America Magazine: Edith Stein's niece on what her canonization means for Catholic-Jewish dialogue (February 13, 1999)

The Cardinal then quoted a comment made by Rabbi Daniel Polish in his contribution to a volume of essays that first appeared in Germany in 1990, Never Forget: Christian and Jewish Perspectives on Edith Stein (1998). In his essay Rabbi Polish wrote: “While we cannot embrace the notion that Edith Stein will serve as a bridge [between Jews and Catholics], we can see the occasion of her canonization as opening a door to significant discourse.” [...]

In 1993, John Paul II established diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel. In 1994, he sponsored at the Vatican a concert commemorating the Shoah. Earlier on, in 1986, he made a historic decision—he paid a visit to the great synagogue of Rome, the first pope ever to go there. On that occasion, he clearly condemned anti-Semitism and addressed the Jews as “our elder brothers.” He also recalled the deportations of the Jews of Rome during the Holocaust. These actions and statements of John Paul II have been welcomed in Jewish circles. They stand in sharp contrast to the policies of the Vatican during the rise of National Socialism.

On July 20, 1933, the Vatican concluded a concordat—a kind of mutual non-interference agreement—with the Hitler Government. It was signed by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, then the Holy See’s Secretary of State and later Pope Pius XII. I remember clearly that the news of the signing of this concordat had a devastating impact on Germany’s anti-Nazis and especially upon Jews. At that time, the Vatican could have taken a stand against Nazi ideology and against Hitler’s program of bigotry and belligerence without any risk at all. In fact, as the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholics in Germany, Pius XII could have persuaded a large segment of the German population to recognize the incompatibility of National Socialist programs and policies with the moral principles of the church. Instead, the pact boosted the prestige of this disreputable new German chancellor in the eyes of the world. [...]

In her own family, Edith was only one of four siblings who fell victim to the Nazis. Moreover, to speak of Edith Stein’s going to her death “for her people” poses a problem for Jews. Christians consider the death of Jesus to have been redemptive. By his sacrifice, he atoned for the sins of the people. In contrast, my Aunt Edith was killed alongside millions of Jews. Her suffering and death could not save the others. It was a death she did not choose, could not choose and could not have avoided. It was a death that did not stop the killing of others and did not give a religious meaning to the slaughter. It was a fact that Edith Stein died in solidarity with “her people.” Even though she had left the Jewish fold, she was finally, in an ironic twist, reunited with them in death. She was resigned to that fate, but she had no control over it. It was rather due to the Nazis’ definition of who is a Jew. It was because she was born Jewish, of Jewish parentage, that she became a “Martyr in Auschwitz.”

read the article 

openDemocracy: A new leftist narrative is required

Nancy Fraser (NF): Yes and no. The problem isn’t the struggle for feminism, LGBTQ-rights and against racism, but the separation of this struggle from the struggle for social justice. [...]

NF: Yes. For around the last three decades, neoliberal forces in the United States have aligned themselves with progressive powers and their struggle for emancipation and diversity. Neoliberalism, in other words, borrowed its progressive charisma from the progressives. It was the same forces, namely the Clintons, who signed over the US economy to Goldman Sachs and who ruthlessly pushed through neoliberal globalization. [...]

NF: Yes, and this has played into the hands of Trump’s reactionary populism. He seemed to come along with a plausible alternative. Finally, someone who would stand up for the ones who are left behind. And with the departure of Sanders, the only choice that was available to people was between the progressive neoliberalism of Clinton and a reactionary populism. An impossible choice. [...]

NF: We have to offer a new, left-wing narrative. A seriously egalitarian social movement has to ally itself with the abandoned working class. It has to explain why the struggles for emancipation and social equality belong together. I have committed myself for example to a feminism of the 99 per cent, which explicitly opposes "glass ceiling feminism".

We are fighting for the (female and male) workers as well as migrants and those who slave away on unpaid care work. This fight can only be fought together. The progressive populism of Bernie Sanders provides a positive example of how to do this. [...]

NF: Perhaps a more precise analysis is helpful. Trump’s voters consist of about three blocks. Most are the traditional voters for the Republicans. They elected Trump while – in many cases – holding their noses. Then there are the "alt-right" people, right-wing extremists, who in my opinion make up only a small part of his electorate. The third part consists also of former trade union members. Here, we don’t find committed racist sentiment, even if there is a certain existing tendency there. These people are reachable.

read the article 

openDemocracy: Do we still need human judges in the age of Artificial Intelligence?

Before going any further, we should distinguish algorithms from Artificial Intelligence. In simple terms, algorithms are self-contained instructions, and are already being applied in judicial decision-making. In New Jersey, for example, the Public Safety Assessment algorithm supplements the decisions made by judges over bail by using data to determine the risk of granting bail to a defendant. The idea is to assist judges in being more objective, and increase access to justice by reducing the costs associated with complicated manual bail assessments.

AI is more difficult to define. People often conflate it with machine learning, which is the ability of a machine to work with data and processes, analyzing patterns that then allow it to analyze new data without being explicitly programmed. Deeper machine learning techniques can take in enormous amounts of data, tapping into neural networks to simulate human decision-making. AI subsumes machine learning, but it is also sometimes used to describe a futuristic machine super-intelligence that is far beyond our own.

The idea of  AI judges raises important ethical issues around bias and autonomy.  AI programs may incorporate the biases of their programmers and the humans they interact with. For example, a Microsoft AI Twitter chatbot named Tay became racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic within 24 hours of interactive learning with its human audience. But while such programs may replicate existing human biases, the distinguishing feature of AI over an algorithm  is that it can behave in surprising and unintended ways as it ‘learns.’ Eradicating bias therefore becomes even more difficult, though not impossible. Any AI judging program would need to account for, and be tested for, these biases. [...]

The AI judge was able to analyze existing case law and deliver the same verdict as the ECHR 79 per cent of the time, and it found that the ECHR judgments actually depended more on non-legal facts around issues of torture, privacy, fair trials and degrading treatment than on legal arguments. This is an interesting case for legal realists who focus on what judges actually do over what they say they do. If AI can examine the case record and accurately decide cases based on the facts, human judges could be reserved for higher courts where more complex legal questions need to be examined. [...]

Even so, AI judges may not solve classical questions of legal validity so much as raise new questions about the role of humans, since—if  we believe that ethics and morality in the law are important—then they necessarily lie, or ought to lie, in the domain of human judgment. In that case, AI may assist or replace humans in lower courts but human judges should retain their place as the final arbiters at the apex of any legal system. In practical terms, if we apply this conclusion to the perspective of American legal theorist Ronald Dworkin, for example, AI could assist with examining the entire breadth and depth of the law, but humans would ultimately choose what they consider a morally-superior interpretation.

read the article 

Next School: 6 Problems with our School System

Vox: The real reason streetcars are making a comeback

Politico: Trump hits new polling low as base shrinks

Only 40 percent of registered voters approve of the job Trump is doing as president, the new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows, down from a high-water mark of 52 percent in March. And the percentage who approve strongly — one way to measure the size of Trump’s most fervent supporters — is also at a new low: just 18 percent.

That fits with other surveys conducted over the past few weeks, all of which show Trump at or near the low-water marks for each pollster. And there is evidence Trump’s backslide has eroded some of his electoral base: The president has lost ground with Republicans and the independent voters who propelled him to victory. [...]

Overall, just 41 percent of voters who say they supported Trump last year strongly approve of the job he is doing, equal to the 41 percent who approve only somewhat. Ten percent of Trump voters disapprove of his job performance somewhat, while 7 percent strongly disapprove. [...]

The Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll notes that Trump has lost significant ground with core groups over the past month. Trump’s approval rating is down 12 percentage points since July among Republicans, even as it was relatively unchanged from already-low records among Democrats and Republicans. Trump’s decline in the Midwest (minus-7 points) is larger than the overall 5-point drop in his approval, as was his 7-point dip among white men.

read the article 

Al Jazeera: Will Brazil be the next Venezuela?

In fact, it is possible that Venezuela will become "the next Brazil". Recent developments suggest that the traditional Brazilian elites have regained their ground and are currently taking measures to entrench their rule. And as Nicolas Maduro's government faces instability, it is likely that in the future Venezuelans will wake up to a Brazilian-style oligarchy ruling their country.

In 1958, three major political parties in Venezuela signed a pact called "the Punto Fijo" to "preserve the country's new democratic regime and prevent single party hegemony". Yet the pact transformed Venezuela into an oligarchical paradise and ushered in a period of exclusionary politics in which the political system - and the president's office - was dominated by the elites from the leading political parties.

This plan did work well for almost three decades. Venezuela, which had had no fewer than 25 national constitutions up to 1961, suddenly became a "stable democracy" in the heart of troublesome Cold War South America. The developmental model adopted by its leaders, which was fuelled by the abundant money flowing from oil exports, transformed the Caribbean nation into a relatively successful rentier state. [...]

At the same time, the judicial system is nowhere near reigning in the pervasive corruption. Last week, the National Congress of Brazil absolved President Michel Temer of corruption charges and allowed him to continue his ill-supported mandate.

And Brazilians are stuck with Temer although an overwhelming majority of them want him out (just 5 percent approve of his government). The congress would simply not listen to the wishes of the public that elected it. This is "business as usual" for Brazil's powerful.

read the article 

Al Jazeera: When anti-Semitism and Islamophobia join hands

But today, Orban has no words of gratitude for Soros. Rather, he has launched a vicious campaign against his former benefactor. And while his aggressive rhetoric is verging on anti-Semitism, the Hungarian prime minister has also - strangely enough - managed to weave in Islamophobic threads into his verbal attacks on Soros. And surprisingly (or not), this symbiosis of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia has been well received elsewhere in Europe and even the US.

Although Orban is said not to be anti-Semitic himself but rather deeply opportunistic, he has turned his former benefactor Soros into the ideal scapegoat for the Hungarian government's failures. Pushing for illiberal policies and anti-EU reforms, Orban has been using Soros' name in his populist rhetoric on a regular basis. He has been pandering to anti-Soros conspiracy theorists in Eastern and Central Europe, many of whom hold anti-Semitic views and enthusiastically spread their theories about "Jewish conspiracies" to dominate the world. [...]

While propagating anti-Semitic stereotypes, Orban has also managed to accuse Soros and the EU of wanting to "Muslimise" Europe. In a speech in late July, he said that the "Soros Empire" is using "money, people and institutions to transport migrants into Europe".

In Orban's rhetoric, Soros - and his alleged "co-conspirator" the EU - threaten the Christian character of Europe. "Europe is currently being prepared to hand its territory over to a new mixed, Islamised Europe. […] In order for this to happen, for the territory to be ready to be handed over, it is necessary to continue the de-Christianisation of Europe - and we can see these attempts," he said. [...]

Historically, Jews and Muslims have faced similar accusations, racist tropes and persecution. Western Europeans used both as a projection surface to imagine itself as racially pure, white and Christian. In medieval times, Jews were accused of well-poisoning to kill Christians and Muslims - of inciting them to do so. During the Reformation, Jews were portrayed as the companions of the devil who had entered into a pact with the Muslim Turks.

read the article

Quartz: Why gay Americans have won the right to get married but can still be fired for being gay

Most countries that have enabled same-sex marriage had a ban on workplace discrimination against gay people first. Yet in the US, even though the US Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that gay people can get married, it has yet to rule that they cannot be fired for their sexual orientation. [...]

The recent court rulings are the fruits of that argument. In April, a three-judge panel in the 7th Circuit decided, in Hively vs Ivy Tech Community College (pdf), that “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination.” It relied in part on the Hopkins decision, ruling that heterosexuality was itself a sex stereotype—the notion that men should always partner with women and women with men. [...]

In 2013, a HuffPost/YouGov poll found that 52% of Americans (pdf) “favored a law prohibiting discrimination by employers against gays and lesbians.” Support for same-sex marriage, made legal in 2015, is at an all-time high this year, at 62%, according to the Pew Research Center. [...]

Experts say the reasons why those attempts have failed while the same-sex marriage campaign succeeded have to do with the universality of love and with political clout. Marriage equality had a lot of political momentum because there were “public campaigns around it” and “a lot of LGBT organizations got behind that cause”, says Christy Mallory, state and local policy director at the Williams Institute, a think tank part of UCLA that focuses on law and gender. “People sort-of understood the importance of marriage in their own lives and that really resonated with them.”

read the article