gratuitously detain hundreds of thousands of people every day, in prisons and detention centres which – perversely – rely on doctors to function.
By strategically refusing to collaborate with the immigration police, DocsNotCops is innovative but not unique. While the experience of a defensive "rear-guard" campaign to defend a public good from buy-out is, at this point, an all too familiar one for the Left, in many ways it is when activists are on the 'offensive', making impossible-deeming demands and affirming a positive transformation, that they are most united worldwide.
DocsNotCops say they have been inspired by acts of resistance by doctors on the other side of the world. In February 2016, for example, amid migrant solidarity demonstrations, one hospital in Brisbane, Australia refused to discharge a baby whose parents are seeking asylum. And when staff at Melbourne Royal Children's Hospital protested against Australian government policies in October 2015 of placing children in detention and denying sick asylum-seekers care "a thousand doctors, nurses and other workers [had] finally howled in protest"—as Dr. Ranjana Srivastava put it.
So, today, DocsNotCops and their allies (a vast network including Doctors of the World, SolFed, London Black Revs, London2Calais, Together Against Prevent, ACT UP, 999CallforNHS, and KONP), have mounted a counter-offensive against migrant scapegoating and capitalist enclosure of common resources. As they make the case for no borders, their members are also taking part in the nationwide industrial dispute raging over the government's attempts to squeeze more profits out of the national junior doctors' contract.
While anti-migrant austerity narratives can be exposed on their own terms, the principle that 'docs will not be cops' also goes beyond the fiscal—gesturing toward logics of care outside of nationalism and capitalism.
This double focus of their struggle requires DocsNotCops' messaging to be more thoughtful than others when refuting their opponents' arguments for surveillance and austerity. For instance, they often come up against false statistics which suggest that non-tax-paying migrants and 'medical tourists' greatly burden taxpayers, or that the NHS is 'bust' and requires private buy-out. While these frames can be exposed on their own terms, the principle that 'docs will not be cops' also goes beyond the fiscal—gesturing toward logics of care outside of nationalism and capitalism. As Sophie Williams (DocsNotCops) said to me, "it's about making both arguments at once". It is not enough to point out that non-British people in fact bring net income to the NHS – not to mention indispensable labour (although this is true). To stand in solidarity with migrants and asylum-seekers, and to centre them in NHS organising in the context of their persecution, cannot be conditional on their cost-effectiveness, usefulness or unobtrusiveness within the system.
The distinction breaks down anyway: diseases don't make distinctions around visas or passports, and people who avoid health services, out of fear of questioning or deportation, won't just die but will tend to spread them. Their suffering—from the viewpoint of the owners of capital—should represent false 'savings' that, as DocsNotCops activists have argued, lead to far more expensive outcomes for society.
But what they demand is an "expensive" imperative that is simultaneously ethical and medical: far more migrants in the UK should avail themselves of health services than currently do. DocsNotCops are unapologetic about the cost of both junior doctors and truly universal healthcare. To those who would turn health infrastructure and carers into a nationalist surveillance mechanism funneling the poor and marginalized onto deportation planes—or, who knows, highly profitable debtor's prisons—demanding the very best of healthcare for literally everybody who needs it, literally everywhere, is the only conscionable response.
You can get in touch with DocsNotCops by visiting the website docsnotcops.co.uk, finding their Facebook page and events, joining the mailing-list docsnotcopsnhsgroup@googlegroups.com, or following them on Twitter @DocsNotCops.
*some DocsNotCops activists asked not to be named in this piece.
Sophie Lewis is researching the uneven geographies of reproductive technology and 'outsourced gestation' (aka surrogacy) at the University of Manchester. She pursues joy and feminist killjoyism in equal measure and enjoys dancing, writing (e.g. at Mute, The New Inquiry, Jacobin), mushrooms, and militancy. She tweets @reproutopia.
Posted in Essay, Report-backTagged austerity, healthcare, migrant justice, refugeesLeave a Comment on "Docs Not Cops"
Degrowth in Detroit?
by Seth Schindler
Speculative lending practices and the securitization of sub-prime mortgages were largely to blame for the 2008 financial crisis. The crisis was particularly severe in cities where the lack of liquidity in the financial system made it difficult for municipal governments to respond to the wave of foreclosures and resultant shrinking tax bases. With the worst of the crisis seemingly behind us it is time to reflect on its long-term impact on American cities.
Perhaps the most extreme example of a city in crisis is Detroit. The city's beleaguered finances proved to be no match for the global economic meltdown and in 2013 Detroit filed for bankruptcy. This part of the story is well known, but much less attention has been paid to the vision of Detroit's future development around which a consensus among local elites coalesced in the year-and-a-half since its declaration of bankruptcy.
While this plan retains some elements of out-of-the-box urban development programs, it dispenses with a growth-based strategy geared toward rejuvenating the city's manufacturing base. Instead, it recognizes the likelihood of further economic decline and its emphasis is on improving the quality of life of Detroit residents, economic diversification and environmental sustainability.
In order to understand the willingness of policy makers in Detroit to relinquish the dream of returning to a golden era of Fordist manufacturing it is necessary to put the 2008 crisis in context. Like many American cities, Detroit is a casualty of the prolonged economic crisis that began in the 1970s. Auto manufacturers relocated production facilities to southern states and then overseas in an attempt to outflank organized labour and to counter a falling rate of return. The collapse of Detroit's manufacturing base left the city's finances in tatters, and policy makers responded by embracing market-oriented solutions that were in fashion in the 1980s.
There was a broad shift in the United States during the 1980s, in which the primary function of municipal government went from managing day-to-day service delivery to fostering economic growth. To this end "growth coalitions" emerged in many cities. These coalitions practiced "growth machine politics" aimed to augment land value and attracted inward investment. Public bodies assumed risk for large-scale urban development projects while private firms reaped the financial rewards.
This led to a perception among investors that municipal bonds were safe investments that offered lucrative rewards, so when Detroit's municipal government sought to make up for its shrinking tax base by issuing bonds there was no shortage of willing investors. By 2012 Detroit's deficit stood at $326 million while its tax base and population continued to shrink.
The textbook response to crisis in many cities has been to intensify neoliberal policies. Thus, when growth coalitions failed to attract investment or augment land value, the response has oftentimes been to offer even more favourable terms to investors while cutting back on services. This has led many scholars and activists to despair that while neoliberalism is the cause of the current crisis it is also perversely embraced as its solution.
Many municipalities have indeed imposed fiscal austerity since the onset of the financial crisis as a means of attracting investment. Some of these cities may have fundamentally sound finances, and policy makers may view fiscal austerity as a short-term detour aimed at calming skittish investors. According to this reasoning the pain caused by austerity will be offset in the near future once the growth coalition is able to resume a cycle of development and growth.
In the case of Detroit this optimism would have most certainly be misplaced because even the most aggressive version of fiscal austerity would not have reversed the city's decades-long decline. This begs an obvious question: Why should a city endure the pain of austerity if further decline is inevitable from the outset?
Detroit's elites decided that, while austerity was in the best interest of extra-local creditors, it also promised to make life even more difficult for residents, and they decided to repudiate the city's debt and take the historic step of declaring bankruptcy. By freeing the city of its debt burden, bankruptcy has allowed Detroit's future to be re-envisioned.
A coalition among Detroit elites coalesced around this emergent vision, which is based on creative land-use, environmental sustainability and economic diversification. It is articulated in a 345-page document entitled Detroit Future City (DFC). It reads like a master plan and focuses on five "planning elements": economic growth, land use, city systems, neighbourhoods, and land and buildings assets.
Unlike entrepreneurial urban policies whose time horizons are measured in quarters and election cycles, DFC aims to rejuvenate Detroit's economy in the course of the next five decades. The first step is to make the city liveable in order to stem the tide of out-migration, and to this end the plan calls for investments in neighbourhoods. Residents in neighbourhoods characterized by high levels of abandonment are encouraged to relocate to neighbourhoods with high population densities. Fordist manufacturing is rejected in favour of economic diversity, the single-family detached home is rejected in favour of densely populated diverse neighbourhoods, and in a major shift for the Motor City the plan envisions an efficient public transportation network. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the DFC is "the re-imagination and reuse of vacant land for productive uses or, where there is excess vacant land, returning it to an ecologically and environmentally sustainable state." The emphasis on sustainable land use is a significant departure from growth machine politics aimed at augmenting land value.
It is too early to tell whether the vision articulated in the DFC will be realized or if it will indeed guide policy for the next fifty years. Nevertheless, it is important to note that bankruptcy gave Detroit the opportunity to chart a new path. I refer to this as degrowth machine politics because it takes the further shrinking of Detroit's economy for granted, and rather than placate creditors policy makers are focused on improving the quality of life for city residents.
The concept "degrowth" is not new but it has historically been used primarily by activists and scholars because politicians do not win elections by campaigning for shrinking the economy. This is changing since the onset of the financial crisis because there are many places in which degrowth simply seems to be a reality that cannot be reversed by fiscal austerity.
For example, elements of degrowth are beginning to enter mainstream policy discourse in southern Europe. Voters in Greece recently rejected fiscal austerity, and the concept has begun to enter mainstream discourse elsewhere in southern Europe. In the United Kingdom the Scottish National Party has chided mainstream political parties – and most notably the Labour Party – for not repudiating austerity.
Thus, it is possible that we could see the emergence of other degrowth machine political coalitions, and this provides an answer for the pressing question: What comes after neoliberalism? The transition to degrowth is not a linear advancement to a new political system based on purportedly universal ideology. Instead it is a mixture of locally adapted policies whose coherence lies in their intended outcomes rather than ideological underpinnings. The objective is to simply do more with less and thereby improve the quality of life, and this will oftentimes (1) reduce the quantity of resources used and (2) put localities – and local elites who were hitherto part of multi-scaler growth coalitions with extra-local financiers – at odds with their creditors whose main priority is protecting their investment.
Detroit may provide lessons for degrowth coalitions elsewhere. First and foremost, Detroit demonstrates that the intensification of fiscal austerity is not the only response available to policy makers faced with an economic crisis. In spite of declaring bankruptcy Detroit was not punished by creditors. On the contrary, the repudiation of debt transformed Detroit into an attractive destination for investors. For example, Goldman Sachs launched an initiative to invest $20 million in Detroit's small businesses. Quite simply, an institution that is unburdened by debt seems like a better investment than one that cannot hope to repay its debt without the support of a guarantor (in this case the State of Michigan).
The reason why Detroit is able to attract investment is because its degrowth machine politics has clearly articulated an innovative plan for the city's future. Thus, the rejection of austerity for austerity's sake must be accompanied by a clear set of policies aimed at managing decline in a way that makes cities more liveable. In other words, the repudiation of debt should not be understood as a strategy to attract capital from different investors, but to rework with relationship with all investors so that any inward capital is leveraged toward the realization of a sustainable and equitable future.
Seth Schindler is a lecturer in human geography at the University of Sheffield.
Posted in Essay, FuturesTagged austerity, cities, degrowth, Detroit, financial crisis, growth machine, neoliberalism, urbanLeave a Comment on Degrowth in Detroit?