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European Aviation industry has called on the European Commission to replace quarantine measures with the testing process, in order to help families get together for the winter holiday season.

Since the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak, a large number of persons have been stranded and separated in different countries for more than six months now. The Aviation industry is urging for this problem to be terminated within these less than 90 days so the families can reunite for the year-end holiday season, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

This will provide far greater assurance and the ability for cross-border travellers to plan family reunions or vacations during this important holiday period. It will also serve as a lifeline to the millions of workers in the travel and tourism sectors whose jobs remain at risk, IATAs statement reads.

In September, the European Travel Commission (ETC), together with 20 travel and tourism associations addressed an open letter to the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, calling to test persons upon their arrival, instead of imposing quarantine rules, amid the ongoing decrease marked in air passenger traffic due to the Coronavirus travel restrictions.

Up to 27 million persons who work in this sector, risk losing their jobs, amid the current COVID-19 situation.

Aviation bodies ACI Europe, together with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Airlines for Europe submitted a framework explaining how a testing process could work, in the letter addressed to Ursula von der Leyen, on September 17.

According to the recent data published by IATA, the situation in the aviation industry is worsening. IATAs statement shows that air traffic to and within Europe marked a 66.3 per cent decline, year to date. Other figures published by ACI Europe, stressed that passenger traffic in the European Union has decreased to -78 per cent, as of September 27.

Figures published by Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) show that nearly 7 million jobs could be lost due to the collapse of air traffic, or 52 per cent decline in the number of employment, supported by aviation in Europe. ATAG also emphasized that nearly 450 billion in economic activity will be lost.

We need to learn to live and travel with the virus. Re-establishing the free movement of people and air connectivity across our continent in a safe way must be a priority, the letter reads.

As per July figures, IATA previously revealed that passenger demand was critically low in July, compared to the same period one year earlier, at only 79.8 per cent.

The International Air Transport Association together with other associations has been continuously urging European governments to lift the imposed border restrictions and find other alternatives for quarantine rules, to save Europes economic sector which has been profoundly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Aviation Bodies Call on EU to Replace Quarantine With Testing, to Help Families Reunite for Winter Holiday Season - SchengenVisaInfo.com

The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.

Ian M. Mette is associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Maine. This column reflects his views and expertise and he does not speak on behalf of the university.

In Maine we like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers. Many of us were raised by parents and teachers who taught us the value of examining issues separate of political affiliation. We also have many examples of politicians who were independent thinkers, including Margaret Chase Smith, Edmund Muskie, William Cohen, George Mitchell, and Olympia Snowe, just to name a few. These politicians embraced Maine values by leading with a conscience for Maine people, working across party lines, and developing policy that ensures the betterment of all people. These are the role models who allowed me to develop my own political identity as an independent thinker, one who thinks critically about issues and belongs to no political party.

In Maine, our independent nature is both historical and cultural. We emerged from being a territory of another state, proud to be independent and to celebrate Maine heritage as our own. Growing up in Maine helps you develop a sense of pride, about the rugged land you come from, our traditions we celebrate throughout the seasons and the ability to think for ourselves.

Having spent my youth here, lived in multiple other states, and later returned, I can tell you we have some of the most nuanced politics in the U.S. And that is something that should be celebrated. Gay marriage, open carry gun laws, legalized marijuana and ranked-choice voting highlight just a few of these nuances, and the ability for citizens in our state to debate these often opposing and conflicting legal rights is critical to strong democracy.

Our PK-12 schools should be fostering Maines egalitarian heritage, but sadly there seems to be an attack on their ability to serve as engines for democratic principles and structures. Two major issues contribute to this. The first part to this issue is the slow but steady erosion of schools being able to serve as the bedrock to our democracy. For the better part of the last two decades students have been subjected to federal and state education policies that increasingly overvalue standardized test scores and have all but eliminated the ability to debate openly and honestly about issues of social justice, human rights, the value of peer-reviewed science.

A second but equally concerning aspect of this issue concerns the philosophical differences we have based on our own racial and cultural backgrounds, something that is clearly under attack in our current politics and within our society at large. I have recently read opinion pieces by Mainers, some by fairly influential contributors, who believe that science does not belong in politics and that race and privilege should not be addressed in Maine schools.

Sadly, these positions wrongly identify us as uneducated, simple, and backwards. As Mainers, we know these labels are unfair and inaccurate, but ultimately will negatively influence how future generations of Mainers will view themselves, many of whom continue to choose to leave the state and never return home. So what can we do?

Broadly speaking, we need to support schools to reimagine what they can be, not what they currently have become, starting with a recommitment to democratically share governance with all stakeholders in a community. Schools should be modeling how to debate ideas and democratically decide how to problem solve issues in a community. We are at a critical time in our society, one that will be judged by future generations about how we chose to address structural inequalities, historic racism, and economic segregation. While these might be uncomfortable subjects, discussing and acting on them should be a non-negotiable.

Finally, we need to show our children that independent thinking is at the heart of democratic principles. We have a rich history in Maine of being independent thinkers, and we need to stand up to the divisive rhetoric that is eroding our democracy. Acknowledging that science, specifically peer-reviewed science about climate change and COVID-19, belongs at the center of our decisions about our democracy and our future is central to these debates. If we want to remain independent thinkers, lets look to our history including Smith, Muskie, Cohen, Mitchell, or Snowe for examples of how people have led with conscience and compassion. The future of our state depends on it.

See the article here:
The importance of democracy in our society and our schools - Bangor Daily News

As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron. H. L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

Democracy across the West is not very well. It cant be described as just resting. Any stress-test of a democracy could justifiably use the election of leaders of the calibre of Johnson and Trump as a criterion of failure. In America, Donald Trump has actively worked to undermine and dismantle the democratic fabric of his country. He boasts of his law breaking and tax avoidance, brags of his achievements in the field of sexual assault, lies, spreads conspiracy theories, gives his backing to miracle cures that are in fact lethal, attempts to interfere with the process of voting and to exclude his opponents votes from the count, elicits the help of states hostile to the interests of his own country and deliberately issues statements intended to incite proud armed militias. In this he is assisted by wealthy, illiberal power-grabbing backers and powerful sections of the media, owned by the rich to serve the rich.

Ditto for the UK. Here, as across the pond, the extremists of the right have gained power by realising that in order to win, all they have to do is break democratic norms and standards. By trampling these they are freed from the inconvenient shackles of truth-telling and from commitments to promote the well-being and prosperity of the people.

In this, they hold democratic values, and the electorate itself, in contempt. Nowhere was the contempt for the electorate illustrated more obscenely than when Dominic Cummings tried to excuse his lockdown trip to Barnard Castle. And why wouldnt he be confident that, in the Britain of today, hed get away with it? After all, he, along with Johnson, Gove and others, was instrumental in shaping that Britain via a Brexit formed out of lies, misleading statements, dog-whistle, xenophobic falsehoods and empty, meaningless promises.

Between them they engineered the shutting down of parliament and made clear their willingness to break international law, while those who gave legal opinion on the question of prorogation were condemned as traitors, saboteurs and enemies of the people. As in America, our leaders lead usinescapably to the conclusion that there is something seriously wrong with the democracy that put them there.

It is often said that our democracy should more accurately be termed an elective dictatorship. We get to elect our dictators every few years and thats about it. Hardly healthy. But the reality is far worse. These dictators often get elected on a minority vote and enact policies which have no majority support. Brexit, for example.

So why is our democracy so unfit for purpose? Why is it that we can elect leaders who are little more than self-serving schemers, whose contempt for the electorate renders them incapable of giving straight, honest answers to even the most straightforward, reasonable questions? Its not as if any of these qualities have been smuggled in under our noses. They are paraded before our eyes every single day. Nobody voting for Johnson or Trump could be blind to the fact that they are serial liars. And yet they voted all the same. Why?

***

Mencken was on to something when suggesting that the leaders we get, the leaders we deserve, closely represent something dark in the inner soul of the people. Theres no easy way to put this the problem with democracy is the voters. The voters simply arent good enough to support a healthy democracy. Theyre not up to the job. Now I know some will think: a snowflake-remainer-lefty-loser will always blame th e voters just as a bad workman always blames his tools. But these tools are shot.

Consider this: a poll in 2005 found that 21 per cent of Americans believe in witches and 9 per cent that spirits can take control of a person. In 1999, 18 per cent believed the sun revolves around the earth so much for the science and in 2000, 31 per cent believed in ghosts, and increase of 20 percentage points since 1978.

By 2019, the year before Trumps re-election attempt, significant numbers believed in the illuminati, Big-foot and a flat earth. Ghost-belief had risen to 45 per cent, as had the belief in demons. Belief in vampires stood at a fangtastic 13 per cent.

Britain has nothing to be proud of. While 33 per cent of us believe in ghosts and 18 per cent in demonic possession, a whopping 52 per cent of us believe that you can magically make a false claim true simply by writing it on the side of a bus.

In elective dictatorships where small margins have huge consequences wed better get used to the fact that (possibly small) groups with stupid ideas and a lack of relevant knowledge and skills can have a disproportionate effect on the lives of the rest of us.

A I have argued previously in TheArticle, Leave voters in the EU referendum did not know what they were voting for. It is also pretty clear that too many British voters showed themselves to be gullible swallowers of laughably simplistic solutions and explanations. They came to believe in manufactured problems and they fell for the tricks of ad hominem persuasion and the cult of personality. In short, too many voters failed to make a sensible political choice in their own interests and which also respected the interests of others. For too many, the distance between giving an up-yours the establishment through casual, self-indulgent voting and losing their livelihoods has been very short. It is a tragedy.

The deceivers know their public well, hence their contempt, which is manifested in an openness about their own lying. They dont even try to cover it up anymore. In this they feed off general, public cynicism about politicians and their motives, a cynicism which our current crop of leaders has worked hard to nurture.

***

What is to be done? The central virtue of democracy proves to be its greatest weakness. Because all votes count the same, democracy offers no incentive for self-improvement. It enshrines intellectual complacency and ignorance. One answer to this is that if dumb voters are the problem, maybe dumb people shouldnt be allowed to vote. If you want to take part in the democratic process then you really should know what you are doing. Anything less is simply irresponsible.

The idea that only the knowers should be allowed to vote, the epistocracy, runs through Plato and J S Mill, and has recently been championed by the American philosopher Jason Brennan in his book Against Democracy.

Whatever else one might think of it, an epistocracy at least has the merit of rational justification for its franchise limitations; unlike other examples from the recent history of our democracy such as exclusion on grounds of class or gender and our current, entirely arbitrary exclusion on grounds of age. Far from being anti-democratic, as its critics suggest, an epistocracy can be seen as the purest form of democracy. A democracy open to all, regardless of age, gender, class, religion or race, provided they show themselves to be fit to participate.

Consequently, the primary question becomes: how might we determine fitness for democratic participation? Brennan favours giving people a test. A sort of qualifying exam, passing which earns the candidate a license to take responsibility for their political views in the hustle and bustle of democratic decision making. It qualifies them to influence decisions which affect the lives of others and serves to protect the public from unskilled tyros.

Instead of a test, Mill views our established social and cultural structures as providing the best indicator of qualification for democratic participation. Mill suggests that everyone should get a vote, but, depending on an individuals position in society, some people should have more votes than others. Mills is a sort of meritocratic democracy.

Of course, there are serious problems with all this. Mills reward-by-position would only ossify prevailing social structures. Covid has led to a sharp reappraisal of the importance of roles as diverse as care-workers, nurses, pub staff, delivery drivers and so on. Mills scheme would not have stood up to Covid. Nor does it explicitly work to ensure the quality of a democracy. With appropriate weighting, a fascist state could be made to run on Mills method. As could Putins form of Russian democracy.

The all too obvious problem with Brennans exam-driven alternative is: Who sets the test? Now I dont think this is as great a problem as some critics might believe, but Im not going to argue the case here because there is a much bigger, practical obstacle. It is all fine and dandy when newly enfranchised groups are celebrating the acquisition of their shiny new democratic rights, but what about when you do the reverse and snatch the vote away from people and label them not good enough?

It is possible to do, and in the US, current voter suppression tactics show that it is even possible in a self-styled democracy.

But before going down that route theres an alternative make sure that our people are properly educated. All of them givenan education which places critical thinking at its core. An education that goes out of its way to nurture respect for reason, respect for persons, for truth, for fairness, for justice for these things underpin the democratic process. Explicit political education would also have a role. But it is critical thinking that is the essential ingredient in achieving the goal of a politically literate population. Individuals must be able to pick apart the claims that confront them and their implications. They must be able to spot the fakery and falsehoods that litter the grounds of contemporary politics.

Finland is already well ahead in this effort to educate a critically aware and capable population. This has been largely in reaction to the Russian disinformation programmes of the previous decade. In the UK and US, however, we have a problem in that so recent untruths have come from our own governments.

I can hear the screaming now. Educational programmes such as those sketched here will be attacked as indoctrination or brainwashing, or, even worse as progressive. But as Neil Postman, author of Teaching as a Subversive Activity said:

The best things schools can do for kids is to help them learn how to distinguish useful talk from bullsh*t. I think almost all serious people understand that about 90 per cent of all that goes on in school is practically useless, so what I am saying would not require the displacement of anything that is especially worthwhile. Even if it did, I would still be able to argue that helping kids to activate their crap-detectors should take precedence over any other legitimate educational aim.

Subversive? Yes. The last thing most governments want is an interested, critically-thinking, lie-detecting, politically literate population. Political extremism grows through ignorance and by offering the snake-oil of easy answers to simplified questions. And so we are led by people who can, with impunity, run the country on extraordinary claims about bleach and Brexit, immigrants and eye-tests.

Read this article:
The problem with democracy it's you - TheArticle

Our already hyperpartisan politics keep becoming just a little more hyper. Now that Republicans are pushing through a vote on President Trumps replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, Democrats are talking openly of ending the filibuster, expanding the Supreme Court, and adding DC and Puerto Rico as states. As a big-D Democrat, I think it seems fair. But as a small-d democrat, I cower at the further escalation. I honestly dont know whether our now-fragile old democracy can handle it.

To make our democracy work, were going need to stop escalating and break out of the polarizing trap of our two-party system. Simply crying fairness isnt enough; Democrats and Republicans cant agree on whats fair. This is serious. For democracy to work, competing parties must agree on a neutral process, with neutral arbiters, and these rules must remain consistent. Once the basic rules are up for grabs with every election, we no longer have a meaningful democracy just competitive authoritarianism, where though elections persist, those in power rig the rules in their favor.

There is only one way to wriggle free of this democracy death spiral: End the zero-sum binary that has separated us into two competing mega-identities, each fighting for an elusive permanent majority, and each convinced that if the other side gets the permanent majority, they will use it for evil, and therefore everything should be on the table. Break the two-party doom loop.

Our two-party system exists not because Americans want just two parties. They definitively want more. But our antiquated first-past-the-post system of voting, where the candidate with the most vote wins, renders third parties as spoilers and thus directs all political ambition to the two major parties, entrenching the two-party system. The way to fix this is to modernize how we vote and create multi-member congressional districts with ranked-choice voting.

For example, Massachusetts is split into nine congressional districts. Each elects one representative to Congress. Under the system I propose, the state would have fewer districts, but each would have more members. For example, the state could split into two districts, one with four members and one with five. The top four vote-getters in the first district would go to Congress, as would the top five candidates in the other district.

Right now, all nine of the states representatives are Democrats. Massachusetts is a heavily Democratic state, for sure, but what about the third of voters who generally pick Republicans? Dont they deserve more representation? If the delegation fairly and proportionally represented the states voters, roughly a third of delegates should be Republicans and two-thirds Democrats. Or more likely, voters would get to choose among a wider spectrum of candidates from left to right in a competitive general election. And with a ranked-choice vote as part of this which Massachusetts voters can choose to enact next month candidates would work harder to build coalitions, and voters could be assured they wouldnt waste a vote. This is how Ireland votes.

Apply this to all 50 states, and you wind up with a much more representative Congress. The right might benefit in Massachusetts, but the left would benefit in many other states. Take North Carolina, for example: a purple state, where 10 of 13 Congressional representatives are Republicans.

More important, every voter would count equally, regardless of partisan preference. Gerrymandering would become irrelevant, because there would be little point in carving up districts to minimize the presence of some voters. And as left and right became less rigid, less binary, voters would have more choices. Instead of just two parties, we could have five or six parties.

Americans disagree with one another, but not nearly as cleanly as the two parties force them to. With more parties, they would form more fluid governing coalitions, as they do in other multiparty democracies, with no permanent majority and no permanent minority. More voters would have candidates and a party they are genuinely excited to vote for, not just a party they are voting against. Turnout would almost certainly increase.

We can do this through a simple act of Congress, with no constitutional amendment. In fact, there is already federal legislation introduced to accomplish this: the Fair Representation Act. Massachusetts voters can also help advance the cause by supporting ranked-choice voting on Question 2, following Maines lead in adopting ranked-choice voting.

If Democrats win unified government in 2021, they will face what feels like an impossible choice: Fight back against Republican hardball and escalate further, or back down and let them get away with it. But this is a false binary. There is a third option: Exit the system that forces only two choices.

Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the Political Reform program at the think tank New America, co-host of the Politics in Question podcast, and author of the book "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America.

View post:
To save our democracy (and our sanity), blow up the two-party system - The Boston Globe

We have for a long time hesitated to adopt and carry out the only principle which can solve that difficulty and give peace, strength and security to the republic, and that is the principle of absolute equality. We are a country of all extremes, ends and opposites; the most conspicuous example of composite nationality in the world. Our people defy all the ethnological and logical classifications. In races we range all the way from black to white, with intermediate shades which, as in the apocalyptic vision, no man can name or number.

One could easily be excused for emerging from last nights presidential debate convinced that American democracy is under direct assault by the president of the United States. I take absolutely no pleasure in this observation. This is an extraordinarily dangerous moment for our nation, and with so much on the line in this upcoming election, we must unequivocally condemn positions and policies antithetical to who we are as a people.

As pundits continue to dissect what happened last night, and as we gird ourselves for two more debates still to come between President Trump and Vice President Biden, we must not lose sight of three key points:

1. White supremacy is a vile, racist dogma, and white supremacist groups as entities are a threat to the domestic and national security of the United States.

I had the honor last year of leading a subcommittee effort within the Homeland Security Advisory Council to produce recommendations to end targeted violence against American faith communities. This study tackled the increasingly pervasive violent attacks on the Black Christian community, violent antisemitism and Islamophobia, and attacks on the Sikh and Hindu communities. Over and over, our studies and field research confirmed that the principal causal factors for this violence against all of Americas faith-based communitiesand more broadly on Americas communities of colorare white supremacist groups and their violent, armed cadres. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI confirmed the reality of this violence and concurred in the nature and enormity of this threat to the U.S.

In last nights debate, Mr. Trump not only refused to condemn and disavow white supremacists, he called on one group, the so-called Proud Boys, to stand back and stand by. This is an organization widely condemned as a hate group, with white nationalist rhetoric permeating their every move. Whatever the president intended with this provocative phrase is irrelevant because this group has embraced it as validation of their cause and a call to arms itself.

2. Both candidates must loudly and unambiguously disavow politically motivated violence, and that includes preventing supporters from descending on the polls to provide vigilante security of our electoral process. Any refusal to endorse this basic protection of American lives and the sanctity of our democracy should be understood as a willingness to condone violence and de facto mob rule.

This second area of deep concern centers around Mr. Trumps unfounded attacks on the 2020 presidential electoral process as unfair and rigged against him, and on mail-in voting as inherently fraudulent and invalid. These twin, baseless accusations seem specifically tailored to confuse and frighten the American voter and create uncertainty about the elections outcome. This is not the time to wish away the presidents remarks as usual, empty rhetoricno, this amounts to a direct attack upon the American democratic process of voting.

Furthermore, in the White House press room, Mr. Trump recently refused to acknowledge acceptance of a peaceful transition of power if he loses and refused to call for a restraint on violence if that occurs. During the debate, he also called on his supporters to go into the polls to ensure the elections security. Given the rallying cry during the debate of Stand Back and Stand By, inevitably, on November 3rd, I truly fear American voters will find both unarmed Trump supporters and armed, white supremacists groups at the polls seeking to guard our democratic process. The handwriting is clearly on the wall. Were we to hear such threats in any developing country, we would label it for what it is: dangerous and authoritarian. For it to come from our president a month from the election speaks to the enormity of this American crisis.

3. To achieve our full potential as a nation that stands for social justice, the rule of law, and the defense of democracy, we must invest in education on the causes and remedies of systemic racism in America. This is essential not just for the health of our own democracy, but for our ability to remain a transformational leader on these and related issues around the world.

Given the presidents recent public unwillingness to discourage violence if he loses the election, this final point is particularly disturbing. When, during the debate, he was confronted with the response that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security both see white supremacists as a domestic and national security threat, Mr. Trump proclaimed them both to be wrong, just as he says he knows better than his doctors and experts on COVID-19 and better than the scientists on climate change. It should come, then, as no surprise that in the same debate, he proclaimed racial sensitivity instruction within the U.S. government as racist propaganda against white Americans. And his recent executive order is intended to stamp it out, conveying, intentionally or otherwise, that being American is rooted in being, first and foremost, white.

These three points should be easily accepted by both Republicans and Democrats. Yet, what emerged during the debate was a stark and disturbing divergence between the best traditions of American democracy and the jarring reality of Mr. Trumps concept of governing this country. These differences are not lost on the electorate, which is currently experiencing the effects of widespread and dangerous political polarization. Nor are they lost on the international community, where allies are confused and concerned, authoritarians are comforted, and Americas enemies are afield, more brazen than ever, and on the march.

The stakes of this upcoming election may indeed be existential for the future of our American democracy. I previously called for Americans to mark their calendars that June 1st, when President Trump stood before St. Johns Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., just moments after ordering the assault of peaceful protestors, could be the beginning of the end of the American experiment. Yet, even then, I could not have imagined the tremendous nature of the threat we now face as a people. If then, June 1st was a starting point for our moment of true national peril, September 29th confirmed unequivocally that we are now far down that road. November 3rd may indeed be the most important date for these United States in living memory. The stakes are enormous and, in that moment, America will either step back from cliff or go over entirely.

America stands upon the edge of a knife. Please vote. Our shared future as a compassionate, inclusive society of values and laws depends on it.

Read more:
America's democracy on the edge - Brookings Institution