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David Graeber: After the Pandemic, We Can't Go Back to Sleep

At some point in the next few months, the crisis will be declared over, and we will be able to return to our “nonessential” jobs. For many, this will be like waking from a dream.

The media and political classes will definitely encourage us to think of it this way. This is what happened after the 2008 financial crash. There was a brief moment of questioning. (What is “finance,” anyway? Isn’t it just other people’s debts? What is money? Is it just debt, too? What’s debt? Isn’t it just a promise? If money and debt are just a collection of promises we make to each other, then couldn’t we just as easily make different ones?) The window was almost instantly shut by those insisting we shut up, stop thinking, and get back to work, or at least start looking for it.

Last time, most of us fell for it. This time, it is critical that we do not.

Because, in reality, the crisis we just experienced was waking from a dream, a confrontation with the actual reality of human life, which is that we are a collection of fragile beings taking care of one another, and that those who do the lion’s share of this care work that keeps us alive are overtaxed, underpaid, and daily humiliated, and that a very large proportion of the population don’t do anything at all but spin fantasies, extract rents, and generally get in the way of those who are making, fixing, moving, and transporting things, or tending to the needs of other living beings. It is imperative that we not slip back into a reality where all this makes some sort of inexplicable sense, the way senseless things so often do in dreams.
[link:https://jacobinmag.com/2021/03/david-graeber-posthumous-essay-pandemic|

Western powers drop censure plan as Iran agrees to IAEA talks

Tehran, Iran – Western powers have backed off from an effort to censure Iran at the global nuclear watchdog as Iran agreed to cooperate with international experts regarding uranium particles found at several of its sites.

Iran’s foreign ministry credited “intense diplomatic efforts” by Tehran and all other participants to its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers for stopping a European and American-backed resolution at the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The United States, which unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018, had initially backed a plan by Germany, the United Kingdom and France – together known as the E3 – to introduce a resolution to condemn Iran’s reduction of commitments under the deal.

[link:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/4/western-censure-cancelled-as-iran-agrees-on-more-iaea-talks|

Let's work toward preventing war for a change...

The House Is Poised to Pass a Major Voting Rights Bill--and Create a Helluva Battle in the Senate

With a supercharged assault on voting rights that includes introducing more than 250 new laws aimed at restricting voting in 43 states, the Republican Party this year has initiated a nationwide crusade against the foundation of American democracy. This week, House Democrats in Washington launched a counteroffensive that will soon move to the Senate, where this critical fight will likely lead to an all-out battle over how that chamber conducts its business.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on—and presumably pass—HR 1, dubbed the For the People Act, the most significant democracy reform bill since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The bill would go a long way toward thwarting the new GOP voter-suppression efforts by enacting a wide range of pro-voter measures for federal elections. This includes nationwide automatic and Election Day registration; two weeks of early voting in every state; the expansion of mail-in voting; the restoration of voting rights to people convicted of a felony who have served their time; restrictions on discriminatory voter-ID laws and voter purges; and the creation of independent redistricting commissions for House districts to prevent extreme gerrymandering. The bill also cracks down on dark money by implementing public financing for congressional campaigns, and it establishes new ethics rules for federal officeholders.

Nearly identical legislation passed the House in March 2019, but it was blocked in the Senate by then–Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who called it a “power grab” for Democrats. It has become an increasingly urgent priority for Democrats this year, following Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the insurrection at the Capitol, and the wave of GOP-backed proposals to restrict voting rights in key states, such as Georgia. The GOP wish list includes rolling back mail-in voting, restricting ballot drop boxes, limiting early voting, and repealing automatic voter registration.

[link:https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/03/the-house-is-poised-to-pass-a-major-voting-rights-bill-and-create-a-helluva-battle-in-the-senate/|