FOCUS ON FREEDOM

"Give me liberty, or give me death!" These words, uttered at the conclusion of a rousing speech by Patrick Henry before the Virginia Assembly convened at Richmond on March 23, 1775, became the war cry of the American Revolution. Although there are some slight definitional differences between "liberty" and "freedom", we tend to use both concepts interchangeably. "Freedom," according to Merriam Webster, is defined as the absence of necessity, or constraint in choice or action. In philosophy "freedom" indicates the power of any living human being to exercise its will. Most of us feel that we know implicitly what we mean by "freedom." We refer to "the land of the free and the home of the brave" in our national anthem. We memorialize the sacrifices of our military fighting for and protecting our freedom. And we identify an entire subset of freedom in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, freeing the slaves in Union controlled territory from previous restraint or legal disability. In short, invoking the word "freedom" has become an important trigger signal in our culture. The first amendment of our Constitution assures us five freedoms: speech, religion, press, assembly and the right to petition our government. As Americans, we expect to be free. The freedom to think and feel as we want, whenever we want. However, as what happens with many concepts that ought to be easy to understand, our politicians have managed to relegate the idea to a buzzword. While many candidates who are developing steam in the run-up to next year's election have made "freedom" the centerpiece of their electoral campaigns, few, if any, refer to it in abstract terms. Most identify freedom in terms of freedom from (whatever their competition is proposing) as opposed to freedom of or freedom for. President Joe Biden has made defending our basic freedoms the cause of his presidency. He has suggested that his 2024 campaign will involve a genuine philosophical debate about the meaning of freedom. The freedoms he has in mind include: "the freedom for women to make their own health-care decisions; the freedom for our children to be safe from gun violence; the freedom to vote and have the votes counted; and for seniors to live with dignity and have a shot at a good life." Governor Ron DeSantis, after he was reelected, used the word "freedom" twelve times in his inaugural address. His recent budget was dubbed the "framework for freedom," and his new book carries the title "The Courage to be Free." His campaign centers on freedom from the "woke ideology" and the "woke agenda." He never really defines what he means, other than anything proposed by President Biden. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) suggests that Americans need more freedom. "Freedom from [Biden's] crushing inflation, freedom from showing up at school board meetings to talk about your kids being considered domestic terrorists, and freedom from a wide-open, insecure, southern border." Donald Trump points out that "the left" wants to take away your guns, persecute Christians and push the transgender cult onto your children. Whatever Democrats and Republicans suggest the country needs, "freedom from" differs for either side. In his State of the Union address on January 6, 1941, FDR identified four principles of "freedom:" speech, worship, from want, and from fear. Most of us probably subscribe to these in principle. However, in practice they aren't all that simple. None of these work unless the vast majority of us agree to allow all of us to live up to these ideals. Freedom of speech and expression is a constitutionally protected right, legally restricted by constraints imposed by society, and politically eroding in a growing number of communities. Nationally, this right does not include incitement, defamation, fraud, obscenity, child pornography or threats. In Florida the "Parental Rights in Education," a.k.a. "Don't Say Gay," bill, restricts schools from teaching students about sexual education and gender issues. Book banning, which used to be concentrated in Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas and Utah, are now reported in at least 32 states. Freedom of religion (worship) also includes freedom from religion. Besides, dangerous elements in our society appear to do anything they can to express their animosity to non-Christian beliefs. Freedom from want has become an economic football manipulated by our political representatives. Freedom from fear is pretty much meaningless as long as more of our kids are now killed with guns rather than by car accidents. And not to forget that we just commemorated "Juneteenth", a federal holiday depicting the official end of slavery in confederate states. A holiday which, unfortunately, is only legally recognized in 28 states. This event also drives home the point that the Emancipation Declaration, which nominally freed the slaves, was followed by Jim Crow laws introduced in many Southern states, specifically designed to enforce racial segregation, and, not so subtly, intended to reestablish another form of bondage for millions of Africans. Aside from our own struggles with freedom, it might be worthwhile to consider what freedom means to citizens from other parts of the world. What about Ukraine, where its citizens are desperately fighting to keep their country from being absorbed by cruel, criminal forces led by an internationally indicted dictator? And what about the tens of thousands of migrants from Haiti, Venezuela and elsewhere who are literally risking their lives every month to cross the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama in search of freedom from persecution by criminal elements in their home country and desperate to find a way to support their families, no matter the cost? For us true freedom which nobody can deprive us of may be the freedom to think and feel as we want and when we want. Most of us probably believe that all our citizens ought to be free. Many of us comfortably subscribe to the notion that Americans ought to be free, no matter how they look, pray, love or live. For many others, to paraphrase the enduring words of lyrics composed by Kris Kristofferson and sung by Janis Joplin, freedom may just be another word for nothing left to lose. Theo Wierdsma

EXPEDITED WORK PERMITS MIGHT BLUNT EFFECTS OF MIGRANT TRANSFERS

There is no question that migration patterns at our southern border continue to be a significant challenge for our border control functionaries. Some of the overwhelming consequences are filtering through to municipalities throughout the country. Political blame is readily doled out. However, its substance depends on which party provides the criticism. The Trump administration reduced legal immigration by 63%, but did not make a dent in illegal border crossings. (Cato Institute, Jan. 20, 2021). On President Biden's watch the average number of encounters at the border reached three times those experienced during his predecessor's presidency. The underlying reasons for this result are, again, politically charged and debatable. It is useful, however, to point out that this phenomenon is by no means unique to our southern border. Europe is experiencing a similar situation. Through April of this year, migration patterns from North Africa into the E.U. has increased 2.5 times over what they were just a year ago. Italy alone is confronting a 400% increase. And the U.K. has encountered a record doubling of the migration rate. All this on top of the 8.2 million refugees from Ukraine the continent had to absorb. Republican governors from states impacted by the migration surge have been sending migrants released at our border with Mexico to Democratic strongholds elsewhere in the country. Their barely concealed motivation appears to be to make political statements either for local consumption or to force the Biden administration to do something, whatever that may be. Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent more than 17,500 migrants to Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia. These included several busloads to the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris. Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis claims to have transferred nearly 11,000 migrants. And former Arizona Governor Dough Ducey prided himself on last year sending fifty busloads of migrants to Washington D.C.. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has lamented that "It is both a sad and a tragic day when a government official uses migrants as a pawn for political purposes." For cities forced to host this massive, unannounced infusion of asylum seekers comes at a significant cost. New York City is a case in point. According to City Hall officials, last year the city took in more than 60,000 migrants. City run shelters and emergency sites are overflowing, competing for space with an already sizable homeless population. Resources are dwindling. The city spends an average of $380 per household per day on migrants, and budgets for providing housing, feeding and other social services for an average 40 new households per day. However, recently, new daily arrivals topped 180. Thus far NYC has spent $1 billion, and it expects to need a budget of $4 billion by July 2024. The situation in other affected cities is not much different. Obviously, New York Mayor Eric Adams is not happy. His urgent request for federal assistance so far netted him $30 million, a drop in the bucket given the magnitude of the financial burden facing the city. On another front, however, Mr. Adams appears to be receiving the attention from a more receptive audience. When asked what he needed most, outside of financial support, he was adamant. "Allow people to work, which is one of the number one things we can do. Allow people to work!" Currently asylum seekers have to wait half a year after filing an application before being issued a work permit. This federal law was enacted in 1996. President Trump extended the waiting period to 365 days. This was implemented in August 2020, but overturned in February 2022. The argument is pretty straightforward. Asylum seekers don't come here to seek donated clothing and shelter beds. They want to find work, contribute to the economy and make a new life for themselves. Work would allow these migrants to get out of shelters and hire an immigration lawyer to help expedite the process. Besides, our country faces a workforce crisis. We have roughly 10.7 million job openings, and just 5.9 million unemployed Americans. Fifty mayors sent a letter arguing along these lines to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) requesting it expedite the permit process. In March of this year, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) introduced the Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act of 2023 in the House of Representatives. This Act would allow work permits to be issued 30 days after filing an application for refugee status, and make permits valid for as long as the application remains pending. Many municipalities under financial strain are eager to see this legislation end up on the president's desk. The influx of refugees from the Ukraine into the European Union and elsewhere has forged similar work related responses in affected communities. Ukraine is not an E.U. member. However, its citizens no longer need a permit to engage in paid for activities throughout Europe. Even in the U.S. these refugees can work within the first 90 days following their arrival. They do need to apply for a permanent permit during that time period. The point is that this strategy is being implemented, and it appears to be working. Passage of this Act will undoubtedly face opposition from those who, erroneously, assume that immigrant workers ultimately increase labor market competition and drive down the the wages of native born workers. Many uninformed opponents will also assume that our refugee admissions place a burden on the country as a whole. However, numerous studies have pointed out that these assumptions are generally misguided. A ten year study covering 2005 to 2014 concluded that refugees who had been here from 1980 on contributed $63 billion more to government revenue than they used in public services. A similar study also showed that the proportion of refugee men working was 7% higher than among their U.S. born counterparts. And only 8% of refugees received Social Security or Social Security disability benefits, compared to 15% of the entire population. It does not appear to be a stretch to conclude that the Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act of 2023 deserves to be adopted. It will allow people to work, contribute to the economy, be less of a burden on society and blunt some of the overwhelming effects of unconscionable migrant transfers. Theo Wierdsma

RAISING RETIREMENT AGE AN UNPOPULAR SOLUTION

While we prepared for a recent trip to Europe, which included a week in Paris, we grew concerned about potential intrusion from encounters with persistent anti government demonstrations in the French capital. Our fears proved to be unfounded. However, the contentious issues involved remained palpable. More than a million residents have repeatedly taken to the streets to protest President Emanuel Macron's attempt to impose a largely unpopular policy change which would raise the age French citizens are eligible to retire with a full pension from 62 to 64. The president's reasoning has been that the increase is absolutely necessary to keep the country's pension system afloat. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, afraid that her government might not have the votes to adopt the retirement bill, a key priority of Macron's second term, invoked Article 49:3 of the French constitution. This strategy allowed the bill to pass without a vote in the National Assembly, leaving protesters with a "fait accompli." Outsiders frequently appear puzzled about the regularity with which the French public openly expresses its discontent. Even when the increase in their retirement age to 64 takes effect, the French will still be able to retire earlier than citizens in any other European country. Most have raised their effective age to 67, and a few plan to take it up to 69. Some observers claim that protest is deeply embedded in French culture, dating back at least to the revolution of 1789. Alexis Poyard, a prominent youth activist, concludes that: "In France we protest whenever we are sad or when we are angry." It does not hurt that these popular outbursts have often been successful The mass revolt in 1968 caused President Charles de Gaulle to flee the country. In 1995, persistent protests and massive strikes pressured the government into backing down from its earlier effort at overhauling the pension system. And the "Yellow Vest" protests a few years ago forced Macron to abandon his effort to introduce a carbon tax. Justified or not, the popular uproar across the country highlights the need to pay attention to funding problems for retirement programs, anticipated to mature in a growing number of countries within the coming decade. These include our own country, where the funding for entitlement programs are getting in the way of debt reduction efforts. However, we have known for some time that, barring appropriate reforms, our Social Security Trust Fund will run dry by 2034. The underlying challenges are well known. The biggest one is "not enough workers!". The ratio of workers who pay into the system to Social Security beneficiaries taking money out is shifting from 2.8 workers for each beneficiary in 2022 to a projected 2.1 by 2035. Basic problems are: A rapidly aging population, longer life expectancy, and lower fertility rates. By 2031 there will be 75 million Americans over the age of 65. This is up from 39 million in 2008. By 2031, the youngest baby boomers - born between 1946 and 1964 - will have passed the Social Security full retirement age of 67. People are living longer. In 1935, when Social Security began, people at the age of 65 could expect to live an additional 12.5 years. Now, women age 65 can expect to live another 21.8 years, and men an additional 19.2 years. All of this places an additional strain on the system. At the same time, the fertility rate, the level at which a population replaces itself from one generation to another, is dropping rapidly. This rate should be 2.1 children per woman. In the U.S., by 2030, this replacement rate is projected to drop to 1.75. Our population is shrinking. While many European countries come in even lower, most still have growing populations because of immigration. The net result is ultimately that we end up with fewer workers paying into the system and a growing number of recipients who no longer contribute to the trust fund. To begin to address this imminent economic problem, politicians of all stripes appear to concentrate on postponing the inevitable by raising the retirement age from the current 67 - for people born in 1960 or later, to 69 or 70, and raise the age at which maximum delayed retirement credits are earned from 70 to 72. However, this approach would only reduce the Fund's deficit by 28%. While we may not express our displeasure with this solution in the way the French are, this is hardly a popular approach. The "solution" might be acceptable to professional groups retiring from cushy, highly compensated jobs. However, for those who have spent their working life doing heavy physical labor, being forced to work additional years before retiring will be less inviting. Alternative solutions, although politically less palatable because they involve taxes or immigration, are not only potentially more beneficial, they are socially more equitable and reasonable. Increase the pool: Admit millions of additional immigrants. They have proven to increase the number of start-ups, help the rate of economic growth, and offset our replacement fertility deficiency. Increase the tax base: Lift the payroll tax cap. Right now, Social, Security taxes only apply to the first $160,200 of a person's annual income. Completely eliminating the cap, without an increase in benefits for those who exceed it, would cut the projected deficit by 73%. Or, alternatively: Increase the tax rate: Social Security taxes account for 90% of the Trust Fund's income. The current rate stands at 12.4%. We could increase the tax rate to 16%, shared equally by employers and employees. In short, the problem is real. However, solutions, other than kicking the can down the road, are available to those with the political will to entertain them. Theo Wierdsma

WORLD’S LARGEST DECENTRALIZED MEMORIAL

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day on which we pay tribute to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, is an annual event, always scheduled for January 27, which marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet troops in 1945. The horrific activities leading up to this event will also be in the minds of those participating in liberation day activities routinely observed across Europe throughout the month of May. These commemorations may be designed to highlight the Allied victory over the forces of evil, but many of us won’t be able to erase the memories of what took place during the Holocaust. Yet, the lessons the world should have garnered from the gruesome activity perpetrated by Hitler’s goons in pursuit of a “final solution” are increasingly lost on a growing segment of a younger generation. Antisemitism is on the upswing. In the U.S., incidents are at the highest level recorded since the 1970s. They nearly tripled during the past six years. This worrisome increase coincides with an alarming decrease of basic Holocaust knowledge, especially among adults under 40. According to a national survey, in the U.S., 63% of respondents did not know that 6 million Jews were murdered; 20% believed that the Jews caused the Holocaust, and 23% believed that the entire thing was a myth. In The Netherlands, home of Anne Frank, a country where out of 140,000 Jewish citizens prior to World War 2, 102,000 were killed; 23% believe that it is a myth and 12% have said that they never even heard the word. Sadly, slightly more than 78 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, two-thirds of the world’s population does not know the Holocaust happened, or they deny it. In 1990, German artist Gunter Demnig decided to counter the degenerating interest in keeping Holocaust memories alive. Born October 27, 1947, Demnig belongs to the generation questioning the role their parents played in Hitler’s Germany. Operating from the conviction that a person is not forgotten until his or her name is forgotten, Demnig set out to commemorate Holocaust victims at the last place of their residency before they became a casualty of Nazi terror, forced euthanasia, eugenics, or were deported to a concentration or extermination camp. His idea was to place a 10X10 centimeter (3.9”) concrete cube, bearing a brass plate inscribed with the victim’s name, date of birth, deportation date and the date they were murdered - if known, embedded flush in a sidewalk or street exactly in front of his or her last known residence.

Demnig named his memorial plaques “stolpersteine,” meaning “stumbling stones.” The name generated from an antisemitic saying in Nazi Germany. The Nazis destroyed Jewish cemeteries throughout Germany and frequently repurposed gravestones as sidewalk paving stones. So, when someone accidentally stumbled over a protruding stone on the sidewalk, one might often hear that: “a Jew must be buried here.” Placement of the stones is often inconspicuous. They are discovered by chance, in contrast to central memorial places that can easily be avoided or by-passed. The intention is to “trip up the passer-by” and draw attention to the memorial. The idea is to symbolically bring the victims back to their neighborhood. Aside from Jews, the memorials include all groups victimized by Nazi slaughter: Jews, Roma, Communists, Sinai, Yenish, members of the resistance, homosexuals, Jehova’s Witnesses, and the disabled. While the concept may have been simple, its execution was a massive undertaking. The project involved a significant investment in research and coordination across myriad locations. However, it caught fire. As of January 2022, more than 90,000 stones have already been placed in more than 30 countries and 2000 places in Europe. Demnig produces the plaques by hand, which slows down the process. He can create 440 of them each month. Every one features the language use in the intended location. And thus far the artist has personally installed 95% of them. While extremely successful, there was bound to be some opposition to the project. Some German locations are still refusing to allow placement of the stones. Although, cities like Frankfurt am Main, for instance, already installed 1000 of them. There is also the notion that placement on regular sidewalks is not respectful. However, the desecration of the memory of the dead was implicitly intended. Since people had to walk on the gravestones and tread on the inscriptions, the stones invoked antisemitic remarks of the past, while intending to provoke thoughts about a serious issue at the same time. And then there is the issue of context. In countries like Poland, the call is for clarification. The need to clarify that most of the perpetrators of the Holocaust were Germans, not Poles. Gunter Demnig seems overwhelmed by the scope of the Holocaust he attempts to confront when he suggested from the outset that “I can’t even imagine the six million murdered Jews and the whole inception of Auschwitz.” However, he unmistakably hit a chord and developed an antidote to creeping ignorance by installing the world’s largest decentralized memorial - still a work in progress. Cambridge historian Joseph Pearson sums up what he sees as significant about “stolpersteine”: “It is not what is written which intrigues, because the inscription is insufficient to conjure a person. It is the emptiness, void, lack of information, the maw of the forgotten, which gives the monuments their power and lifts them from the banality of a statistic.” Theo Wierdsma

TRUMP PROSECUTION HISTORIC BUT NOT UNIQUE

Former President Donald Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on more than 30 counts related to business fraud. While the case, overseen by District Attorney Alvin Bragg, may be historic and unprecedented for our country, globally this kind of judicial activity is hardly uncommon. Since 2000, in at least 78 countries, leaders who have left office have been charged, prosecuted or jailed. This is not a phenomenon limited to so-called "banana republics." Many of the cases transpired in countries routinely ranked among the world's freest, most democratic and wealthiest nations. Since 1980, not counting impeachments or coups, almost half of the world's countries have at least prosecuted one such case. Examples literally span the globe. In France, two former presidents, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac were each charged with corruption and found guilty. Sarkozy received a three year prison sentence, of which two were suspended; Chirac was sentenced to two years - both suspended. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, who served as prime minister in four governments, was charged multiple times with embezzlement and tax fraud, which earned him four years of confinement. He apparently never learned his lesson and was ultimately again sentenced, this time to seven years in prison and was banned from holding public office for paying for sex with an underage prostitute. However, as leader of the “Forza Italia” political party, he was recently reelected to a seat in Italy’s senate and is now an active participant in the country’s right-wing government coalition. Israel’s former President Moshe Katsav, the country’s 8th president, serving from 2000 to 2007, spent seven years in prison for raping a former employee. Ehud Olmert, prime minister from 2006 to 2009, received a 27 month prison sentence for accepting bribes. And its current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Many suspect that his attempt to change the judicial system is an attempt to get him off the hook. In Japan, former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was convicted of bribery and spent four years in prison. Two of South Korea’s former presidents were indicted and convicted: Lee Myung-bak received seventeen years for corruption; Park Geung-hey got twenty-two years for bribery. Ex President Ron-Moo-Hyundai committed suicide while on trial for corruption charges. Argentina’s ex-President Jorge Rafael Videla was sentenced to life imprisonment - where he died. In Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva earned nineteen months behind bars. He was released, and now serves as that country’s president. In South Africa, former President Jacob Zumba was convicted of corruption. The same goes for Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian (2000-2006) who received twenty years for the same crime. And the list goes on. Scholars insist that it is important to hold the powerful legally accountable. However, there are likely going to be charges - well founded or not - that prosecutors have political motives. Harvard professor Steven Levitsky is adamant: “Political systems have to handle it. They have to. Because the alternative - saying some people are above the law - is much worse.” Many people will immediately assume that the charges are issued for political reasons, and it may be impossible to persuade them that they are legitimate, non political, prosecutions. Italian political scientist Nathalie Tocci chimes in with: “ I don’t think you can get it right. If you think, legally speaking, there was a crime and you have to proceed, just do it. There is always a justice story and a politics story, and one should try to keep them separated. But it is impossible. If there is an acquittal, it can be proof that the justice system worked. But people will claim that it was all about nothing and it was politically driven." What is clear is that ex President Trump is far from being the only world leader ever facing criminal charges. With multiple prosecutors apparently preparing additional cases against our 45th president, we could be in for a long hot summer. Theo Wierdsma

PUTIN INDICTED - SYMBOLIC JUSTICE?

After more than a year of international outrage at Russia's invasion of Ukraine and open display of shocking atrocities being perpetrated by Russian military forces, there finally is an arrest warrant out for Russian President Vladimir Putin. On March 15, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague announced the charges against Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, his "Commissioner for Children's Rights", for the war crime of unlawfully transferring thousands of children from occupied Ukrainian territory to Russia. ICC judge Piotr Hofmanski, in a video statement, asserted that "it is forbidden under international law for occupying powers to transfer civilians from the territory they live in to other territories. Children enjoy special protection under the Geneva Convention." The International Criminal Court was created in 1998 by a treaty called "The Rome Statute." It operates independently from the United Nations. As of November of 2019, its jurisdiction is recognized by 123 countries world wide. The ICC is a permanent international court established to investigate, prosecute and try individuals accused of committing the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. The institution empanels 18 justices serving nine year terms. However, as a judicial institution, the ICC does not have its own police force or enforcement body. It relies on cooperation with member states for support, especially for making arrests, transferring prisoners to the ICC detention center in The Hague, freezing assets and enforcing sentences. While the Court appears to have significant support from most of the world, important exceptions are conspicuous. The U.S., Russia, China, and India, among others, have refused to ratify the Rome Treaty. This means that none of these countries formally recognize the Court's jurisdiction and are not bound to follow its orders. During Bill Clinton's presidency, the U.S. signed the treaty but did not submit it to Congress for ratification. In 2002, George W. Bush revoked the signature, ostensibly afraid of the possibility that American soldiers would be targeted by the international community. Russia signed the treaty in 2000 and ratified it in 2002. However, Putin decided to withdraw Russia's membership in 2016 after ICC prosecutors began to focus on his country's invasion of Crimea and on accusations of war crimes committed by Russian forces in Syria. China and India reject the Court's jurisdiction, charging that it violates state sovereignty and permits it to judge whether a state is willing or able to try its own nationals. Be it as it may, the Court has managed to handle 31 cases, with some cases having more than one suspect. The judges issued 38 warrants. Thanks to cooperation from member states, 21 people have been detained in the ICC detention center. Fourteen people currently remain at large as "fugitives." All in all there have been 10 convictions and 4 acquittals. Some of the more notorious defendants charged under its mandate include: Omar al-Bashir - president of Sudan - who is still listed as "fugitive"; Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi - who died before being apprehended; his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi - who is still a fugitive; former president of Liberia Charles Taylor, who was convicted and received 50 years in a British prison; and criminals from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990's: Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, who each received life in prison, and Slobodan Milosevic, who died from a heart attack while in detention. In other words, Vladimir Putin is joining the company of some of the most notorious criminals of the past century. This is the first time that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for a head of state from a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Although, for practical purposes, the indictment might end up being largely symbolic, there are consequences. Putin is now officially a wanted man. His new status as an international pariah will severely limit his ability to travel outside of Russia. And while this case was essentially a slam dunk, since Putin and Lvova-Belova publicly flaunted their crime, this may not be the end of it for the Russian president. Hundreds of war-crime accusations have already been filed before the Court. While some may be difficult to prove, some are likely to move up the chain of command in the Russian Federation, potentially ending up with Putin himself. Theo Wierdsma

THE "WOKE" ENIGMA

Politicians have a tendency of reducing complex concepts to simple catchphrases designed to mystify rather than clarify. Many of these ultimately become so-called "dog whistles," coded messages communicated through words or phrases commonly understood by a candidate's political base and intended to solicit unquestioned support. The objective is to appeal to the greatest possible number of electors without alienating those in the margins. Australian political theorist Robert E. Goodin argues that this process undermines democracy, because voters often have difficulty understanding what they are voting for or against during an election. In other words, a political base may be conditioned to react a certain way to the catchphrase, without actually understanding what it stands for. Throughout the course of our political history, politicians have repeatedly employed "dog whistles" to cement a following and instill a subtle fear of their opposition. Richard Nixon invoked "law and order," "thugs" and "welfare queens" among others. Donald Trump equated Mexican immigrants with drug dealers and rapists - a characterization he continued to use to depict migrants when defending the building of his wall. In addition he incorporated "thugs" and "looters" to demonize African Americans protesting in the wake of George Floyd's killing. "Cancel culture" and "critical race theory" come to mind of "dog whistles" which were generally misunderstood but which were used, more or less effectively, in political campaigns during the past few years. A recently emerging concept, decades old but freshly anointed, is "WOKE." Even though most struggle to define what they mean when using the term, many of our current politicians appear to have little trouble uttering the word and adopting the mantra. At a basic level, the word "woke" simply refers to the past tense of "wake." It is not an acronym. Use of the concept dates back to the 1930's when African American songwriter Lead Belly used the phrase near the end of a recording of his song "Scottsboro Boys," which tells the story of nine black teenagers accused of raping two white women, suggesting: "Best stay woke, keep [your] eyes open." "Woke" became an adjective meaning "well informed or aware of racial discrimination or injustice." As such, the word was eventually added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017. It became entwined with the Black Lives Matter movement, and developed from just signaling awareness to becoming a word of action . Conservative politicians rapidly latched onto the "woke" mentality in a crusade to "deliver America from the scourge of a host of progressive ideas" they oppose. They turned "wokeness" into a pejorative synonymous with the demise of everything good and white about America. Somehow, to be pro-woke became anti-American. In 2022, a modern-day blend of McCarthyism and white grievance became the focus of the current right-wing campaign. Leading the charge is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. In anticipation of his expected run for president in 2024, the governor used his January inaugural address to warn of "the woke mob," and its "woke ideology." "We fight the woke in the legislature ... the schools ... the corporations." "We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die." He authored the "Stop Woke Act," a legislative prototype that would prevent educational institutions and businesses from teaching anything that would cause anyone to "feel guilt, anguish or any form of psychological distress" due to their race, color sex or national origin. DeSantis is by no means alone. Conservatives of all stripes are hitching onto the bandwagon. Representative Jim Banks (R-Ind), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee on Military Personnel, blames military recruitment challenges on the "Left woke agenda." Newly minted Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, while delivering the Republican Party's response to the State of the Union, accused President Biden of surrendering his presidency to the "woke mob." Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, while announcing her 2024 bid for president, tweeted: "Strong and proud - not weak and woke - that's the America I see." Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex) described "Wokeism" as "cultural Marxism," but projected a murky notion of what that actually meant. A Newsmax reporter recently asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre: "Is President Biden woke?" And during the budget battles unfolding in Congress, GOP leaders are taking aim at, however ill-defined, "Woke spending" and "Woke waste." This newest dog whistle is obviously intended to weaponize a concept used to undermine efforts of social movements, to demonize Democrats and to unify some of the Republican base. Nevertheless, participants in focus groups have displayed difficulty defining the word even in the most general terms.This appears to be a strategy intended to cater to the most gullible, those most easily indoctrinated and too lazy to think for themselves, among us. We should not be so ambivalent debating salient issues on their merits, rather than have these manipulated catchphrases define them for us. Theo Wierdsma