US appeals court refuses to vacate Biden approval of Alaska's Willow oil project
A federal appeals court panel on Friday refused to vacate the approval of the massive Willow oil project on Alaska's petroleum-rich North Slope though it found flaws in how the approval was reached.
The decision from a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes in a long-running dispute over the project, most recently greenlit in March 2023 by then-President Joe Biden's administration and under development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska by ConocoPhillips Alaska.
The court's majority opinion found what it called a procedural error — but not a serious or substantive one — by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as part of the analysis in approving Willow. The court sent the matter back to the agency for additional work.
The majority determined that vacating the project's approval would be unwarranted and its consequences severe, though Judge Gabriel P. Sanchez dissented on that point.
A prior version of the project approved late in President Donald Trump 's first term was overturned in 2021, leading to the environmental review process completed under Biden that drew the latest legal challenges from environmentalists and a grassroots Iñupiat group.
Alaska's Republican governor and its congressional delegation and state Legislature have backed Willow. The project also has broad support among Alaska Native leaders on the North Slope and groups with ties to the region who see Willow as economically vital for their communities.
But critics cast the project as being at odds with Biden's pledges to combat climate change and raised concerns that it would drive further industrialization in the region.
Trump expressed support for additional drilling in the reserve as part of a broader, Alaska-specific executive order he signed upon his return to office aimed at boosting oil and gas drilling, mining and logging in the state.
During the cold-weather seasons, ConocoPhillips Alaska has worked to build infrastructure such as new gravel roads, bridges and pipelines at the project site, and it has laid out a timeline for producing first oil in 2029. In a statement Friday, the company said it welcomed the ruling and looked forward to 'continuing the responsible development of Willow.'
J. Elizabeth Peace, a spokesperson with the U.S. Department of the Interior, said the agency doesn't comment on litigation. The Bureau of Land Management falls under Interior.
The appeals panel ruling comes more than a year after it heard arguments in the case. Environmental groups and the grassroots Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic had appealed a lower-court ruling that upheld Willow's approval. Attorneys representing the groups on Friday were evaluating next steps.
Arguments before the appeals court panel focused largely on claims the land management agency did not consider a 'reasonable' range of alternatives in its environmental review, as well as the groups' contention the agency had limited its consideration of alternatives to those that allowed for full-field development of the project.
Attorneys for ConocoPhillips Alaska argued the leases in the company's Bear Tooth Unit in the northeast part of the petroleum reserve are in areas open to leasing and surface development — and that the agency committed the unit to development in issuing leases there over a number of years. Willow is in the unit.
Friday's ruling said the agency during the environmental review process took a stance that it needed to screen out alternatives that stranded an economically viable quantity of oil but then never explained whether the pared-back plan it ultimately approved satisfied the full-field development standard.
The agency 'framed its environmental review based on the full field development standard and had a rational explanation for doing so,' the ruling states. 'But that does not permit BLM to potentially deviate from the standard without explanation.'
ConocoPhillips Alaska had proposed five drilling sites for Willow but the Bureau of Land Management approved three, which it said would include up to 199 total wells.
Erik Grafe, an attorney with Earthjustice who represented some of the groups that challenged Willow, saw the ruling as a partial victory.
'They found a fundamental flaw that led them to conclude that the BLM acted arbitrarily in approving the Willow project and have sent that back to the agency to reconsider in a non-arbitrary way and make a new decision,' he said.
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The Independent
36 minutes ago
- The Independent
Protests, parades and Pride: One week in June 2025 is drawing stark American fault lines
On the first weekend: a vision of the nation built upon inclusivity and the tenets of liberalism — a conception of country that incorporates generations of fights for equity, for compassion, for expanding what it means to be an American. On the second weekend, in the same town: a public show of strength and nationalism constructed on a foundation of military might, law and order, a tour de force of force. And on the days in between: a city 2,000 miles from the capital locked in pitched battles over the use — abuse, many contend — of federal power and military authority to root out, detain and oust people who the current administration says do not belong. Today's United States — its possibility, its strength, its divisiveness, its polarization and fragmentation — is encapsulated in a single week in June 2025, its triumphs and frictions on vivid display. As events both planned and chaotically spontaneous play out, many Americans are frantically and sometimes furiously pondering assorted iterations of two questions: What is this country right now? And what should it be? Pride, protests and parades Consider two quotes from recent days from two very different Americans. The first came last weekend, during World Pride in Washington, when a 58-year-old gay man from Philadelphia named David Begler summed up what many were messaging in the days leading up to it after months of Donald Trump 's increasing attempts to target the LGBTQ community: "I want us to send a message to the White House to focus on uplifting each other instead of dividing.' The second came days ahead of the military parade planned Saturday for the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, from the mouth of the president on whose 79th birthday it will be held: 'If there's any protester that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,' Donald Trump said. 'I haven't even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.' Among the competing visions of America in 2025: the desire to protest and seek a redress of grievances against the government vs. the desire for control, order — and a respect for the government and for authority. The volatile combination of demonstrations and the U.S. military is a potent one, with its most recent roots in the protest movement of the 1960s against the Vietnam War. A young generation that would later be known as baby boomers regularly squared off against police and sometimes the military over U.S. involvement in what was framed as a war against communism in Southeast Asia. Historians give those protesters a fair bit of the credit for that war ultimately ending in 1975. President Jimmy Carter ultimately pardoned more than 200,000 people who had dodged the draft for that conflict. Then, as now, many in the establishment criticized protesters bitterly, saying they were undermining a nation to which they should be grateful. Questions of loyalty and betrayal were thrown around. The role of the military in quelling civilian protests was bitterly contested, particularly after Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire and killed four students during antiwar protests in May 1970 at Kent State University. There are echoes of that this week, not only in Los Angeles but now in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the deployment of 5,000 state National Guard troops ahead of the 'No Kings Day of Defiance' against the Trump administration's ongoing immigration raids. And as protesters in Los Angeles taunt the military and say guardsmen should be 'ashamed' to face off against what they call a just cause, it's easy to wonder: How can patriotism and protest coexist? Washington at the epicenter Democracy has always been messy and resistant to consensus. That's part of why the national slogan of the United States is 'e pluribus unum' — 'out of many, one.' And Washington, D.C., as the nation's capital, has long been the place where the many have come to make themselves known as part of the one — and to be noticed. It was where the 'Bonus Army" of World War I veterans marched in 1932 to demand their promised postwar payments and be heard in a demonstration that ended violently. It was where the first National Boy Scout Jamboree was held on the National Mall in 1937. It was where the 'March on Washington,' a centerpiece of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, ended with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s renowned 'I Have a Dream' speech. It was where, in 1995, the 'Million Man March' was held to address concerns of the American Black community, and where hundreds of thousands of women came to Washington largely in protest of Trump, just a day after his first inauguration. It is also the place where Americans remember, where the memorials to World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War sit. It is where the country erected stone shrines in various shapes and sizes to the presidents it most admired — Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is the site of museums containing some of the most distilled expressions of culture — from the Holocaust Museum to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to the National Museum of African American History. Is it so hard to believe, then, that two events as opposite as World Pride and a military parade unfold here, within blocks of each other, within a week's time? At a politically fractious moment when some families can hardly break bread without political arguments erupting over Trump, Gaza and Israel, immigration and LGBTQ rights, isn't it possible that the weird and downright uncomfortable juxtaposition of these two starkly different events might be the most American thing of all? Walt Whitman, one of the most famous poets in American history, had this to say about the the diversity of America when he wrote 'I Hear America Singing' to underscore that its citizens all contribute to the nation's song: 'I am large. I contain multitudes.' And in one week in June, at a time when the fate of the United States is being discussed in every direction we turn, the capital of Whitman's nation has become a showcase in displaying those messy democratic multitudes to the world. For better or for worse. ___
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
We are no longer free. But we can win our freedom back
Most of us are no longer free. People are aware of this condition to varying degrees. Some, nostalgic for the world that was, reject 'unfreedom' as an exaggerated description of our situation. Others, seeing reality clearly, nevertheless hide from the unnerving implications. Some people, a minority, experience the changes that have come to America in 2025 as liberation. They are free to say and do what they want with impunity and without shame. On the other side of the spectrum, many who are not free now also were not before, and they suffered no illusion that they were. Now, they might raise an eyebrow to the rest of us, asking if we now see what this country has long been for some people, much of the time. But for most in this country, unfreedom is a novel experience. What makes this condition confounding is that our unfreedom doesn't yet look like it does in Russia or China – it is still partial. Most in this country can still enjoy a dinner out with friends, loudly deploring the current state of affairs. For most, authoritarianism has not snuffed out the pleasures, private or communal, of a spring morning in the park. In fact, most of us can still read about horrors while lying on the grass, soaking up the sun. The newly unfree live with cognitive dissonance. You hear of people like doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk and labor leader David Huerta innocently walking down the street or protesting outside an immigration detention center, or even presiding in their courtroom – being arrested, detained or abducted. Institutions founded on principles of free expression or the rule of law have quickly abandoned them to avoid financial losses. People hesitate to travel abroad for fear of what will happen when they try to return to the country they've called home. And now, we have 2,000 national guard troops and 700 marines sent to a city to repress protest against the wishes of the governor and mayor. After Los Angeles, more Americans are conscious of our growing unfreedom. When – if – you wake up to our shared condition of unfreedom, you face an existential choice. Do you act on what you know to be true, or do you hide? Too many corporate titans, university presidents and heads of major law firms are behaving as though they are powerless. Members of Congress admit that they are afraid to speak up. Judges talk openly about the threats they face to their safety. Those leading powerful institutions still have leverage. They still have power. We must call on them to unite and exercise it. Silence and hiding will offer no lasting reprieve. But regular people, everyday people, face a different challenge. In order to act, they must first discover their power – and learn how to use it. What should using that power look like? A dilemma for those awake to our growing unfreedom is that the tools we know how to use to change things no longer seem to work. Protests are crucial in raising awareness, but often don't compel those in power to change course. Representatives are less responsive to our advocacy. The rules have changed. Reason, evidence and expertise don't carry the day. Norms we once took for granted are gone. There are ways we can oppose authoritarianism, using techniques that haven't been used at a scale for decades. These tools are our inheritance. They have been passed down for centuries, by abolitionist campaigners, labor organizers and anti-colonial leaders. Gandhi famously revived them in the early 20th century, inspiring many leaders in the US civil rights movement. The Black freedom struggle, this country's leading democracy movement, has in turn inspired nearly every peaceful, people-powered movement around the world since. This is the lineage of strategic nonviolence to which we must now return. These are the tools we must rediscover. Sue. Protest. Vote. Then, rinse and repeat. In recent years, pro-democracy advocates have faithfully followed that formula. These strategies have prevented many abuses. But they did not prevent an authoritarian movement from gaining strength. And they won't be enough to prevent what we now face: the prospect of years of authoritarian rule, or something far worse. So what is to be done? Much depends on how quickly civil society can remake itself for this new era. We can learn from previous generations of change-makers in the US, and from contemporaries around the world today, who have won by deploying a booster formula for times such as these. It is simple: Disrupt. De-legitimize. And draw defectors. To be clear, the formula of sue, protest and vote remains absolutely necessary – but is not sufficient. Lawsuits curbed the worst excesses of Trump's first term and have been among the few speed bumps slowing the current administration's much more aggressive rampage against civil liberties and the rule of law. But we are already seeing open defiance of court orders. When Trump was asked whether he was obligated as president to uphold the constitution in the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, who had been wrongly deported from the US, he replied: 'I don't know.' While Ábrego García is now back on US soil, preventing this particular collision course, other contempt trials continue to play out and legal experts fear many more opportunities for Trump to even more brazenly defy the courts. History also suggests reasons to avoid placing too much hope in the courts, because they cannot always be counted on to save us. Consider Dred Scott v Sandford in 1857, when the supreme court ruled that Black Americans were second-class citizens; Plessy v Ferguson in 1896, upholding racial segregation; Korematsu v United States in 1944, allowing Japanese citizens to be interned in camps; or Trump v United States just last year, in which the court needlessly expanded the doctrine of presidential immunity. Lawsuits buy us essential time, but by themselves are not a sufficient safeguard of our freedoms. In fact, history further suggests that the courts move in concert with public opinion – and are often pushed by people who take bold action. The supreme court only affirmed same-sex marriage rights, for instance, after public support had increased following years of organizing and advocacy. Protests also play a vital role in building the confidence of those opposed to an authoritarian government's policies. They help people see they are not alone. And they help embolden those in power who may be sympathetic to the opposition. But while protest remains an effective means of focusing pressure and raising awareness, protest alone can't force authoritarian coalitions to change. Authoritarians revel in their power to defy dissidents – and can become violent in doing so, as we have seen in Los Angeles this week. Authoritarians have also learned to disregard many types of dissent. Erica Chenoweth, a leading scholar of protest, found that protest movements have recently become less effective in unseating despots around the world, due in part to authoritarians' growing savvy in repressing them or waiting them out. Meanwhile, sociologist Zeynep Tufekci and journalist Vincent Bevins have reported that mass protests facilitated by social media lack the power of protests of a previous era because they are not undergirded by organizations that can negotiate and adapt tactics as circumstances change. Mass protest is essential, but it is not a panacea. Voting is crucial. But rulings on everything from redistricting to campaign finance to voter suppression bills make clear that elements of the federal judiciary are all too happy to disenfranchise voters across the nation. And we cannot wait for communities to make their voices heard at the polls. What happens now will determine whether this country even has free and fair midterm elections. The situation is dire. But as we look to the other movements that have successfully defeated authoritarianism and achieved democratic breakthroughs, it's useful to maintain perspective. Movements in places like South Africa, Brazil and the Jim Crow south succeeded under conditions far worse than those we face today – when the right to vote and to protest did not exist, when courts were uniformly hostile, when the media and other major institutions were captured. How can it be possible to prevail under such conditions? Rev James Lawson came into the Los Angeles community center and greeted everyone personally. Some two decades later, I still remember how intently he listened to the two dozen immigrant-rights organizers who had come seeking advice on how we might achieve a federal path to citizenship for undocumented people living in the US. We described a strategy focused on mass mobilization, skillful advocacy with policymakers, and expert communications to frame the problem and solution. His response was kind but firm. Our strategy wouldn't work, he said. We were playing by the rules of someone else's game. This Black American leader had seen the full truth of this country – the horrors as well as the heroism – and from that experience learned some hard truths. He wanted to share them with this group of mostly first-generation immigrants, many of whom still believed what we read in textbooks about how change happens. If we wanted to succeed, he said, we would have to engage in nonviolent disruption at a scale big enough to force a moral and economic crisis that would bring about change. We weren't ready or able to take Rev Lawson's advice then. We pursued a strategy that achieved some important gains in policy, but were unsuccessful in our efforts to pass federal immigration reform. Maybe we are ready to listen to him now. Rev Lawson knew more about disruption than perhaps any living American. He was, as Dr Martin Luther King Jr called him, the 'leading nonviolence theorist in the world'. In the 1950s and 60s, he trained thousands of civil rights leaders and marchers, including John Lewis, to meet violence with love and dignity. He worked closely with the Little Rock Nine, who led the desegregation of an Arkansas high school, helping them muster the courage to remain composed as they walked into school amid a barrage of violent hate. He prepared the brave participants in Nashville's sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters. He was instrumental in organizing the freedom rides in protest of the defiance of the ruling ordering the desegregation of buses. I'd first met Rev Lawson over a decade before that meeting, as part of a small training on principles of nonviolence that he held for organizers in Los Angeles. I had studied Gandhi and the ideas he'd developed during the Indian independence struggle. I was part of the Aids movement, and I'd witnessed a lot of death and government-sponsored cruelty. I thought I knew the material, but what Rev Lawson taught me in our first meeting shook me to the core. I had expected a master class in tactics. How do you plan a sit-in? How do you get press attention? What police tactics can you anticipate? Where do you have lawyers waiting? Instead, Rev Lawson devoted the first few hours of the training inviting us into deep introspection. He opened a dialogue about love, and asked if we loved our opponents. My attitude was well-captured by Tina Turner: 'what's love got to do with it?' While I had viewed nonviolence as a strategy, Rev Lawson understood nonviolence as a way of life. He believed the principles and techniques he taught couldn't work without this depth of commitment. You couldn't win defectors to your side without taking the moral high ground, and you couldn't convincingly fake love for any length of time. We spent the next few hours of the training on building discipline. How do you conduct yourself facing unimaginable pressure and violence? I remember him inches from my face, calling me names and threatening me, trying to provoke a reaction. At the end, he assessed our performance. Did we manifest love, even to our opponents? Did we maintain the composure under fire that he demanded? With a glance, he let me know that I had done much better with discipline than with love. I'd been resolutely nonviolent, but was obviously smoldering inside. Rev Lawson was teaching us the art and science of nonviolent disruption. This is the hidden electric current that has powered the great episodes of American progress. WEB Du Bois explained that it was enslaved people themselves, and not white northerners, who broke the back of the plantation economy and won their own freedom by engaging in a loosely coordinated 'general strike' that fatally damaged the southern cause. In more recent decades, the United Farm Workers' grape boycott of 1965 and strikes by teachers in 2018 and autoworkers in 2024 are iconic examples of nonviolent disruption that delivered results. Disruption differs from protest in a key sense. Where protests are designed to capture attention, Rev Lawson constantly reminded us that disruption is not always loud and noisy. Sometimes it involves sitting where you're not supposed to, not buying what you usually do, or not showing up for work. The point is that disruption must exact real economic or political costs on authoritarians and their collaborators. During the early days of the administration, we have already seen such methods yield results. Take the ongoing boycott of Target over its diversity, equity and inclusion policy rollback, which has depressed the chain's foot traffic and stock price, or the widespread disavowal of Tesla, resulting in a worldwide sales crisis for Elon Musk's once-trendy automaker. Or look at the Los Angeles unified school district's refusal to give federal immigration authorities access to the city's schools. These acts of non-cooperation create friction, and friction slows the consolidation of authoritarianism. Each act of non-cooperation, of disruption, inspires others to use the power they have to throw sand in the gears. It's an encouraging start. But there is more that must be done to revive the tools Rev Lawson, who died in 2024, left us for times such as these. I am inspired by an organization called Free DC, which is leading the way in revitalizing the lineage of nonviolence for this generation by training and organizing thousands of people across our nation's capital to stand up for the capital city's right to home rule, defend workers at federal agencies and protect immigrants. It is a fitting place to begin; Washington DC is still a colony and it is reeling from the firings of thousands of its residents, government workers, without cause. To meet the moment, it will be crucial to scale the work of organizations like FreeDC across the nation and train tens of thousands more in the proud nonviolent tradition that Rev Lawson and his fellow civil rights pioneers left us. Thousands of people have descended on town hall meetings around the country opposing cuts to Medicaid, which provides essential healthcare and elder care to nearly 80 million people. Some of those showing up are members of unions, community groups and disability groups. Others are people who have never taken action before for whom Congress's decision is a matter of life and death. Camilla Hudson came to Washington DC to defend Medicaid because she has an autoimmune disease that requires expensive treatments. She explained that without prescription drug coverage, 'it's terrifying … I would have to leave the US because I will die here.' These people may have voted for Trump, for Harris or not at all in 2024. Medicaid is even more important to people in red states than blue states. Most of them would not show up to a rally to defend the rule of law, but they are highly motivated by an issue that hits close to home. The activism is having a huge impact as some unlikely voices in Congress – who have been otherwise loath to break from the administration – openly declare their opposition to cuts. Meanwhile, thousands of people around the country have mobilized to protect their immigrant co-workers, co-parishioners and neighbors. The upswelling of support in Los Angeles, for example, includes union members, people of faith and relatives of immigrants who were not active before the recent raids. This is what it means to de-legitimize – and it goes hand in hand with disruption. De-legitimization, the process of driving down public support for authoritarian policies, recognizes that an administration with policies polling in the 20s or low 30s will be less able to execute its agenda or prevail in the courts than a government whose policies are supported broadly by the public. The goal is to win over everyday people through organizing, helping them understand the connections between the challenges they're facing and the harmful actions of the administration. This process will ideally help people identify authoritarian strategies, allowing them to better resist propaganda. If done well, organizing can also serve to strengthen citizens' commitment to democratic principles by offering them an experience of democracy in practice each day, rather than as a quadrennial abstraction. To this end, the administration's 'flood the zone' attacks on so many cornerstones of American life offer not only the biggest organizing imperative, but also the biggest organizing opportunity of our lifetimes. We must harness the power of the many millions of Americans who now feel under threat, including older Americans, veterans, the US-citizen children and spouses of immigrants, the parents of disabled and trans kids, and the large number of people who would be affected by cuts to Medicaid, including patients and medical workers. To name a few. Unexpected constituencies are raising their voices. Take scientists, who have long sought to protect their research by staying away from politics. Recognizing that the administration's actions are not only undermining their own work but destroying the scientific enterprise for a generation, they are speaking out and even organizing marches of their own. Perhaps the greatest organizing challenge facing the pro-democracy coalition in the US will be bridging between the largely middle-class constituency that is fired up about attacks on the rule of law and the largely working-class base that is focused on kitchen table issues – not on a system that hasn't been working for them. Without the latter group, the coalition will not be big enough to succeed. We must not be seen to be working to restore a broken system, but rather to transform it through a new vision, with accompanying policy goals. That may include, for example, campaigns for workers' rights to help dissolve the unnatural bond between billionaires and some blue-collar voters that fuels the authoritarian coalition. We must develop and demonstrate alternatives that people will believe in. Disruption and de-legitimization lead to the third key objective: drawing defectors. These efforts must be targeted across the ideological spectrum and they must be achieved at two levels: that of institutions and individuals. Authoritarians rely on support, whether passive or active, from key pillars of society: corporations, churches, police and media outlets, among others. Under pressure, institutions like law firms and Columbia University shamefully moved from neutrality to active collaboration with authoritarianism. It does not have to be this way. Harvard's recent decision to challenge the administration in court is an example of institutional defection, moving from the sidelines to active opposition. It did not happen by accident. Harvard's action was the culmination of a massive behind-the-scenes organizing campaign of faculty, students, donors and alumni. Similar efforts are taking place across law firms, foundations and other universities. Employees have considerable leverage when it comes to winning defections at scale among businesses, faith institutions, tech companies, the military and law enforcement. They can push their institutions to not 'obey in advance' and instead openly resist authoritarianism. Many individuals across the country who are concerned about the advance of authoritarianism forget the power they can wield over the institutions they are a part of. Now is the time to use it. It is also necessary to win defections at the level of everyday people. Consider the example of Women of Welcome, a group of evangelicals who educate and engage other Christians on issues related to immigrants and refugees. This group recently led a delegation of evangelical women to the southern US border to provide aid to asylum seekers and listen to their stories. They are not progressives – but they are taking a strong public stand for immigrants and recruiting their neighbors in communities that have been broadly receptive to the Trump administration's xenophobic appeals. In seeking to build a pro-democracy coalition, members of the opposition must resist the impulse to write off, shame or expel those with whom they have disagreed in the past and may still disagree on many important issues. The imperative of defeating authoritarianism must supersede internecine fights or purity tests. It is essential to talk to everyone. Embodying the moral character taught by civil rights leaders like Rev Lawson – acting nonviolently and showing love to those on the other side – will be vital in creating the kind of attractive, welcoming gateway for defectors to join the movement. Doing so will help to create a pro-democracy majority that extends beyond our traditional allies in the progressive movement. I may finally grasp what Rev Lawson meant when he said that love is our secret weapon. When a mom and her three school-aged children were detained by Ice in the small upstate New York town of Sackets Harbor (ironically, the home of Tom Homan, the administration's immigration enforcement 'czar'), public school teachers and administrators swung into action, engaging in aggressive advocacy. These educators may or may not have been politically engaged before, but their care for their students moved them to take a stand, speak up and choose opposition over collaboration. They won – the mom and kids are free as a result of their courage. We face considerable obstacles in trying to prevent the consolidation of authoritarianism in the United States. But the truth is that they are smaller than those encountered by prior generations. The freedom rides, orchestrated in part by Rev Lawson, are now iconic, but we forget the violence that riders encountered in the process. Following the successful Birmingham campaign to win desegregation in 1963, four little Black girls were killed in the 16th Street Baptist church bombing. The next year, civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were the victims of a deadly KKK conspiracy in Mississippi. Yes, the physical threats to judges, politicians, election officials and citizens in the United States are real. Yes, immigrants have been taken off the streets and held without due process. Fortunately, as worrying as this week's troop deployment to California should be to all of us, we still have a precious window of time to organize and dissent openly. We can take hope from cases around the world when everyday people have made that choice in large numbers. U-turns happen. Scholars have found that 73% of episodes of authoritarian breakthrough around the world in the last 30 years have been followed by democratic revivals. Sometimes, those revivals bring about an even stronger democracy than what came before. But U-turns aren't self-executing. And the time to act is limited – comparable cases like India and Hungary suggest that if authoritarianism is not effectively challenged in the first couple of years, it can deepen and become the new normal for a decade or more. Our aspiration cannot be to return to the before times. The rotten fruit of authoritarianism grew in the soil of obscene inequality and insufficiently democratic institutions. We must therefore not only oppose autocracy, but propose something better – democratic alternatives that are ready to go if we can awaken from this nightmare. Rev Lawson and his contemporaries did not promise an easy path. Millions of us will have to reckon honestly with our current reality. We will need to make the choice to act. We will need to contribute our time, talent and money strategically. We will have to tap deep reservoirs of courage and love we didn't know we had. Rev Lawson's key teaching was hopeful: if we do those things, we can get free. Deepak Bhargava has been an organizer and campaigner for 30 years and is the co-author of Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World. He currently serves as the president of the Freedom Together Foundation and the Movement Action Fund
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
UK broadcasters hail rare win over Netflix in battle for streaming ads
Shows such as Netflix's TV history-making Adolescence and Disney's romp Rivals are among the latest hits to continue the subscriber juggernaut, as the US streamers continue to mount pressure on UK TV broadcasters. However, research reveals that a new breed of viewers being banked on to drive their next era of growth are watching up to 40% less content on some services, giving traditional broadcasters hope that their own streaming services will not ultimately be outmuscled in the battle over the rapidly growing £1bn-plus streaming ad market. It has been two and a half years since Netflix reversed its resistance to advertising, leading the charge to tap a new market as subscriber growth petered out and the cost of living crisis made consumers more open to paying less in return for seeing ads. The strategy has helped breathe life into stalling subscription growth. Netflix added the most customers in a quarter in its history in the final three months of 2024, with 55% choosing its ad-supported package. About a third of its 300 million-strong global subscriber base are now watching with ads. Disney+ followed suit in late 2022 and has since amassed 157 million ad-tier subscribers, including its US-only ESPN and Hulu services. And in February last year, Amazon started automatically introducing ads to the 200 million potential monthly viewers of Prime Video, requiring customers to pay if they wanted an ad-free experience. However, research into streaming households shows that homes that watch with ads are 'lighter' viewers, in the words of one media agency executive, compared with those who pay for higher-priced, ad-free packages. A snapshot of UK streaming in the fourth quarter of 2024 showed that Netflix households with advertising-supported subscriptions watched an average of 22 minutes less content a day than those with an ad-free subscription, a difference of almost 22%. Netflix is estimated to have about 17.6 million subscribers in total in the UK, of whom just over 4 million are on an ad-supported package, according to Ampere Analysis. At Amazon's Prime Video, which is estimated to have about 12 million UK users, the same trend has emerged. Viewers who accepted ads watched an average of 23 minutes less content a day than those who had opted to pay for an ad-free experience – a difference of 44%. While viewing minutes were not available for Disney+ UK subscribers, the research showed it had the narrowest gap, with those on ad-supported accounts watching just five fewer minutes of content a day on average than those paying for an ad-free subscription. Matt Ross, the chief analytics officer at the streaming research firm Digital i, says two distinct types of viewer have emerged, but adds that lower levels of viewing in ad-supported households is partly because those subscriptions also typically offer access on fewer devices. 'We've seen that more engaged viewers typically opt for ad-free tiers, valuing the uninterrupted experience they provide,' Ross says. 'More premium plans offer multiple simultaneous streams, which appeals especially to larger households and families. This combination of premium features and flexibility often results in higher daily activity for ad-free plans.' Nevertheless, the phenomenon of 'light viewers' will be grasped by UK broadcasters trying to stop the deep-pocketed US giants conquering the streaming advertising market in the same way as they have the world of paid subscriptions. 'The appeal of the global streamers' ad tiers to advertisers doesn't stack up against the streaming services offered by British broadcasters,' says one senior TV industry executive. Certainly in the UK, at least, the drive into advertising by the big US streamers has had a mixed reception from the media agencies that buy commercial space for brands. Netflix started with a gung-ho attitude, buoyed up by the success it had had building a huge paid subscriber base and the belief advertisers would leap at the chance to be able to place commercials in its mega-hits for the first time. However, it demanded almost 50% more than ITV or Channel 4's services charge for advertising, alongside a hefty commitment to a minimum spend, despite initially only having a small audience and extremely limited ability to target ads. 'The rollout was a disaster,' says the chief executive of one media agency. 'Take-up was underwhelming, to say the least. They had to try again six months later and lost their lead over rivals and are now behind the curve in terms of pricing, data and reach versus, say, Amazon.' Amazon charges about the same as the public service broadcasters' streaming services, while Disney+ charges more, despite having the smallest base of the big three US streamers, a situation the media executive describes as a 'mad outlier, given their volume'. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Last month Netflix rung the changes, announcing that Warren Dias, the head of UK's ad sales, was to leave after two years in the post. The world's biggest and most profitable streaming service has acknowledged it is still a newbie when it comes to the ad market. 'I think you can say that 2025 is the year that we transition from crawl to walk,' Greg Peters, the co-chief executive of Netflix, said in a recent call with analysts. Peters said overall viewing hours per subscriber on its ads plans internationally was similar to those on its standard non-ad plans, and that it expected to double advertising income this year as it focuses on improving ad targeting for brands. The company launched its in-house ad-tech platform in the US in April and intends to start rolling it out to other markets in the coming months. While UK broadcasters feel the tentative start by the US giants has given them the upper hand in the British streaming advertising, which is putting further pressure on the shrinking £3.58bn traditional TV ad market, there is a sense of foreboding that history may ultimately repeat itself. 'We were successful and revolutionised TV viewing,' says Damien Bernet, the vice-president of ad sales for the EMEA region at Netflix. 'We believe we are going to be able to do the same for ads.' More people visit and watch Netflix than any other streaming service in the UK, and in March it made TV history with Adolescence becoming the first programme on a streaming platform to top the weekly audience charts of all shows aired in Britain. In February, 65% of 18- to 64-year-old internet users accessed Netflix, compared with 59% for the BBC's iPlayer, 48% for Prime Video, 46% for ITVX and 34% for Channel 4's streaming service, according to survey data from Ampere Analysis. The US streamers' ad tier strategies have reignited overall growth, are rapidly increasing the scale and attractiveness of the offering for advertisers, and the cheaper pricing has made users more 'sticky' and less likely to think about cancelling. 'Fundamentally, advertising is a scale game, and in that regard many of the streamers are only just getting started,' says Richard Broughton, a director at Ampere. 'UK and European broadcasters will be far from complacent, given the competition they have faced for viewers over the past decade, but they have only a narrow window to batten down the hatches before they start to feel more pressure across their advertiser base too.'
