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	Defending Human Rights Values Under Attack by Kenneth Roth Executive Director, Human Rights Watch   June 2016   The human-rights building blocks of democratic society are the ideas that we should see the humanity in each individual, respect and value differences, and treat others with the respect that we want them to give us. Yet these values are now under attack more intensely than at any period in recent decades.   In Europe–although Austria may have just dodged a bullet in its presidential election– leaders like Hungary’s Victor Orban and Poland’s Jarosaw Kaczynski speak openly of building “illiberal” democracy— one without essential checks and balances on executive power, including protection for human rights. In country after country in Europe, far-right and even mainstream parties trade in intolerance, xenophobia, nativism, and fearmongering.   The problem arises elsewhere as well. American demagogues advance their political prospects by appealing to our worst instincts. China and Russia promote authoritarian government as a superior model. African leaders attack international justice. Governments worldwide try to keep citizens from banding together in civic groups to make themselves heard. Perhaps most dramatically, the Syrian government has ripped up the Geneva Conventions to fight a war by deliberately attacking civilians in opposition-held areas.   Yet Europe is an important center of the problem. It is the site of rising Islamophobia, the tarring and marginalizing of entire communities, the demonizing of refugees, and dangerous efforts to turn back the clocks to a time when society was thought to be more uniform, less a melding of differences.   Insecurity is a major cause of these trends: economic insecurity, as many people feel they are falling behind; physical insecurity, because people enjoying a night on the town or a trip abroad are randomly shot down; cultural insecurity, when the meaning of what it is to be, say, French or German is no longer as simple as had long been assumed.   In such times of insecurity, there is a tendency to retrench, to seek shelter among those who seem most like us, to shut the gates to others, to blame them for our problems and disappointments. That instinct provides the platform for the growing voices of hate.   Yet these trends are not inevitable, nor must our role be reduced to that of worried spectator. Because they put in question the very nature of our societies, we all have a duty to reject this movement toward hatred, exclusion and intolerance, and to do our part to reverse it.   Easier said than done, you might retort. These are big trends. How can a single person make a difference?   If we all do our part, the task is not as daunting as it might appear. Our first responsibility is to cut through the myths and misrepresentations that often accompany the case for intolerance. When did they solve rather than compound our problems?   Consider the public discourse these days about immigrant and minority communities in Europe, particularly those of Muslims. Over decades, most European governments have done a poor job integrating these communities. Residents face limited job and educational opportunities, discriminatory encounters with the police, a sense of not really being accepted by society. Most residents do the best they can under the circumstances, but some small minority is radicalized and turns to violence.   This is a serious problem, but is Islamophobia really the answer? These communities are now an integral part of Europe. If we do not enable their residents to build meaningful lives, if we continue to frustrate their aspirations, if we do not welcome their many contributions, their alienation and despair will only grow.   Or take the problem of terrorism. It’s true that today’s terrorist threat in Europe comes mainly from second and third generation Muslim immigrants. A smart counterterrorism strategy reaches out to the people who are most likely to learn of a terrorist plot before it unfolds—the plotters’ family, neighbors and associates, many of them also Muslim. We want them to feel part of the solution rather than the problem. We want them to feel comfortable reporting suspicious activity to the police. But Islamophobia does the opposite. People who feel they can’t trust the police, that they themselves will be regarded with suspicion if their share their concerns, will remain silent.   Or look at the refugees. As desperate people flee Assad’s barrel bombs and the Islamic State’s atrocities, many are seeking a haven in Europe. None of us wants to see chaos at Europe’s borders, but we should be encouraging European governments to help these people by giving generous funding to enable them to educate their children and support their families in their countries of first refugee—in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan. And as for those who may still want to reach Europe, we should be urging acceptance of many more people directly from those countries of first refuge, without requiring them first to take a dangerous boat across the Mediterranean.   Readers may or may not agree with each of these arguments, but there are many more to be made to counter the voices of hatred and intolerance. The key is not to assume that rising intolerance is inevitable, that hatred is a natural product of challenging times. These sentiments flourish only when uncontested. We must all do our part to stem their flow.   But that leaves the question: how to make oneself heard? Begin by paying attention to how you conduct yourselves. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Be a model that others will emulate. Positive examples can be contagious. They speak loudly.   Then talk with your friends, families, and communities. The more conversations, the better. Populists love to say that they speak for the community, that they are the authentic voice of the people, that they are upholding national values from foreign intrusion. For those who disagree, it is important to say, “No, those people do not speak for me.”   In addition, these days it is easier than in the past to take part in the broader public debate about the direction of Europe. Unlike less than a decade ago, social media such as Facebook and Twitter have greatly democratized access to the public debate. To make our voices heard, we no longer must depend on often-difficult access to the traditional media. We all are capable of entering the public conversation from our laptop or mobile phone. We should seize the opportunity to use that megaphone.   Remember, every political movement starts locally. Every community begins with a circle of friends. When chatting with friends or family, when engaging on-line, find space to include commentary on the latest assault on our values. Challenge myths with facts. Figure out ways to advance the conversation. At first you may feel self-conscious talking about these issues, but the more one joins the conversation, the more comfortable it feels, and the more significant your voice becomes. Even if we start with just a few people, there is a ripple effect. If we all do our part, the ripples can become waves, even tides.   If we want a world built around the values of human rights, we cannot take them for granted. There is an urgent need for all of us to come to their defense. That requires each of us to do our part.   * This essay was drawn from remarks to the graduating class of the American University of Paris and has been published in Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland); Hospodarske noviny (Czech Republic); El Pais (Spain); Die Zeit (Germany); NRK (Norway); ETC (Sweden); Volkskrant (The Netherlands); De Morgen (Belgium); NOL (Hungary); Pravda (Slovakia); La Repubblica (Italy). http://bit.ly/2dCYC6e Visit the related web page
	When governments place maximizing revenue over serving those in need, the vulnerable are harmed by Daniel Hatcher Open Democracy USA   When governments place maximizing revenue over serving those in need, the vulnerable are harmed. And when the vulnerable are harmed, so are we all.   In an effort to shore-up its budget, New Jersey is taking federal government assistance away from school children from poor families. The state has hired a private contractor called the Public Consulting Group to access more school-based federal Medicaid funds. This money is intended to help schools serve special education needs more effectively, but New Jersey has diverted over 80 percent of the funds to its general coffers for other uses—effectively taking tens of millions of dollars from school children every year. Meanwhile, in the face of insufficient funding, schools in the state have resorted to selling ads on school buses.   In Maryland, the state foster care agency has hired a company called MAXIMUS, Inc. to find children whose parents are deceased and to increase the number of children who are determined to be disabled. This is not to provide them with more help, but to enable the state to take their disability and survivor benefits. In a prior contract to lay the groundwork for this effort, MAXIMUS described foster children as a “revenue generating mechanism.” Not only does MAXIMUS help Maryland to obtain disability and survivor benefits from foster children, the company now runs the entire Baltimore child support office.   Some US states take even more from foster children, including confiscating Veteran’s Assistance benefits from kids whose parents have died in the military. Nebraska will even take a foster child’s burial plot away from them if they have one. These practices just scratch the surface of what is taking place across the USA today, where state governments are partnering with private companies to form a vast poverty industry that turns America’s most vulnerable populations into a source of profit. Why is this happening?   First, human service agencies desperately need more funding and states are strapped for cash. Both ‘red’ and ‘blue’ states have faced poor economic conditions and a political climate that’s been averse to raising sufficient revenue through general taxation. So states are looking for money wherever they can find it, even if that means taking funds from children and the poor.   For example, states are using hospitals and nursing homes in Medicaid ‘shell games’ by maximizing revenue that’s intended to serve the elderly and the poor and then diverting the funds to their general budgets. Texas has used these schemes to re-route $1.7 billion in Medicaid funds to state coffers over a five-year period. Although states and the federal government are supposed to share the cost of providing Medicaid services, Texas contributes no money at all in these schemes. Instead it forces hospitals and nursing homes to provide the state’s contribution, and then takes the federal contribution for its general fund. This diversion of funds “discourages state hospitals from treating the poorest Texans.”   Second, partnerships between states and private contractors prioritize the aim of maximizing revenue over maximizing the public good. The strategies of the poverty industry skew human service agencies away from their social mission.   For example, some states and counties partner with companies to turn courts into debtor’s prisons—focusing on revenue rather than justice. Impoverished defendants are saddled with unmanageable court fines, and then the courts hire private collection agencies to pursue them, along with probation companies and firms that manufacture electronic monitoring devices which add on yet more fees. If the poor can’t pay, they go to jail. An Alabama judge told poor litigants that they must sell their blood in order to pay their court fines or face time behind bars. Poor debtors in Mississippi have been forced into penal farms to work off court fines at a rate of $58 a day.   In addition, nursing homes and juvenile facilities sedate their residents with psychotropic medications in order to reduce staffing costs and increase their profits—while pharmaceutical companies have faced charges for encouraging such behavior through illegal marketing. Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $2.2 billion to resolve claims that the company promoted an antipsychotic drug for off-label uses, including allegations that that the company’s subsidiary “marketed Risperdal to control the behaviors and conduct of the nation’s most vulnerable patients: elderly nursing home residents, children and individuals with mental disabilities.”   What can be done to challenge and eventually reverse these trends?   First, awareness matters. Both Democratic and Republican state governors have been able to use children and the poor as revenue tools because their constituents have been kept in the dark about what’s going on, so public pressure for reform and accountability has been weak. With increased understanding of these revenue strategies, states can be held accountable if they misuse funds.   Second, mission matters. Rather than using the vulnerable to serve its own fiscal self-interests, the poverty industry should use its collective energy and resources to determine how best to support those who really are in need.   ‘Vulnerable’ does not imply weakness. I’m in awe of the strength and determination that’s shown by low-income families who are struggling to overcome the barriers that stand in the way of their economic security. To quote Professor Martha Albertson Fineman from Emory University, “vulnerability is the characteristic that positions us in relation to each other as human beings and also suggests a relationship of responsibility between the state and its institutions and the individual.”   We are all vulnerable, and like it or not, we are all interdependent—both with each other and with the institutions that are designed to help us. At various times, some of us face more discrimination, trauma and disadvantage than others. When the poverty industry places the mission of maximizing revenue over serving those in need, the vulnerable are harmed. And when the vulnerable are harmed, so are we all.   When the Maryland foster care agency hires a contractor to help the state take resources away from abused and neglected children, the public’s belief in government’s commitment to the common good is harmed by an egregious breach of trust and moral integrity. And the public is also harmed financially. When agencies take resources from foster children they are less likely to become self-sufficient after leaving care and more likely to need public assistance, more likely to be unemployed, and more likely to become incarcerated. When the state harms the vulnerable, the public pays the price.   It’s clear that a fundamental realignment of purpose is required. The poverty industry combines the vast powers of government with the profit seeking appetites of private enterprise. This collaboration has the capacity to do some good if partnerships are properly constructed and regulated closely, but only if public entities lead the way. State governors and directors of human service agencies control all contracts with private companies, so rather than using them to take resources away from foster children they could encourage contractors to help children obtain their disability and survivor benefits in order to conserve the children’s funds in planning for their future transition out of foster care.   To be clear, I’m not arguing that government aid programs should be cut. On the contrary, current levels of public assistance are significantly insufficient to meet current needs. If states are misusing resources, then the appropriate response is not to cut the funding but to stop the misuse. People may disagree about the best way to structure programs that are designed to support vulnerable populations, but we all should be able to agree that funds that are generated with the specific intent of helping those in need should be used as intended.   The temptation for underfunded agencies to prioritize their own fiscal interests is very strong. But when states take funds away from the poor, the prime purpose of government in serving the public good is eroded. As a former foster child named Ryan expressed in a court hearing when questioning why the Baltimore City foster care agency could take away the survivor benefits that were left to him by his deceased father, “You know, the thing is, they are survivor benefits. I am a survivor.”   * Daniel Hatcher is Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore. Daniel previously worked for the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau and the Children''s Defense Fund. He is author of “The Poverty Industry: The Exploitation of America’s Most Vulnerable Citizens.” Visit the related web page
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