By Callen Sorensen Karklis

Dear Readers,

Seventeen years ago I was inspired by the change that the 2007 federal election saw after the aggressive rollout of WorkChoices, and the fear with it that everyday people’s working rights would be taken away. In Kevin Rudd I saw the promise of change from somebody with a vision on climate action, restoring workers’ rights, policy reforms that would bring Australia into the 21^st century, bringing in the NBN and Fair Work and apologizing to the Stolen Generations which for me was important as a First Nations Quandamooka person.

During high school I had a part-time job in retail, hearing everyday people’s personal issues no matter how mundane or extreme. I decided then that I’d one day become involved in politics. I joined my union and became active in helping the Australian Labor Party upon finishing school. My first involvement was in the 2012 Qld State Election, which was brutal. I saw the Bligh Government decimated by 44 seats from 51 to a rump of 7 seats in Opposition when Campbell Newman was elected in a super majority landslide, no thanks to the GFC asset sales backlash! What transpired, however, under Newman was more asset sales but on steroids!

The LNP sadly defeated the former progressive coalition of Independents, Labor, and Greens under the Hobson led Redland City Council in 2012 as well after a term in office. This saw the LNP on all three levels of government by 2013 locally. Unfortunately, the LNP pushed hard on overdevelopment proposals such as building at Ramsar wetlands in Toondah Harbor.

I became heavily involved in the ALP branches of my area and Young Labor climbing the party executive ladder as an organizer assisting the Labor Left with the naïve view, I could change the world piece by piece in the fight for progressive rights for all. All while starting my studies at Griffith University studying political studies, international relations, and business.

I ended up campaigning for the ALP at the 2014 by-elections and 2015 Qld State Election where we saw the rise of Annastacia Palaszczuk and her Labor Left deputy Jackie Trad. As the party gained traction electorally locally and in QLD however, I discovered while becoming involved in policy roles that the ALP had U-turned its previous opposition to the Toondah Harbor development proposals and expanding it from a proposed 800 units to 3600 units in Ramsar Wetlands.

Plans of old proposed by the “Sir Joh” Nationals white shoe brigade era of government in the 1970s–80s built the Raby Bay and Gold Coasts on the power of money, brothels, and white snow. The Goss and Beattie State Labor era policies to protect Ramsar Wetlands were being abandoned. Upon discovering this I joined with groups such as Redlands 2030, Labor LEAN, CARP, Save Straddie, and later Birdlife Australia, KAG, the ACF, and local Indigenous elders in council to fight against the development of Ramsar Wetlands.

In the fight to Save Toondah I became disillusioned with the ALP, including on the unfolding Adani issue and left the party in a public spat across media headlines in 2017–2018. I took it upon myself to fight a tough campaign to run for City Council in Redlands against the LNP aligned incumbent. I ended up amid bitter infighting among the ALP as a colleague and friend in my local FEC and I competed against each other against the LNP incumbent during the Covid council election in 2020. We both lost and learnt lessons in our campaign. I gained 19% of the vote. I ended up helping a TEAL run for the seat of Oodgeroo on the Toondah issue helping the union movement during the Pandemic with both workers and students losing their livelihoods during lockdowns.

Rejoining the ALP in 2020 I worked briefly for former Brisbane Labor leader Cr Peter Cumming and assisting Labor during the 2022 Federal Election. Sadly, my final stray with the ALP was human rights breaches on youth offenders, rental, and cost of living crisis due to increasing inflation. It was the Toondah issue that pushed me further into community radio and journalism while I also contemplated on how to find the best cause fighting for my people as an Indigenous person. This is why I left the ALP to join the Greens. On the plus side the campaign harnessed how I developed my skills in campaigning and enhancing my advertising skills which I worked in briefly, whilst eyeing for the right candidates to assist.

While I commend the actions of the ALP Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek in rejecting the Toondah PDA and doing the right thing, I lost faith with Labor for the Toondah PDA for happening in the first place. That said, there were good people in Labor, particularly LEAN and former State Ministers like Rod Welford and Pat Comben advocating with unionist and ALP party members to say “NO!” to the development against Labor MPs and RCC Crs Labor and LNP alike in favor of the development. What we saw was a stacked rort against the everyday working taxpayer and locals being passed the buck for a shitty idea! Greenies like Jono Sri, Michael Berkman, Amy MacMahon, Emerald Moon, the Mazlins, Larissa Waters, Penny Allman Payne, Carmen Lawrence and Max Chandler Mather did great by pushing hard on Labor to do the right thing in all levels of government. They were supported by progressive Independents in Redlands like Cr Wendy Boglary, Cr Lance Hewlett, Cr Paul Bishop and former Cr Craig Ogilvie and Cr Adelia Berridge. But it wasn’t politicians that won the day, it was pure people and grassroots that won the day!

Groups like Redlands 2030, ACF, and Birdlife Australia coordinated large, coordinated protests in Cleveland with thousands in attendance; numbers not seen since the anti-Raby Bay and original Toondah protests in the 1980s at GJ Walter park, Raby Bay Harbor, and RCC council chambers in Cleveland. This created large mass media attention including roadside actions, rallies, letters to the editor, media interviews, letters to politicians, mass petitions with the highest gaining over 70,000 signatures, and heaps of letterbox drops, street stalls, shopping centre stalls, and door knocking constituents. Yes, this was exhausting, time-consuming and extremely taxing including on one’s personal mental health, but it was certainly rewarding in the people we met along the way!

The Current Politics of the Proposal

We applied the same skills and tactics of a hard fought 10-year campaign to finally flip the Redland City Council elections. We were 2 votes short of a majority in Redland City Council, but we were successful in flipping the Mayoral race away from the LNP for the first time in 12 years as Redlands has only had three non-LNP Mayors since 1991. We applied the same tactics of grassroots people power to get a progressive TEAL up as Mayor. The QLD State Government remains coy on the issue having previously supported it until the change of Premier.

The LNP majority re-elected Cr Julie Talty as Deputy Mayor who served under the Williams LNP council era in 2020-2024 who also ran against ALP MP Mick De Brenni in Springwood. Because Mayor Jos Mitchell was short of the 2 required votes she could not overrule the majority needed to disclosures the Williams LNP led Council made in after 2012. (Which prevented Jos from being able to speak out against the development.)

In true Australian spirit reminiscent to a story straight out of classic 1997 Aussie film The Castle when the Kerrigan family took on a developer from destroying their home and neighborhood from an airport expansion, the Toondah saga has been a long 10 years for many locals since 2014. But as the family lawyer points out “It’s the Vibe!” in this case Saving Toondah, it’s the vibe! But we need your help as progressive readers to send a powerful message to the minister! To have community voices heard not just in the Redlands but Australia wide!

With 10 days given for a right of reply for all parties involved in this debacle

You can have your say with Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek here: EPBC Act Public Portal

Minister Plibersek is asking the community right now if she should continue to reject the development at Toondah Harbour. Please send her a short quick email supporting her to save the bay: Her email address is: minister.plibersek@dcceew.gov.au

Kind Regards, Callen Sorensen Karklis

Progressive contributor to The Australian Independent Media Network

“Together we can SAVE TOONDAH!”

The latest building activity data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics has confirmed there is still a long way to go before Australia overcomes the housing crisis.

Master Builders Chief Economist Shane Garrett said work started on just 163,285 new homes during 2023, a 10.5 per cent reduction on the previous year.

“During 2023, detached house starts dropped by 16.4 per cent to 99,443. This is the lowest in a decade.

“The final three months of the 2023 quarter saw higher density home starts drop for the third consecutive quarter.

“A total of 62,720 higher density homes were commenced during 2023 overall – the worst performance in 12 years.

“The mismatch between the supply of new homes to the rental market and demand for rental accommodation is particularly worrying.

“Rental inflation continues to accelerate at a time when price pressures across the rest of the economy have been abating,” Mr Garrett said.

Chief Executive Denita Wawn said today’s result means that 934,400 new homes have been started across Australia over the past five years.

“Yesterday, Master Builders Australia released its latest industry forecasts which showed we are on track to fall over 110,000 homes short of its Housing Accord target.

“When it comes to signing new contracts, the pen is not making it to paper as the investment does not stack up.

“Since 2019 we have seen the cost of home building increase by 40 per cent.

“Governments need to work to change this. The cost of delivering projects needs to go down and the time to completion must be shortened.

“To achieve these targets, builders are ready to take on the challenge, but clearing the barriers on the road is necessary to get the job done,” Ms Wawn said.

Remorseless killing at the initiation of artificial intelligence has been the subject of nail-biting concern for various members of computer-digital cosmos. Be wary of such machines in war and their displacing potential regarding human will and agency. For all that, the advent of AI-driven, automated systems in war has already become a cold-blooded reality, deployed conventionally, and with utmost lethality by human operators.

The teasing illusion here is the idea that autonomous systems will become so algorithmically attuned and trained as to render human agency redundant in a functional sense. Provided the targeting is trained, informed, and surgical, a utopia of precision will dawn in modern warfare. Civilian death tolls will be reduced; the mortality of combatants and undesirables will, conversely, increase with dramatic effect.

The staining case study that has put paid to this idea is the pulverising campaign being waged by Israel in Gaza. A report in the magazine +972 notes that the Israeli Defense Forces has indulgently availed itself of AI to identify targets and dispatch them accordingly. The process, however, has been far from accurate or forensically educated. As Brianna Rosen of Just Security accurately posits, “Rather than limiting harm to civilians, Israel’s use of AI bolsters its ability to identify, locate, and expand target sets which likely are not fully vetted to inflict maximum damage.”

The investigation opens by recalling the bombastically titled The Human-Machine Team: How to Create Human and Artificial Intelligence That Will Revolutionize Our World, a 2021 publication available in English authored by one “Brigadier General Y.S.”, the current commander of the Israeli intelligence unit 8200.

The author advances the case for a system capable of rapidly generating thousands of potential “targets” in the exigencies of conflict. The sinister and morally arid goal of such a machine would resolve a “human bottleneck for both locating new targets and decision-making to approve the targets.” Doing so not only dispenses with the human need to vet, check and verify the viability of the target but dispenses with the need to seek human approval for their termination.

The joint investigation by +972 and Local Call identifies the advanced stage of development of such a system, known to the Israeli forces as Lavender. In terms of its murderous purpose, this AI creation goes further than such lethal predecessors as “Habsora” (“The Gospel”), which identifies purportedly relevant military buildings and structures used by militants. Even that form of identification did little to keep the death rate moderate, generating what a former intelligence officer described as a “mass assassination factory.”

Six Israeli intelligence officers, all having served during the current war in Gaza, reveal how Lavender “played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war.” The effect of using the AI machine effectively subsumed the human element while giving the targeting results of the system a fictional human credibility.

Within the first weeks of the war, the IDF placed extensive, even exclusive reliance on Lavender, with as many as 37,000 Palestinians being identified as potential Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants for possible airstrikes. This reliance signalled a shift from the previous “human target” doctrine used by the IDF regarding senior military operatives. In such cases, killing the individual in their private residence would only happen exceptionally, and only to the most senior identified individuals, all to keep in awkward step with principles of proportionality in international law. The commencement of “Operation Swords of Iron” in response to the Hamas attacks of October 7 led to the adoption of a policy by which all Hamas operatives in its military wing irrespective of rank would be designated as human targets.

Officers were given expansive latitude to accept the kill lists without demur or scrutiny, with as little as 20 seconds being given to each target before bombing authorisation was given. Permission was also given despite awareness that errors in targeting arising in “approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all.”

The Lavender system was also supplemented by using the emetically named “Where’s Daddy?”, another automated platform which tracked the targeted individuals to their family residences which would then be flattened. The result was mass slaughter, with “thousands of Palestinians – most of them women and children or people not involved in the fighting” killed by Israeli airstrikes in the initial stages of the conflict. As one of the interviewed intelligence officers stated with grim candour, killing Hamas operatives when in a military facility or while engaged in military activity was a matter of little interest. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”

The use of the system entailed resorting to gruesome, and ultimately murderous calculi. Two of the sources interviewed claimed that the IDF “also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians.” Were the targets Hamas officials of certain seniority, the deaths of up to 100 civilians were also authorised.

In what is becoming its default position in the face of such revelations, the IDF continues to state, as reported in the Times of Israel, that appropriate conventions are being observed in the business of killing Palestinians. It “does not use an artificial intelligence system that identifies terrorist operatives or tries to predict whether a person is a terrorist.” The process, the claim goes, is far more discerning, involving the use of a “database whose purpose is to cross-reference intelligence sources… on the military operatives of terrorist organizations.”

The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, stated how “deeply troubled” he was by reports that Israel’s bombing campaign had used “artificial intelligence as a tool in the identification of targets, particularly in densely populated residential areas, resulting in a high level of civilian casualties.” It might be far better to see these matters as cases of willing, and reckless misidentification, with a conscious acceptance on the part of IDF military personnel that enormous civilian casualties are simply a matter of course. To that end, we are no longer talking about a form of advanced, scientific war waged proportionately and with precision, but a technologically advanced form of mass murder.

MITOCHONDRIAL DISEASE A $1 BILLION HIT TO AUSTRALIA’S ECONOMY

A groundbreaking new study has revealed for the first time the true cost of mitochondrial disease (mito), stripping more than $1 billion from Australia’s economy each year.

Commissioned by the Mito Foundation, the first of its kind Preventable burden of mitochondrial disease report by the Centre for International Economics details the economic impact of the rare and debilitating genetic disorder that affects around 4,500 Australians.

There are around 124,000 Australians with a genetic risk factor for mito, who could be experiencing the early effects of the disease without knowing they have it.

Mito Foundation CEO Sean Murray said the report’s findings are a major step towards understanding the wider impact of mitochondrial disease, which can lead to better treatment and greater prevention.

“This report is a groundbreaking development in the fight against mitochondrial disease because for the first time we are able to see just how much it is costing Australians,” Mr Murray said.

“This research has shown that more than 80 per cent of the $1 billion cost of mito is due to the lost quality-of-life of those who either die from the disease or have to live with the pain and disability it causes. This severely impacts their ability to contribute to society in ways that most of us wouldn’t think twice about.

“The productivity cost of mito alone is $196 million, but we can reduce the impact. Improving how mito is diagnosed, ensuring access to prevention options and increasing research into new treatments are all part of the solution.”

Each year 10 children and 70 adults lose their lives to mito in Australia, with those living with the condition being robbed of a combined 1,805 years of better health.

Emily Wells, a 26-year-old aged care nurse with mito, said the findings will come as no surprise to those who experience the effects of the disease daily.

“When I was finally diagnosed with mito I cried with relief. No one could pinpoint why I was so fatigued, why my white blood cells were high for months or why I would get pain in my legs. But after around seven years of pain and wondering what was wrong, I finally had a diagnosis that I could start to move forward from,” Emily said.

“Mito is very difficult to explain because it affects everyone differently. Even when I end up in hospital, many doctors don’t fully understand the disease.

“I love my job as an aged care nurse, but recently I had a flare-up in my nerves. Normally I would take a couple of days to rest and recuperate and then go back to work, but I’ve now been off work for around three months, which is hard on my workplace and also myself financially.

“They always say listen to your body, because I knew something was wrong, and there are Australians who are probably having a similar experience right now. I want everyone to be aware of mito and its impacts so that we have earlier diagnosis and a better understanding of how to manage the disease.”

Mito Foundation is calling on the government, researchers and health professionals to work with the mito community to do the following:

• Remove barriers to genetic testing, including banning the use of genetic test results by life insurance companies.
• Improve the health workforce’s ability to recognise symptoms of mito, including encouraging GPs to complete the Maybe It’s Mito training.
• Continue to support the mitochondrial donation program, mitoHOPE.
• Provide funding for the expansion of reproductive genetic carrier screening to improve access to testing, counselling, and reproductive support services.
• Grow a network of accessible Centres of Expertise in mito to provide multi-disciplinary care.
• Secure sustainable funding of Mito Foundation’s support services.
• Support an increase in the number of clinical trials in Australia by funding further targeted research.

Mito Foundation is the only organisation in Australia dedicated to supporting people affected by mito.

Its work ranges from raising funds for pioneering research to providing support services for patients and their families.

To donate to Mito Foundation, or for more information on the impact of mito, visit mito.org.au

Can it get any busier? The World Court, otherwise known as the International Court of Justice, has been swamped by applications on the subject of alleged genocide. The site of interest remains the Gaza Strip, the subject of unremitting slaughter since the October 7, 2023 cross-border attacks by Hamas against Israel. The retaliation by Israel has been of such brute savagery as to draw the attention of numerous states, including those not directly connected to the conflict.

Given that genocide is a crime of universal jurisdiction abominated by international law, and given the broad application of the UN Genocide Convention intended to suppress and punish it, countries not normally associated with the tormented and blood-drenched relationship between Israel and the Palestinians have taken a keen interest. South Africa got matters moving with its December application last year seeking a judicial determination that Israel was committing genocidal acts in the Gaza Strip.

Since then, Pretoria has convinced the court to issue two interim orders, one on January 26, and another on March 28. While the court has yet to decide the issue of whether Israel is culpable for genocide in waging in Gaza, the interim binding orders demand a lifting of restrictions on humanitarian aid, the prevention of starvation and famine, and observing the UN Genocide Convention. These all hint strongly at the unconscionable conduct on the part of the IDF against the civilian populace.

The implications of such findings also go to Israel’s allies and partners still keen to supply it with weapons, weapons parts, and support of a military industrial nature. Germany has been most prominent in this regard. In 2023 30% of Israel’s military equipment purchases totalling US$326 million came from Berlin. The Scholz government has also been a firm public supporter of Israel’s offensive. “There is only one place for Germany at this time, and that is by Israel’s side,” proclaimed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to German lawmakers on October 12 last year. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock curtly stated that “It was not the job of politicians to tell the guns to shut up.”

Baerbock’s remarks were all the more jarring given the 2006 views of Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was then serving as Germany’s foreign minister. With puffed up confidence, he claimed then that Europeans and Germans had played a seminal role in ending the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon in “silencing of the guns.”

Cognisant of such a stance, Nicaragua is now taking the South African precedent further by alleging that Germany is complicit in a genocidal enterprise. While its own human rights record is coarse – the government of Daniel Ortega boasts a spotty record which involves, among other things, the killing of protesters – Nicaragua has form at the ICJ. Four decades ago, it took the United States to the world court for assisting the counterrevolutionary Contras in their attempt to overthrow the Sandinista government.

Its 43-page submission to the court insists that Germany is responsible for “serious violations of peremptory norms of international law taking place” in Gaza in its failure to prevent genocide “against the Palestinian people” and “contributed” to its commission by violating the Genocide Convention. It further alleges that Germany failed to comply with humanitarian law principles derived from the Geneva Conventions of 1949, its protocols of 1977 and “intransgressible principles of international law” in failing to “ensure respect for these fundamental norms in all circumstances.”

The application also compacts Israel’s attack on Gaza with “continued military occupation of Palestine”, taking issue with Germany’s alleged “rendering aid or assistance” in maintaining that status quo in the Occupied Territories while “rendering aid or assistance and not preventing the illegal regime of apartheid and the negation of the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people.”

Stretches of the Nicaraguan case would make troubling reading. It notes that “by sending military equipment and now defunding UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency] which provides essential support for the civilian population, Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide” and had failed, in any case, “in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide.”

Such conduct was all the more egregious “with respect to Israel given that Germany has a self-proclaimed privileged relationship with it, which would enable it to usefully influence its conduct.”

With these considerations in mind, the application by Nicaragua argues that Germany is obligated to “immediately” halt its military support for Israel “that may be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such, or other war crimes.” Germany is further asked, not merely to “end its assistance to Israel” but “cooperate to uphold international law and to bring the perpetrators of these atrocities to justice.”

On April 8, the ICJ opened preliminary hearings. Alain Pellet, representing Nicaragua, argued that “Germany was and is fully conscious of the risk that the arms it has furnished and continues to furnish Israel” could be used in the commission of genocidal acts. Another legal representative, Daniel Mueller, called the provision of humanitarian airdrops to “Palestinian children, women and men” a “pathetic excuse” given the furnishing of “military equipment that is used to kill and annihilate them.” Nicaragua’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Carlos José Argüello Gómez, derided Berlin’s seeming inability “to be able to differentiate between self-defence and genocide.”

Berlin’s defence follows on April 9. A sense of its bitter flavour can be gathered from one of its top legal briefs, Tania von Uslar-Gleichen. “Germany completely rejects the accusations. We never did violate the Genocide Convention nor humanitarian law either directly or indirectly.” Berlin was “committed to the upholding of international law.”

If the defence fails to sway the judges, the case may well chart a line about third party responsibilities on preventing genocide in international humanitarian law. At this point, the momentum towards some clarity on the point seems inexorable.

ActionAid Media Release

By James Moore

There is a strong element of the crazed adrenalin junky in most journalists. We want adventure with the same fervor we seek the facts of a story. I was brimming with excitement driving toward hurricane landfalls and thought it thrilling that the road in the other direction was lined with vehicles seeking distance from the storm. I cannot recall all the hurricanes I covered but a few of the larger category names were Andrew and Opal and Fran, and many of weaker power, but still dangerous. Whether it was an earthquake or a flood or a commercial plane crash or a tornado or the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, my reportorial soul cried for me to move in the direction of the story. Only infrequently did we think of the risks.

I was not, however, addicted to the dangers of TV news, and intended to live a long and interesting life. The idea of a story being worthy of putting your very existence in jeopardy was, to me, profoundly absurd, though, traditionally, it has been essential to get at facts. While on a brief assignment in Central America during the years of the Nicaraguan Civil War, I worked a few days with a combat photographer from Miami. He casually traveled the world from one conflict to the next, never getting enough of the dopamine high from frightening assignments. Over dinner in our hotel one evening, I suggested he was, maybe, just a little imbalanced.

“Oh Jimbo,” he said. “You don’t get it, man. The moment a bullet whizzes past your ear, it changes your life forever.”

I gave his assertion only momentary consideration before responding. “Maybe there’s a possibility you don’t get it, too,” I said. “Because the moment a bullet whizzes into your ear, it ends your life forever. Why take the chance?”

He did not feel further explanation was required.

There was, of course, an inevitability to being exposed to precarious situations while reporting, and my initial experiences with their consequences did not leave me as stunned as I had anticipated. My first hurricane was Anita, destined for landfall on South Padre Island down near the Mexican border. I was a radio reporter, and as police swept the beaches and hotels to insure complete evacuation, I hid behind a restaurant with plans to get a firsthand view of nature’s power. While the storm surge rose, I stood in a phone booth with an open line to the Associated Press in Washington, describing the water rising up my legs and debris flying through the air while also hoping the wind would die and the ocean might recede back across the sand. Eleven people died in Mexico as the storm drifted south of the Rio Grande and 25 inches of rain left 25,000 homeless in the mountains of Tamaulipas. The reporting, more foolish than courageous, got me an on-camera audition, which led to my first TV job.

The slowly developing characteristics of hurricanes make preparations possible for improving the safety of journalists on the scene. We can find leeward positions out of the wind for ourselves and the expensive broadcast gear. Tornadoes allow no such planning. Their unpredictability make them often deadly to anyone in the vicinity. A twister can spin up in a matter of minutes when the right conditions are present. The first time I saw the violence of such a weather phenomenon was at Wichita Falls in 1979. Our TV newsroom in Austin had gotten the wire reports describing an outbreak of tornadoes in the Red River Valley near Wichita Falls, and I was on a charter flight to report details of what was described by initial witnesses to be great devastation. Thousands of feet above the city, we shot sweeping panoramic views before approaching the airport. Wichita Falls looked as if a giant, petulant child had kicked over a toy town he had assembled. There were 58 fatalities in “Red River Outbreak,” and almost 2000 were injured. The deadliest funnel was an F4, only one category less than the strongest ever measured.

I am not sure why tornadoes became recurrent in my journalism but just over a year after the “Terrible Tuesday” in Wichita Falls, I was in Grand Island, Nebraska to report on a swarm of twisters that also included a deadly F4 with winds as high as 260 miles per hour. Seven funnel clouds scraped the Earth of most signs of human endeavor and left a path of rubble a half mile wide and six miles long. Instead of moving at a normal 30-40 miles per hour, the twisters spent four hours passing through the agricultural community just north of the Platte River and along the historic Lincoln Highway. The “Night of the Twisters” killed five people and injured 266 as it did a quarter billion dollars of destruction. Hundreds of homes simply disappeared. Even as I walked the streets of Grand Island and knew that what I was witnessing was real, I still struggled to process the scene as an actuality. The totality of the destruction was incomprehensible.

Nothing, however, had readied me for the 1987 tornadoes that came down out of the Davis Mountains of West Texas and obliterated the tiny desert town of Saragosa. The super cell had developed improbable cloud tops that reached 60,000 feet into the atmosphere and evolved into four twisters, including an F4. Saragosa was mostly a town of poor immigrant workers on Highway 17 between Pecos and Balmorhea. There were no warning sirens in the community and as the dark wall cloud approached, 100 people, a quarter of the population, was in the community center attending graduation ceremonies being held for their Head Start kindergartners. The cider block structure, lacking steel reinforcement, was not able to withstand F4 cyclonic winds, and 22 persons died as the structure collapsed. Children were saved by parents covering them with their bodies. There were a total of 30 fatalities in the community, most of whom were buried in the gravelly cemetery northwest of town. Although the storm was well-predicted by the National Weather Service and area media, Saragosa’s residents lacked technology and systems to receive timely warnings.

Saragosa, Texas, May 1987

Because of its vast land mass and the state’s geographic locale, Texas usually has more tornadoes annually than any other region of the U.S., which is why I was hardly surprised one spring day to get an emergency message from my editors telling me to race north on I-35 from Austin and toward the town of Jarrell. Warnings were blasting across all communications frequencies and devices. Photographer Kirk Swann and I looked at a dark cloud that covered much of the horizon and assumed it was an approaching rain storm, but we discovered later that it comprised the base of an F5 tornado, just one of 20 twisters that touched down in Texas on May 27, 1997. We went down the exit ramp and turned west, rushing through main street in the town of 400 people, and we saw no evidence of damage until we met a cop, standing, hands on his hips, outside his cruiser. I approached.

“Sounded pretty bad on the scanner, officer,” I said. “But we haven’t seen any damage.”

“Look harder,” he said. “Out there.” He pointed to what appeared to me like a field of sorghum with stripped stalks.

“Don’t see much.”

“‘Cause there ain’t nothin’ to see. The twister took it all.” He pointed again. “There were a lot of houses and people living out there. You see them now?”

“No, sir. Guess I don’t.”

I saw concrete foundations, upon closer inspection, and random two-by-fours standing upright, but no homes, people, or vehicles. I hoped they had escaped harm but 27 had been killed, including three entire families, the Igos, Moerhings, and Smiths. Remains of the dead were discovered in 30 different locations and had endured such trauma that they were difficult to distinguish from animals that had been dismembered and mutilated. When we drove over to Double Creek Estates to survey the neighborhood, much of the chip seal Ranch Road we crossed had been stripped away by the winds of 261-318 miles per hour.

The science of tornadoes is sufficiently frightening that I am marginally dumbfounded that a profession has arisen called Storm Chasers. These hearty, possibly misguided entrepreneurs and nature gazers, use all available technology to search atmospheric conditions to identify storms. They race to locations of anticipated funnel development and deploy their cameras and measurement instruments to record and understand tornadoes. Information they have provided meteorologists and emergency alert systems has had an impact on reducing the number of fatalities each year by improving advance warning systems. TV news, weather networks, and universities, dispatch these experts across the American plains each spring and summer and they usually return with astonishing videos and recordings of weather extremes. Their work has also spawned a legion of amateur chasers who crowd rural roads, gaping, as darkness, and possibly death, approach across the prairie.

The photographer who covered the Saragosa follow up stories with me, Austin Anderson, had begun chasing storms for the Weather Channel and other cable networks. I was always comforted by his presence when we were on assignments in tropical storms and other troubling circumstances, maybe because he was made of different stuff than me. One night on a charter flight returning from an assignment, our pilot managed to get our small, two engine plane, caught in a thunderstorm. Hail began pinging the wings and battering the fuselage. I was on the verge of bending the armrests into taffy. Austin, though, looked at me and shrugged.

“Not much I can do about this,” he said. “Guess I’ll take a nap.”

Which he did, snoring slightly, as the plane was kicked around the sky for another hour by ridiculous winds. I guess that fearlessness had a bit to do with putting him in a storm chaser car, shooting video out the window, as his team tracked a funnel on the ground near El Reno, Oklahoma on the evening of May 31, 2013. The tornado is still the widest ever recorded, 2.6 miles at its base, and contained some of the highest wind speeds ever observed at the Earth’s surface. Austin was in a car with Mike Bettes and Reed Timmer of the Weather Channel, and, as always, had his camera rolling, pointed out the window at the striated, black funnel, running parallel to them down an Oklahoma field.

In the car in front of them, were three other chasers. Tim Samaras, a research scientist and engineer, his 24-year-old son Paul, and Carl Young, a professional meteorologist and friend. No one had done more to advance storm chasing from a crazy hobby to serious scientific endeavor than Samaras. His work was disciplined, and he practiced safety, diligently, to the point where his investigations were funded with numerous grants from the National Geographic Society. Eventually, he was given a TV show, titled, predictably, Storm Chasers on the Discovery Channel. They were conducting lightning, sound, and air pressure research when the El Reno tornado formed and they set out along its path.

Tornadoes invariably exhibit erratic behavior and the trio ahead of Austin’s car had been judiciously watching the slightest movements off any course. Their conversations over the radio were being monitored by other researchers and law officers in the area. Meteorologist Young mentioned that it seemed weird that there was no rain around them and that the wind had grown “eerily calm.” Samaras reacted by saying, “Actually, I think we’re in a bad spot.” Shortly after that exchange, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Betsy Randolph said she heard the three men screaming over her radio. “We’re going to die! We’re going to die!” The sub-vortex winds grabbed their vehicle, lifted it off the road, and tossed the car off the pavement.

The Samaras and Young Car After the Twister

In the trailing car, the trio stopped and tried to reverse course, but the veering storm was already coming in their direction, too. The wind lifted them into brief weightlessness and threw the SUV into a field, where it rolled multiple times. No one was killed but my friend Austin suffered a broken breast plate, ribs, and damaged vertebra. When the storm had passed, Austin was airlifted to Oklahoma City for surgery and early recovery before getting a hospital charter flight home. His healing and rehabilitation took months. I doubted Austin would ever again pick up a TV camera or chase a storm.

The Car in Which Austin Anderson was Riding

Samaras, his son, and meteorologist Young, all died when the tornado crushed their car. Eighteen people were killed that day by a dispersed set of twisters, including a local man fascinated with tornadoes, Richard Henderson. He took a photo of the El Reno funnel and sent it to a friend while driving down the country road, which was the final act of his life. Henderson’s last words described debris hitting his truck, and then he was killed by the violence of the natural world that had made him curious.

Reporting on what a storm hath wrought is almost cowardice compared to going close to see and understand its power. I always thought tornadoes were to be run away from, not chased. There are, though, pressures to make a living. TV news executives want entrancing video. The closer a crew gets to a tornado, the more impressed are their editors, and the higher the pay. Adrenalin is not the only reason storm chaser photographers take their regular risks. They don’t just love the money, adventure, and independence, either; they love their craft. My buddy Austin’s back healed as camera technology shrank and he was able to go back out into the world of weather and get back on the job for the networks. He still runs to blizzards and hurricanes and tornadoes and floods and earthquakes.

And I like watching his work on TV.

Austin was driving the Weather Channel’s Tornado Hunter car near El Reno, Oklahoma when a funnel abruptly changed course and lifted his vehicle. Reports vary on how far it was thrown through the air but it was discovered on the far side of a barbed wire fence after rolling over several times. Mike Bettes, another journalist riding with Austin, said they were “weightless for a moment” and then started tumbling. He escaped serious injury but my old friend Austin is in a hospital in Oklahoma City where he is facing surgery for a broken breastplate, ribs, and damaged vertebra. He is, however, alive. A doctor has indicated it will be at least three months before he can again pick up a camera. But he will pick up a camera again. And he will still be one of the best in the business.

A few of my colleagues from my days in television, and those who never worked in that industry, have expressed dismay that a person might put themselves at risk to get a better, more dramatic piece of video. But that is the mandate of the profession: get more and better than the other crew. Great photographers are also subject to a psychological phenomenon called “distancing,” which allows their brains to process what they are seeing through their lens as not real or a part of their immediate environment. There is no other explanation for combat photographers getting video in the midst of fire fights or my friends Jim Peeler and the late Dan Mulloney who stood with their cameras in the crossfire between ATF agents and the Branch Davidians of David Koresh to record some of the most famous news video in history.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.

A “colossal” increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza is needed immediately to stop children from dying needlessly, restore dignity and ease psychological suffering, warns child rights NGO Plan International.

This Sunday (7 April) will mark six months since Israel launched its military offensive in response to the 7 October attack by an armed Palestinian group, which killed 1,200 people in Israel. The death toll in Gaza is now feared to be in excess of 32,000, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, including 13,000 children. More than 100 people are still believed to be held hostage inside Gaza.

Six months of constant aerial bombardment has left nearly all of Gaza’s civilian population reliant on humanitarian aid for survival, however, aid agencies have only been able to negotiate permission to deliver a small fraction of the supplies required to sustain Gaza’s 2.1 million people.

The withdrawal of multiple NGOs from Gaza after seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen were killed in an air strike on Tuesday (2 April) will compound an already desperate situation, warns Plan International. Together with humanitarian and human rights organisations around the world, the organisation calls on all parties involved in the conflict to guarantee the safety of aid workers and civilians in line with international humanitarian law.

Last month, the IPC partnership predicted that food shortages caused by Israel’s restrictions on aid and prolonged military assault mean famine could occur in Gaza anytime between now and May.

According to Plan International, for every child at risk of death from an air strike, starvation or lack of medical assistance, countless more will bear long-lasting psychological scars as a result of witnessing family or friends dying, life-changing injuries and being deprived of the basics of childhood.

In March, an average of 161 aid trucks crossed into Gaza each day – well below the combined capacity of the Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings, which is 500 per day.

Dr Unni Krishnan, Plan International’s Global Humanitarian Director, says: “Time is slipping away rapidly for the children in Gaza, more urgently than ever. A significant surge in vital humanitarian aid is crucial and urgent. To make this a reality, ensuring the safety of aid workers and civilians is paramount.

“Just a few minutes’ drive from Rafah, where families are sheltering in the most unimaginable and rudimentary conditions, there are thousands of trucks containing food and other life-saving supplies. It is absolutely critical that safe humanitarian access to Gaza is guaranteed at speed, so that aid agencies can deliver supplies to civilians in desperate need, especially malnourished children and pregnant women.

“Right now, Gaza is known as the most intricate humanitarian response context in the world. It is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child and an aid worker. We know from experience that the catastrophic psychological impact of war will continue to haunt children and their caregivers long after fighting stops. An 18-year-old living in Gaza today will have lived through conflict in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021 and now since October 2023, witnessing things no child ever should. This has a profound impact on a young mind.

“We urge all parties to guarantee safe, unimpeded access for humanitarian workers and vital relief supplies in Gaza. We also continue to call for a permanent, complete and immediate ceasefire, as the only way to truly bring this suffering to an end.”

Since October 2023, Plan International has been scaling up support to humanitarian partners to provide critical humanitarian assistance inside Gaza. Since the start of Ramadan, Iftar meals have been provided to a total of 6,000 internally displaced people in Rafah via Taawon, a local partner.

Plan International has also been working with Egyptian Red Crescent to deliver supplies via the Rafah crossing in Egypt. To date, 600 food baskets, 1,000 first aid kits and 1,600 cartons of water have been delivered.

The organisation is currently working to deliver female protection kits to women in Gaza, containing supplies such as abayas, hairbrushes, underwear and winter shawls – items which have been in desperately short supply.

Fatima, a 23-year-old youth activist who has fled with her family to the east of Gaza, told Plan International how her family now uses animal feed for baking, while her brother takes the risk of going to the eastern line in search of vegetables.

She says that food shortages have left her feeling “helpless”, and that she worries her young sisters are not getting the nutrition they need for their growing bodies to develop.

“Since the beginning of the conflict, we have been collecting wild plants from the land to eat including hibiscus, chard and lentils. When we can’t find anything growing near to us, my brother, who is 18 years old, goes to the eastern line to look for chard, but this is dangerous because of the occupation and the risk of being bombed.

“Flour is expensive and very scarce, so we use animal feed for baking. My uncles travel for long distances to get flour from the aid distributions. There are no vegetables or fruit for sale anywhere and the price of meat and chicken is very expensive, around 50 USD per kilo. A bag of flour is about five hundred dollars per bag. The food stocks in our house are almost gone.

“I feel sad that I can’t have the food I want, it makes me feel helpless and that my existence has no value.

“Yesterday was the first time that we have eaten meat in five months. We raise pigeons and decided to eat one as we have nothing else left. It made me feel happy because I haven’t eaten good food for a long time.”

By James Moore

“Television is called a medium because it is neither rare nor well done.” – Ernie Kovacs.

In the newsroom, they called her “Sky Queen.” The nickname was clearly a riff on the black and white TV series from the fifties, which was about a rancher who used his Cessna to rescue hikers and help capture bad guys. The aircraft was named “Songbird” and his niece Penny was often a part of the successful outcomes of Sky’s adventures.

“Sky Queen,” though, was not old enough to have even heard of the TV show that gave her the moniker she took around the city of Denver and the Rocky Mountains. Twenty-eight-year-old Karen Key, though, was shining up a star for herself in the competitive business of television news. Blonde and telegenic, Key was the first female helicopter news pilot in the history of TV journalism. The fact that she could pull pitch on the collective, fly a Bell Jet Ranger, and talk into the camera with the Rockies as a backdrop, meant her career was ascending as fast as her takeoffs when racing to cover breaking news.

Which, it turned out, was too quick.

The era of helicopter news reporting is considered to have begun in 1971 with pilot Jerry Foster, in Phoenix, Arizona, and KOOL-TV executive, Homer Lane. Foster, a local search and rescue pilot, was offered a job by Lane to fly a small chopper and get the station’s reporters to the scene of stories faster than driving, and do traffic reports. Foster’s aviation skills, which included taking great risks, and his personality, provided KOOL-TV with big wins in a competitive broadcast market. The idea of using helicopters to cover the news spread quickly to major metros, and, eventually, stations across the land were trying to outrace the competition to be the first to big stories, which was followed by promotional bragging on the air.

When I was offered a job by the ABC-TV affiliate in Denver, I was met at Stapleton International Airport by the news executive, who had arrived on the station’s helicopter. My assignment was to cover Colorado, and points beyond, west of the Continental Divide. My new employer had decided my engagement was to begin with a flight over the Rockies into Glenwoood Springs to meet my partner and photographer over dinner, and check out the news bureau inside the historic Hotel Colorado. After we crossed the divide, the pilot chased a herd of elk and then ducked us under a rainbow that was flashed across the sky by a passing thunderstorm. I had already hitchhiked and motorcycled Colorado’s back roads several times and thought that I was about to begin the best job in American TV news.

Only a few weeks had passed when the Sky 9 chopper had crossed over the mountains to pick us up and begin a search for a downed aircraft. We flew grids for three days until spotting a debris field. The mountains had shredded a twin-engine plane into what looked like beer cans scattered across a snowfield in the sun. Nine souls had been onboard. There were numerous other flights we made looking for the lost and missing and every time I went up there were reminders about the dangers of flying in the Rocky Mountains. In the summer, rain storms materialized in minutes like monsoons in the tropics, and even on clear days the winds down the canyons and up the ridge lines and across the ragged peaks were dangerously twisting, diving and rising with a power to transform light aircraft into scraps of aluminum.

I had no fondness for traveling anywhere via helicopter. In Omaha, the station where I was employed prior to Denver, used a Hughes 269C chopper, which was little more than a bench seat in a plastic bubble attached to a four-cylinder engine. On hot days, getting air borne with two passengers and TV gear tended toward the excessively adventurous. I often felt like we were vibrating to the point that bolts were going to come undone. The chopper was known less than affectionately in the newsroom as “Roto-Death.” My decision about accepting employment with the Denver station might have been different, too, had I been aware the year prior to my arrival their helicopter had flipped and landed upside down while flying a search near Fort Collins. The pilot and photographer were not injured, but the incident was suggestive of potential tragedies in the coming years.

The Denver TV news market in the early 80s was extremely competitive and the three network stations were joined in helicopter battles to attract viewers. The aircraft were painted with bright logos and became flying billboards promoting the newscasts as they moved across the dramatic backdrop of the Front Range. Because managing aircraft over and between mountains is dangerous, pilots hired by TV news executives had experience ranging from Huey gunships in Vietnam to flying bush in the jungles of New Guinea or lifting logs above forests in the Pacific Northwest. Aviation safety was always the primary consideration when flying journalists to assignments, and the pilots all displayed great skills. There was, therefore, no simple method for distinguishing excellence or luring more viewers.

Unless you could find a star.

She was down in Phoenix, competing against Jerry Foster, the pilot who has started the trend of TV choppers covering the news. Karen Key was 28 and had acquired her license with the requisite 200 hours of flight time. Immediately, she attracted attention, on and off the air. In the rank sexism of those years, one writer described her by saying she could have been “Madonna’s stunt double, and like Madonna could rock a skintight jump suit.” Looks are attributes that help on television, not flying complicated aircraft, and Key, with her limited experience, had trouble keeping up with Foster. The cops and emergency techs all knew Foster and he was usually tipped on stories before Key got word. She tried charm to reduce the competition and wrote Foster a letter telling him there was no reason for him to feel “threatened by the little blonde with the cute behind.”

The executive who had hired me in Denver, meanwhile, had been lured away to the station across town and was looking to make a quick impact for his new employer. A tape of Karen Key had shown up on his desk, and after a visit for an interview, she was offered the job of pilot and reporter for KOA-TV. Key had told her new boss that she had 1800 hours in her flight log books but there was never any indication the station had sought confirmation of her records. In fact, a few calls to Phoenix would have provided information that police were certain she had arrived at one story with alcohol on her breath and that they did not trust her piloting skills. Knowledge of her reputation might not have made a difference in the environment of the TV news business in the early 80s, but some consideration ought to have been given to the fact she was operating her aircraft mostly in sunny skies over open deserts, which is considerably different than finding your way through the constantly changing weather of a massive mountain range. Regardless, Key expressed great confidence in her abilities in her conversations with management and the Denver station was apparently reassured to hear she had also flown early in her career for Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth.

Key had to have felt the competitive pressures in Denver the day she took her first flight. There were times when the other two pilots were able to make it over Loveland Pass to reach a news story and she would set her ship down before Eisenhower Tunnel on Interstate 70. Hardly a year after she had arrived in Colorado, Key’s pager beeped with news of an airplane crash. A Pioneer Airlines turboprop had gone down between Colorado Springs and Pueblo. She raced to JEFFCO airport, hoping to be the first into the air to search for the missing aircraft. The weather, however, had turned bad with freezing rain and fog mixed with snow. Pilots for the other two stations, who also kept their helicopters at the same location, were not going to fly. The ceiling was too low, and weather too risky. Key was urged not to go up, but ignored the pleadings.

Larry Zane, who was also 28, a flight mechanic and friend of Key’s, had agreed to go with her on the search mission. JEFFCO tower gave her a clearance and the KOA helicopter rose to just below the cloud ceiling and began to follow I-25 southbound in the direction of the anticipated location of the wrecked Swearingen SA-227AC passenger plane. Key had to be hopeful she was about to win praise for getting to the wreckage when the more experienced pilots refused to risk a search mission. Motorists along the Interstate described seeing the helicopter flying low and slow with landing and searchlights sweeping the roadway in the snow. Several indicated they had been able to keep pace with the aircraft until the highway bent away from the mountains and Key turned toward the west.

The KOA helicopter was not discovered until the next morning. Key and Zane had died when the aircraft hit the tops of pine trees on a knoll near Larkspur, Colorado, and then fell on its side. She was apparently impaled by the control stick. A toxicology test indicated a blood alcohol content of .093 percent, which was just below the legal limit at that time. An FAA investigation cited numerous other factors in the cause of accident report in addition to “pilot impairment.” Those reasons for failure included Key’s overconfidence in her personal ability, a lack of total instrument time, inadequate preflight preparation, self-induced pressure, snow, ice, and fog. Investigators might have added that she was working in an industry that placed less value on her life than it did on an additional rating point to show advertisers.

Karen Key and Larry Zane died in their youth for a news story that might have run 90 seconds to two minutes on a newscast. The station manager, Roger Ogden, who had hired Key, told the Denver Post in a copyrighted story that he had been told by Key that she had more than 1800 hours of flying time in helicopters. Did he ever see her flight logs? According to the newspaper, her claims were considered “highly unlikely” by other news copter pilots and her assertion that she had flown for Bell Helicopter was flatly false. Federal Aviation Administration records accessed by the paper’s reporters indicated that Key had 200 hours air time when she was granted a commercial pilot’s license but would have had to get more than 100 hours every month she worked in Phoenix to accumulate the 1800 she claimed when she was hired by KOA-TV in 1981. The day after the crash the station acknowledged on the air that it had still not seen her pilot’s logs. Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth said she had simply been an administrative assistant and never flew for the manufacturer.

The station’s editorial staff lionized Key as a hero who was always trying to help people in trouble, which was, in some respects, demonstrably true. Anchors, though, went on the air and blamed the criticisms of her skills on “male chauvinism” and interviewed her FAA examiner who claimed her skills were “well above minimums,” which is hardly a description that offers confidence to passengers rising up above the Rockies sitting next to a pilot with Key’s experience. Astonishingly, one editorial by an anchor concluded by saying Key was “not the first, nor will she be the last journalist to die doing their jobs.” The narrative suggested that she was a casualty in a “great tradition that had kept Americans some of the most informed people in the world.” Her death was obviously nothing like the story the station’s writers were selling. Key was a victim of her own ambition, bad judgment, and a toxic competitive environment that took risks with employees’ lives to make more advertising dollars.

Nothing changed after the crash that killed Key and Zane. Between 1980 and 1994, my former station lost six helicopters and five employees. Almost thirty years passed from that treacherous December night in 1982 when Key’s ship went down, before Denver news executives realized the absurd cost and risk of rushing to news in helicopters. An agreement was forged in 2011 for the three legacy network stations to share the lease of a single helicopter and to have equal access to all video acquired through its dispatches. There seems not much doubt the helicopter facilitated and even expedited the coverage of news in major metro areas like Denver, Houston, and Dallas, where traffic is an impediment and the cities sprawl across broad landscapes. The question no one bothers to answer in the industry is whether it is truly important to be first by a few minutes.

And is winning the race worth the risk?

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.

Oxfam Australia Media Release

Miniscule amount is less than 12% of average daily calorie needs.

People in northern Gaza have been forced to survive on an average of 245 calories a day (1025 kilojoules) – less than a can of beans – since January, as Israeli forces continue their military onslaught. Over 300,000 people are believed to still be trapped there, unable to leave.

The miniscule amount of food represents less than 12 per cent of the recommended daily 2,100 calorie intake needed per person, calculated using demographic data considering variations by age and gender. Last week, the Israeli government told UNRWA, by far the largest aid provider in Gaza, that its convoys would no longer be allowed into the north.

Oxfam’s analysis is based on the latest available data used in the recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis for the Gaza Strip. Oxfam also found that the total food deliveries allowed into Gaza for the entire 2.2 million population – since last October – amounted to an average of just 41 per cent of the daily calories needed per person.

The Israeli government has known for nearly two decades exactly how many daily calories are needed to prevent malnutrition in Gaza, calculating this according to both age and gender within its Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip – Red Line document. Not only did it use a higher calculation of 2,279 calories per person, it also took into account domestic food production in Gaza, which the Israeli military has now virtually obliterated.

A mother trapped in northern Gaza said: “Before the war, we were in good health and had strong bodies. Now, looking at my children and myself, we have lost so much weight since we do not eat any proper food, we are trying to eat whatever we find – edible wild plants or herbs daily just to survive.”

Oxfam also found that less than half the number of food trucks needed to reach the daily 2,100 calories intake for everyone are currently entering Gaza. Using IPC and UNRWA data, Oxfam’s analysis found that an absolute minimum of 221 trucks of food alone are needed every day, not accounting for wastage or unequal distribution. Currently just 105 trucks of food are entering Gaza daily on average.

The IPC report found that famine is imminent in northern Gaza and that almost all the population is now experiencing extreme hunger; with 1.1 million people experiencing catastrophic food insecurity. Horrifyingly, children are already dying from starvation and malnutrition, often worsened by disease.

Hunger and its impacts are exacerbated by the near-complete destruction of civilian infrastructure including hospitals, water and sanitation services and community health support by Israel, leaving people even more vulnerable to disease. In addition to the limited availability of food, the ability to find or buy a nutritious, varied diet is not feasible across Gaza. For the little fruit and vegetables still available, extreme price rises due to scarcity have put them out of reach for most people. Specialised nutrition products and centres to treat malnourished children are also difficult or impossible to find.

Lyn Morgain, Oxfam Australia Chief Executive said: “Israel is making deliberate choices to starve civilians. Imagine what it is like, not only to be trying to survive on 245 calories day in, day out, but also having to watch your children or elderly relatives do the same. All whilst displaced, with little to no access to clean water or a toilet, knowing most medical support has gone and under the constant threat of drones and bombs.

“Israel is ignoring both the International Court of Justice order to prevent genocide and UN Security Council resolutions. Only last week the ICJ ordered new provisional measures, stating famine is no longer looming, but ‘setting in’ in Gaza. All countries need to immediately stop supplying arms to Israel and do all they can to secure an immediate and permanent ceasefire; only then can we stop this horrifying carnage for the 2.2 million people who have endured six months of suffering. Israel cannot weaponize starvation any longer.”

Oxfam is calling for a permanent ceasefire, the return of all hostages and the release of unlawfully detained Palestinian prisoners, for countries to immediately stop supplying arms to Israel and for full humanitarian aid access. The global response for Gaza must include both adequate and nutritious food for everyone, the full restoration of hospitals and health services, water, and sanitation infrastructure and for all reconstruction materials to be allowed across the border.

Eulogies should rarely be taken at face value. Plaster saints take the place of complex individuals; faults transmute into golden virtues. But there was little in the way of fault regarding Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom’s messianic purpose, whose tireless work for the charity, World Central Kitchen (WCK) in northern Gaza had not gone unnoticed. Sadly, the Australian national, along with six other members of WCK, were noticed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) around midnight of April 1 and 2 and targeted in a strike that killed all of them.

Other members of the slain crew included Polish citizen Damian Sobol, three British nationals whose names are yet to be released, a US-Canadian dual citizen, and the driver and translator Saif Abu Taha.

The charity workers had been unloading food supplies from Cyprus that had been sent via sea in a designated “deconflicted” area. All three vehicles, two armoured and one “soft skin”, sported the WCK logo. Even more galling for the charity was the fact that coordinating efforts between WCK and the IDF had taken place as it left the Deir al-Balah warehouse, where the individuals had been responsible for uploading over 100 tonnes of humanitarian food aid.

On April 2, Haaretz reported that three missiles had been fired in rapid succession at the convoy by a Hermes 450 UAV on direction of a unit guarding the aid transport route. The troops in question claimed to have spotted what they thought was an armed figure riding a truck that had entered one of the aid storage areas with three WCK vehicles. The armed figure, presumed to be a Hamas militant, never left the warehouse in the company of the vehicles.

In a public relations war Israel is increasingly losing, various statements of variable quality and sincerity could only confirm that fact. IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari stated that he had spoken to WCK founder Chef José Andrés “and expressed the deepest condolences of the Israel Defense Forces to the families and the entire World Central Kitchen family.”

Hagari went on to add the IDF’s expression of “sincere sorrow to our allied nations who have been doing and continue to do so much to assist those in need.” This was a bit rich given the programmatic efforts of the IDF and Israeli officials to stifle and strangulate the provision of aid into the Gaza Strip, from the logistical side of keeping land crossings closed and delaying access to existing ones, to aggressive efforts to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

As for the operation itself, Hagari announced that “the highest levels” of military officialdom had been “reviewing the incident” to comprehend the circumstances that led to the deaths. “We will get to the bottom of this and we will share our findings transparently.” Again exalting the prowess of his organisation in investigating such matters, he promised that the army’s General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism – yet another independent body designed to give the impression of thoroughness and impartiality – would look into this “serious incident” to “reduce the risk of such an event from occurring again.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a better barometric reading of the mood, and it was certainly not one of grieving or feeling aggrieved. The killings had merely been “a tragic instance of our forces unintentionally harming innocent people in the Gaza Strip. It happens in war.” Israel would “investigate it” and had been “in contact with the governments and we will do everything we can so that it doesn’t happen again.”

NETANYAHU SMILING AND LAUGHING AFTER ISRAEL KILLED FOREIGN AID WORKERS

“Unfortunately, a tragic instance of our forces unintentionally harming innocent people in the Gaza Strip. It happens in war.

We'll investigate it. We're in contact with the governments, and we will do… pic.twitter.com/4qngtrSJoX

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) April 2, 2024

This is mightily optimistic given the butcher’s toll of 173 aid workers from UNRWA alone, with 196 humanitarians said to have died as of March 20, 2024 since October 7 last year. Aid workers have been killed in IDF strikes despite the regular provision of coordinates on their locations. Be it through reckless indifference, conscious intent, or a lack of competence, the morgues continue to be filled with humanitarian workers.

A bristling CEO of WCK, Erin Gore, proved blunter about the implications of the strike. “This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organisations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war.”

Project HOPE’s Executive Vice President, Chris Skopec, drew attention to the obvious, yet repeatedly neglected fact in the Gaza conflict that aid workers are protected by international humanitarian law. Gaza had become “one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a humanitarian worker. This is unacceptable and demands accountability through the International Criminal Court.”

Responsibility for the killings is unlikely to translate into accountability, let alone any public outing of the individuals involved. This is not to say that such exercises are impossible, even with Israel not being a member of the International Criminal Court. The pageantry of guilt can still be pursued.

When Malaysian Airlines MH17 was downed over Ukraine in July 2014 by a Buk missile, killing all 298 on board, international efforts of terrier-like ferocity were initiated against those responsible for the deadly feat. The MH17 Joint Investigation Team (JIT), comprising the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Belgium and Ukraine, identified the missile as having come from the 53^rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian armed forces from Kursk. Four suspects were identified. Of the four, one was acquitted, with the district Court of The Hague handing down three life sentences in November 2022 along with an order to pay over €16 million in compensation to the victims. The individuals remain at large, and the Kremlin largely unmoved, but the point was made.

In this case, any hope for seeking an external accounting for the event is likely to be kept in-house. Excuses of error and misidentification are already filling press releases and conferences. Doing so will enable the IDF to continue its program of quashing the Palestinian cause while pursuing an undisclosed war against those it considers, publicly or otherwise, to be its ameliorating collaborators. With an announcement by various humanitarian groups, including WCK, Anera and Project Hope, that their operations will be suspended following the killings, starvation, as a policy in Gaza, can receive its official blessing.

The human mind is often incapable of tolerating the limitless nature of a universe, the absence of a divine architect, or appreciate that intended designs may be absent when it comes to events awful, ghastly and catastrophic. A disaster with some human agency is bound to have arisen because of a constructed plan, a template to harm, a scheme to injure.

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was another event to befuddle those searching for the plan. The Singaporean-flagged MV Dali container ship lost power on March 26 and collided with the bridge in the early morning, causing the dramatic destruction of the bridge and the deaths of six construction workers who fell into the Patapsco River.

The authorities were quick scotch notions of foul play. FBI Baltimore stated that there was “no specific and credible information to suggest any ties to terrorism at this time. The investigation is ongoing.” President Joe Biden, while betraying confusion about whether he ever travelled by train over the bridge or not – an impressive feat if so, given that the bridge never had train lines – described it as “a terrible accident. At this time, we have no other indication – no other reason to believe there was any intentional act here.”

The Kraken of conspiracy had, however, been unleashed. Andrew Tate, the Count of Online Misogyny, was quick to the digital podium in suggesting a cyberattack. In a post of breathless excitement, he notes how the “Lights go off and it deliberately steers towards the bridge supports.” For the influencer facing charges of human trafficking, forming an organised crime group, and sexual assault in Romania, this was the work of “Foreign agents of the USA”. With apocalyptic flavour, he declared that a “Black Swan event” was imminent.

This ship was cyber-attacked.

Lights go off and it deliberately steers towards the bridge supports.

Foreign agents of the USA attack digital infrastructures.

Nothing is safe.

Black Swan event imminent. pic.twitter.com/14SBqK8tJA

— Andrew Tate (@Cobratate) March 26, 2024

With tearing speed, former security advisors and current political representatives made their offerings of conspiratorial theory. Former US national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about meetings with Russia’s ambassador to the United States leading up to Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, added his own agreement with Tate. “Black swans normally come out of the world of finance (not military) … There are harbor masters for every single one of these transit ports in America that are in charge of assuring the safety of navigation … start there.” How exciting.

Former Florida state congressman Anthony Sabatini preferred a vaguer, more intangible culprit, identifying the enemy ideologically. It all came down to a policy of diversity, equity and inclusion, with the insinuation that the swarthy types were responsible. “DEI,” he stated with certainty, “did this.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) worried whether this was “an intentional attack or an accident” and demanded an investigation, the very thing happening even as she bloviated on the subject.

Almost on cue, culturally charged theories began to froth and bubble. Matt Wallace, yet another cerebrally overheated influencer with 1.6 million followers, drew a comparison (and connection) between the collapse of the bridge and the Obama produced Netflix film Leave the World Behind, which featured a cargo shipping losing power and running aground on the coast of Long Island.

In the film, the ship’s destination is Sri Lanka. The country’s national flag sports a lion. The MV Dali’s destination? Sri Lanka. The name of the cargo vessel in the film? White Lion. Celluloid could be effortlessly married to harmful plot and wicked design, or what another overly exercised social media user drunk on Christ and premonition liked to call “predictive programming”.

On CNN, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was trying to calm matters. “We’re in the business of dealing with roads and bridges and sometimes ships and trains. So we are not in the habit as a Department of Transportation, of being in the business of dealing with conspiracies, or conspiracy theories or that kind of wild thinking. But unfortunately, it is a fact of life in America today.” This, at best, is an airy reading of history.

The lifespan of the US Republic has been one of numbing conspiracy. In the land of Hope and Glory, with Freedom’s wash, conspiracy is mother’s milk. The Salem witch trials in Massachusetts pointed to Satan’s industrious work; the fledgling republic feared the clandestine seizure of power from within by well organised European elites. In the 1800 presidential race, rumours were sown by the Federalist Party that the wily Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, was a closeted atheist keen on handing over the new state to France on his election. Jefferson won, and far from surrendering territory to France, doubled the size of the US with the purchase, from France, of 828,000 square miles.

At its creation during the Cold War, the John Birch Society, after ventilating about global communist conspiracy and home-grown threats, redirected its focus to the fanciful conspiracy that the United Nations was keen on world government and trimming US sovereignty. This was much too flattering: the UN is rarely united and more akin to a collection of fractious tribes in permanent disagreement.

The problem with conspiratorial overheating is that the residual ash in the incineration can provide clues to something distantly plausible. This is helped by the fact that governments and state institutions have not been shy in breaching the social contract with the citizenry. The deep state notion, for instance, is laughed off by the very people who represent such interests and regard it as a crank’s viewpoint.

Fundamentally, there is no need for conspiracy when there is a consensus, an understanding of agreed-upon facts and agreed-upon hierarchies of power. But as for such calamities as befell the Francis Scott Key Bridge, never let human imbecility, incompetence and error off the hook. To misjudge is to be human.

Australian Council for International Development Media Release

The Australian Council for International Development, the peak body for the aid and humanitarian agencies, has today expressed its deepest condolences to the family of killed Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom.

Ms Frankcom was killed, along with four of her fellow aid workers, by an Israeli air strike in Gaza. She was working with the World Central Kitchen helping deliver food and other supplies to northern Gaza.

“It is truly tragic that an Australian aid worker, working to provide food to starving civilians, has been killed in this fashion,” said ACFID chief executive Marc Purcell.

“Our deepest and sincerest condolences go out to Zomi’s family, friends and employer. She died doing truly heroic work.

“The Australian government seeks to uphold the international rule of law. The laws of war protecting humanitarian workers and civilians are being flagrantly disregarded by the Israeli Government and Defence Forces.

“Humanitarian workers in conflict zones should be ensured safety by combatants to carry out life saving responses. Time and time again during this conflict we have seen Israeli forces demonstrate disregard for the safety of humanitarian workers with tragic results, with at least 196 aid workers killed to date.

“Not only are Israeli military forces acting recklessly, they have, in fact, been using the denial of food as a weapon of war.

“We call on the Australian Government to urge the Israeli Government to cease attacks on aid convoys and to allow for the safe land passage of humanitarian assistance. Further, Australia should protest in the strongest possible terms the starvation of civilians. Starving civilians is a breach of the laws of war, international law and common decency.

“The Israeli Defence Force is blocking aid from entry into northern Gaza which means hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of starving to death. In the south, humanitarian agencies are under enormous strain as a result of airstrikes.”

UNSW Media Release

The ‘right to disconnect’ has been gaining traction globally in recent years, and Australia has joined the movement with the recent passing of the Fair Work Amendment (Right to Disconnect) Bill 2023.

The new legislation is a response to growing concerns about work-related mental health issues, particularly those linked to stress and overwork. The government also found that some employees were being driven to exhaustion due to an expectation of being accessible outside of work hours.

“The recent Safe Work Australia report on ‘psychological health and safety in the workplace’ indicates a significant rise in work-related mental health problems, especially amongst women, leading to more time loss and compensation for injuries and illnesses,” says Professor Emmanual Josserand, an expert on the impact of innovation and Director of the Business Insights Institute at UNSW Business School.

“Research suggests that maintaining healthy boundaries between work and personal life is crucial for managing stress. Out-of-hours contact can disrupt much-needed rest and recovery time, potentially exacerbating existing stress.”

This legislation can change how employers communicate with employees, prompting questions about its impact on productivity, work-life balance, and employee wellbeing.

Will this new legislation work in Australia, what are the drawbacks, and how will it impact Australian workplaces? Prof. Josserand sheds light on this critical new development.

What is the right to disconnect?

Australia’s new legal right to disconnect allows workers to switch off after hours and choose not to engage with work communications. This doesn’t prevent employees from putting in additional hours, but it ensures they have the right to disconnect from ‘unreasonable contact’ outside of designated working hours.

The legislation outlines factors to consider when determining whether contact outside working hours is reasonable.

These include (1) the nature and urgency of the reason for contact, (2) the method of contact (e.g. a phone call would likely be considered more disruptive than an email), (3) whether the employee is compensated for working outside of their ordinary hours, (4) the level of the employee’s responsibility within the organisation, (5) the employee’s personal circumstances.

“For example, it depends on the level of responsibility”, says Prof. Josserand, “it would likely be considered reasonable to expect a high-level manager to respond to an urgent email after hours, whereas the same wouldn’t apply to an entry-level administration worker.”

Will the right to disconnect work in Australia?

Prof. Josserand believes the legislation has the potential to be successful.

“Australia is one of many countries worldwide that are adopting similar laws.

“France, for instance, was a frontrunner, making it mandatory for companies with more than 50 employees to establish parameters for after-hours communication in 2016. A court ruling there even ordered a company to compensate an employee who was required to constantly keep their work phone on,” says Prof. Josserand.

Other European countries have adopted similar regulations on the right to disconnect, including France, Belgium, Italy, Argentina, Chile, Luxembourg, Mexico, Philippines, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Ontario, and Ireland.

Closer to home, Prof. Josserand says, “The Victorian Police Force included the right to disconnect in their bargaining agreement as early as 2021. This new legislation extends that right to all Australian employees.”

What are the potential drawbacks to the right to disconnect, and how will it impact Australian workplaces?

While Prof. Josserand is optimistic about the legislation’s potential benefits, he acknowledges there may be challenges.

“Some businesses have raised concern that it could hinder productivity and communication, particularly in fast-paced or client-facing environments.”

“However, the legislation does allow for some exemptions for urgent matters. The key is establishing clear guidelines and expectations around after-hours communication within organisations.”

The Government says that one of their hopes with the legal right to disconnect legislation will prevent employees from being made to work unpaid overtime.

“According to the new right, if there is a dispute about this right to disconnect and it can’t be solved amiably, both the employer and the employee can apply for the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to deal with the dispute,” says Prof. Josserand.

Prof. Josserand explained that the new law will impact mainly those with fewer responsibilities. “In cases where there is no business-related necessity for contact, where work performed outside of ordinary hours of work is uncompensated, and where individuals may be experiencing personal challenges.”

“The right to disconnect can be crucial in promoting employee wellbeing and creating a more sustainable work environment. This new legislation represents a significant shift in the Australian work culture and workplace rights.

“With the growing adoption of flexible and remote working arrangements, it’s essential for both employers and employees to establish healthy boundaries and expectations around communication outside of standard working hours,” he says.

The Business Insights Institute and the Research Lab on Hybrid Work Leadership at UNSW Business School have been monitoring the generalisation of hybrid, flexible work arrangements since COVID-19.

Prof. Josserand says, “While some people have thrived under flexible work arrangements, others have had difficulties adjusting. In the same vein, some organisations have adapted quickly to this transformation, while others are still figuring things out and need clearer policies. The new legislation will create an opportunity for more dialogue on the matter.”

By James Moore

“Mr. Speaker, our Nation depends on immigrants’ labor, and I hope we can create an immigration system as dependable as they are.” – U.S. Cong. Luis Gutiérrez.

Politics needs enemies to move constituencies. Fear doesn’t just sell, it motivates, and divides. The strategy for succeeding in American electoral politics has been, for several decades, to scare voters and convince them the opposition is about to unleash great danger upon the masses.

The tactic was artfully practiced with vigor by Republican consultant Lee Atwater, who used a Black convicted killer, released on a weekend furlough by the governor of Massachusetts, and who had become recalcitrant and committed rape, assault, and armed robbery while outside his prison walls.

Although the program helped to rehabilitate criminals in the state, Governor Michael Dukakis suffered political blame for the crimes of Willie Horton. Horton had always been referred to as William prior to his infamy, but Atwater applied a diminutive to make him less formal, and told his colleagues that he’d use the criminal to “strip the bark off the little bastard” (Dukakis) and make the public “think Horton is his running mate.”

The case became a centerpiece of the 1988 presidential campaign. GOP support groups put a mug shot of Horton into campaign ads for their candidate, George H.W. Bush, and the fear mongering began to move the political needle. Racism was barely sub-textual and the goal was to convince white, middle class voters that if the liberal Democrat were elected that scary black killers would be released into the streets of America, and it worked. Bush the elder became president and Atwater was lionized as a political genius, though, on his death bed, dying of a brain tumor while just 50 years of age, he apologized to Dukakis and the other people victimized by his radical campaign tactics.

Apologies from political operatives often lack sincerity even as they are facing mortality. Atwater claimed in the last days of his life that he had found faith and comfort in a living Bible he had been reading. Ed Rollins, Reagan’s campaign manager, took solace in Atwater’s story about the Bible and told colleague Mary Matalin that he hoped the craven consultant had finally found some peace. In a documentary, Matalin relieved Rollins of that final delusion about Atwater by saying, “Ed, when we were cleaning up his things afterwards, the Bible was still wrapped in the cellophane and had never been taken out of the package, which just told you everything there was. He was spinning right to the end.”

Lying might be a more accurate term than spinning. Atwater’s political descendent and confederate, unsurprisingly, was Karl Rove, who refined the ideas the two had developed while traveling the country and organizing college Republicans. When Rove later promoted the idea of wedge issues to separate out voters, what he was really doing was creating more boogiemen to frighten people. In Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, Rove pushed an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment for state ballots, which he knew would motivate Christian evangelicals to vote for Bush in bigger numbers. The rhetoric stirring up the issue informed the public that the idea of homosexual marriage was a threat to the very way of life in America because it undermined the traditional concept of family. Even black voters got the message. The Sunday before Election Day in 2004, I was in an African American church in Columbus, Ohio and was stunned when the pastor concluded his sermon with a political admonishment to his rather large congregation.

“When you go to the polls this coming Tuesday,” he said. “I have this message for you to take into the booth with you. Don’t you dare vote against God. Now let us pray.”

Bush, whose flaws as a leader were many and manifest, did not have a homophobic cell in his body, but he carried Ohio by turning LGBTQ voters into a danger to the republic, and even traditionally liberal and Christian African Americans got a bit of a fright. The victory was also made possible by hiding a significant sexual orientation secret of a top GOP operative. The head of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, who was put in charge of running the anti-gay marriage amendment campaign in various states, was a closeted gay man. When asked about his personal life by a reporter at an Ohio rally, Mehlman, who did not come out until after his political career, said only, “You have asked a question no one should have to answer,” and he spun and his heels and left. After Mehlman came out in 2010, he became an advocate for gay marriage. I brought the contradictions up with Bush during an off camera interview in 2004 and asked him how he could reconcile the inherent meanness of the strategy with who he was as a person, and all he said was, “It’s just politics, Jimmy.”

Rove was hiding a stark hypocrisy in his family, too. On the eve of Karl’s eighteenth birthday, his father, Lou Rove, home for Christmas, announced he was leaving and would seek a divorce. Lou was actually Karl’s stepfather but had raised him from an early age, and he had no relationship with his biological dad. Lou, an oil company geologist, had decided he had reached the point where he wanted to live openly as a gay man. Karl’s mother, eventually, committed suicide, though he never acknowledged any linkage to that act and the trauma of the failed marriage and Lou’s shocking announcement regarding his true sexual orientation. Estranged from Lou, Karl eventually reconciled with the man who had raised him and made annual visits with his dad in Palm Springs, California, often taking road trips together to Santa Fe. The politics Karl was pursuing regarding gay marriage that fall with the Bush campaign had the potential to complicate Lou Rove’s life, or any partner of his. But, hey, “It’s just politics, Jimmy.” The contradiction probably did not ever register with Karl’s diminutive conscience.

The radical right, empowered by Trump, continues attempts to marginalize Blacks and LGBTQ persons but the new scary icons are brown-skinned people from south of the border. Cultural and political battle lines are stretched along the Mexican frontier but the issue of immigration is informing almost every voter in 2024. In Texas, the legislature passed a law that empowers local law enforcement to arrest undocumented immigrants, and, in some cases, even take them back to ports of entry for deportation. Unfortunately, for Texas Trumpers like the perpetually angry governor, immigration, customs, and border protection are powers bestowed upon the federal government by the Constitution. Even the conservative appeals courts have, thus far, stopped enforcement of the law pending a hearing on its constitutional viability.

Because “they are not sending their best people,” Texas has erected a Berlin Wall on the border to keep the hungry, homeless, and financially desperate from entering a state in dire need of workers. We are very capably managing to both despise and rely on undocumented immigrants in Texas. They are essential to almost every economic endeavor in the state. The housing boom has been utterly reliant on cheap labor from Mexico, the overwhelming majority of which is here without legal papers. They are, nonetheless, skilled trades people who frame homes, put in electrical wiring, do brick and mortar work, roofing, paving, and any type of skill required to finish a home. Mexican laborers are reliable, work hard, and earn less, much to the delight of the big businesses that take advantage of their desperation for employment. Companies are also able to avoid paying for benefits like health care or unemployment, which adds to their profit margins.

Texas, expressing excessive anger about undocumented immigration, is the state most heavily dependent upon their employment. Harvesting the cantaloupes in the Pecos River Valley or wheat in the South Plains or Ruby Red grapefruit in the Rio Grande Valley or working the legendary ranches or cooking at your favorite restaurant or welding I-beams on high rises or hanging sheet rock in new suburban homes, Mexicans and immigrants from Central and South America have made significant contributions to the economic prosperity of Texas. In fact, they have always participated, and they always will be an important part of the state’s capitalistic enterprises. These inescapable facts also consistently make for strange accommodations.

When Rick Perry was governor of Texas, one of his biggest donors was a major statewide homebuilder, who relied heavily upon illegal immigrants to build his neighborhoods. Perry reached a gentleman’s agreement with the construction magnate that allowed the governor to complain publicly and campaign on illegal immigration as long as he didn’t pass any legislation that might reduce the homebuilder’s cheap labor pool. They both kept up their ends of the bargain, too. The less-than-finesse approach for Trumpublicans is also to vilify immigrants while continuing to provide them employment and hold down labor costs. They keep the rooms clean at Mar a Lardo and the orangeatan’s golf course carefully groomed, too, in a manner that any putt Trump makes will curl toward the hole.

Illegal immigration can be brought to a halt, however, without the expense of building a wall, which will never work. Congress needs to pass a simple law making it a felony with a minimum of five years in prison if an employer knowingly hires an undocumented worker. No early release. Never happen, of course, because the great driving wheel of the American economy relies on immigrants to keep it turning, regardless of whether they have papers. Washington has implemented an e-verify program but uncountable businesses say it is costly and burdensome to implement and use effectively. The digital identification system of legal immigrant workers has had an impact on unlawful employment, but enforcement has been lax and difficult. Were the system properly working, those would likely not have been immigrants who died in the Baltimore Harbor bridge disaster. They would have been American citizens.

America’s problems with immigration and narcotics are consequences of our own behavior. Violent cartels would not be flourishing in Mexico if there were not huge demand north of the Rio Grande. Consumption of contrabando never goes down, and supply lines are always open, regardless of the risk. Immigration, too, would not be at crisis levels were it not for our adventurism in Central America, tossing over governments and propping up strongmen who gave succor to our corporate imperialism. We turned several countries into peasant fruit plantations, and when narcotrafficantes came along, an abundant and disenchanted labor supply was at the ready. The attendant violence, though, and social breakdown has sent them north by the hundreds of thousands, and they will keep coming because they have heard us tell the world we are the land of opportunity.

Which we are. Until a bridge falls down. And we get a peek under the covers at the naked truth.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.