The#210: nOVeMBeR 2015IndypendenT A FRee pApeR FOR FRee peOpLe

TRAVeLInGJOURney ACROSS eUROpe TO WITh SyRIA’SA neW ReFUGeeS LIFe By ShAWn CARRIÉ, p10

MAydAy RISInG, p4 The eMBATTLed UTeRUS, p6 VeneZUeLA’S COnUndRUM, p14

eVenTS CALendAR, p2 Indy 15Th BIRThdAy, p3 MUSeUMS & CLIMATe ChAnGe, p5 The “S” WORd ReTURnS, p8 AFTeR The ARRIVAL, p12 neOCOn nOnSenSe, p13 nAOMI KLeIn’S BIG MOVIe, p16 WAR, The UnKnOWABLe, p17 COATeS, BALdWIn & MABAnCKOU, p18 SeCReT TO WORLd COnQUeST, p19 DAVID HOLLENBACH 2 COMMUNITY CALENDAR The IndypendenT nOVeMBeR

THE INDYPENDENT, INC. 388 Atlantic Avenue, 2nd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11217 212-904-1282 www.indypendent.org Twitter: @TheIndypendent facebook.com/TheIndypendent SUNDAYS NOV 15–DEC 20 REFORM IT — OR SHUT IT DOWN? WED DEC 2 ERIK MCGREGOR 2pm • $15 A panel of community advocates, 7:30pm • Free BOARD OF DIRECTORS: PERFORMANCE: THE EARTH elected offi cials and professors will READING & DISCUSSION: SHAPE- Ellen Davidson, Anna Gold, WANTS YOU. Join performance discuss the future of Rikers Island. SHIFTERS. Author Aimee Meredith artist Reverend Billy Talen and the Topics will include the reality of and Cox will read from her debut book, Alina Mogilyanskaya, 50-member Stop Shopping Choir barriers to reform, alternatives to in which she explores how young Ann Schneider, John Tarleton for their annual holiday show. large-scale incarceration facilities Black women in a Detroit home- With its wild anti-consumerism within the city and alternatives less shelter contest stereotypes, EXECUTIVE EDITOR: gospel shouting and its passionate to incarcerating the mentally ill critique their status as partial citi- John Tarleton embrace of Earth-friendly urban and adolescents in such facili- zens and negotiate poverty, racism activism, this event is one of a kind. ties. Admission is free but RSVP is and gender violence to create and Can we have an Earth-alujah?! required. imagine lives for themselves. MANAGING EDITOR: Joe’s Pub The New School 651 Arts Alina Mogilyanskaya 425 Lafayette St The Auditorium 515 Madison St, Bklyn 212-539-8778 • revbilly.com 66 W 12th St 718-304-1045 • 651arts.org CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: 212.229.5600 • newschool.edu Ellen Davidson, FRI NOV 13 SAT DEC 5 6pm • Free THUR NOV 19 3–6pm • $10-20 suggested Nicholas Powers BOOK LAUNCH: WARPED: GAY 7pm • Free SKILL SHARE: FIGHT BACK NORMALITY AND QUEER ANTI- DISCUSSION: ARTISTS’ RESPONS- AGAINST THE SURVEILLANCE ILLUSTRATION DIRECTOR: CAPITALISM. Author Peter Tucker ES TO GENTRIFICATION. Caroline STATE. Is government surveillance Frank Reynoso is a queer antiwar activist and a Woolard of the NYC Real Estate getting you down? Us too. Join fellow at the International Institute Investment Cooperative and Eric Jonathan S. Uss, director of Consti- Lyle of Streetopia and Scam will DESIGN DIRECTOR: for Research and Education in tutional Communications, to learn Amsterdam. He’ll discuss his work discuss the responses of artists to how to keep your communications Mikael Tarkela on the speed of victories for LGBT gentrifi cation. secure and get your online house in rights and the developing pace of 172 Allen St order. Bring laptop, new USB and

DESIGNERS: gay “normality” in relation to the 212-777-6028 • bluestockings.com snacks to share. CHURCH WAS TONYSKANSASCITY.COM Steven Arnerich, Anna Gold continuing need for queer resis- Mayday Space NEVER THIS tance and activism. FRI NOV 20 176 St Nicholas Ave, Bklyn FUN: Reverend NYU 7pm • $5 suggested maydayspace.org Billy and the Church CALENDAR EDITOR: Silver Center EVENT: TRANSGENDER DAY OF of Stop Shopping Seamus Creighton 31 Washington Pl, Rm 520 REMEMBRANCE. This day honors SUN DEC 6 Choir will perform 773-583-7884 • the trans* lives lost to oppression 12–8 pm • Free at Joe’s Pub every GENERAL INQUIRIES: haymarketbooks.org and violence. The event will include EVENT: HOLIDAY BOOK AND Sunday through [email protected] speakers, educational info and re- PRINT FAIR. Tons of lefty books, December 20. SAT NOV 14 ferrals to services. Registration is posters and other printed materials SUBMISSIONS AND NEWS TIPS: 1pm • Free free on the website and is open to will be for sale in one place. Par- [email protected] SCREENING: RUBBLE KINGS. This all who would like to express their ticipants include Haymarket Books, ONE IS TOO ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION: powerful documentary focuses on support. Additional remembrance Interference Archive, Just Seeds, MANY: Events early 1970s New York City youth events will be hosted by the Audre New York Review of Books and PM honoring the lives [email protected] and the infl uence they had on Lorde Project, Wow Café Theater Press. If you would like to exhibit of the more than 20 community change and the birth of and others. contact: [email protected] trans* and gender VOLUNTEER CONTRIBUTORS: Sam hip-hop culture. A teen-centered The LGBT Center or [email protected]. non-conforming A l c of f , C l a i r e A rk i n , B e n n e t t B au m e r, dialogue with director Shan Nich- 208 W 13th St The Brooklyn Commons people killed in the Devika Bilimoria, Duane Bruton, olson will follow the screening. 212-620-7310 • gaycenter.org/tdor 388 Atlantic Ave U.S. in the past year José Carmona, Shawn Carrié, Hye Priority seating for youth. marxedproject.org will be held Novem- Schomburg Center for Research in SAT NOV 21 ber 20. Jin Chung, Annette Elizabeth, Black Culture 7pm • Free WED DEC 9 Renée Feltz, Ersellia Ferron, Daniel 515 Malcolm X Blvd SCREENING AND TALK: EVERY 7pm • Free Fishel, Lynne Foster, Robert Gonyo, 917-275-6975 • nypl.org MOTHER’S SON. This Emmy-nom- EVENT: THE COST OF AN URBAN Elia Gran, Michael Grant, Kim inated documentary profi les three CLIMATE CRISIS, A #BHEARD Herbst, Michael Hirsch, David SUN NOV 15 mothers whose sons were killed COMMUNITY TOWN HALL. Join 2pm • $30 general/$10 student by the NYPD and fi nd themselves local activists, journalists and the Hollenbach, Rebeca Ibarra, Dondi BENEFIT PARTY: GRAND OPEN- united to seek justice and trans- community at large to discuss the J, Mamoudou Keita, Margarita ING CELEBRATION BENEFIT FOR form their grief into an opportunity reality climate change has brought Kruchinskaya, Rob LaQuinta, Gary REVOLUTION BOOKS. Revolution for profound social change. Panel- upon Brooklyn. Questions may be Martin, AnnMary Mathew, Erik Books has reopened in Harlem and ists will be Iris Baez, mother of submitted prior to the event via McGregor, David Meadow, Mike will be hosting renowned Kenyan Anthony Baez, who was killed in an social media at #BHEARD. Newton, Jackie O’Brien, Maya writer, post-colonial literary theo- illegal chokehold by NYPD offi cer BRIC Arts rist and former political prisoner Francis Livoti in 1994; King Down- 647 Fulton St Peraza-Baker, Robert Pluma, Anna Ngugi wa Thiong’o at its opening ing, founder of the Human Rights- 718-683-5600 • bricartsmedia.org Polonyi, Andy Pugh, Conor Tomás party. Racial Justice Center; and Tami

November 2015 Goodluck A.M. ♥ Reed, Jim Secula, Andrew Stern, 473 Malcolm X Blvd Gold, award-winning fi lmmaker and Gabriella Szpunt, Lisa Taylor, Cindy 212-691-3345 activist. revolutionbooksnyc.org Align Brooklyn Trinh, Solange Uwimana, Maria 579 5th Ave, Bklyn Vassileva, Matthew Wasserman, WED NOV 18 718-788-3940 Kevin Whipple, Beth Whitney, and 2–5pm • Free

The IndypendenT Amy Wolf. DISCUSSION: RIKERS ISLAND: 3 INDEPENDENT MEDIA

CeLeBRATInG A MILeSTOne On OCTOBeR 15, The IndypendenT BeGAn CeLeBRATInG ITS 15Th AnnIVeRSARy yeAR AT The hOMe OF A LOnGTIMe SUppORTeR. SHELL SHEDDY

ABBY SCHER,SCHER, founding director of the Independent Press Association-New York, The Indy’s NICHOLAS POWERS and urges partygoers to give DONALD PANETH share a laugh. generously to the Indy.

Brooklyn College

SHELL SHEDDY journalism professor RONALD HOWELL. Indypendent Managing Editor ALINA MOGILYANSKAYA

and Executive Editor OZIER MUHAMMAD Author JOHN TARLETON. MICHAEL GOULD- WARTOFSKY. SHELL SHEDDY OZIER MUHAMMAD The Indy’s CLAIRE ARKIN and MIKAEL TARKELA. SHELL SHEDDY OZIER MUHAMMAD

the house. Go shopping. Cook and set up. Lots of 3. Gather friends from your neigh- HOSTING AN busyness all for a good cause. Folks from the Indy borhood, college, organizations, INDY HOUSE will pitch in as needed. I’m used to hosting large workplace, etc. — any place parties at my house but smaller, more intimate where progressive thinkers and PARTY gatherings of 15-25 people can be just as fun and doers exist in your life. BY NANCY ROMER meaningful and still give a nice boost to the Indy as well. Whatever you are comfortable with. 4. Get your house ready for a feast On October 15 we celebrated The Indypendent’s I’m not shy about asking my friends to support a and lots to drink — or use a 15th anniversary with a benefi t house party at my good cause. It gives them a chance to get to know caterer if you prefer. Our wonderful place. Over 60 people came, ate, drank, talked like the people in the struggle, join a community of good host, NANCY crazy and had fun. We all contributed money, some people and do the right thing. Besides, we need to 5. Enjoy!

ROMER. a little bit and some a lot, but all of us came away support our media because the rich folks won't. 2015 November feeling proud to be in solidarity with this band of They are busy supporting the corporate media. When it’s over, lean back and know that your work dedicated journalists who tell the truth and get it If you are thinking about how you can make a is well-rewarded with the ongoing survival and out in accessible ways. contribution to the Indy, here are some suggestions: thriving of a great newspaper. The best part of hosting an Indy fundraising party is the joy of having your friends and friends of the 1. Make out a check and/or Interested in hosting a house party on behalf of Indy hang out in your house, chat up a storm and be become a monthly sustainer The Indypendent as we celebrate our 15th anni- IndypendenT The a community of lefty activists. I love the buzz of in- at indypendent.org/donate — versary year? Email [email protected] or call tense conversation and laughter that ring out at an always a good idea. 212-904-1282. Indy house party. I love the fact that we are all pull- ing together to keep a great paper alive and well. I 2. Organize an Indy house party at love the fact that we can do this together. your place or a friend's. What does it take to host such a party? Clean up 4 ORGANIZING

ALL SYSTEMS GO AT MAYDAY

By John Tarleton in one place in my own back yard,” recalls Josh Carrea. He grew up in Bushwick and participated in the anti- e need a space.” displacement and housing justice contingent in the Peo- “ In a city where rents are soaring ple’s Climate March, in what he describes as “my fi rst and real estate is king, this is one of introduction to social justice activism and organizing.” the most deeply felt laments of New Mayday fell off the public radar after the climate York City activists looking to house march while its members patiently worked to create Wtheir organizations, hold public events or just build a internal structures and processes for building their or- deeper sense of community. ganization. Carrea got involved during that time and For one group in Bushwick, their dream appears to continues to take on new responsibilities. becoming true. In mid-September, after almost three He currently helps with community outreach and years of dashed hopes, the Mayday community space wants to launch a neighborhood history project — moved into its new home at the Iglesia Santa Cruz “The People’s History of Bushwick” — that will invite church building at 176 Saint Nicholas Avenue near the longtime residents to tell their stories of how gentrifi ca- DeKalb station on the L train line. tion has remade the working-class immigrant neighbor- Mayday’s new home features a 700-square-foot art hood. build room and a kitchen on the fi rst fl oor, three class- As a member of the programming committee, he rooms on the second fl oor and a 2,700-square-foot plans to start a reading group that focuses on issues “great hall” and kitchen on the third fl oor. On any of gentrifi cation and immigration that are of special given day or night the space can be found bustling with concern to Bushwick residents. Another reading group activities: a panel discussion by climate change activ- he’s starting will be led by four women and look at the ists, a build-out of large, colorful banners and props works of feminist science fi ction writers like Octavia in support of living wage protesters, a meeting for lo- Butler. cal residents fi ghting gentrifi cation and displacement, a “It will be something fun to read with important training on how to secure your laptop from government themes of resisting oppression,” Carrea said. spying, a Halloween costume party or a ceremony in While Mayday’s organizers are busy getting their honor of Indigenous People’s Resistance Day. project off the ground, they sense they are on to some- “We love this space and would love to stay for years thing and have high hopes for what it could catalyze to come,” said Lucas Shapiro, a member of the Mayday beyond the neighborhood they are planting roots in. collective and one of two part-time paid staffers who “We want to build a model that is replicable around helps oversee the space. New York City and around the country,” Shapiro said. Drawing inspiration from the success of Spain’s “so- “We want to see a movement culture that feels much cial centers,” the Mayday collective is looking to create more inviting and relevant to a much broader set of a space that is a hub not only for social justice organiz- people.” ing but socializing and hanging out and creating the human relationships that build community. To help Look for more coverage of New York City’s social achieve that, they are also working to open a bar and movement spaces in the December issue. For a longer event space in another building around the corner that version of this article, see indypendent.org. is expected to open by next spring. Many of Mayday’s key members have previous or- ganizing experience with Occupy Wall Street or the global justice movement of the early 2000s and they say they are determined to learn from their experiences.

“It’s not Zuccotti Park. It’s not the open, ‘anybody ALL PHOTOS ERIK MCGREGOR do something’ model,” said Sandra Nurse, another col- SHARING IDEAS: Participants lective member and Mayday’s other part-time staffer. in a November 5 event at May- “It’s about having a strategy to engage not just the peo- day Space discuss how climate ple who show up but the people we would like to have change and social inequality get involved.” combine to increase the devastat- To that end, Nurse said, Mayday has emphasized ing impact of natural disasters placing people who were born and raised in Bushwick like Hurricane Sandy and Typhoon and people of color in general on the group’s Planning Haiyan. Committee. It also holds regular volunteer orientations for neighborhood residents and hosts monthly commu- nity potlucks. ENTERTAINING: Mayday “We want this to be a place where people of color Space collective member McNair grassroots takes center stage and where people of color Scott serves a drink at a Hallow- feel directly invested in the growth of the project,” said een Party hosted at Mayday. Nurse, who has lived in Bushwick since 2009 and is the founder of BK Rot, a composting service that provides November 2015

employment opportunities for neighborhood youth. COMMUNITY ORGA- The Mayday collective made its public debut late in NIZER: Lilah Mejia from Good the summer of 2014, when it briefl y transformed an- Old Lower East Side (GOLES) other neighborhood space into an arts and activism discusses the impact Hurricane hub in advance of the 400,000-strong People’s Climate Sandy had on her community. March.

THE INDYPENDENT “It was amazing to me that so much was happening 5 CULTURE & POLITICS

CHANGING THE FRAME MUSEUMS CHALLENGED TO SEVER TIES WITH CLIMATE DENIERS

By Claire Arkin & John Tarleton board of a science museum. It’s a contradiction in terms,” James Powell, former president of the n the past decade David Koch has poured Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, vast sums of money into some of New told Democracy Now!. York’s most prominent cultural institu- The appeal to museums to steer clear of fossil tions — $100 million to renovate and re- fuel funding comes at a time when budget cuts name the David H. Koch Theater at Lin- to arts and science funding in the United States colnI Center, $65 million for the David H. Koch have left museums feeling more pressure to tap Plaza in front of the Metropolitan Museum of private sector funding streams. According to a Art and $20 million for the David H. Koch Dino- report by the American Alliance of Museums, saur Wing at the American Museum of Natural in 2012 more than 67 percent of museums felt History. economic stress, yet only 14 percent reported in- Since 1997, Koch, who heads the oil and man- creases in government support, versus 35 percent ufacturing conglomerate Koch Industries, has who reported decreases in government support. also provided at least $79 million in funding to Nonetheless, says Powell, citing the debates groups that deny climate change and thwart gov- about the South Africa divestment movement of ernment policies that would address it, accord- the 1980s, “there is a right side and a wrong side, ing to Greenpeace. and if I were president at one of these institutions His largesse is a particularly striking example today, I would be arguing that my institution of the money poured into cultural and scientifi c needed to get on the right side of this issue.” institutions by the oil and gas industry. While climate justice activists are busy try- In Europe, BP sponsors four major arts insti- ing to get fossil fuel companies out of museums, tutions in the United Kingdom — the National they are also developing innovative ways to bring Portrait Gallery, the British Museum, the Royal their ideas into museums. Launched in Septem- Portrait Gallery and the Tate; the Italian oil gi- ber 2014, the mobile Natural History Museum ant Eni is a main corporate partner of the Lou- is modeling what the role of a science museum vre; and Shell was a sponsor of a climate change can be when unbounded by corporate sponsor- exhibition at the Science Museum in London. ship and the strings that come attached with it. This kind of fi nancial support garners a lot of Its exhibitions — an iconic polar bear roam- love from its benefi ciaries. Daniel Brodsky, chair ing amid the detritus of industrial civilization, of the Met, has hailed Koch for “his vision and a feedback loop of clean water and water pol- generosity.” Critics, meanwhile, say that this luted by Koch Industries circulating between kind of giving is little more than “greenwash- two tanks and a water fountain — highlight the ing” and have started a multi-national campaign sociopolitical forces that shape nature in a way to pressure scientifi c and cultural institutions to rarely seen at a conventional museum.

sever their fi nancial ties to the fossil fuel indus- The Natural History Museum’s co-founder KEVIN WHIPPLE try. and director Beka Economopoulos has made “It’s strategic marketing, that’s why most [fos- presentations in the past year at the annual con- sil fuel companies] line up for museum sponsor- ventions of the American Alliance of Museums ships — because it makes them look good in the and the Association of Science-Technology Cen- public eye,” said Robert Janes, author of Muse- ters. Now in the works is a new fossil fuel exhibi- ums in a Troubled World and editor-in-chief of tion that will explain the fossil fuel ecosystem in the Journal of Museum Management and Cura- the United States, which will debut in Houston torship. in the spring. In September, a coalition of groups that in- With more museums in the United States cludes the Natural History Museum, Art Not than Starbucks and Oil and BP or Not BP? launched a campaign McDonalds combined, urging arts and cultural institutions and indi- Economopoulos sees an vidual cultural agents to sign a pledge refusing to opportunity to make a ‘IT’S STRATEGIC MARKETING, promote fossil fuel interests in their artistic and major cultural impact if business practices by divesting from fossil fuels, museums break with the THAT’S WHY MOST [FOSSIL FUEL refusing fossil fuel sponsorship and kicking fossil “authoritative neutral- fuel executives off their boards. The Fossil Funds ity” that she says has de- COMPANIES] LINE UP FOR MUSEUM Free pledge now has over 300 signers, including fi ned their aesthetic for playwright Caryl Churchill, artist and composer generations. Jem Finer and comedian Francesca Martinez. “They see hundreds SPONSORSHIPS — BECAUSE IT Most of the groups that have signed the ap- of thousands, even mil- peal so far are smaller, progressive institutions lions, of visitors a year, MAKES THEM LOOK GOOD IN THE that were never likely to gain support from fossil they’re key spaces for 2015 November fuel corporations. However, for campaign or- bridging science to the PUBLIC EYE.’ ganizers, the early signers of the pledge provide public and educating a baseline from which to pursue larger, more people,” Economopou- prominent organizations to become signatories. los said. “Imagine if this sector, these museums, This initiative follows on the heels of an open became hubs for organizing and for communities letter published in March by the Natural History feeling the brunt of the [climate] crisis to go and INDYPENDENT THE Museum calling on natural history and science fi nd solace and fi nd solidarity.” museums to sever their ties to the fossil fuel in- dustry. It was signed by more than 100 climate For more information, see fossilfundsfree.org. scientists and received widespread media atten- tion. “You shouldn’t have a science denier on the 6 DEFENDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD

WOULd yOU LeT TheSe Men COnTROL yOUR UTeRUS?

By Amy Littlefi eld funding for abortion. Exceptions are made only in cases state violence, no less destructive than the hatchet-wield- of rape, incest or life endangerment. So when Republicans ing teenager in New Hampshire. Even though not all of arly on October 21, police in Claremont, New talk about “defunding” Planned Parenthood, they’re talk- it is making national headlines, resistance to this violence Hampshire, found a teenager with a hatch- ing about funding for family planning provided through is growing. et inside a Planned Parenthood clinic. The Title X — a program signed into law by President Rich- On an August day in Virginia, breast cancer patient teen had laid waste to the facility, smashing ard Nixon — and Medicaid funding for basic health care Leigh Anne Woods stood up at a news conference to de-

computers, medical equipment, phones and services for low-income people. It’s unlikely that Repub- fend Planned Parenthood. She removed her shirt. At the LYNNE FOSTER Eplumbing fi xtures. Two weeks earlier, the same clinic — licans will be able to cut off this funding while Obama podium, Roanoke County Supervisor Al Bedrosian was which provides basic care like birth control and HIV test- is in offi ce. But extremists in state legislatures across the railing against the local United Way for giving money to ing but not, actually, abortions — was spray-painted with country have provided a frightening picture of what the Planned Parenthood. That money that is used to fund sex the word “murderer.” entire country could look like under a Republican presi- education, not abortion. Woods faced him, displaying her It was at least the fi fth Planned Parenthood clinic to be dent. What happens when you defund Planned Parent- double mastectomy scars. attacked since mid-July, when the anti-choice Center for hood? Ask Texas. “You have a problem because they perform abortions,” Medical Progress began releasing surreptitiously fi lmed In 2011, the Texas legislature implemented radical Woods said, according to local news station WDBJ7. videos showing Planned Parenthood offi cials discussing health care cuts in an effort to target Planned Parenthood, “Look at everything else they do, they save lives!” the donation of fetal tissue to medical researchers — a cutting funding for family planning by about two-thirds. “This was about education funding,” Woods later process that is entirely legal. The videos were deceptively The cuts forced 82 family planning clinics in Texas to wrote on Facebook. “I took my shirt off, stepped towards edited to suggest Planned Parenthood was profi ting from close or discontinue family planning services. In 2012, re- him and stood as an example of what education does. the donations, and the portions that were edited out searchers at the Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP) Early detection.” showed the offi cials explicitly saying they do not. Beyond surveyed 318 pregnant women seeking abortions; nearly Woods emphasized that her protest was about edu- hatchet and arson attacks, the fallout from the videos has half reported they were unable to access the birth control cation, but her actions laid bare what’s really at stake: also included a spate of state and congressional investiga- they wanted in the three months before their pregnancy. survival. The stakes are particularly high for low-income tions — none of which have uncovered any wrongdoing The situation has gotten worse since then. Despite a people who rely on Planned Parenthood’s affordable by Planned Parenthood, moves by multiple states to cut people’s fi libuster and an 11-hour stand by Texas State health care services. off Medicaid funding to the organization and surprise Senator Wendy Davis, an omnibus anti-choice law passed Since being put on public trial, Planned Parenthood has visits to Planned Parenthood offi ces in Texas by state of- in 2013. It gutted abortion access in Texas, causing the emphasized that abortion constitutes only 3 percent of its fi cials, who demanded reams of patient records and em- number of abortion clinics to drop from 41 to eight as health services. But in the end, that doesn’t matter. The ployee information. courts lifted or permitted various provisions. Before a people who want to end legal abortion don’t care how On the national stage, the public inquisition peaked court reprieve, the restrictions periodically shuttered the many cancer screenings Planned Parenthood provides. To in September, when a House committee spent fi ve hours only clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, Whole Woman’s them, embryos and fetuses are people, and that means the grilling Planned Parenthood Federation of America Presi- Health in McAllen, putting an internal border checkpoint people whose bodies they grow in can never be fully hu- dent Cecile Richards. That hearing lasted roughly twice between undocumented pregnant people in the region man. So while Planned Parenthood is defending itself, the as long as a Senate hearing a week later in which General and the nearest clinic. pro-choice movement has gone beyond defending Planned John Campbell was questioned about the U.S. bombing As the Supreme Court decides whether to consider the Parenthood; it is unapologetically defending abortion. of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan, a constitutionality of the Texas law, the number of open Organizations like the Sea Change Program and Shift, possible war crime. House Republicans have now formed abortion clinics in Texas stands at 18 and women are re- founded by Whole Woman’s Health CEO and found- a select committee to do to Planned Parenthood what they maining pregnant longer than they want to be. TxPEP er Amy Hagstrom Miller, have focused on ending the did to Hillary Clinton with Benghazi. Who can count the found that after the number of clinics in the Dallas-Fort shame and stigma around abortion. In September, the taxpayer dollars wasted by so-called conservatives? Worth metropolitan area was cut in half, women have hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion caught fi re, with thousands Ironically, when it comes to public opinion, all of these been waiting up to 20 days on average for an abortion. of people shedding the stigma and telling their abortion attempts appear to have backfi red. An NBC News/Wall For many, that inevitably means they will pass beyond stories without apology. While the experiences shared on November 2015

Street Journal poll released in late September found that the threshold where abortion is possible and give birth to #ShoutYourAbortion were as varied as the people who 47 percent of Americans had a positive view of Planned babies they don’t want. shared them, the overarching message was loud and clear: Parenthood. The organization was more popular than the Texas is not the only state where abortion access is un- Abortion saves and improves lives. That’s a beautiful Republican and Democratic parties, all the top presiden- der siege. Since 2010, states across the country have en- thing. tial candidates and President Obama. Its approval rating acted nearly 300 restrictions on abortion. These restric- had increased slightly since a previous survey in July. tions, which have shuttered clinics and forced people to

The IndypendenT For decades, the Hyde Amendment has banned federal remain pregnant longer than they want to be, amount to 7 SOME PLACESThe YOU CAN FINDIndypendenT

BELOW 115TH ST. LIBRARY GREENPOINT LIBRARY 14TH ST 203 W. 115TH 107 NORMAN AVE. HARLEM LIBRARY KAISA’S CAFÉ SEWARD PARK LIBRARY 9 W. 124TH ST. 146 BEDFORD AVE. 192 EAST BROADWAY GEORGE BRUCE LIBRARY BEDFORD LIBRARY LES PEOPLE’S FEDERAL 518 W. 125TH ST. 496 FRANKLIN AVE. CREDIT UNION 39 AVENUE B PICTURE THE HOMELESS CROWN HEIGHTS LIBRARY 104 E 126TH ST. 560 NEW YORK AVE. @ ST. MARKS BOOKS MAPLE 136 E. 3RD ST. MAYSLES CINEMA 343 LENOX AVE. FLATBUSH LIBRARY KEY FOOD 22 LINDEN BLVD. @ 52 AVENUE A COUNTEE CULLEN LIBRARY FLATBUSH 104 W. 136TH ST. BLUESTOCKINGS PARKSIDE DELI 172 ALLEN ST. HAMILTON GRANGE 203 PARKSIDE AVE. LIBRARY THEATER 80 ST. MARK’S 503 W. 145TH ST. TUGBOAT TEA COMPANY 80 ST. MARK’S PL. 546 FLATBUSH AVE. UPTOWN SISTER’S BOOKS THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY W. 156TH ST. & AMSTERDAM OUTPOST CAFE 155 FIRST AVE. 1014 FULTON ST. FORT WASHINGTON MAMOUN’S FALAFEL LIBRARY LARK CAFÉ “It all began in the first few weeks of 2010, when I made the RESTAURANT 535 W. 179TH ST. 1007 CHURCH AVE. 22 ST. MARK’S PL. life-changing decision to release to the public a repository of classified RED HOOK LIBRARY documents that provided a simultaneously horrific and beautiful outlook MCNALLY JACKSON BOOKS 7 WOLCOTT ST. 52 PRINCE ST. BROOKLYN on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. ... It can be hard, sometimes, to HOPE & ANCHOR make sense of all the things that have happened to me in the last five THINK COFFEE BROOKLYN BOROUGH HALL 347 VAN BRUNT years (let alone my entire life). The things that seem consistent and 248 MERCER ST. 209 JORALEMON ST. BAKED clear to me are the support that I receive from my friends, my family FILM FORUM BROOKLYN MUSEUM 359 VAN BRUNT and the millions of people all over the world. Through every struggle that 209 W. HOUSTON ST. 200 EASTERN PKWY. JALOPY CAFÉ I have been confronted with, and have been subjected to–solitary HUDSON PARK LIBRARY BROOKLYN LIBRARY 317 COLUMBIA ST. confinement, long legal battles and physically transitioning to the woman 66 LEROY ST. 1044 EASTERN PKWY. BRIDGEVIEW DINER I have always been–I manage not only to survive, but to grow, learn, CINEMA VILLAGE BROOKLYN COMMONS 9011 THIRD AVE. mature and thrive as a better, more confident person.” 22 E. 12TH ST. 388 ATLANTIC AVE. -Chelsea E. Manning (Guardian Op-Ed, 27 May 2015) LGBT CENTER BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 208 W. 13TH ST. LIBRARY QUEENS 280 CADMAN PLAZA WEST COURT SQUARE DINER Say NO to another Mid-East War before it starts! CARROLL GARDENS LIBRARY 45-30 23RD ST. 14TH TO 396 CLINTON ST. @ UNION 96TH ST COURT SQUARE LIBRARY COUSIN JOHN’S PIZZA 2501 JACKSON AVE. EPIPHANY LIBRARY 70 7TH AVE. 228 E. 23RD ST. LONG ISLAND CITY LIBRARY KEY FOODS 37-44 21ST ST. MUHLENBERG LIBRARY 130 7TH AVE. 209 W. 23RD ST. COMMUNITY BOOK STORE BRONX SYRIAIraq Afghanistan GRISTEDES 143 7TH AVE. END THE U.S. BOMBING CAMPAIGN that, because of civilian victims (so- 307 W. 26TH ST. MOTT HAVEN LIBRARY called “collateral damage”),actually recruits for the terrorists instead of defeating ROOTS CAFÉ 321 E. 140TH ST. them—exactly the opposite of its stated goal! TACO BANDITO 639 5TH AVE. 325 8TH AVE. BROOK PARK REMOVE U.S. BOOTS ON THE GROUND — inserting US forces into Syria’s PACIFIC STREET LIBRARY E 140TH ST. @ BROOK complex civil war is a dangerous escalation of the war that threatens a much COLUMBUS LIBRARY 25 FOURTH AVE. wider conflict. 942 TENTH AVE. HUNT’S POINT LIBRARY BROOKLYN WORKS@159 877 SOUTHERN BLVD. STOP ARMS SHIPMENTS AND FINANCING OF ISIS BY OUR OWN ALLIES! VENEZUELAN CONSULATE 159 20TH ST. — America’s allies, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar allow wealthy donors 7 E. 51ST ST. THE POINT SUNSET PARK LIBRARY 940 GARRISON AVE. inside their borders to funnel huge sums of money and arms to ISIS and other MANHATTAN 4TH AVE. @ 51ST ST. terrorist groups. ISIS also raises millions of dollars by selling oil drilled on its NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORK HIGH BRIDGE LIBRARY captured lands on the black market in Turkey, which refuses to stop the sales. 537 W. 59TH ST. CONNECTICUT MUFFIN 78 W. 168TH ST. The U.S. must insist its allies end this support for ISIS. 429 MYRTLE AVE. SHAKESPEARE BOOKS LATINO PASTORAL ACTION SAY NO TO A “NO FLY ZONE” — Such a zone would require substantial U.S. 969 LEXINGTON AVE. DEKALB LIBRARY CENTER ground troops and cost $1 billion a month, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 790 BUSHWICK AVE. 14 W. 170TH ST. YORKVILLE BRANCH SUPPORT NEGOTIATIONS — Strongly support talks among the U.S., Russia, LIBRARY MAYDAY SPACE NEW SETTLEMENT Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Assad government and other interested parties. Negotiate 222 E 79TH ST. 176 ST. NICHOLAS AVE. COMMUNITY CENTER without preconditions. The horrible Syrian civil war can only be solved by political 1501 JEROME AVE. negotiations, not military force. ST. AGNES LIBRARY WYCKOFF STARR COFFEE 444 AMSTERDAM AVE. SHOP DAVIDSON AVE. AID SYRIAN REFUGEES — Significantly increase the number of Syrian 30 WYCKOFF AVE. COMMUNITY CENTER refugees allowed to enter our country and fully fund UN programs that aid the 96TH ST. LIBRARY 2038 DAVIDSON AVE. millions of Syrian refugees. During the past 4 years, the U.S. has admitted only

112 E. 96TH ST. BUSHWICK LIBRARY 2015 November 340 BUSHWICK AVE. @ BRONX WORKS 1,500 refugees compared to Germany’s agreement to accept 800,000. SIEGAL 1477 TOWNSEND AVE. ABOVE SWALLOW CAFÉ WANT TO HELP SIGN THE PETITION! bit.ly/petition-syria 96TH ST. 49 BOGART ST. DISTRIBUTE THE INDY? Then call Congress at 877-762-8762 Tell them we don’t need CALL 212-904-1282 OR another endless war! EAST HARLEM CAFE LITTLE SKIPS

and the White House at 202-456-1111 IndypendenT The 104TH ST & LEXINGTON AVE. 941 WILLOUGHBY AVE. EMAIL CONTACT@ INDYPENDENT.ORG. SAVOY BAKERY METRO COMMUNITY brooklynforpeace Celebrating 30 years 170 E. 110TH ST. LAUNDROMAT 561 METROPOLITAN AVE. brooklyn4peace Founded 1984 Brooklyn For Peace MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS brooklynpeace.org | 718-624-5921 LIBRARY WILLIAMSBURG LIBRARY brooklynforpeace BROADWAY AND 114TH ST. 240 DIVISION AVE. 8 ECONOMICS

nO LOnGeR A dIRTy WORd

By Michael Steven Smith Our most renowned moral fi gure and democratic socialist Mar-

tin Luther King Jr. noted in a posthumously published essay GARY MARTIN he word socialism is in the air these days. It gets the titled “A Testament of Hope” that “the real issue to be faced” is most hits on the Merriam Webster Dictionary web- “the radical reconstruction of society itself.” site. Bernie Sanders, even though he is running for Racism is impossible to eliminate under capitalism because it the Democratic Party nomination, calls himself a is used by the system to divide and conquer. Race gives class socialist. Over in England, socialist Jeremy Corbyn its intensity. Young activists for Black Lives Matter, immigrant wasT recently elected the head of the British Labor Party. rights, prison abolition, a living wage and climate justice are Corbyn’s election was a consequence of a social movement that opening people’s eyes to state violence and the profound impact saw thousands of young people join his organization. Likewise, of racism in our country. in the United States, an estimated 200,000 people have volun- For far too long, socialism has been branded a system of state teered to work for Sanders. The success of Sanders and Corbyn is control. As such, it has not been able to gain a foothold. refl ective of the beginnings of broad anti-capitalist social move- In our book historian Paul LeBlanc argues persuasively for a ments here and abroad, especially in Greece and Spain. Why? third American Revolution mounted by “a broad left-wing coali- Six people in the Walton family (of Walmart) are worth as tion” that could spark a mass socialist movement. Socialism, he much as the bottom 40 percent of the U.S. population, while writes, “involves people taking control of their own lives, shap- only some 400 families donate most of the money spent in elec- ing their own futures, together controlling resources that make tion campaigns. It has led Jimmy Carter to refl ect, at age 90, that such freedom possible. ... Socialism will come to nothing if it is “We’ve become an oligarchy instead of a democracy.” Since the not a movement of the great majority in the interests of the great 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, cor- majority. ... People become truly free through their own efforts.” porations are considered people with respect to the amount of Socialists have quite a record as participants and leaders in bluestockings money they can donate in an election. I will consider a corpora- the great reforms of our society. This includes defending civil radical bookstore | activist center | fair trade cafe 172 ALLEN ST • 212-777-6028 tion a person the day it gets a colonoscopy. liberties and starting the American Civil Liberties Union; strug- bluestockings.com Millions listened with sympathy to what Pope Francis said in gling to end racism, by helping to start the National Associa- his speech to Congress on inequality, poverty, nuclear disarma- tion for the Advancement of Colored People, participating in the ment and the global arms trade. His encyclical on climate change anti-slavery movement before and during the Civil War and now, clearly takes on the capitalist economic system. People under- supporting Black Lives Matter; fi ghting for women’s rights, in- stand that it works for the 1% but has been a disaster for the rest cluding the vote and reproductive justice; and championing pub- of us. In a Pew poll three years ago, 49 percent of young people lic education and the end of child labor. Socialists helped form under the age of 30 responded that they had a favorable reaction the Congress of Industrial Organizations and win the eight-hour TUE NOV 18 • 7PM • $5 SUGGESTED to the word socialism. workday, the weekend, Social Security, worker’s compensation BOOK TALK: CONFESSIONAL WRITING I recently co-edited a book of 31 original essays called Imag- and unemployment insurance. They were leaders in the opposi- WHILE TRANS: AN EVENING WITH ine: Living In a Socialist USA. Before he agreed to publish it, tion to nuclear arms and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. They are JULIET JACQUES, AUTHOR OF TRANS: the executive at HarperCollins asked me what my defi nition of for LGBT rights, immigrant rights, prisoners’ rights and univer- A MEMOIR. Juliet Jacques’s memoir socialism was. I responded, “It is economic as well as political sal health care. And on the question of all questions, they side Trans, just out this autumn from Verso, democracy.” He smiled and offered a contract. with Pope Francis in understanding that without the abolition of tells of her life to the present moment: Our book shows how almost everything would be different in the capitalist economic system of production the destruction of a story of growing up, of defi ning socialist America: housing, medicine, food, education, sexuality, the planet is insured. yourself and of the rapidly changing welfare, art, women’s rights, law, media, immigration, racism As socialist John Lennon sang: “You may say I’m a dreamer / world of gender politics. and ecological preservation. This is so because, as Albert Ein- But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you’ll join us / And the stein wrote, socialism is humanity’s attempt “to overcome and world will live as one.” SUN NOV 22 • 7PM • $5 SUGGESTED advance beyond the predatory phase of human development.” ZINE LAUNCH: HOAX ZINE #11: Michael Steven Smith FEMINISMS AND STRATEGY KARAOKE is a New York City RELEASE PARTY. Hoax is a bi-annual which mobilized more than 600 volunteers, was boosted attorney, author queer feminist compilation zine that SEATTLE VOTES by her success in pressuring other city councilmembers and editor. He is the aims to create a space to share our to adopt the $15 minimum wage, making Seattle the fi rst co-host of the radio own truths. This event will celebrate SOCIALIST, major city to adopt such a measure. Los Angeles and San program Law and six and a half years of collaboration Francisco have since followed suit. Disorder, which airs and the release of our eleventh issue AGAIN on WBAI-99.5 FM on the theme of feminist strategy. Sawant ran on an ambitious working-class agenda To chants of “Four more years!” from her supporters, again this year: a rent control law to reign in Seattle’s soar- Mondays 9–10am. THU NOV 19 • 7PM • $5 SUGGESTED Seattle’s socialist city councilmember Kshama Sawant ing housing costs, a millionaire’s tax to pay for improve- STRATEGY: DISCUSSING ARTISTS’ (right) was re-elected to a second term on November 3. ments to the city’s mass transit system and municipal RESPONSES TO GENTRIFICATION. Sawant received 54 percent of the vote to 46 percent for broadband as an alternative to the high-priced services With Caroline Woolard of the NYC Seattle Urban League President and CEO Pamela Banks, provided by near-monopoly providers. Real Estate Investment Cooperative who ran as a close ally of the business community. “We’re fed up of living in a society that continually re- and Erick Lyle of Streetopia and Scam “There has never, ever been a better time to become wards the people at the very top,” Sawant told The Guard- November 2015 Magazine. a socialist,” Sawant said. “We have shown how working ian, “while the rest of us languish in various states of pov- people can stand up to the billionaire class and its estab- erty in the richest country in the history of humanity.” lishment.” Sawant won an upset victory in 2013 after vowing to — INDYPENDENT STAFF bring a $15 minimum wage to Seattle. Her re-election bid, The IndypendenT SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL/FLICKR 9 November 2015 November The Indypenden The T 10 11 EUROPE

FLEEINGSEEKING WAR, SYRIAN REFUGEES REFUGE TREK ACROSS A WARY CONTINENT

By Shawn Carrié it are as varied as their personalities. Some speak with vociferous detail about their journeys by boat, over mountains or under razor-wire fences. Others LESBOS, Greece — At dawn, the well-metered rhythm of the boats’ arrival are more cautious. One young man, for example, seemed eager to talk about brings a teeming chaos to the lustrous, white sand beaches of Lesbos’s north- his past, but when I pulled out my recorder, his eyes darted away. “Please, no, ern coast, only seven miles from Turkey. One after another, teetering rafts this is just for you. Bashar hears everything,” he said, nervously invoking the himself a refugee, collects the Greek registration papers and assigns a Satisfi ed she’s bought herself more time, she brushes off the call and re- ease onto land and hundreds of people disembark, bending down to kiss the name of the Syrian ruler, Bashar al-Assad. group number. When it’s called, 50 people at a time are led through a sumes drafting a trilingual Facebook post calling for donations.

ground in gratitude for their safe arrival. They stretch their legs, check their Sawar, a 19-year-old from Damascus, had a bubbly demeanor among her gate to a road. The group leader hands the stack of papers to an offi cer, “This is where I belong. These are my people. I feel the same as a ALL PHOTOS SHAWN CARRIÉ belongings, then quickly bustle away on foot. Where, they do not know — travel companions. They could easily have been taken for a group of college who quickly fl ips through the wrinkled documents. Then he waves his refugee,” Hadzic says, without irony. When she was a child, her parents they just do what everyone else is doing: walk. kids on a spring break road trip. But she refused to talk about Syria. “All you hand, and the group walks. brought her from Bosnia to Croatia to escape the Serbian army’s bom- On the other side of the island, the magnitude of what is happening is need to know is that I have memories that are inerasable.” Her friends took bardment of Sarajevo. evident. The summer before last, Lesbos was one of the higher-end vacation special care of her and seemed like the only family she had left. It could’ve I get the sense from those who feel called to help that they, too, are resorts of the Greek islands. Now, it is the port of Europe: 4,000 people well been the truth. SEPARATED seeking something to connect with. “Why do we even call them ‘refu- camp in the shipyard, biding time and waiting to move forward. Tents line As for Mahmoud, his only thought is of his family. His desertion has put gees’? These people are running away from hell. It’s no different from the shore and spill over onto the streets in front of hotels, cafés and boutiques. his mother and father in danger. Their only option is to fl ee, but legal routes Twenty minutes later, Mahmoud and I arrive at a train station patrolled what anyone else would do,” Hadzic refl ects as we’re driving through the Between 2,000 and 6,000 refugees arrive on this island in boats every day. are impossible and they have no money to pay a smuggler to take them across by Macedonian soldiers. “Two lines! Syrian, there! Other, there!” eastern Croatian countryside. “They are searching for safety. They are According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UN- the border. The urgency he feels is palpable, as if time is running out. “Work! Bleary-eyed and sweating as we shuffl e toward the train, we see that the us and we are them. Everybody is searching for something.” HCR), over 218,000 people crossed the Mediterranean to seek asylum in I want to work! Only work! I’ll do any job,” he would say. last wagon appears to be nearly full. The crowd grows agitated. Arriving in Germany or Belgium or Sweden only marks the beginning Europe in October 2015 — the highest monthly total ever recorded. I offered to buy his ferry ticket so that we could continue traveling together, “Documents, please.” I show my U.S. passport. Bad move. The soldier of a new chapter. Asylum applications, language classes and cultural in- For the asylum seekers, Mytilini, the capital of Lesbos, is the fi rst step in a but Mahmoud fl atly refused to take a hand-out. Instead, I went to the market informs me that this train is for refugees only — as an American, I can- tegration will be discussed and debated by politicians and the media for long journey. Its port is a crowded 24-hour bazaar, part encampment, part and bought a camping gas burner, a copper pot, coffee, tea, sugar and cups. not board it. There is no time to negotiate. I tell Mahmoud, thoroughly the next 20 years. maze of lines. There are lines to buy tickets, lines for the camp doctor, lines In three days, Mahmoud earned almost 150 euros preparing smalls cups confused, not to worry, that I’ll meet him on the other side of Macedonia What we are seeing is an entirely new generation of immigrants. This for a tiny hose that serves as the only source of water, lines to be checked and of coffee and tea in the camp. He bought his ticket for the ferry to Athens and in Kosovo. But when I arrive there, I can’t fi nd him. Disheartened, I have year alone has brought over 750,000 asylees to Europe, mostly from board the departing ferry. It takes at least three days to get a ticket to leave pressed 18 euros into my pocket as repayment for his startup capital. Before little choice but to continue. Syria and Afghanistan. Many of them will someday gain citizenship. the island, and each costs 60 euros ($65). Everyone has to pay. departing Lesbos, he insisted we take a photo together in front of the ferry, Further along, in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, the central bus and Their children will grow up speaking another language, forming friend- but only after he’d bought a fresh change of clothes. rail station is patrolled by submachine gun-wielding police offi cers. They ships and making ties to their new home. Some will return to their home- Burdened by horrifi c memories, some travelers still fi nd moments of hap- shoo away any disheveled or tired-looking groups of people sitting on lands, as many say they would like to, whenever the wars end. But hope ‘CAN WE GO TOGETHER?’ piness and levity during their journey. A group of children swims playfully the ground with blankets and suitcases — usually refugees, but occa- is scarce that it will be soon. in a calm inlet of the beach, unperturbed by the sea that had almost swal- sionally, a homeless Serbian. I heard from one of the Syrian contacts Mahmoud saved in my phone It was here that I met Mahmoud. He was sitting on the rocks along the shore- lowed them up just days earlier. Watching them, a bystander explains to me: Abdul Ramadan, an Egyptian Serb, mans an information kiosk in a that he had made it to Germany and was staying in the northern port line, staring out at the sea. He had arrived in Lesbos earlier that day with no “Do you see why these people do what they do? They swim because it’s like tent-fi lled city park in Belgrade where refugees congregate and camp as city of Hamburg. I fi nd him in an old tennis gymnasium converted into money, no passport, no shoes and no family. The fl imsy vessel that carried therapy — they’re no longer swimming for their lives.” they await buses to Croatia. He spends his days rushing about, trying to a reception center for asylum seekers. him from Turkey had capsized, throwing everything to the waves. He swam provide reliable advice on navigating the labyrinth of semi-underground Mahmoud is thrilled to see me, beaming as he tells me about the new in the darkness for “maybe minutes, maybe hours. I don’t know,” Mahmoud transportation and talking down prices with bus drivers looking to prof- friends he’s made among the families who he shares the communal space said. “I felt I was going insane. Thank God, I reached the rocks and climbed LANDING ON EUROPE’S DOORSTEP it off the surplus of confused customers. “A lot of these drivers are trying with, and even a few Germans. He’s grateful to fi nally stay in one place to land.” to cheat the people,” Abdul explained to me. “So I have to work with and have a bed to sleep in at night. “God is great, I have a pillow to lay All his possessions were gone, save for his Syrian ID card and a picture of The current crisis that has suddenly garnered worldwide attention is by no them to make sure people get the right information and pay the agreed my head on!” his brother that he had safeguarded in plastic wrap. Of the 40 or so people means a new phenomenon. The war in Syria has steadily devolved over the price to get to the border.” Another Syrian who settled in Hamburg two years ago has taken who got in the boat with him, he saw only four others when he arrived on the course of over four years, killing a quarter-million people and displacing half At the Croatian border town of Bapska, there is little more than a dirt Mahmoud under his wing and is showing him the ropes of German life. beach in the middle of the night. of the country’s population of 23 million. Instability in Afghanistan and path lined with 30-foot-wide tents and surrounded by cornfi elds on both He gave Mahmoud an iPhone, which he uses to send photos to family Mahmoud asked, shyly, if he could follow me: “Nizhab anuyak?” — “Can Iraq has been producing refugees since the U.S. invasions of 2001 and 2003. sides. It is said to be littered with mines left over from the Serbo-Croa- and friends in Syria, posing proudly, to show them that he is comfort- we go together? Me and you?” Here I was, a reporter just getting my bearings What’s changed is that the repercussions have now landed on Europe’s door- tian War of the 1990s. The usual NGOs are present, but it’s clear that a able in his new home. He doesn’t want them to worry, but though he has in the fl ow of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghani- step and become visible to the Western world. LONG, HARD JOURNEY: Refugees board a Slovenia-bound train in different group is in charge here. A self-organized network of volunteers reached his destination, Mahmoud is still preoccupied with his family. It stan and elsewhere making their way north from the Greek islands to the For years, asylum seekers traveled clandestinely, procuring the services of Tovarnik, Croatia. called the “Czech Team” manages the operation with meticulous preci- will be at least six months until he gets a permit to work legally, and he promise of a better life in Germany. And he was asking me for directions. smugglers who would arrange their travel through illegal means. Sheer num- sion. In one tent, two women with headlamps sort clothes by gender and is anxious that the clock is ticking. His innocent smile won me over, only faintly hinting at the ordeal he had bers have now brought the business out into the open: border crossings now shoes by size; next door, a man sporting a mohawk, latex gloves and a “Work! Work! I need to fi nd work,” Mahmoud repeats. “I am not endured. I knew we would become fast friends. process the registrations of hundreds or even thousands of people per day as ON THE MOVE: Mahmoud walking through a fi eld across the border at surgeon’s mask is diligently focused on an assembly line of peanut butter important, all I want is my family safe.” For Mahmoud, the war had seemed distant from the backcountry village buses line up to shuttle them between checkpoints. Gevgelija, Macedonia. He fl ed Syria after being drafted into the army and sandwiches. Above a detailed cardboard mosaic of schedules and task In a few weeks, he will be transferred to more permanent group hous- outside Hama where he grew up. The younger of two sons, he had stayed at After a 12-hour ferry ride from Lesbos, Athens is a bazaar of options and then survived a harrowing journey across the Aegean Sea. lists are spray-painted stencils declaring the group’s credo: “NO ONE IS ing in another town in rural Germany. He will start taking classes in home to work the land and take care of his aging parents, and never learned paths onward. Clusters of people huddle around maps in Omonia Square, ILLEGAL — FIGHT FORTRESS EUROPE.” German language and culture, and begin the long process of integrating

to properly read or write in Arabic. His life was relatively undisturbed, until parsing rumors and the latest information as they charge their cell phones Coming from all over Europe, many of the volunteers have left their into a very foreign reality. Until then, he doesn’t know what to do, other 2015 November everything unraveled. in the crowded cafés. An uninterrupted trip from Athens to Berlin would CATCHING HER BREATH: A woman and her children await registra- jobs or studies to devote their time here. Eschewing bureaucracy, they than what everyone else is doing: wait. This summer he turned 22 and was summoned to serve in the Syrian army. normally take no more than one full day by car or train. But for refugees, tion documents from the Greek authorities at a camp in Lesbos. have no funding or titles and make decisions by consensus. They are “When you are called, there is no chance to say no,” Mahmoud told me. who must navigate a completely alternate path, it takes at least a week in known throughout the Balkans as the most effective aid group in the Military service is compulsory for all men, save for those who are only sons. most cases. region. Just weeks after his deployment to a base in Qamishli, near the Turkish Mahmoud and I buy bus tickets from a shifty Greek man who leads us to TEA, ANYONE? Mahmoud sells NO BORDERS: Volunteers of the November 2015 INDYPENDENT THE border, Mahmoud received a call from his mother: His older brother had a remote neighborhood of the city. Buses are loading up to the brim with pas- coffee and tea in Lesbos, Greece, to “Czech Team” at the Serbo-Croa- been one of 10 young men beheaded by extremists in the public square. sengers and departing at night. We reach the town of Idomeni at the Greek- earn money for his ferry passage to tian border work through the night, ‘WHY DO WE EVEN CALL THEM “REFUGEES”?’ The army gave him leave to attend the funeral. That night, Mahmoud said Macedonian border just as the sun is coming up, and fi le as a group into one the Greek mainland. after staff of other NGOs return to he couldn’t even look at the uniform he’d been given. “I didn’t want to fi ght. of several long tents. Each one holds hundreds of people waiting for their their hotels. I manage to hitch a ride with a group of volunteers making a supply de- I don’t want to die,” Mahmoud said. He took his brother’s passport and group to be called. livery. Nerissa Hadzic, a reporter for a Croatian radio station, is on the crossed the border to Turkey. In and of themselves, borders are invisible. What we see are only fences phone placating an editor who seems upset that she hasn’t turned in any

THE INDYPENDENT People’s stories, their reasons for fl eeing and their willingness to talk about and signs. Crossing them is a surprisingly simple procedure: A group leader, material. “I’ll give you something good soon — you know, immersive.” 12 EUROPE

IMMIGRAnT VOICeS AFTeR The ARRIVAL, MORe ChALLenGeS

By Elia Gran changed the law in regards to the health care system. We real- ized then that immigrants were literally getting kicked out of or refugees arriving in Europe, surviving their the system. journey from war-torn regions of the Middle East I am originally from Peru. My boyfriend is Palestinian and and Africa is only the fi rst step. What follows, The Jordanian and he fl ed Jordan two years ago. We realized that Indypendent learned from speaking with refugees he was potentially eligible for political asylum, so he started and their allies, is a long and diffi cult experience working with the CEAR (Spanish Refugee Aid Commission). inF which the strongest support often comes from networks of Now he is living in an anarchist house in Vienna. House- other refugees. mates drive to Croatia to help bring refugees from Syria, Er- itrea, Iraq and other places to the house. When I was there, a group of refugees had just arrived. They were really scared KHALED: A Mechanic Reassembles His Life because they didn’t speak any English. The fi rst contact they had was with our Austrian friends and they thought they were I’ve lived in Spain for a year and a half now. I am 24 years old. policemen. I’m originally from Damascus, Syria, where I worked as a me- On one occasion there was a young Syrian boy in the hospi- chanic. I left when the revolution in Syria began in 2011 and tal in Vienna who was dying from cancer. Nobody spoke Ara- the government started recruiting young boys to turn them bic and so he couldn’t speak to anyone. He was trying to get into soldiers, to kill people. My uncle, who has been living in into Germany because he had some family there, but no fam- Spain for fi ve years, took me in. I came by plane. First to Beirut ily members could come see him. My boyfriend, who spoke and then to Madrid. I was in Lebanon for three months wait- Arabic, stayed with him until he died. He was with him for ing for my papers; that’s where I encountered racism. I would 10 days, talking to him and making sure that a ceremony was talk to people and when I told them I was from Syria some carried out for his death. To repatriate the body, the Palestin- would say, “That’s disgusting.” ian community pitched in to cover the total expenses, which My parents stayed in Syria. My little brother, who is 20 were 8,000 euros. years old, went to Germany; he also fl ed so he wouldn’t be In the anarchist community in Vienna there is a lot of soli- recruited by the Syrian army. His journey to Germany started darity that has been going on for many years. The economic overseas. First he got to Turkey, then took a boat to Greece situation is better than in other European countries. People and then traveled to the other countries. It took him almost can receive refugees in their house because they have more a month to get to Germany. Before, a lot of people came to space to organize this type of situation. Many times what the Europe by plane, but now it’s not as easy. refugees need is not so much food or clothes but being able He went to a refugee camp in Germany with an NGO and to be with other people who are in their same situation, help SEEKING A HOME there they helped him with his paperwork. I was in contact fi nding a lawyer that will work pro bono or help fi nding a bus with him while he traveled. My sister remains in Syria and she station in case they want to go elsewhere. The refugee-migrant Daniela does solidarity work wants to come to Europe with her husband. I think that taking network is huge. Usually, the refugees are the fi rst ones to aid with other European immi- the boat is one of the only solutions for getting out of Syria. other refugees. grants. My mother won’t leave Syria. “I have been here for so many Now in Vienna there are a lot of refugees arriving to a train years, what am I going to do out of here?” she says. But life in station that is two blocks from the house where my boyfriend Syria is very dangerous. There are soldiers and tanks on the is living. Sometimes he is scared to go in there because there Khaled worked as a mechanic street and you can’t leave your house, you can’t do anything. may be military or police offi cers. If he had a Syrian passport, in Damascus, Syria. What scares me the most is that my family is still in Syria and the story would be different, because Syrians, Eritreans and that every ten minutes things can change. Iraqis are not being deported at the moment. In Spain it’s harder for the refugees than in Germany. I’m At the beginning when “they” start to create your identity going to stay in Spain because my papers are here and the as an immigrant or refugee you reject it and say, “No, I’m a language is easy, but there is almost no economic assistance. human being.” After, there is a moment when you embrace People are nice but life is hard due to Spain’s economic crisis. your identity as an immigrant and say, “Screw you. Yes, I’m In Germany the government helps you get a house. My brother an immigrant and I’m here and I have every right to live here.” is currently living in a fl at and every month he gets about 400 Once you are conscious of how the system works you become euros. politicized and empowered. You understand. This gives you For a while I was working in a company that made potato a tool to not go crazy, because psychologically, applying for chips. It was a very hard job. Sometimes we worked at night a nationality destroys you, just by the way you’re questioned. and other times during the day. With that job I couldn’t rest, I Initially when the European Union established the frame- couldn’t do anything. What I really want to do is continue my work that people weren’t migrants but refugees, I thought this studies as a mechanic. I really like that job. distinction was okay. It was awful to hear how later citizens When I fi rst got to Madrid I turned to the Asociación de were repeating, “No, these are migrants, and those are refu- Apoyo al Pueblo Sirio (Syrian People Support Association). gees. These are the ones we don’t help.” A month later you They have helped me a lot with my papers and other issues. could hear: “If we don’t deport illegal immigrants, we can’t There are a lot of people in Madrid who don’t understand or receive these refugees of different nationalities.” So it turned know about the problem in Syria. out to be the perfect game they needed to make a big scandal Now I help with the refugees who arrive from Syria, which in the media. They needed people to become immersed in the are quite a few. I write down their name, number, where they refugee situation and identify refugees as Syrians and reinforce came from and who they are traveling with. A lot of people the deportation system. come alone and most of them continue to travel to other coun- tries. I think that the war in Syria will last more than 10 years. I want to go back but I don’t know when I will be able to. November 2015

DANIELA: ‘You Become Politicized and Empowered’

I am part of the organization called El Espacio del Inmigran- te. It opened three years ago when the Spanish government The IndypendenT 13 COMMENTARY

WAR, ReFUGeeS & ReGIMe ChAnGe

By Robert Parry with Obama on Syria’s surrender of its chemical Stepping back for a moment and assessing the weapons and who further annoyed the neocons full impact of neoconservative policies, you might

he refugee chaos that is now push- by helping to get the Iranians to negotiate serious- be amazed at how widely they have spread chaos KIM HERBST ing deep into Europe — dramatized ly on constraining their nuclear program. Despite across a large swath of the globe. Who would by gut-wrenching photos of Syrian the “regime change” disasters in Iraq and Libya, have thought that the neocons would have suc- toddler Aylan Kurdi, whose body the neocons wanted to wave the “regime change” ceeded in destabilizing not only the Mideast but washed up on a beach in Turkey — wand again over Syria and Iran. Europe as well? Tstarted with the cavalier ambitions of American Putin got his comeuppance when U.S. neocons, And, as Europe struggles, the export markets of neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist including National Endowment for Democracy China are squeezed, spreading economic instabil- sidekicks who planned to remake the Middle East President Carl Gershman and Assistant Secretary ity to that crucial economy and, with its market and other parts of the world through “regime of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland shocks, the reverberations are rumbling back to change.” helped orchestrate a “regime change” in Ukraine the United States too. Instead of the promised wonders of “democracy on February 22, 2014, overthrowing elected Pres- We now see the human tragedies of neocon/ promotion” and “human rights,” what these “an- ident Viktor Yanukovych and putting in a fi ercely liberal-hawk ideologies captured in the suffering ti-realists” have accomplished is to spread death, anti-Russian regime on Russia’s border. of the Syrians and other refugees fl ooding Europe destruction and destabilization across the Middle As thrilled as the neocons were with their “vic- and the death of children drowning as their des- East and parts of Africa and now into Ukraine tory” in Kiev and their success in demonizing Pu- perate families fl ee the chaos created by “regime and the heart of Europe. Yet, since these neocon tin in the mainstream U.S. news media, Ukraine change.” But will the neocon/liberal-hawk grip on forces still control the offi cial narrative, their followed the now-predictable post-regime-change Washington fi nally be broken? Will a debate even explanations get top billing —such as that there descent into a vicious civil war. Western Ukrai- be allowed about the dangers of “regime change” hasn’t been enough “regime change.” nians waged a brutal “anti-terrorist operation” prescriptions in the future? For instance, the Washington Post’s neocon against ethnic Russians in the east who resisted Not if the likes of the Washington Post’s Fred editorial page editor Fred Hiatt has blamed “real- the U.S.-backed coup. Hiatt have anything to say about it. The truth is ists” for the cascading catastrophes. Hiatt casti- Thousands of Ukrainians died and millions that Hiatt and other neocons retain their domi- gated them and President Barack Obama for not were displaced as Ukraine’s national economy tee- nance of the mainstream U.S. news media, so all intervening more aggressively in Syria to depose tered toward collapse. Yet the neocons and their that one can expect from the various mainstream President Bashar al-Assad, a longtime neocon tar- liberal-hawk friends again showed their propa- outlets is more neocon propaganda, blaming the get for “regime change.” ganda skills by pinning the blame for everything chaos not on their policy of “regime change” but But the truth is that this accelerating spread of on “Russian aggression” and Putin. on the failure to undertake even more “regime human suffering can be traced back directly to Though Obama was apparently caught off- change.” the unchecked infl uence of the neocons and their guard by the Ukrainian “regime change,” he soon The one hope is that many Americans will not liberal fellow-travelers who have resisted political joined in denouncing Putin and Russia. The Eu- be fooled this time and that a belated “realism” compromise and, in the case of Syria, blocked any ropean Union also got behind U.S.-demanded will fi nally return to U.S. geopolitical strategies realistic efforts to work out a power-sharing sanctions against Russia despite the harm those that will look for obtainable compromises to re- agreement between Assad and his political oppo- sanctions also infl icted on Europe’s already shaky store some political order to places such as Syria, nents, those who are not terrorists. economy. Europe’s stability is now under addi- Libya and Ukraine. Rather than more and more Any suggestion that the only realistic option in tional strain because of the fl ows of refugees from tough-guy/gal confrontations, maybe there will Syria is a power-sharing compromise that would the war zones of the Middle East. fi nally be some serious efforts at reconciliation. include Assad — who is viewed as the protector But the other reality is that the interventionist of Syria’s Christian, Shiite and Alawite minorities forces have rooted themselves deeply in offi cial — is rejected out of hand with the slogan, “Assad A DOZEN YEARS OF CHAOS Washington, inside NATO, within the main- must go!” stream news media and even in European institu- The neocons have created a conventional wis- So, we can now look at the consequences and tions. It will not be easy to rid the world of the dom that holds the Syrian crisis would have been costs of the past dozen years under the spell of grave dangers created by neocon policies. prevented if only Obama had followed the neo- neocon/liberal-hawk “regime change” strategies. cons’ 2011 prescription of another U.S. interven- According to many estimates, the death toll in This article was excerpted from a longer one that 2015 November tion to force another “regime change.” Yet, the Iraq, Syria and Libya has exceeded one million, originally appeared at consortiumnews.com. far more likely outcome would have been either with several million more refugees fl ooding into another indefi nite and bloody U.S. military occu- — and stretching the resources of — fragile Mid- pation or the black fl ag of Islamic terrorism fl ying east countries. over Damascus. Hundreds of thousands other refugees and mi- grants have fl ed to Europe, putting major strains IndypendenT The on the continent’s social structures, which were GET PUTIN already stressed by the severe recession that fol- lowed the 2008 Wall Street crash. Even without Another villain who emerged from the 2013 fail- the refugee crisis, Greece and other southern ure to bomb Syria was Russian President Vladimir European countries would be struggling to meet Putin, who infuriated the neocons by his work their citizens’ needs. 14 LATIN AMERICA

VeneZUeLA AT An IMpASSe SOCIAL MOVeMenTS TRy TO FILL The VOId CReATed By A FALTeRInG GOVeRnMenT

By Z.C. Dutka undermining both the program’s intent and the national currency. But are the government’s hands tied? Victor Alvarez, an economist SANTA ELENA DE UAIREN, Venezuela — It used to be that to and former minister under Chávez, estimated in May that “70 percent learn about Venezuela’s socialist revolution, the reporting of promi- [of scarcity and speculation] is due to depletions, deviations and errors nent U.S. newspapers would be about as useful as a solitary photo in economic policy, while 30 percent is caused by opposing sectors negative; reduced to light and dark, good and evil, the colors would who play at destabilization.” appear reversed, and the chronology of struggle quietly absent. According to Alvarez, currency controls were set in place as a “tem- But while the undertones of doom have been present for over a de- porary measure” to reduce dollar dependency, but the government cade, this year’s 159 percent infl ation rate, according to the Interna- had no “justifi able reason” to maintain them beyond 2006. tional Monetary Fund, and a 10 percent decline in the nation’s gross Today, the U.S.-based currency-tracking website DolarToday holds domestic product have raised serious questions about the impact of the bolívar in a vise. Its publishers can set off rounds of infl ation just the economic crisis on ordinary Venezuelans and in turn on the gov- by raising the price of the black market dollar on a whim, claiming ernment’s ability to maintain popular support. all the while that their calculations refl ect the “objective street rate.” It’s true, the economy is shot. In the past year, oil prices tumbled Earlier this year, in an attempt to undercut the black market, the from $105 per barrel to under $50, cutting the country’s foreign earn- government launched Simadi, a free-fl oating rate starting at 172 ings by half. A battered exchange system and booming illegal mar- bolívars to the dollar. At the time the black market rate was 185. ket has seen the Venezuelan bolívar devalued to the point that the In the weeks following, DolarToday drove the black market rate out monthly minimum wage was on par with a 36-pack of diapers or a of reach, effectively neutralizing Simadi. few kilos of dried beans, until President Nicolas Maduro doubled it On October 23, the Central Bank fi led a lawsuit in the United on October 15. States against DolarToday for cyberterrorism, demanding that it be Car parts are hard to fi nd and vehicles languish in backyards, and made illegal for the site to publish unoffi cial exchange rates and suing between patchy imports and the widespread hoarding and reselling of for damages. food by vendors called bachaqueros — a reference to leafcutter ants While many Venezuelans support the case against the website, left- — scarcity has made grocery lists a fool’s errand. ist critics generally accuse the government of putting more energy into Despite the best efforts of the state media apparatus — which is blaming the opposition than into fi xing the problems at hand. The in full campaign mode for the December 6 congressional elections lack of offi cial economic data has further alienated Venezuelans who — to ignore these realities, it’s impossible not to witness them on the are struggling with infl ated prices and don’t see the state corroborat- ground. ing their experience. Across the country, the streets buzz with numbers as friends and strangers compete with stories of outrageous prices: “1,800 bolívars for a kilo of lentils!” “I paid 600 bolos for the taxi home!” CONCRETE SOLUTIONS The offi cial exchange rate for the bolívar has remained at 6.3 to one U.S. dollar since February 2013, but its black market value has tum- However, in the void left by Maduro’s in- bled from 110 to the dollar in October 2014 to the current rate of 820. action, grassroots activists have turned in- ACROSS THE COUNTRY, wards and begun to seek concrete solutions. With the help of key ministries that con- THE STREETS BUZZ WITH AN INVISIBLE CATCH-22 tinue to grant money to social movements, these activists have become the motor for a NUMBERS AS FRIENDS Bachaqueo has mutated into an invincible catch-22, as many wage- renaissance of small-scale production in this earning families make ends meet with profi ts from illegal sales while oil-dependent nation. simultaneously driving the cycle of infl ation with their cutthroat In Guatire, a working-class suburb of the AND STRANGERS prices. Meanwhile, as more people get in on the business, the lines capital city of Caracas, Alejandro Baiz, a outside supermarkets with low, government-regulated prices grow young fi lmmaker, and a group of volunteers COMPETE WITH STORIES ever longer with hardly anyone buying for themselves. have received funding from the Communes Yet the telling difference between Chavista complaints and those and Housing Ministries to remake an aban- OF OUTRAGEOUS of the opposition is that the former analyze causes, starting with the doned lot into a center of social production country’s invariable dependency on oil revenue and a “fast money cul- called Territorio Caribe. PRICES. ture” fomented by the illegal market. For the latter, a tirade of insults The space now boasts greenhouses where against Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro and Mao Zedong suffi ces. local children learn about urban farming, a community news station The government favors a simplistic defense, accusing the private and an educational space that offers classes on everything from car- business sector of sabotage. The Central Bank has avoided releasing pentry to natural childbirth. any offi cial data on infl ation since last year, on the grounds that the The Communes Ministry supports Venezuelans in creating autono- country is at war. mous socialist collectives that emphasize self-suffi ciency and self-gov- Meanwhile, the media chorus against Venezuela has only gotten ernance, in accordance with Chávez’s dream of gradually replacing louder since the March 2013 death of Chávez, the country’s charis- the bourgeois state with a communal state. Thousands of these collec- matic leader, and the ascension of Maduro, his hand-picked succes- tives are registered across the country, with the more prolifi c examples sor. Wall Street seizes every opportunity to forecast default, driving focusing on permaculture and participatory democracy. up the interest on Venezuelan bonds. Leading companies have ceased “We’re not trying to change the world, only create an alternative production, either from a lack of imported dollars or as an act of de- from our immediate possibilities,” Baiz explains. liberate subversion. If bachaqueros are the foot soldiers of the economic war, Alejandro November 2015

Since the government instituted a three-tiered foreign exchange sys- and his crew of around 70 volunteers meet them on the proverbial tem in 2003, there have been phantom importers manipulating the battlefi eld. By producing homemade soaps, deodorants and sham- system, resulting in an accumulated $300 billion in capital fl ight. The poos, the people at Territorio Caribe are bringing their communities manipulations also contributed to scarcity, as many of the items being products most commonly monopolized by bachaqueros. imported on paper were never actually brought into the country. By selling arepa fl our made from yucca, plantain and taro, they Over the years, the buying and selling of subsidized U.S. dollars on are providing a local alternative to the Harina P.A.N. corn fl our pro-

The IndypendenT the illegal market became the most profi table business in the country, duced monopolistically by Empresas Polar, Venezuela’s largest private Indypendent Ad 5x7 06-23-15.pdf 1 6/23/15 1:56 PM

BROADCAST ON MORE THAN 1,300 PUBLIC TV AND RADIO STATIONS WORLDWIDE 15 A Daily Independent Global News Hour corporation. muralist whose family fl ed the military Farther from the city lights, Ga- dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in with Amy Goodman briel Garcia, 55, keeps busy organizing 1984 only to settle in Venezuela during against genetically modifi ed seeds with the neoliberal era that preceded Chávez, and Juan González help from the Communes Ministry. an opposition win would mean disaster. Born and raised on the fertile land of Harkening back to Salvador Allende’s Lara State, Gabriel is behind Venezuela’s brief socialist reign in Chile during the decade-old National Campesino Seed early 1970s, Acosta recalls the rightwing Day and the trailblazing International congressional majority that blocked ev- Seed Forum in 2012 to protect organic ery initiative proposed by Allende’s seeds native to the Americas. party. “But it’s not all talking,” promises “We have to prepare ourselves to re- Gabriel. “We put it in practice, we grow sist,” Acosta says, while clarifying that our own food out back. We keep seed resistance from here onward should banks and make sure they are available come “from within the organized to growers.” commune.” Even with the extra labor involved in Now a longtime resident of the An- organic farming, Gabriel says, all-natu- dean city of Merida, Acosta is part of ral and communally grown produce can a vibrant campaign that aims to revive be even cheaper than conventional coun- Chavista spirit around the country. terparts when the high cost of imported Conceived from a symposium of art- agrochemicals and extensive distribu- ists from Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Peru tion chains are factored in. and Colombia, the campaign fl ooded DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG Lara has more communes than any social media recently with evocative other state and a long tradition of sub- designs of anatomical hearts and veins Tune In Live Every Weekday 8-9am ET

sistence farming. That has, to some intertwining across Latin America. ACN.COM.VE extent, protected the region from food The beating heart is a reminder of • Audio, Video, Transcripts, Podcasts scarcity. With government support, the “the deep sentiment that still unites us,” local communes are currently building Acosta says. • Los titulares de Hoy (headlines in Spanish) defenses against speculation by seek- In the past few years, many Chavistas • Find your local broadcast station and schedule ing ways to distribute goods in the state have experienced a “crisis of morale,” he capital of Barquisimeto without interme- broods. It’s a collective exhaustion that • Subscribe to the Daily News Digest diaries. “comes from seeing many of the revolu- “We’ve seen more clearly than anyone tion’s achievements be abandoned and Follow Us @ DEMOCRACYNOW that the best way to combat the eco- uncared for.” nomic war is by producing, by growing, The goal is to remind people of their wherever there is free space,” Gabriel role in Venezuela’s participatory de- insists. mocracy, and to echo Chávez’s parting 35 years of celebrating music But if the revolution loses the next advice to work together toward a com- elections, he warned, free space may be munal state. of peace and resistance! harder to come by. “We can’t leave everything to the ad- “Landowners and cattle herders, these ministration, we can’t sit and wait for a people have tremendous power and are solution,” Acosta avows. looking to regain their empire,” he said, Still, as far as the economy is con- recalling the segregated and exclusive cerned, there’s little indication of when countryside that existed before Chávez’s the hard times will end. Many profes- 1999 constitutional reforms outlawed sionals and young artists have left the large rural landholdings. country in search of better opportunities, leaving devastating gaps in public ser- vices. Crime has risen across the board, November 14 UPCOMING ELECTIONS causing security forces to focus their ef- Emma’s Revolution forts on blitzes and raids against urban The international media has hailed the gangs, while the state appears unable December 6 elections for the National to curb petty crime such as bachaqueo, November 21 Assembly as a plebiscite on Maduro, but even despite strict new laws. Dani Savyon it is highly unlikely that the opposition The 2016 budget was unveiled in Oc- Dave Cadaqu will win with a majority wide enough tober with emphasis on diversifi ed trade to alter the government agenda. A two- and punctual debt payments, but with Ron Duncan thirds majority is needed to revise con- imports dropping, many economists stitutional law or petition the Supreme have questioned this approach. And ac- December 5 Court for presidential impeachment. cording to budget documents provided A three-quarters majority would be re- to Reuters, the offi cial exchange rate of Charlie King quired to remove the vice-president or 6.3 will be carried into the coming year, ministers from offi ce. making it unlikely that the illegal market December 12 A poll conducted by the Caracas- will be weakened. based fi rm Hinterlaces in July saw 67 Venezuela’s social movements have a Lydia Adams Davis percent of Venezuelans agree that the history of confronting adversity, but 17 Ubaka Hill opposition garners votes “because of the years into the Bolivarian Revolution, the discontent in the country, but does not epoch of high-minded ideas bolstered by 2015 November have popular backing.” abundant resources is long gone. Saturdays at 8 p.m. Aside from a pervasive anti-Chavis- The difference will be made in Vene- Community Church of New York Unitarian-Universalist ta sentiment, the opposition coalition zuela by those who see opportunity in its 40 E. 35th St. (Madison/Park) MUD (Democratic Unity Roundtable) absence, not the opportunity to profi teer New York, NY 10016 is composed of a wide range of parties and drive the economy further down- The IndypendenT The from reactionary to liberal reformist, ward, but the possibility of regeneration. doors open 7:30; wheelchair accessible with no clear leader nor ideological goals 212-787-3903 to bring them together. Z.C. Dutka has lived in Venezuela since www.peoplesvoicecafe.org Currently, a pro-government coalition 2008 and writes for venezuelanlysis. holds just under two-thirds of the 165 com. Suggested Donation: $18, $10 PVC subscribers congressional seats. More if you choose; less if you can’t; no one turned away For Rodrigo Acosta, a Chilean 16 Twenty scholars of Africa MOVIES and its diaspora reflect on the similarities and differences between apartheid-era South Africa and contemporary Israel SCORChInG Contributors: CApITALISM Teresa Barnes hundreds of miles away in- Andy Clarno stead of locally. This is what This Changes Everything “environmentalism of the Bill Freund Directed by Avi Lewis poor” looks like, Klein ar- Klein Lewis Productions, 2015 gues. Kelly Gillespie The push for develop- Ran Greenstein ing countries like India and By Renée Feltz China to build energy infra- Heidi Grunebaum structure as they grow is of- Shireen Hassim s a rule, documentaries ten blamed for slowing down negotiations about climate change fea- on the U.N. climate agreement that have M. Neelika Jayawardane ture exotic scenes, endan- been under way for the last 20 years and Robin D. G. Kelley gered species and Holly- are set to conclude this December at talks wood celebrities. In This in Paris. But as charts fl ash on the screen Melissa Levin ChangesA Everything, Avi Lewis joins showing the number of polluted air quali- with author Naomi Klein to change the ty days in China’s major cities, Klein notes Arianna Lissoni script and shape a global discussion on the the factories burping carbon are often Mahmood Mamdani Apartheid Israel topic. The fi lm follows Klein as she travels producing goods for Western consumers. the world to interview activists for what Like polar bears, solutions are a key Achille Mbembe The Politics of an Analogy would become her best-selling book of the part of any climate change documentary. Marissa J. Moorman same name. Among the places she visits By calling out capitalism’s role, Klein and Jon Soske and Sean Jacobs, is Greece, which is liquidating its natural Lewis have a chance to broaden the cli- Suren Pillay foreword by Achille Mbembe resources amid an economic crisis and mate justice movement and sharpen its fo- Ishtiyaq Shukri austerity measures that have fallen mostly cus. The steps are clear to the indigenous on the poor. activists they feature, who use blockades T. J. Tallie “Offering more thoughtful questions “You can see all the dimensions of the to keep tar sands oil in the ground; to the than easy answers, this collection of problem here: how the environment is Germans they follow, who reject nuclear Salim Vally essays aims to redefine our approach to treated, how the citizens are treated,” says power and create electricity cooperatives Mary Christianou of the Halkidiki Citi- sourced by renewable energy; and to the the Israeli system of militarized racial zens Committee, which is fi ghting plans economist they interview, who argues we discrimination and its relationship to by the Canadian company El Dorado to “need a different growth system.” South African apartheid.” build a massive gold mine. “You have to In her book, Klein argues the best way HaymarketBooks.org —Saree Makdisi realize what is the core problem. Then we to push forward with cuts to carbon emis- can fi ght it.” sions that contribute to climate change is Klein asks her, “What is the core prob- for both “de-growth” of the carbon-inten- lem?” sive parts of the economy and expansion “Do you want me to state it on cam- of the low-carbon parts, among which she era?” Christianou responds, sounding counts health care and education. In the both hesitant and emboldened. “I would fi lm, she talks to a Canadian tar sands say it is the economic system. Capitalism.” worker who describes how he and many Klein elegantly makes this argument in of his fellow roustabouts dream of build- her book, which I have read. But the point ing and installing wind turbines and other is so rarely made that I found the scene as renewable energy projects instead. After- refreshing as if it were my fi rst time hear- ward, she optimistically refl ects how their ing it. Perhaps now a broader audience vision melts away the false dichotomies that has yet to read her 576-page opus will of jobs versus the environment, and the feel the satisfying jolt of recognition from economy versus the planet. openly acknowledging how our global At minimum, the release of this fi lm economy is built on unsustainable and in theaters, combined with community endless growth. and educational screenings, will invigo- Another whiff of fresh air is rate those who are aware but feel hope- found in India, where the pursuit less and embolden grassroots organizers of double-digit economic growth is and foot soldiers. Will it similarly push fueled by government subsidies and land governments and the bureaucrats at the SPIRITOF.BANDCAMP.COM grants for private investors to build hun- climate talks in Paris to fi nally break with dreds of coal-burning power plants. the market fundamentalism the movie de- In some areas, residents successfully cries? That could “change everything,” it blocked the construction of the facili- argues. But it is up to us to demand it. FACEBOOK.COM/SPIRITOF75 ties, maintaining their protests despite promises of electricity and jobs. They tell For more information, see thefi lm.this- Klein they’d prefer to keep their farms changeseverything.org. and fi shing businesses rather than see a power plant destroy their land and water. They note the facilities would actually provide electricity to industrial centers

UP IN SMOKE: Burn- ing sugarcane fi eld in El Salvador. Still from This November 2015 Changes Everything. The IndypendenT KLEIN LEWIS PRODUCTIONS 17 EXHIBITION

CLOUded MeMORIeS, UnnAMed TRAUMA, COnFUSIOn &

RUpTUReS or historian presenting mysterious documents

rescued from a lost era. This framework is fi c- COURTESY MOMA Walid Raad titious, and within it the material — evidence, Museum of Modern Art so to speak — becomes unstable. Did a prepu- Through January 31 bescent boy really keep such handsome, me- ticulously compiled notebooks? What are the unnamed disturbances that added corrosive By Mike Newton color to those black-and-white negatives? Is it really true that the monochrome blue photos ndividual wars are always complex, and yet of Secrets in the Open Sea (1994) were not only war itself can, sometimes, feel like some- discovered under wartime rubble, but also contain thing simple or pure. In War Is a Force That latent images of men and women who drowned Gives Us Meaning, Chris Hedges writes of in the Mediterranean over the course of the war? how “war makes the world understandable, And, did the video known as I Only Wish That aI black-and-white tableau of them and us.” Tales I Could Weep (2002) really come from a Leba- of noble, virtuous wars are mixed into the bed- nese Army offi cer who, instead of doing his job rock of religious traditions — in the New Testa- videotaping pedestrians on a seaside boardwalk, ment, for example, Christ rides a white horse out decided to train his camera on the sun as it set, of heaven, “and in righteousness he doth judge slowly, over the ocean? and make war.” As aphorized by the sinister Judge More recently, Raad has turned his attention to Holden in novelist Cormac McCarthy’s Blood art history and the art world, specifi cally in the Meridian, “War is the truest form of divination. context of wealthy Mideast cities embracing the

... War is god.” globalized art market. Here, Raad presents docu- COURTESY MOMA But if you want to talk about something com- mentary materials such as fl oor plans, postcards plex, take a look at the Lebanese Civil War. That and fi nancial documents with a bristling current confl ict lasted for 16 years, from 1975 to 1991, of bizarreness: He tells of objects that have some- and involved a grim cornucopia of sectarian and how ceased to refl ect light or cast shadows, and of secular militias, religious groups, political parties messages sent telepathically from the future. In a and other countries fi ghting out proxy wars. For performative exhibition walkthrough that Raad is Lebanese artist Walid Raad, the war has always doing throughout the show’s run, he (or perhaps a been a subject of fascination. As a child growing lookalike actor playing Raad?) speaks of how col- up in late-1970s Beirut, Raad collected bullets and ors are forever altered by war, and tells the story of shrapnel after days of fi ghting, keeping detailed how his own artwork shrank down to dollhouse notes of where wartime detritus was found and size when he tried to exhibit it in Beirut’s fi rst what colors the bullet tips were (bullet manufac- Western-style “white cube” gallery. turers use colors to identify their products). These This tension between fact and fi ction is at the detailed notes would eventually form the basis of core of Raad’s practice. It often feels as if Raad’s Let’s be honest, the weather helped (1998-2006), art has emerged from a parallel plane: a world sim- a series of printed notebook pages in which bright- ilar to our own, but with some intractable discord ly colored dots representing the found bullets are at work. It’s a kind of estrangement that, perhaps, overlaid on gritty black-and-white photos of the refl ects the incompatibilities between civil society sites of confl ict. The end result falls somewhere and life during wartime, rendering the state of war between scientifi c reportage, grade-school home- as one of perpetual alienation and remoteness.

work and avant-garde collage. On a nearby wall in This art, then, is a challenge to the concept of JULIETA CERVANTES / COURTESY MOMA Raad’s current survey exhibition — up now at the war as a wellspring of noble heroism, or as a site The Atlas Group/ Walid Raad. Hostage: The Bachar tapes (English version), 2001. © Museum of Modern Art — there’s We Decided to of truth or divinity. War is clouded memories, un- 2015 Walid Raad

Let Them Say “We are Convinced” Twice (It was named trauma, confusion and ruptures that can 2015 November More Convincing this Way) (1982-2007), which only be understood in retrospect, if that. The Leb- covers some similar ground. For this series, Raad anese Civil War began when Raad was about 8 The Atlas Group/ Walid Raad. Let’s be honest, the weather helped_Saudi Arabia, revisited photos of Israel’s 1982 siege of Beirut years old, so we can assume that for him, coming 1998/2006. © 2015 Walid Raad that he shot when he was 15. Though the negatives to know the world also meant coming to know the were “carefully preserved,” the prints are mottled war. This art tells us that war is something that and hazy with strange pink and blue coronae, as cannot — and should not — be known. Walid Raad. Scratching on things I could disavow: Walkthrough, 2015. © 2015 The IndypendenT The if a dark energy had been bearing down on them Museum of Modern Art. while in storage. Or, maybe not. The aforementioned works are part of Raad’s remarkable long-term project The Atlas Group (1989-2004), in which he positioned himself as not so much an artist as an archivist 18 BOOKS

ChAIn LeTTeR

Between the World and Me By Ta-Nehisi Coates Spiegel & Grau, 2015

Letter to Jimmy

By Alain Mabanckou word “plunder.” Coates writes that his young States’s racist past and present , he warns his son to LAYLAH AMATULLAH BARRAYN Translated by Sara Meli Ansari son has not yet “discovered the plunder every- expect more of the same even if the future comes CELEBRAT- Soft Skull Press, 2014 where around us,” and then goes on to trace branded as being “post-racial.” ING BLACK- it, from slavery through bad schools to present- “Dreamers are pillaging Ferguson for munici- NESS: At- day police killings of Black Americans. pal governance,” he writes, fl ipping the script on tendees at By Bennett Baumer What Black Lives Matter and Coates say is the American Dream à la Malcolm X. “Dreamers the inaugural unfortunately not new. The Confederate fl ag are quoting Martin Luther King and exulting non- Movement for he Black Lives Matter movement of- symbolizes white supremacy and the South’s sup- violence for the weak and the biggest guns for the Black Lives fers a scathing, clear-eyed assessment port of chattel slavery. Educational disparities en- strong.” Convergence in of racism, unjust policing and mass in- compass everything from Black students getting Nobel laureate Toni Morrison has compared Cleveland this carceration in the United States. This disciplined more often to higher dropout rates and Coates’ unfl inching writing on the subject of race summer. should be welcomed. However, when lower school funding. Black men are 21 times more to that of James Baldwin. Like Coates, Baldwin also twoT movement activists disrupted a Bernie Sanders likely to be killed by police than white males and a had a gift for writing essays in letter form, as he did rally in Seattle in August, a largely white progres- Black baby born in 1991 has a 30 percent chance of with “My Dungeon Shook — Letter to My Nephew sive crowd hissed and booed and weeks of furious going to prison someday. on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipa- debates followed on social media. Between the World and Me is unique because tion.” And now Baldwin is the posthumous recipient To those who booed or found themselves shak- of Coates’ tone. Coates does not evoke the Black of a trove of imagined letters from Congolese expat ing their heads at Black Lives Matter tactics: read church and is not religious. “You must resist the writer Alain Mabanckou. journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World common urge toward the comforting narrative of In Letter to Jimmy, recently translated from and Me. divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irre- French to English, Mabanckou, who lives in Paris Between the World and Me is an open letter to pressible justice,” he writes. “The enslaved were not and California, ponders Baldwin’s place and time, Coates’ adolescent son about the nature of Ameri- bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters including his religious upbringing and subsequent ca’s social relations and a deeply personal engaging in your redemptive history.” rejection of Christianity and choice to fl ee the Unit- work. The left utilizes the phrase “institutional rac- Between the World and Me has its tender mo- ed States’s pervasive racism to live in Paris and em- ism” to describe systemic racial discrimination and ments but overall is not a particularly uplifting brace his homosexuality. denial of opportunity that is ongoing and destruc- book. A sharp critic of President Obama, Coates is tive — Coates crystallizes the jargon and uses the not buying hope and change. Surveying the United Continued on next page

A FILM BY AVI LEWIS INSPIRED BY THE BESTSELLING BOOK BY NAOMI KLEIN November 2015 THISCHANGESEVERYTHING NOW AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE THISCHANGESEVERYTHING.ORG The IndypendenT 19 THE BOOKS November/December EVENTS 2015 marxedproject.org TUESDAY • NOVEMBER 17 • 7:00 pm KILLING TRAYVONS: FROM 15Th CenTURy An Anthology of American Violence BACKWATeR TO GLOBAL eMpIRe Ibrahim Diallo and immunity from certain en- law prevented them from forming private is a native of Guinea, West Why Did Europe Conquer the World? demic diseases. companies; as a result, they were lim- Africa. He moved to Brooklyn at the age of 12. He is a contributing author to Killing Trayvons. Philip T. Hoffman Hoffman has a different take ited in the amount of private capital they Kevin Alexander Gray is a civil rights Princeton University Press, 2015 on the success of European con- could put into their ventures and the eco- GARY MARTIN organizer in South Carolina and author of Waiting for quest. His reasons are gunpow- nomic growth they could attain. China, Lightning to Strike! e Fundamentals of Black Politics der technology, “tournament meanwhile, had developed gunpowder a (CounterPunch/AK Press). He is a co-editor of Killing Trayvons. By Don Jackson conditions” between European full 400 years before Europe had access Joann Wypijewski is a writer and editor powers and most important, to it, but united earlier and found other based in New York. Her work has appeared in many hy did Europe conquer political history. means of warding off threats — archers on magazines, including e Nation and CounterPunch, the world? It is a pow- Gunpowder technology encompasses a horseback, the Great Wall — to be pref- where she writes a monthly column, “Diamonds & erful question asked lot more than its name suggests. Sure, it re- erable to the development of gunpowder Rust.” She is a co-editor of Killing Trayvons. by economist and his- fers to the weapons — fi rearms, artillery, technology. MONDAY • NOVEMBER 30 • 8:00 pm torian Philip T. Hoff- ships armed with guns and fortifi cations While Hoffman’s thesis does hold to- EXPULSIONS: Brutality and manW in his recent book of the same name. that could resist bombardment. But it also gether, one has to wonder if the question Complexity in the Global Economy It is even more signifi cant when one con- includes the tactics and methods of organi- of “why” has been suffi ciently answered. siders that as recently as the year 1500, it zation designed to get the most out of the Were superior technology, tournament seemed so unlikely. And yet, the effects of weapons as well as the training that trans- conditions and a unique political history European conquest cannot be understated. forms ordinary men into soldiers, forging enough to justify the suffering Europe un- According to Hoffman, by 1914, Europe them into “an imposing fi ghting force will- leashed on the world in the name of con- controlled 84 percent of the globe — an ing to operate with speed and discipline quest? It’s clear that it wasn’t inevitable. area home to the vast majority of human- even when under fi re.” China, for example, traded with Africa and ity. Europe’s conquest of the world, Hoff- With the term “tournament,” Hoffman India for more than 1,000 years, a period man argues, ultimately led to the Industrial is describing, in essence, a competition. He during which China was more technologi- Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor Revolution and the wholesale devastation argues that the collective prizes of wealth, cally advanced. And despite that, not once of Sociology at Columbia University. Her research and territorial expansion, defense of the Chris- writing focuses on the social, economic and political of cultures and communities. did China attempt to conquer or colonize dimensions of globalization, immigration, global cities, Hoffman is an economist at heart — tian faith and the glory of victory created its trading partners. Perhaps historian John and changes within the liberal state that result from looking at the present day, he references a win-at-all-costs mentality. It meant that Henrik Clarke, who asserted that Europe current transnational conditions. “plausible econometric evidence” link- Europe’s fragmented powers were con- wanted what others had but had nothing WEDNESDAY • DECEMBER 2 • 7:30 pm ing European conquest to contemporary stantly fi ghting each other, which led them to trade and saw conquest as the only op- poverty in Africa and Latin America. But to spend heavily on war while pushing to tion, was right. Hoffman echoes this idea SOLIDARITY & FULFILLING beyond the economic fi gures is a human improve gunpowder technology, even if it of “Western Europe’s economic inferior- HUMAN NEEDS cost that is still being paid. The European harmed their economies. ity complex,” writing, “Europeans were killing, displacement and subjugation of Ultimately, Hoffman credits political … convinced that other parts of the world peoples worldwide over hundreds of years history as the major cause of Europe’s con- were wealthier — particularly Asia or the has irrevocably ripped social fabrics and quest of much of the rest of the world. For southern latitudes that were Columbus’ traumatized generations. centuries, Europe’s monarchic leaders saw goal.” In the 10th century, China, Japan, the the waging of war as their principal duty. Fortunately, history offers many lessons Muslim Middle East and South Asia were Winning the tournament meant excellence for those who have suffered under the heel Eva von Redecker all more advanced than Europe. Any of — but it was not until the French Revolu- of conquest and oppression. Indeed, most is based at the Philosophy Department of Humboldt-University, Berlin. In fall of these powers could have risen to dominate tion and the Napoleonic period that losing Western European states have also been 2015, she’s the Heuss Lecturer at the New School for the world. So why Europe? posed any signifi cant political risk. on the receiving end of it. The conquered Social Research. Her work is in critical theory and Hoffman is not the fi rst to labor over As far as political history goes, the priva- groups, if they survive, will be changed, but focuses on topics such as history, revolution, gender, sexuality and property. this question. In The Rise and Fall of Great tization of war was also uniquely Europe- with struggle, no oppression lasts forever. Above events: $6 / $10 / $15 each Powers (1987), Yale historian Paul Ken- an. European leaders gave gunpowder tech- Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo No one turned away for inability to pay nedy proposed that Europe gained ascen- nology to private entrepreneurs, who then Freire said it best in Pedagogy of the Op- 3 WEDNESDAYS dancy because of the combination of mili- used it to establish settlements and colonies pressed: “The process of recovery from the DECEMBER 2, 9, 16 • 7:30 pm tary advances gained from inter-European as well as to prey on and pirate foreign group trauma that takes place from con- rivalries and the technological innovation trade. As overseas conquest became more quest is a slow one, but one which eventu- DIALECTICS WORKSHOP and economic growth that resulted from and more profi table, individuals and com- ally leads to growth and strength.” competitive markets. Scholar Jared Dia- panies were further incentivized to conquer mond, meanwhile, argued in Guns, Germs and colonize. and Steel (1997) that Europe was able to The political history of other potential dominate because of environmental factors world conquerors, meanwhile, was dif- that precipitated technological advantage ferent. The Ottomans’ practice of Islamic Alex Steinberg taught three classes at ”e Commons: Engels and the Dialectics of Nature during the Spring of 2014, Dialectics of Nature and the Multiverse in the fall of 2014 and a class on Nietzsche, Heidegger, Fascism and Left-Nietzscheans last Spring.

Cost: $25 / $35 / $45 (sliding scale) 2015 November Published in 1963, Baldwin’s witted “All Lives Matter” slogan. rebellion.” Writing to Baldwin SUNDAY•DECEMBER 6•NOON - 8:00 PM LeTTeR The Fire Next Time was panned Black Lives Matter is a dy- across the decades, Mabanckou Continued from previous page as extreme and anti-white by namic force for racial justice, sums up his adopted home like HOLIDAY BOOK FAIR many white liberals, while Be- though Coates is bearish on this this: “America is no fool: it has Free Admission • Support Left Publishing “You saw how churches oper- tween the World and Me has country’s ability to transcend its heard your message. But can it BUY BOOKS & MORE ated, whether they were white generated mostly praise, though racist history. Baldwin participat- follow your lead?” IndypendenT The or black churches. You saw that it too refuses to genufl ect before ed in the March on Washington certain ministers became rich at white sensibilities. Both authors and aligned himself with vari- The Brooklyn Commons the expense of the faithful, who know race is a social construct ous civil rights groups, though 388 Atlantic Avenue/Brooklyn thecommonsbrooklyn.org are always asked to give more but that no one can wish it away he disavowed being a civil rights A, C TO HOYT SCHERMERHORN … everything is squeezed out, with broad proclamations of a activist and later in life described F, G TO BERGEN / 2, 3, B, D, N, Q TO ATLANTIC AVE down to the last cent.” post-racial society or the dim- the movement as “the latest slave REVEREND BILLY