(The Conversation) – Women from religious communities around the world, like the Dawoodi Bohras, are harnessing the potential of social media platforms to set up or expand their businesses and build entrepreneurial networks. The ease of access, wide reach and collaborative nature of these platforms is providing more women with financial opportunities previously unavailable to them.

Research shows that religion can impact women’s abilities to launch, operate and sustain a business. Religious attitudes towards entrepreneurship affect the support, financial or emotional, that women get from their families and communities.

But religious requirements can also provide the basis for entrepreneurship. Norms and customs around modesty or specific religious dress code can become valuable sources of income for female-led enterprises.

Yet, many women struggle to build businesses or form networks due to gender segregation rules that discourage working outside the home and make it logistically challenging.

Accessing opportunities

Using social media has helped many women navigate these issues by enabling them to conduct their business from the privacy of their homes. They have been proven to offer women more opportunities to connect personally and professionally.

The interactive nature of these platforms blurs social and geographical boundaries to form virtual communities. Through platforms, women can engage in dialogue and build networks of collaboration that provide support and feedback.

At the same time they can overcome many real-life difficulties and barriers. For many women, these virtual spaces compensate for the invisibility and lack of agency many of them often experience in professional contexts.

Online platforms help women balance their domestic and family responsibilities while enabling them to become financially independent. All-female platforms are created by traders to avoid the involvement and control of men which also helps them navigate the rules of gender segregation.

Many Orthodox Jewish women have used social media to build businesses and connections within their own communities while keeping in line with expectations around modesty. Women like Sarah Haskell, who goes by the handle @thatrelatablejew, create content that educates people about Judaism and also combats negative stereotypes about Orthodox Jewish women.

Muslim women all over the world also utilized the marketing potential of social media to create a modest fashion industry by reclaiming of the hijab. Many reappropriate symbols or phrases with negative connotations towards Islam such as “Muslim extremist” to sell t-shirts with the words “extreme Muslim” as a form of optimism-driven commodification.

They assert their identity while combating negative stereotypes about Islam and Muslim women. Entrepreneurial networks also function as a form of empowerment to overcome issues faced by them due to Islamophobia.

Bohra entrepreneurship

Dawoodi Bohras are a religious community known for their trading activities and entrepreneurial spirit. The community numbers around one million, living mainly in India with smaller diasporas around the world.

For Bohra women, work is a source of income as well as part of their religion and a way to give their lives meaning. This idea is based on historical examples of women such as the Prophet Muhammad’s wife Khadija who was known to be a tradeswoman as well as principles of equality that consider both men and women working together to ensure happiness and prosperity.

Traditionally, Bohra women would either market their products from home or operate physical stores. However, the rise of digital entrepreneurship allows them to expand online. Their ventures range from designing and selling the community’s unique religious dresses to accompanying accessories such as skullcaps, prayer mats, bags, jewelry as well as other items like food, toys, décor and religious teaching aids.

Some women sell exclusively online or as an extension of their physical businesses. They have their own websites or use different social media platforms and form online groups where women can interact, advertise their products and receive guidance and mentoring.

Support from community institutions is what differentiates Bohra women’s entrepreneurial activities on social media. Due to its entrepreneurial outlook and eager embrace of digital media, the community provides women with financial aid, online training and workshops and virtual bazaars which help them succeed.

During COVID-19 pandemic closures the community’s official business department, Al-Tijaarat Al-Raabehah, helped many entrepreneurs move to digital marketing.

The Dawoodi Bohra model shows how community support of digital entrepreneurship can help women achieve financial independence and success while respecting religious norms and beliefs.

Although these are small ventures in terms of demand and reach, social media platforms have helped Bohra women expand their realms of possibility and create strong networks across the globe.

Arwa Hussain, PhD Candidate & 2022-23 Concordia University Public Scholar, Concordia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Biden’s achievements are by now legion, especially compared to his predecessors. Aside from a big tax cut for his rich buddies, Trump accomplished nothing. Nothing. All that big talk about redoing US infrastructure and making La Guardia like Dubai’s airport was so much hot air. Mostly he seems to have sat around in his pajamas watching Fox “News.” He constantly talked up his own alleged achievements. But he lied. The trade deficit with China was the same when he went out of office as when he came in. The percentage of the US economy devoted to manufacturing shrank on his watch. He so badly mishandled the pandemic that he lost 22 million jobs, more than any president in history.

The Republican Party did not let Barack Obama accomplish much of lasting consequence with the exception of Obamacare, which passed before he lost Congress in 2010.

George W. Bush squandered trillions on his fruitless Middle East wars and accomplished little domestically before his anti-regulation policies pushed the economy off the cliff in his last year of office. What is it with Republican presidents and losing millions of jobs?

Bill Clinton was a good manager of affairs but his tilt to the right made it impossible for him to do anything that would structurally improve the country. In fact he weakened the social safety net.

Biden came into office under the cloud of the pandemic and Trump’s lackadaisical response to it, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. It is true that Biden had the advantage that the vaccines had been developed, in part with Trump’s investment in Moderna. (Pfizer marketed the German Biontech vaccine). But under Trump, few federal resources had been mobilized and one leak suggested that Jared Kushner deliberately hurt New York’s response to punish it for voting Democratic.

Biden mobilized the US military to provide vaccinators, because there were too few civilian ones, and coordinated with states and localities. In 6 months he got those adults vaccinated who were willing, and began the process whereby getting Covid for most of people was no longer life threatening. As for the die hard Trumpist old people who refuse to get vaccinated, they are harming themselves and those around them.

Biden’s pandemic intervention is estimated to have saved a million lives.

Biden put America back to work, getting the unemployment rate down to levels not seen since the Woodstock Music Festival and the craze for paisley.

So much production had temporarily cut back during the pandemic that when consumers wanted to buy again, there were bottlenecks that caused inflation. These supply problems are easing, though prices of staples remain too high. In some instances, Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine caused spikes that won’t be easy to overcome, both in energy prices and in wheat prices. Still, gasoline prices have fallen steadily for two months now.

Biden charged the Department of the Interior to jumpstart the US offshore wind industry, with a goal of 30 gigawatts by 2030, by leasing federal waters offshore to private companies. We will see some new, enormous wind farms come on line in as little as four years, some of the biggest in the world.

Biden glad-handed and wheedled to get the bipartisan $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed, which will among other things build out electric vehicle charging stations throughout the country and help schools buy electric buses, along with investments in bridges (10% of which seem to be on the verge of falling down) and other key infrastructure. It even has $65 billion in it to ease access for all Americans to the internet, which should increase productivity.

Biden got a new industrial policy with the $52 billion in the CHIPS Act for revving up a US-based semi-conductor industry, which is key to progress in fighting climate change, as well. He arranged funding for veterans suffering the after-effects of toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then this month he succeeded in encouraging Democrats in the Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which he will sign this week, with $369 billion for the green energy transition. It will also make seniors’ medicines cheaper and help the 40% of the country stricken by long-term drought owing to the climate emergency adopt resiliency measures.

Despite leftist criticisms of Biden, much of the big legislation he signed has a bias toward union labor, something we haven’t seen in recent decades.

This presidency does not look like Trump’s, or Obama’s, or Bush’s, or Clintons. It may not be Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, but it is probably the closest we’ve come in the succeeding 56 years.

Biden may just keep the Senate this fall, what with the Republicans putting up goofballs like Mehmet Oz and Herschel Walker and Ron Johnson.

Trump’s cascade of legal problems may have temporarily given him a lift, but they will likely eventually cripple him as a national politician if they have not already.

And Democrats may benefit this fall from a strong backlash among their voters and even many suburban Republican women against the misogynist Supreme Court and male politicians’ interference in women’s health care, with the anti-abortion decision and state laws. We got a glimpse of that in Kansas this summer.

Joe Biden should not be underestimated. He is powerfully reshaping the country, along with the rest of his party, and preparing us for the challenges of the twenty-first century. Write him off at your peril.

High quality child care helps parents earn more now, kids earn more later, and keeps entire communities afloat.

By Mary C. King | –

Child care is one of the biggest expenses many families face — in much of the country, it can run higher than college tuition. Could a national child care program ease that burden?

We’ve come close before. During World War II, the federal government provided child care around the clock to enable more women to work in the war industries. In 1971, we nearly got a national child care program until President Richard Nixon vetoed legislation that had strong bipartisan support.

Now, with Senator Joe Manchin stalling President Biden’s Build Back Better Act, we could be on the brink of another disappointment. Or, if the bill can be rescued, our country may get another opportunity to make a historic investment in our future.

Among many other things, the Build Back Better Act would cap child care payments for working families at no more than 7 percent of their income — while raising wages for child care workers.

The U.S. is far behind other affluent — and even less affluent — nations, in the support it provides families with children. In 2017, the U.S. was 37th of the 38 OECD countries in its spending on family benefits including child care, at less than two-thirds of one percent of GDP.

Only Turkey trailed us. The United Kingdom, a lot like us in many ways, spends more than five times as much as the United States.

Yet the economic case for investing in early childhood education and care is strong. Universal preschool is a two-generation anti-poverty strategy that also benefits the middle class. Decades of research find that it reduces inequality by gender, race, ethnicity and income. Children from families with lower incomes gain the most, but all children make gains.

As it is now, young children have the highest poverty rates of any age group in this country — and the cost of child care helps explain why.

Child care is simply so expensive that many parents, especially mothers, cannot afford to work, which permanently lowers their lifetime incomes. Single mothers, who are raising almost a quarter of U.S. children, are particularly vulnerable.

Women’s ability to work in the U.S. is falling behind other countries — including Germany, Canada, and Japan — due to our weak family policies. But we don’t have to look far to find successful examples of public investments in child care. Washington, D.C.’s universal preschool program has increased the labor force participation of mothers by 10 percentage points, raising family incomes.

Care like this isn’t just good for parents. High quality preschool eases the transition to kindergarten and raises high school graduation rates, college attendance, and incomes. Down the line, it also reduces unemployment, crime, incarceration and other social ills.

Even families without kids benefit. The higher the education rate in a locality, the higher the wages are for everyone, regardless of their education, because companies can be more productive with a skilled labor force.

Finally, part of ensuring quality child care means paying child care workers salaries comparable to elementary school teachers. Without decent wages to support their families, these jobs see very high turnover — which limits the experience and relationships that are critical to quality care.

Federal investment in early childhood and care is long overdue. It’s the best economic development project we could undertake, with significant gains to the community as a whole, as well as to children, their families, and preschool workers.

The rest of the wealthy world has far lower rates of child poverty, a critical predictor of future marginalization, than we do — largely because they invest much more in their children. Let’s not waste another 50 years before investing in our children, our families, and our future.

By Mary C. King is a Professor of Economics Emerita at Portland State University. This op-ed was adapted from Inequality.org and distributed by OtherWords.org.

by Sarah Anderson Brian Wakamo | –

When U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said that he wouldn’t support President Joe Biden’s signature Build Back Better Act, he set off a wave of breaking news alerts.

It was fitting. For months, media coverage has breathlessly focused on the behind-the-scenes wrangling and hour-by-hour negotiations around the legislation. How much has been slashed from the bill today? What does it mean for the future of the Democratic and Republican parties?

The roughly US$2 trillion proposal is designed to bolster what is widely seen as a frayed social safety net. But most Americans don’t think it will benefit people like them, a recent NPR/Marist poll shows. And a quarter of Americans can’t even say whether they like or dislike the legislation.

It’s no wonder the nation is so indifferent about the sweeping bill, which would change the country’s tax system, increase social services and ramp up efforts to combat climate change.

Largely omitted from news coverage – and consequently, from the national conversation – are the voices and stories of individuals who would be affected by the legislation.

Focusing outside D.C.

What if daily media coverage instead featured those voices? What if reporters and talk show hosts ditched the pundits and issue experts and instead explored the problems that led to the proposed policies – through the eyes and voices of those living with those problems?

That means we would hear from parents who need help paying for child care and elderly people who can’t afford medicines or hearing aids.

We would hear from people who can’t afford health care, people living in their cars or on the streets, and yes, those who earn more than $400,000 a year. Multimillionaires, billionaires and corporations would pay more under the new tax plan.

What if news stories shined a spotlight on these voices, rather than just throwing in an occasional anecdote? Would people tune in? Would they engage in conversations or take action around the legislation?

Research shows that they likely would. And that would be good for democracy.

Real stories can spark real engagement

It’s well documented that horse-race journalism – which treats politics as a sport, focusing on who’s ahead or behind, rather than the substance of issues – is associated with an uninformed electorate and elevates public cynicism about politics. Such coverage doesn’t help people understand what proposals could mean to them.

Policy overviews filled with large numbers don’t engage people, either. When discussing the Build Back Better Act, proponents understandably focus on the scope of the problem: 2.2 million low-income Americans couldn’t get health insurance subsidies in 2019 but also weren’t eligible for Medicaid.

Just 23% of civilian workers can take paid family leave, and more than 800,000 seniors and disabled people seeking home health care are on state Medicaid waiting lists.

But science tells us that discussing large-scale suffering makes people turn away. The phenomenon is called psychic numbing. It means the problem is so big that people disengage, because they feel powerless to help. And individuals find it hard to understand the scale of large numbers.

The way to combat this? Journalists can tell stories about real people. Personal stories quickly bring big issues into focus and make them relatable. They make people care.

In 2015, for example, the Syrian refugee crisis had been raging for four years. But it took a picture of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi, whose corpse washed up on a Turkish beach after his family fled Syria by boat, to generate international horror.

After the photo of the young Syrian boy went viral, donations to refugee organizations skyrocketed. The story and photo engaged people who had not yet paid attention to the crisis.

Research backs up the notion that including real people in news stories can spark reader engagement.

A 2012 study compared people’s reactions after they read two versions of a news story detailing how the lack of health care affected one of three groups: immigrants, prisoners or the elderly.

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One version presented the issue using quotes from experts. The other version included a story about a specific person’s experiences dealing with that health care issue.

The news pieces that featured people’s stories elicited emotions in readers that the policy pieces did not. That led the participants to be more willing to help the people they read about.

Including real people in news stories doesn’t mean that engaged readers will only feel sympathy for the characters profiled. Engagement could produce support or opposition to proposed policies.

Looking beyond the political play-by-play

The Build Back Better Act – which the U.S. House of Representatives passed in November – comes as civic engagement in the U.S. is low.

Considering the scope and potential impact of this bill, it’s a disservice to the country for news coverage to focus on the play-by-play in Washington, D.C.

If the press eases up on the machinations occurring in the marble halls of Washington, D.C., and instead focuses on real people, the U.S. could perhaps build back something else: civic engagement, a necessary part of our democratic system.

Angela Bradbery, Frank Karel Endowed Chair in Public Interest Communications, University of Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Progressive leaders in the U.S. Congress are refusing to back down on the Democrats’ promises to American voters to reduce poverty, expand rights to healthcare, education and clean energy, and repair a shredded social safety net. After decades of tax cuts for the rich, they are also committed to raising taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations to pay for this popular agenda.

Photo: Tom Pennington.

Germany has elected a ruling coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats that excludes the conservative Christian Democrats for the first time since 2000. The new government promises a $14 minimum wage, solar panels on all suitable roof space, 2% of land for wind farms and the closure of Germany’s last coal-fired power plants by 2030.

Iraqis voted in an election that was called in response to a popular protest movement launched in October 2019 to challenge the endemic corruption of the post-2003 political class and its subservience to U.S. and Iranian interests. The protest movement was split between taking part in the election and boycotting it, but its candidates still won about 35 seats and will have a voice in parliament. The party of long-time Iraqi nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr won 73 seats, the largest of any single party, while Iranian-backed parties whose armed militias killed hundreds of protesters in 2019 lost popular support and many of their seats.

Chile’s billionaire president, Sebastian Piñera, is being impeached after the Pandora Papers revealed details of bribery and tax evasion in his sale of a mining company, and he could face up to 5 years in prison. Mass street protests in 2019 forced Piñera to agree to a new constitution to replace the one written under the Pinochet military dictatorship, and a convention that includes representatives of indigenous and other marginalized communities has been elected to draft the constitution. Progressive parties and candidates are expected to do well in the general election in November.

Maybe the greatest success of people power has come in Bolivia. In 2020, only a year after a U.S.-backed right-wing military coup, a mass mobilization of mostly indigenous working people forced a new election, and the socialist MAS Party of Evo Morales was returned to power. Since then it has already introduced a new wealth tax and welfare payments to four million people to help eliminate hunger in Bolivia.

The Ideological Context

Since the 1970s, Western political and corporate leaders have peddled a quasi-religious belief in the power of “free” markets and unbridled capitalism to solve all the world’s problems. This new “neoliberal” orthodoxy is a thinly disguised reversion to the systematic injustice of 19th century laissez-faire capitalism, which led to gross inequality and poverty even in wealthy countries, famines that killed tens of millions of people in India and China, and horrific exploitation of the poor and vulnerable worldwide.

For most of the 20th century, Western countries gradually responded to the excesses and injustices of capitalism by using the power of government to redistribute wealth through progressive taxation and a growing public sector, and ensure broad access to public goods like education and healthcare. This led to a gradual expansion of broadly shared prosperity in the United States and Western Europe through a strong public sector that balanced the power of private corporations and their owners.

The steadily growing shared prosperity of the post-WWII years in the West was derailed by a combination of factors, including the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, Nixon’s freeze on prices and wages, runaway inflation caused by dropping the gold standard, and then a second oil crisis after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Right-wing politicians led by Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the U.K. blamed the power of organized labor and the public sector for the economic crisis. They launched a “neoliberal” counter-revolution to bust unions, shrink and privatize the public sector, cut taxes, deregulate industries and supposedly unleash “the magic of the market.” Then they took credit for a return to economic growth that really owed more to the end of the oil crises.

The United States and United Kingdom used their economic, military and media power to spread their neoliberal gospel across the world. Chile’s experiment in neoliberalism under Pinochet’s military dictatorship became a model for U.S. efforts to roll back the “pink tide” in Latin America. When the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe opened to the West at the end of the Cold War, it was the extreme, neoliberal brand of capitalism that Western economists imposed as “shock therapy” to privatize state-owned enterprises and open countries to Western corporations.

In the United States, the mass media shy away from the word “neoliberalism” to describe the changes in society since the 1980s. They describe its effects in less systemic terms, as globalization, privatization, deregulation, consumerism and so on, without calling attention to their common ideological roots. This allows them to treat its impacts as separate, unconnected problems: poverty and inequality, mass incarceration, environmental degradation, ballooning debt, money in politics, disinvestment in public services, declines in public health, permanent war, and record military spending.

After a generation of systematic neoliberal control, it is now obvious to people all over the world that neoliberalism has utterly failed to solve the world’s problems. As many predicted all along, it has just enabled the rich to get much, much richer, while structural and even existential problems remain unsolved.

Even once people have grasped the self-serving, predatory nature of this system that has overtaken their political and economic life, many still fall victim to the demoralization and powerlessness that are among its most insidious products, as they are brainwashed to see themselves only as individuals and consumers, instead of as active and collectively powerful citizens.

In effect, confronting neoliberalism—whether as individuals, groups, communities or countries—requires a two-step process. First, we must understand the nature of the beast that has us and the world in its grip, whatever we choose to call it. Second, we must overcome our own demoralization and powerlessness, and rekindle our collective power as political and economic actors to build the better world we know is possible.

We will see that collective power in the streets and the suites at COP26 in Glasgow, when the world’s leaders will gather to confront the reality that neoliberalism has allowed corporate profits to trump a rational response to the devastating impact of fossil fuels on the Earth’s climate. Extinction Rebellion and other groups will be in the streets in Glasgow, demanding the long-delayed action that is required to solve the problem, including an end to net carbon emissions by 2025.

While scientists warned us for decades what the result would be, political and business leaders have peddled their neoliberal snake oil to keep filling their coffers at the expense of the future of life on Earth. If we fail to stop them now, living conditions will keep deteriorating for people everywhere, as the natural world our lives depend on is washed out from under our feet, goes up in smoke and, species by species, dies and disappears forever.

The Covid pandemic is another real world case study on the impact of neoliberalism. As the official death toll reaches 5 million and many more deaths go unreported, rich countries are still hoarding vaccines, drug companies are reaping a bonanza of profits from vaccines and new drugs, and the lethal, devastating injustice of the entire neoliberal “market” system is laid bare for the whole world to see. Calls for a “people’s vaccine” and “vaccine justice” have been challenging what has now been termed “vaccine apartheid.”

Conclusion

In the 1980s, U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher often told the world, “There is no alternative” to the neoliberal order she and President Reagan were unleashing. After only one or two generations, the self-serving insanity they prescribed and the crises it has caused have made it a question of survival for humanity to find alternatives.

Around the world, ordinary people are rising up to demand real change. The people of Iraq, Chile and Bolivia have overcome the incredible traumas inflicted on them to take to the streets in the thousands and demand better government. Americans should likewise demand that our government stop wasting trillions of dollars to militarize the world and destroy countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, and start solving our real problems, here and abroad.

People around the world understand the nature of the problems we face better than we did a generation or even a decade ago. Now we must overcome demoralization and powerlessness in order to act. It helps to understand that the demoralization and powerlessness we may feel are themselves products of this neoliberal system, and that simply overcoming them is a victory in itself.

As we reject the inevitability of neoliberalism and Thatcher’s lie that there is no alternative, we must also reject the lie that we are just passive, powerless consumers. As human beings, we have the same collective power that human beings have always had to build a better world for ourselves and our children – and now is the time to harness that power.

Via Code Pink

2. Newsroom
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September 29, 2021

Manchin Statement On Infrastructure And Reconciliation Negotiations

Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) released the following statement about infrastructure and reconciliation negotiations.

Manchin: “Every Member of Congress has a solemn duty to vote for what they believe is best for the country and the American people, not their party. Respectfully, as I have said for months, I can’t support $3.5 trillion more in spending when we have already spent $5.4 trillion since last March. At some point, all of us, regardless of party must ask the simple question – how much is enough?”

The constant reference to the 3.5 trillion is misleading. That money will be spent over ten years. Annual expenditures will be less than half of military expenditures. As for how much is too much, as long as human and material resources remain idle more expenditures are appropriate. Climate and the pandemic are global emergencies and require total mobilization.

Manchin: “What I have made clear to the President and Democratic leaders is that spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs, when we can’t even pay for the essential social programs, like Social Security and Medicare, is the definition of fiscal insanity.”

This is the old canard about Social Security and Medicare. Any shortfall in program resources, which are over a decade off, could be met by simple fixes, including lifting the cap on income subject to taxation. And as for fiscal insanity, the US has most costly and least effective healthcare system in the industrial world. At the very least extending Medicare to those 60 -65 would improve finances and population health, but Manchin and his like prevent such options even from consideration.

Manchin:: “Suggesting that spending trillions more will not have an impact on inflation ignores the everyday reality that America’s families continue pay an unavoidable inflation tax. Proposing a historic expansion of social programs while ignoring the fact we are not in a recession and that millions of jobs remain open will only feed a dysfunction that could weaken our economic recovery.”

Inflation at this time is as much a supply side as a demand side problem. That historic expansion of social programs will dramatically reduce childhood poverty and give parents more opportunities to enter the workforce. One consequence will be some relief for the supply side of the inflation equation.

Manchin: “This is the shared reality we all now face, and it is this reality that must shape the future decisions that we, as elected leaders, must make.

Since the beginning of this reconciliation debate, I have been consistent in my belief that any expansion of social programs must be targeted to those in need, not expanded beyond what is fiscally possible.”

This might be Manchin’s seductive poison pill. Political support is more likely for universal programs like Social Security. Otherwise middle class citizens find themselves taxed for programs they can’t use. And the process of qualifying for benefits is usually complicated and infuriating. Just ask many recipients of ObamaCare.

Manchin: “Our tax code should be reformed to fix the flaws of the 2017 tax bill and ensure everyone pays their fair share but it should not weaken our global competitiveness or the ability of millions of small businesses to compete with the Amazons of the world.”

The tax code is not the primary barrier to small business competitiveness Unregulated markets and government subsidies play a much larger role. And the response needs to be a reformulation of anti-trust law for a digital age.

Manchin: “Overall, the amount we spend now must be balanced with what we need and can afford – not designed to reengineer the social and economic fabric of this nation or vengefully tax for the sake of wishful spending.”

I would like to know what constitutes fair or vengeful taxation. I don’t see much of either.

Manchin: “In August, I recommended we take a strategic pause to provide time to develop the right policies and to continue to monitor how the pandemic and economic factors are affecting our nation’s fiscal situation before we spend more. Throughout September, I have made it clear to all those who would listen the need to means test any new social programs so that we are helping those who need it the most, not spend for the sake of spending.

While I am hopeful that common ground can be found that would result in another historic investment in our nation, I cannot – and will not – support trillions in spending or an all or nothing approach that ignores the brutal fiscal reality our nation faces.”

Brutal fiscal reality? Every developing nation’s leader wishes he/she faced such a reality. The US can still borrow long term at historically low rates. The brutal reality is a pandemic that has killed nearly three quarters of a million fellow citizens and a climate steadily worsening. And all this with a broken health care system and an infrastructure graded D plus.

Manchin: “There is a better way and I believe we can find it if we are willing to continue to negotiate in good faith.”

One possible good faith negotiation might be to focus on the coal miners Manchin is supposed to protect. What kind of jobs do they have and how is their health. How about a generous buyout and promise of well compensated employment in WV?

Manchin: “If there is one final lesson that will continue to guide me in this difficult debate ahead it is this: America is a great nation but great nations throughout history have been weakened by careless spending and bad policies. Now, more than ever, we must work together to avoid these fatal mistakes so that we may fulfill our greatest responsibility as elected leaders and pass on a better America to the next generation.”

Absent democratic reforms and a more proactive government there is little chance of passing on a better America to the next generation.

—–

Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

MSNBC: “Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema Contradict Constituents In Obstructing Build Back Better Bill”

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – This Labor Day, American workers finally have something have to celebrate, by virtue of having voted for a Democratic president and Congress.

The pandemic-driven labor shortage has raised wages.

Direct payments from the government, including an expanded child tax credit and expanded unemployment benefits added $3,200 to the income of each worker, causing poverty to fall from 12.8 percent to 8.5 percent by last March. In 2021, Vox projects that poverty will fall to 7 percent, half the 2018 rate.

Economic growth could hit 7% this year, and 4.5% next year which will further reduce poverty.

Poor productivity growth since 2003 had reduced real wages for workers.

in contrast, general wealth inequality may have declined somewhat, despite the income rise for the .01 percent during the pandemic.

———-

Bonus video:

Live: Biden Delivers Remarks on July Jobs Report | NBC News

Prominent Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul was released from prison on February 10 2021 after 1,001 days in custody. Al-Hathloul, a leading campaigner for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, had been sentenced to five years and eight months in prison in 2018 for pushing a foreign agenda and using the internet to harm public order.

One of al-Hathloul’s crimes was to be part of a campaign for women to be allowed to drive. The first of these protests was in November 1990 when 47 activists took to the wheel of their family cars. In response, the women were arrested, punished and publicly shamed.

In June 2011 – inspired by the Arab Spring – a number of female activists launched the Women2Drive campaign, again being punished with arrest and imprisonment. And, despite the ban being lifted in June 2018, some of these women remain in prison for their activism.

Once you recognise the fate of so many “explicit” feminist activists in a country such as Saudi Arabia, it underlines the importance of other forms of lower-risk social movements in which they may be engaging. One legitimate platform for women to engage in sociopolitical change is the entrepreneurial space.

Saudi women are highly educated and control much of the wealth in the country. The kingdom has been advocating for female entrepreneurship in its National Development Plans for more than a decade. This is part of a plan to encourage economic diversification and private sector investments beyond the oil industry – something echoed in the country’s Vision 2030 reform strategy.

Saudi women entrepreneurs are estimated to have SAR45 billion (£8.6 billlion) in cash holdings and currently account for 39% of the total number of registered business owners in the kingdom – up from 4% ten years ago.

Feminist activism through entrepreneurship

Growing up in Saudi Arabia as a Muslim woman of British-Syrian descent meant I was fascinated with the diversity of gender systems across the places I called home. I by no means argue that gender equality has been achieved in the UK, or indeed in any country in the world. But the position of women in Saudi is unique, in a classic patriarchal society with traditions deeply embedded within a history of its tribal system.

So their plight needs to be understood within its own context in order to appreciate their everyday activism. That is, feminist activism should not need to take place in an overtlly western manner in order to be recognised for its ability to lead to lasting socio-political change.

My decade-long study, which began in 2010, explores how while some women have been explicit in their activism, and prosecuted for it, some Saudi women have engaged in a more quiet, (dis)organised and protracted form of activism.

In particular, I focus on women who have used their entrepreneurial space not just for empowerment and economic wealth creation for themselves, but as a legitimate platform for political engagement and social change for women through everyday “solidarity practices”. These allow them to quietly encroach on to the forbidden political space.

Over the decade it became evident to me that this activism “quietly” developed over time through a three-step process. First, the women entrepreneurs aimed to empower women within their organisations by providing a segregated or women-only office space, on-site daycare and safe transport to and from work, particularly before women could drive.

Rania*, a 35-year-old owner of an accountancy firm told me:

I decided from the day I got this office space that it would be a women‐only office. It means I can employ women whose guardians also do not like them interacting with men at work and gives them a chance to learn, evolve and be financially independent … to have a purpose in her life beyond the home.

The second step in the process was to develop a feminist consciousness within their business and larger entrepreneurial network. That is, provide them with opportunities to step outside of their traditional and conservative roles and the traditional gendered view of how a Saudi woman “should be”.

Finally, as the women gained momentum with their “silent” feminist movement, they began to feel empowered to confront authorities refusing to support their business affairs.

‘We will get there’

In 2013, the late King Abdullah issued a royal decree granting women 30 seats in the consultative assembly, the Shura Council, as members. He decreed that women should always hold at least one-fifth of its 150 seats. In 2015, women were able to vote and stand as candidates in the 2015 municipal elections.

Ameera*, who runs a management consultancy is one of the council members. She told me:

Of course there are some power struggles and some discomfort from the men – but isn’t this everywhere in the world? Even America was not ready for a woman to be president … We will get there.

This sort of “quiet” solidarity is an illustration of how the western vision of activism in democratic contexts does not represent women’s feminist movements around the world. For example, the recent #metoo movement saw women (and men) marching the streets, side by side, calling their governments for policy reforms for gender equality. While I acknowledge this has not led to enough change, it also did not result in imprisonment.

Such explicit activism and “western” protest is dangerous for women in a country such as Saudi Arabia – as the experience of Al-Hathloul and others has shown. But this has not stopped women from engaging in less overt ways of activism. Therefore, feminist organising for political change should be explored and understood within its own context, if we are going to fully appreciate women’s bravery and its global political potential.

Women’s names have been changed for security and ethical reasons.

Sophie Alkhaled, Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship, Lancaster University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

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