The Communist BlocBoard

Overview
This resolution aims to coherently provide legal protections for whistleblowers.

A summary of the resolution is: Whistleblowers cannot be penalized for disseminating info about any government project, for the dissemination of financial info of government officials or entities' financial documents, for the publication of evidence of crime and cannot be tried for libel, slander or defamation unless the information is proven to be "demonstrably false".

Recommendation
The protection of whistleblowers from retaliation can be a boon in the progressive workers' struggle, as more often than not, whistleblowers expose the reality of wage exploitation by the bourgeoisie. This can also help socialist revolutions and can benefit a Cultural Revolution, as workers are now supported in exposing the oppression of landlords, bourgeoisie, bosses and bourgeoisie politicians through whistleblower protection, without fear of retaliation. This resolution can also contribute in the exposition of crimes and oppression made by imperialism, for example, through whistleblowers exposing war crimes or nefarious agendas made by the imperialist.

For these reasons, the Communist Bloc's Ministry of World Assembly Affairs recommends voting FOR the General Assembly Resolution under vote "Whistleblower Protection Act".

• The standing period for the Judiciary Election has begun. It will last until the 22nd and then voting will begin. There are 5 open seats. Here are the current candidates:

  • Shamian

  • Ostann Hath and Seranalase

  • Dynamic revolution

  • Arsa

  • The union of malaysian socialists

  You can sign up here: https://tcb.red/forum/topic/2271-sign-up-judiciary-election-2021?page=1#pid11430

• The TCB Card Factory has opened its doors! This program includes regional giveaways, a regional art museum, card requests, and of course, shiny 1% International Artwork badges. TCBs Card Factory will also be asking for a team of volunteers to help operate card farms to ensure a steady supply of cards are being printed. Think you can help? Sign up today.

• The Ministry of World Assembly Affairs has posted voting threads on the current resolutions: "Repeal: Commend Northern Borland", and "Whistleblower Protection Act". As of right now, the vote recommendation is to vote FOR the Whistleblower Protection Act, and there is no recommendation yet for the Security Council Resolution.

• The Minister of Domestic Affairs has released the Regional Development Program! This is a great way to figure out how to raise specific stats for your nation. If you're not sure how to answer your issues, give this a read. It works as a guide, letting you know how your answers will affect your nation and your stats.

• Check out the Law Archive! It is an easy way to navigate and keep track of all our laws. This document will be updated as new laws get passed.

• The Ministry of Domestic Affairs and Ministry of Information are recruiting volunteers. Sign up here: https://tcb.red/forum/forum/15-the-civil-service

• The People's Assembly has passed the Vice Delegate Act Amendment, the SoE Constitutional Amendment, and the Election Standards Act Amendment 2021. The Law Archive has been updated to reflect these changes.

• Those that get #16 correct on this weeks Saturday Edition crossword puzzle will be entered into a giveaway from TCB's Card Factory. Send your answers to Chief of Printing. Today is the last day to submit answers! Read the Saturday Edition here.

• The Regional Development Corps have released their first goal for the region, which is to raise the Average Income of Poor statistic. Check out this dispatch for more information on the goal and how to get it done.

• Want some endorsements? Run the Revolutionary Endorsement Program! It's simple, and doesn't take very much time. Endorse comrades, get endorsed back.

• Our forums are online, but unfortunately, we have lost a whole year of data. If you applied for citizenship after January of 2020 (Feb-Dec of 2020), make sure to reapply!. You may also have to recreate your account. Apologies for this inconvenience. The government will be working as quickly as possible to re-accept citizenship applications. In order to prevent this from happening again in the future, we will be discussing our options and holding a vote on a potential forum transfer in the near future. Stay tuned! (Disclaimer : this only applies if you were registered as a citizen in between February 2020 and December 2020. If you have joined TCB after this time period you do not need to re-apply for citizenship)

Happy Friday! Hope your weekend will start off great! Here is "This Day in History" for February 19!

On this day in 1847, the first rescuers reach surviving members of the Donner Party, a group of California-bound emigrants stranded by snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In the summer of 1846, in the midst of a Western-bound fever sweeping the United States, 89 people—including 31 members of the Donner and Reed families—set out in a wagon train from Springfield, Illinois. After arriving at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, the emigrants decided to avoid the usual route and try a new trail recently blazed by California promoter Lansford Hastings, the so-called “Hastings Cutoff.” After electing George Donner as their captain, the party departed Fort Bridger in mid-July. The shortcut was nothing of the sort: It set the Donner Party back nearly three weeks and cost them much-needed supplies. After suffering great hardships in the Wasatch Mountains, the Great Salt Lake Desert, and along the Humboldt River, they finally reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains in early October. Despite the lateness of the season, the emigrants continued to press on, and on October 28 they camped at Truckee Lake, located in the high mountains 21 kilometers northwest of Lake Tahoe. Overnight, an early winter storm blanketed the ground with snow, blocking the mountain pass and trapping the Donner Party. Most of the group stayed near the lake–now known as Donner Lake–while the Donner family and others made camp six miles away at Alder Creek. Building makeshift tents out of their wagons and killing their oxen for food, they hoped for a thaw that never came. Fifteen of the stronger emigrants, later known as the Forlorn Hope, set out west on snowshoes for Sutter’s Fort on December 16. Three weeks later, after harsh weather and lack of supplies killed several of the expedition and forced the others to resort to cannibalism, seven survivors reached a Native American village. News of the stranded Donner Party traveled fast to Sutter’s Fort, and a rescue party set out on January 31. Arriving at Donner Lake 20 days later, they found the camp completely snowbound and the surviving emigrants delirious with relief at their arrival. Rescuers fed the starving group as well as they could and then began evacuating them. Three more rescue parties arrived to help, but the return to Sutter’s Fort proved equally harrowing, and the last survivors didn’t reach safety until late April. Of the 89 original members of the Donner Party, only 45 reached California. (US History)

Also on this day in 1910, the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (RTC) fired 173 union members, resulting in a series of escalating labor actions that culminated in a city-wide general strike. RTC fired the workers "for the good of the service" and hired replacement workers from New York City. Immediately after the firings, the union leadership ordered the strike, taking their respective trolley cars off the streets effective at 1:00 that afternoon. In the following days, mobs of workers destroyed trolley property. A crowd of 2,000 seized a trolley set it on fire. Another crowd of 5,000 seized a crew working a trolley and beat them in the street. A bomb threat in Germantown was disregarded until dynamite was loaded onto the tracks by a mob of 2,000. With the union threatening a general strike to hobble the city if strikebreakers were brought in, RTC brought in 600 strikebreakers, while denying they had done so. When the National Guard entered the city to provide protection for RTC, members of other unions throughout the city saw this as a clear signal that the city and state governments were uniting in favor of the companies against the unions and the entire city began a general strike. The tactic was successful and RTC eventually agreed to a wage increase, the re-hiring of strikers within three months, and mediation of the initial 173 union-targeted firings. (Labor Strikes)

32 years, in 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War to deem certain areas "military zones", leading directly to the internment of Japanese, German, and Italian Americans in concentration camps. By declaring wide swaths of domestic territory as "military zones", the state could provide legal justification for forcibly removing people deemed a threat from them. Using a broad interpretation of Executive Order 9066, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt issued orders declaring areas of the western United States as zones of exclusion under the Executive Order. As a result, approximately 112,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry were evicted from the West Coast of the United States and held in American concentration camps and other confinement sites across the country. Americans of Italian and German ancestry were also targeted by these restrictions, including internment. 11,000 people of German ancestry were interned, as were 3,000 people of Italian ancestry, along with some Jewish refugees. It wasn't until 1990 that surviving internees began to receive individual redress payments and a letter of apology. (World War II)

And finally, The Feminine Mystique, a book by Betty Friedan, which is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States, was published on this day in 1963. In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th-anniversary reunion; the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives, prompted her to begin research for The Feminine Mystique, conducting interviews with other suburban housewives, as well as researching psychology, media, and advertising. She originally intended to create an article on the topic, not a book, but no magazine would publish her article. In 1964, The Feminine Mystique became a bestselling nonfiction book with over one million copies sold. In the book, Friedan challenged the widely shared belief in the 1950s that "fulfillment as a woman had only one definition for American women after 1949—the housewife-mother." The phrase "feminine mystique" was created by Friedan to show the assumptions that women would be fulfilled from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children. It was said that women, who were actually feminine, should not have wanted to work, get an education, or have political opinions. Friedan wanted to prove that women were unsatisfied but could not voice their feelings. (Feminist Movements)