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Anonymous ID: 7e759f July 12, 2020, 2:04 a.m. No.9936687   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>6692

https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/

 

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

 

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.

 

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.

 

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.

Anonymous ID: 7e759f July 12, 2020, 2:05 a.m. No.9936692   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>9936687

Elliot Ackerman

Saladin Ambar, Rutgers University

Martin Amis

Anne Applebaum

Marie Arana, author

Margaret Atwood

John Banville

Mia Bay, historian

Louis Begley, writer

Roger Berkowitz, Bard College

Paul Berman, writer

Sheri Berman, Barnard College

Reginald Dwayne Betts, poet

Neil Blair, agent

David W. Blight, Yale University

Jennifer Finney Boylan, author

David Bromwich

David Brooks, columnist

Ian Buruma, Bard College

Lea Carpenter

Noam Chomsky, MIT (emeritus)

Nicholas A. Christakis, Yale University

Roger Cohen, writer

Ambassador Frances D. Cook, ret.

Drucilla Cornell, Founder, uBuntu Project

Kamel Daoud

Meghan Daum, writer

Gerald Early, Washington University-St. Louis

Jeffrey Eugenides, writer

Dexter Filkins

Federico Finchelstein, The New School

Caitlin Flanagan

Richard T. Ford, Stanford Law School

Kmele Foster

David Frum, journalist

Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University

Atul Gawande, Harvard University

Todd Gitlin, Columbia University

Kim Ghattas

Malcolm Gladwell

Michelle Goldberg, columnist

Rebecca Goldstein, writer

Anthony Grafton, Princeton University

David Greenberg, Rutgers University

Linda Greenhouse

Rinne B. Groff, playwright

Sarah Haider, activist

Jonathan Haidt, NYU-Stern

Roya Hakakian, writer

Shadi Hamid, Brookings Institution

Jeet Heer, The Nation

Katie Herzog, podcast host

Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth College

Adam Hochschild, author

Arlie Russell Hochschild, author

Eva Hoffman, writer

Coleman Hughes, writer/Manhattan Institute

Hussein Ibish, Arab Gulf States Institute

Michael Ignatieff

Zaid Jilani, journalist

Bill T. Jones, New York Live Arts

Wendy Kaminer, writer

Matthew Karp, Princeton University

Garry Kasparov, Renew Democracy Initiative

Daniel Kehlmann, writer

Randall Kennedy

Khaled Khalifa, writer

Parag Khanna, author

Laura Kipnis, Northwestern University

Frances Kissling, Center for Health, Ethics, Social Policy

Enrique Krauze, historian

Anthony Kronman, Yale University

Joy Ladin, Yeshiva University

Nicholas Lemann, Columbia University

Mark Lilla, Columbia University

Susie Linfield, New York University

Damon Linker, writer

Dahlia Lithwick, Slate

Steven Lukes, New York University

John R. MacArthur, publisher, writer

Susan Madrak, writer

Phoebe Maltz Bovy, writer

Greil Marcus

Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center

Kati Marton, author

Debra Mashek, scholar

Deirdre McCloskey, University of Illinois at Chicago

John McWhorter, Columbia University

Uday Mehta, City University of New York

Andrew Moravcsik, Princeton University

Yascha Mounk, Persuasion

Samuel Moyn, Yale University

Meera Nanda, writer and teacher

Cary Nelson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Olivia Nuzzi, New York Magazine

Mark Oppenheimer, Yale University

Dael Orlandersmith, writer/performer

George Packer

Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University (emerita)

Greg Pardlo, Rutgers University – Camden

Orlando Patterson, Harvard University

Steven Pinker, Harvard University

Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Katha Pollitt, writer

Claire Bond Potter, The New School

Taufiq Rahim

Zia Haider Rahman, writer

Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, University of Wisconsin

Jonathan Rauch, Brookings Institution/The Atlantic

Neil Roberts, political theorist

Melvin Rogers, Brown University

Kat Rosenfield, writer

Loretta J. Ross, Smith College

J.K. Rowling

Salman Rushdie, New York University

Karim Sadjadpour, Carnegie Endowment

Daryl Michael Scott, Howard University

Diana Senechal, teacher and writer

Jennifer Senior, columnist

Judith Shulevitz, writer

Jesse Singal, journalist

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Andrew Solomon, writer

Deborah Solomon, critic and biographer

Allison Stanger, Middlebury College

Paul Starr, American Prospect/Princeton University

Wendell Steavenson, writer

Gloria Steinem, writer and activist

Nadine Strossen, New York Law School

Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., Harvard Law School

Kian Tajbakhsh, Columbia University

Zephyr Teachout, Fordham University

Cynthia Tucker, University of South Alabama

Adaner Usmani, Harvard University

Chloe Valdary

Helen Vendler, Harvard University

Judy B. Walzer

Michael Walzer

Eric K. Washington, historian

Caroline Weber, historian

Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers

Bari Weiss

Sean Wilentz, Princeton University

Garry Wills

Thomas Chatterton Williams, writer

Robert F. Worth, journalist and author

Molly Worthen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Matthew Yglesias

Emily Yoffe, journalist

Cathy Young, journalist

Fareed Zakaria

Anonymous ID: 7e759f July 12, 2020, 2:14 a.m. No.9936734   🗄️.is 🔗kun

https://twitter.com/livesmattershow/status/1282179244290748416

 

Portland Protester walks with baby in the middle of a violent protest

Anonymous ID: 7e759f July 12, 2020, 2:45 a.m. No.9936841   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>6845 >>6853 >>6886

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-politics-trudeau/pressure-rises-on-canadas-trudeau-as-parliamentary-rivals-seize-on-charity-controversy-idUSKBN24B2TX

 

Pressure rises on Canada's Trudeau as parliamentary rivals seize on charity controversy

 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came under pressure on Friday from opposition parties he depends on for support in parliament amid heightening controversy over his family’s ties to a charity at the heart of his conflict-of-interest probe.

 

The Bloc Quebecois said he should temporarily yield his post to his deputy, Chrystia Freeland, until the investigation is over, while the main opposition Conservative Party urged a criminal probe. The left-leaning New Democrats said the situation was “more than disturbing”.

 

The Liberal leader lost his majority in parliament in October and depends on opposition parties for support, but none has said it wants to topple the government, and it would take a concerted effort by all of them to do so.

 

“For a few months, I think the prime minister must step aside and leave … the responsibilities to the deputy prime minister,” Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet said in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC).

 

“This is a pattern of behavior with Mr. Trudeau,” New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh said in a statement. “Canadians deserve to know the truth and need to know this won’t happen again.”

 

Trudeau, 48, found himself facing a third investigation for conflict of interest in a little over three years last week after his government awarded a sole-sourced, C$900 million ($662.9 million) government contract to WE Charity Canada to administer a student grant program.

 

The charity backed out about a week after the contract was announced. Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, have regularly participated in WE Charity events, and Gregoire Trudeau hosts a podcast on the charity’s website for which she is not paid.

 

But Trudeau’s rivals went into attack mode on Thursday when WE Charity disclosed it paid honoraria to Trudeau’s mother, Margaret, amounting to C$250,000 ($184,000) for speaking at some 28 events, while his brother, Alexandre, received about C$32,000 ($23,540). The payments were handed out between 2016-2020, during Trudeau’s first mandate.

 

There was no immediate comment from Trudeau’s office on Friday, but he has said he never accepted any payment from the charity.

 

Last week, Trudeau said: “It’s clear there are lessons to be learned about how we can deliver the best programs for young people without attracting controversies like this.”

Anonymous ID: 7e759f July 12, 2020, 2:45 a.m. No.9936845   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>6865

>>9936841

>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-politics-trudeau/pressure-rises-on-canadas-trudeau-as-parliamentary-rivals-seize-on-charity-controversy-idUSKBN24B2TX

 

DO-GOODERITIS

 

Trudeau’s popularity took a beating last year ahead of his re-election bid when he was admonished from breaking conflict-of-interest guidelines in a corporate legal case. The first ethics sanction came in 2017 for accepting a vacation on the Aga Khan’s private island a year earlier.

 

“Trudeau has do-gooderitis,” a former Ottawa insider said. “He thinks: ‘My motives are so pure and I’m so good, how could anything I do be suspect?’ He doesn’t pause to think about what these things look like from the outside.”

 

Trudeau was not the only member of government to have ties to WE Charity. Grace Acan, who was born in Uganda but joined Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s family as a teenager in 2010, works at the charity.

 

“There is absolutely no link between her employment and any work that WE does with the Government of Canada,” Morneau’s spokeswoman, Maeva Proteau, said in a statement.

 

Neither Trudeau nor Morneau recused themselves from the Cabinet decision to award WE Charity management of the grant program. They said the public service recommended the charity for the job.

 

Trudeau has proven to be resilient in the past, including after decades-old blackface images surfaced during last year’s re-election campaign. Furthermore, the prime minister’s approval rating doubled to about 70% on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Ekos Research polling.

 

“I don’t know if he’s made of teflon, but he’s shown the capacity to make really good adjustments,” said Frank Graves, president of polling company EKOS Research, adding that the opposition is doing “a lot of sabre rattling”.