openDemocracy: Second-hand Europe: Ukrainian immigrants in Poland

Poland, a country of 38 million (counting citizens without guest workers), is already home to over one million Ukrainians. Most of them decided to emigrate after military conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine in 2014, when the currency value of the Ukrainian hryvnia plummeted and prices rose. [...]

In Poland, Anna earns around $400 and has also room and board. Thanks to this she is able to transfer most of her earnings to Lviv, where she left her husband and two daughters. According to estimates of the National Bank of Poland, only nine percent of Ukrainian migrants in Poland have no secondary or higher education, but as many as 70.7% perform physical labour.

“They say a Polish woman earns twice as much in my position,” estimates Anna. “But it’s difficult to negotiate if in half of the job offers you read ‘No Ukrainians’. Though I don't complain about my employers. They themselves have family abroad whom they are trying to help.” [...]

Ukrainians themselves are not eager to comment on the political changes in Poland. They try to be good sports, talking about cultural similarities and mutual understanding. Yulia, the woman who escaped from the gas station, underlines at the beginning of our conversation that she will talk with me only because I am writing for an English-language publication. She would prefer not to complain in Polish media — she doesn’t want Poles complaining about ungrateful and hostile Ukrainians. “And it needs no explaining,” Yulia says “who benefits from conflict between our nations.” She means, of course, Russian propaganda. [...]

In this sense, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość does not inflame anti-Ukrainian sentiments itself, but turns a blind eye. As xenophobic attacks are not condemned by the members of the ruling party, it creates conditions under which such hatred can thrive. And such incidents, as the Polish Ombudsman alarms, occur growingly often, even though Poles' attitude towards Ukrainians is, on the whole, much better than their sentiments towards Arabs or Roma people.

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Vox: Why you can’t blame mass incarceration on the war on drugs

The story that Pfaff carefully describes is different from the standard narrative: It’s not drug offenses that are driving mass incarceration, but violent ones. It’s not the federal government that’s behind mass incarceration, but a whole host of prison systems down to the local and state level. It’s not solely police and lawmakers leading to more incarceration and lengthy prison sentences, but prosecutors who are by and large out of the political spotlight. [...]

It’s an uncomfortable read, not least because it suggests America will have to make some very tough choices if it wants to seriously cut the incarceration rate: Are we really okay with locking up fewer violent offenders? Does the country really have the ability to sustain a focus on local and state politics to ensure that the real sources of mass incarceration come down? If America does stumble upon a new crime wave or drug crisis, will all the work that’s already been done be pulled back as politicians resurrect “tough on crime” rhetoric (like President Donald Trump has)? [...]

One caveat to this part of Pfaff’s argument is the churn of the prison population. While the majority of people in state prison at a single point in time are in for violent crimes, many more people are admitted to prison for drug and property offenses than for violent ones. But the lower-level offenders end up serving much shorter sentences, so they don’t add as much to the total prison population at any given point in time as violent offenders do. This was demonstrated in a 2015 analysis by Jonathan Rothwell for Brookings, where he charted the “stock” and “flow” of prisons and how they differ based on offense: [...]

Courts and juries do, in theory, act as checks on prosecutors. But in practice, they don’t: More than 90 percent of criminal convictions are resolved through a plea agreement, so by and large prosecutors and defendants — not judges and juries — have almost all the say in the great majority of cases that result in incarceration or some other punishment.

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Jacobin Magazine: Die Linke’s Identity Crisis

Well, what I meant by that was in the regional elections earlier this spring, large groups (by no means a majority, but 10-25 percent) of trade unionists and workers more generally voted for the AfD, citing general political dissatisfaction and migration as their main reasons for doing so. It’s worth noting that the party has performed significantly worse in elections since then. While Die Linke’s returns vary from state to state and some areas show more promise than others, in general the party appears to be losing ground among sections of the working class and dissatisfied protest voters more generally, particularly in less urban and economically marginalized regions. The process is not a foregone conclusion, and to what extent the AfD can duplicate the success of its European counterparts remains to be seen (Germany is still not, or at least not yet, France or Hungary), but I think it’s fair to say that the honeymoon years of 2005–2010 when Die Linke was the paramount opposition in parliament and able to attract the politically disenfranchised by default has ended. [...]

Firstly, the German left is divided over what exactly the problem is. For some parts of the radical left, Germany is a uniquely racist society that ostracizes and threatens all “Others” by its very nature. This sentiment leads to pretty stupid slogans at antiracist demonstrations like “The problem is called Germany,” which, similar to American anarcho-liberals blaming Trump’s hollow presidential victory exclusively on racist whites, might make sense as a gut reaction, but is simply not true and thus not very helpful for developing effective strategy. We need to understand that racism doesn’t grow in a vacuum, but rather within a complicated and dynamic socio-economic context that must be addressed equally as vigorously as racism itself if we want to drain the social swamp on which it thrives. [...]

Although there are individual immigrant personalities in the party and the Left, as a whole the movements remain painfully white for a country with so many millions of immigrants, large and established Turkish and Arab communities, etc. The same can be said of German society more generally, whose public image remains overwhelmingly white despite four decades of mass migration. I think a left that figured out how to overcome this — not overnight but through a long process, of course — would be better able to address the rise of the far right by combining real, organic antiracist organizing with an economically populist program to improve living standards for the broad majority, black and white alike. [...]

The party’s claim to improve social justice just by existing may even be true — it has certainly forced the political establishment to the left on several issues — but voters’ memory spans are short. They don’t see the introduction of a minimum wage in 2015 as a byproduct of Die Linke’s emergence in the mid-2000s, nor will most people be thinking about the strategic long game when they go to the ballot box. They will vote for Die Linke if they think they can shake things up in a political system they see as corrupt and out of touch, and they will punish the party if it throws away their vote by participating in a neoliberal government.

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Vox: Even the Trump administration doesn’t seem to care about the travel ban anymore

When the travel ban was first put on hold in February, it was a symbol of the haste and carelessness with which an underprepared and understaffed administration had leapt into the job. When the revised version was put out in March, it was the keystone of an administration effort to reboot a flailing policy agenda. And when that version was put on hold, on the evening before it was due to go into effect, it was a reminder that the divisive populism of the Trump candidacy would inevitably haunt the Trump presidency. [...]

The Trump administration — and Trump himself — has shown very little ability to redirect public attention. It looks, for all the world, as if the travel ban has fallen out of mind for the White House because it’s fallen out of sight of national TV news. Because at this point, the news doesn’t react to Donald Trump as much as Donald Trump reacts to the news. [...]

The daily rhythm of political life under the Trump administration is no longer driven by what the White House says or does, or what happens to it. It’s driven by the constant churn of scoops, leaks, denials, and revelations, as new connections between team Trump and the Russian government come to light and government investigations scramble to (or are stonewalled from) getting to the bottom of it. [...]

For all of Donald Trump’s griping about his communications staff, Trump himself appears to be fundamentally unable to direct even his own attention to the things his administration actually wants to do for America, much less the attention of anyone else. His obsession with the way his presidency is covered has deprived him of any chance to change it.

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Politico: Merkel’s thunderbolt is starting gun for European defense drive

What she is doing is making it clear, following the election of resolutely pro-European President Emmanuel Macron in France, that the answer to increasing transatlantic and cross-Channel uncertainty should be to strengthen the EU, shore up the eurozone and take the next steps in building a European security and defense union. [...]

This positions her to run a resolutely pro-EU election campaign, as Macron did in France. In doing so, she’s robbing the mantle from her strongest opponent — Social Democratic Party leader Martin Schulz, who has the aura of “Mr. Europe” after his time as European Parliament president — and rubbing salt into the SPD’s divisions over greater defense spending and a more active military role for Germany.

She is also telling Macron that he will find a willing co-leader in building the EU into a more effective player in international security and diplomacy. And she is charging Trump and May a public political price for their countries’ rejection of multilateral governance. [...]

But the U.K.’s looming departure is a severe blow to German interests, and Merkel’s message to Britain is that it cannot expect to preserve the trade benefits of EU membership without abiding by the club’s rules. It comes as May has been trying to rescue her faltering general election campaign with a fresh round of Europe-bashing, suggesting the other 27 EU members are ganging up to punish Britain.

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Politico: Brussels’ radical eurozone shake-up plan

Under the proposals, the EU’s informal gathering of eurozone finance ministers — the Eurogroup — could grow in stature to promote further integration among the 19 countries that use the single currency.

The plans call for merging the jobs of president of the Eurogroup and the European commissioner responsible for the economic and monetary union (EMU). That person would in effect (and perhaps even in title) be an EU finance minister.

A favored option in the Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters is creating a post that mirrors Federica Mogherini’s EU foreign affairs role. Instead of being an unpaid and scarcely resourced presidency, the Eurogroup would instead be run by someone with a foot in each of the Commission and Council camps. [...]

It’s part of Brussels’ attempts to build on a “Future of Europe” white paper released earlier this year and comes hot on the heels of Emmanuel Macron’s election as French president. Macron has called for a eurozone-specific budget managed by a eurozone finance minister. [...]

Meanwhile, according to Pierre Moscovici, the Commission’s economic and financial affairs czar, the European Parliament should have the power to demand hearings with the Eurogroup’s president to explain the decisions that eurozone finance ministers reach behind closed doors.

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CityLab: Barcelona's Old Town Gets A Reboot

Between these two extremes is a careful balance, and it’s one Barcelona is currently trying to find for some of its oldest quarters. Referred to collectively as Ciutat Vella—Old City in Catalan—this intensely built, densely populated district at the city’s heart has been buckling under the pressure of intense exploitation by the tourist industry in recent years. In a pattern familiar to many inner cities, this pressure has displaced older businesses and the long-term residents who use them, while submitting residents who remain to a nightly barrage of street noise.

That’s why, starting this month, the city will carry out a “street by street, house by house” audit of the area’s 5,700 buildings to work out how Ciutat Vella’s different users, both permanent and temporary, can live in a little more harmony. To do so, the city will have to tackle three key problems. [...]

Ciutat Vella’s popularity with visitors doesn’t mean the whole place is in mint condition. In fact, some patches of the district are decidedly run down. Slip down alleys off La Rambla and you may be surprised to find crumbling buildings and empty plots. This dilapidation is not always an accident. Sellers can currently command far higher prices for empty buildings than occupied ones, because they offer a cleaner slate for investors who want to carry out luxury residential or retail conversions. Landlords can thus be tempted to leave property empty and encourage tenants’ departure through neglect in order to sell at a much higher price when the building is finally empty. In other cases, lenders have repossessed properties seized when occupants defaulted on loans, but then left the apartments untenanted after evicting the previous occupants. According to one recent count, there are 268 homes owned by lenders in Ciutat Vella currently without residents. [...]

These processes all seem positive, but will clearly require discretion. Tourist shops may look scrappy, but so do late night bodegas, cheap take out places, and numerous other businesses that form the not obviously photogenic backbone of a community. Barcelona seems keen to preserve its oldest quarters as genuinely livable, workaday neighborhoods that retain their current communities. Given the pressures on them, that will prove difficult. If they succeed, however, they will have created a guide which the rest of Europe can follow.

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Quartz: “Positive thinking” has turned happiness into a duty and a burden, says a Danish psychologist

“I believe our thoughts and emotions should mirror the world. When something bad happens, we should be allowed to have negative thoughts and feelings about it because that’s how we understand the world,” he says. [...]

There’s nothing wrong with those who have a naturally sunny disposition or who enjoy the odd self-help book, says Brinkmann. The problem is when happiness becomes a requisite. In the workplace, for example, where performance reviews often insist on focusing on positive growth rather than genuine difficulties, demanding displays of happiness is “almost totalitarian.” Brinkmann likens insistence on employee happiness to “thought control.” [...]

Ultimately, negative emotions play an important and healthy role in how we understand and react to the world. Guilt and shame are essential to a sense of morality. Anger is a legitimate response to injustice. Sadness helps us process tragedy. And happiness is great too. Just not all the time.

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Vintage Everyday: Story Behind the Iconic Photograph "Raising a Flag over the Reichstag" in 1945

The photograph was reprinted in thousands of publications and came to be regarded around the world as one of the most significant and recognizable images of World War II. Owing to the secrecy of Soviet media, the identities of the men in the picture were often disputed, as was that of the photographer, Yevgeny Khaldei, who was identified only after the fall of the Soviet Union. It became a symbol of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.

When Khaldei arrived in Berlin, he considered a number of settings for the photo, including the Brandenburg Gate and Tempelhof Airport, but he decided on the Reichstag, even though Soviet soldiers had already succeeded in raising a flag over this building a few days earlier. [...]

Back in Moscow, Soviet censors who examined the photo noticed that one of the soldiers had a wristwatch on each arm, indicating he had been looting. They did not want to impose that image on their country. They asked Khaldei to remove one of the watches. Khaldei not only did so, but also darkened the smoke in the background. The resulting picture was published soon after in the magazine Ogonjok. It became the version that achieved worldwide fame.

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