ALEC's SCHEME to CHANGE the CONSTITUTION APRIL 2016 Bernie, the Anti- Greedy Geezer U.N

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ALEC'S SCHEME TO CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION APRIL 2016 Bernie, the anti- greedy geezer U.N. calls for reparations

IS YOUR WATER SAFE? Radical solutions to our nation's water crisis BY LAURA ORLANDO

PLUS Rick Perlstein on Trump, Sady Doyle on Clinton and Joel Bleifuss on Sanders letters

THE COOLEST POPULIST IN AMERICA • FLINT LIVES MATTER Interesting analysis that public servants are unable and his venture capitalist MARCH 2016 Post-doomsday scenario the unifying force of the or unwilling to achieve. confidants “too big to fail”? The miners we abandoned “Christian Right” isn’t The “Rick Snyder model” Enrique Gentzsch Christianity itself, but a proved just the opposite in Minneapolis type of addiction to the Michigan, and so would a Democratic barriers prophetic style of storytell- “Donald Trump model” for to change ing. This makes a lot of this country. sense—I’ve long thought The catastrophe in Flint This is a well-written that Christianity should was a wholesale poison- article and makes some align more closely to ing of the water supply of great points (“Out of Jail, WHY EVANGELICALS FLOCK TO TRUMP socialism than fascism. a city of 100,000 people. It Sentenced to Life,” March). PLUS But it hugely depends occurred for over a year, However, things will not Chantal Flores on digging up the disappeared in Iguala, Mexico on your definition. and it was done on purpose. change in the United States Brian Reindel Residents will suffer long- for sex offenders unless it Trump’s true believers Via InTheseTimes.com term, irreversible harm. comes from the Supreme Shouldn’t the U.S. govern- Court. The democratic pro- Theo Anderson’s article This article helps explain so ment remove Gov. Snyder cess will never produce any “Why Evangelicals Flock much that those of us in the from office and place him significant loosening of sex to Trump” (March) is a reality-based world find so and those who helped per- offender requirements. fine analysis, exactly the baffling and appalling about petuate this heinous crime Owen Michaels sort of thing that makes Trump’s intense level of in prison for life? Or are he Via InTheseTimes.com In These Times such a support among his follow- salutary antidote to cor- ers. But even after reading it We encourage readers’ thoughts. Send your letters to porate media crapola. several times, I still cannot [email protected]. Please include your city and state. But to label Trump’s fathom why so many “good” paranoid rhetoric as “the Christians would support prophetic style” is a rather a man whose vile behavior grave insult to Amos, Micah, and foul words they would Jeremiah et al. They are still never countenance from read and revered thousands their own family members. of years later exactly be- I suppose Trump’s support- cause their message is one ers will stand behind him of regeneration through as long as they are satis- self-examination and moral fied that he continues to be accountability, a spiritually “their” bully. IN THESE TIMES.COM—Hillary Clinton over- humbling insight 180 degrees Mike Fitzgerald whelmingly won the African-American vote on removed from the fear-mon- Via InTheseTimes.com Super Tuesday. David Moberg interviews political gering of the Republicans. Flint justice scientist Adolph Reed about how the “limited What is needed is a hopes and growing fears” of black Americans prophetic, spirit-stirring Susan J. Douglas’ article helped her beat Bernie Sanders. call from the Left attacking (“Trump, Flint and Black not just the symptoms of Lives Matter,” March) Billionaire property developer-turned-philanthro- bigotry and inequality, but examined the impact of pist Eli Broad styles himself an advocate for poor the fundamental evil and in- the transfer of govern- black and brown children. So why did he pour mil- justice woven into our dog- ment to “wealthy venture lions into a Koch brothers’ plan to block funding eat-dog system. Fire must be capitalists” because they of Los Angeles schools? Ignacio Thomas reports. fought with fire. self-describe as people Hugh Iglarsh “who get things done” Skokie, Ill. and solve problems that

2 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES contents VOLUME 40 – NUMBER 4 ACT LOCALLY 8 ROUNDTABLE Break up banks, end racism and sexism? 11 ELECTORAL JUSTICE FOR LAQUAN MCDONALD BY DANETTE FREDERIQUE 13 WORKER CO-OPS? THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT 19 24 BY TOM LADENDORF VIEWS 16 PRESENT PAST Goosestepping all the way to the White House BY RICK PERLSTEIN 17 BACK TALK Bernie Sanders: The anti-greedy geezer BY SUSAN J. DOUGLAS 53 18 18 VIEWPOINT No, we can’t—without a revolution BY DARLENA CUNHA 19 THE THIRD COAST U.N. to U.S.: Reparations now FEATURES BY SALIM MUWAKKIL 20 VIEWPOINT A progressive case for Clinton BY SADY DOYLE 24 IS YOUR WATER WORSE THAN FLINT’S? 22 THE FIRST STONE Our nation’s water crisis requires radical solutions The morning after the nomination BY LAURA ORLANDO BY JOEL BLEIFUSS CULTURE 32 ALEC’S SCHEME TO 50 THE SECRET HISTORY OF COAL REWRITE THE CONSTITUTION BY DAYTON MARTINDALE Corporate America is seven states short 53 TAKE TWO of a constitutional convention Not coming to a theater near you BY SIMON DAVIS-COHEN BY MICHAEL ATKINSON 55 EXIT SIGNS The GOP gets its Trump-uppance 34 IN PERSON BY CHRIS LEHMANN Rebecca Solnit explains things to us 56 THE GREEDY MONKEY THEORY OF ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BY DAYTON MARTINDALE BY EILEEN JONES 58 FROM THE OLD COUNTRY CARTOONS To Brexit or not to Brexit BY JANE MILLER 36 FEATURING 60 DONALD TRUMP SENDS TERRY LABAN, JEFF DANZIGER, A CHILL THROUGH MY BRIAN MCFADDEN, JEN SORENSEN MUSLIM-AMERICAN BODY BY SAQIB BHATTI

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 3 contributors

WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL... The work of the following writers is supported by the Puffin Foundation. FOUNDING EDITOR & PUBLISHER James Weinstein (1926–2005)

EDITOR & PUBLISHER Joel Bleifuss EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jessica Stites SAQIB BHATTI (1) is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute ASSOCIATE EDITORS and Director of the ReFund America Project. Rebecca Burns, Micah Uetricht COMMUNITY EDITOR Miles Kampf-Lassin SIMON DAVIS-COHEN is a New York City-based writer FACT-CHECKER Branko Marcetic examining the powers of local governments and corpora- COPY EDITORS Bob Miller, Lindsay Muscato tions in the United States. PROOFREADERS (VOLUNTEER) 1 Alan Kimmel, Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin SENIOR EDITORS Terry J. Allen, SADY DOYLE (2) is an In These Times staff writer. Patricia Aufderheide, Susan J. Douglas, David Moberg, Salim Muwakkil, David DANETTE FREDERIQUE is a journalism student at Sirota, Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) Northwestern University and a current In These STAFF WRITERS Theo Anderson, Times editorial intern. Lindsay Beyerstein, Sady Doyle CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Michael Atkinson, 2 Dean Baker, Frida Berrigan, Will Boisvert, RICK PERLSTEIN (3) is national correspondent at the Roger Bybee, Michelle Chen, Brian Cook, Washington Spectator and the author most recently of The Barbara Ehrenreich, Jeremy Gantz, Leonard C. Goodman, Joel Handley, George Hodak, Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan. Hans Johnson, Pete Karman, Chris Lehmann, Kari Lydersen, Naomi Klein, Jane Miller, EILEEN JONES is a film critic at Jacobin and author of the John Nichols, James North, Achy Obejas, Ken Rapoza, Laura S. Washington, Fred book Filmsuck, USA. She teaches at the University Weir, Jacob Wheeler, Slavoj Žižek of California, Berkeley. 3 EDITORIAL INTERNS Jennifer Ball, Caroline Beck, Justyna Bicz, Danette Frederique, DAYTON MARTINDALE is a student at the UC Berkeley Jessica Kozik, Tom Ladendorf, Eli Massey, Ben Graduate School of Journalism and a former In These Rosenfield, Regina Tanner, Madeline Wensel Times intern. ART AND DESIGN DIRECTOR Rachel K. Dooley CARTOONS EDITOR Matt Bors LAURA ORLANDO (4) is a member of the Rural America CARTOONISTS Terry LaBan, Dan Perkins In These Times Board of Editors and the executive direc- 4 DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Allison Rickard tor of the Resource Institute for Low Entropy Systems DEPUTY PUBLISHER Christopher Hass (RILES), a Boston-based nonprofit concerned with DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT Ketseeyah Yosef health and the environment. CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Peter Hoyt

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IN THESE TIMES PUBLISHING CONSORTIUM COLLEAGUES Anonymous, Theresa Alt and Wayles Browne, Martha Fleischman, Sally Hoover, Lisa Lee, Chris Lloyd, Bruce P. Merrill, Jim Mullins, James The Future Belongs to Bernie Schamus and Nancy Kricorian en. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) part, has supported this magazine and IN THESE TIMES IS SPONSORED BY has a tough row to hoe if he its mission, including by providing tes- is going to overtake Hill- timonials like the one from 1983 that is ary Clinton and become the reproduced on page 30. SDemocratic nominee. The margins As we see it, the choice before of her victories have been larger than Democrats is between a feast of his. As In These Times Deputy Pub- radical change or some morsels of SPECIAL REQUESTS To inquire about lost or damaged lisher Christopher Hass, a veteran of incremental reform. issues, back issues and classroom Obama’s two presidential campaigns, Sanders has staked out a maxi- subscriptions, please call 800- has reported, it is the size of the mar- malist position; on the stump in 827-0270 or email subscribe@ inthesetimes.com. gins that determine the Democratic Fort Collins, Colo., he framed standard bearer. his demands as follows: SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS But this primary is more than a I believe that if you start your cam- To renew your subscription or change contest between Hillary Clinton and your address, please call 800-827-0270 paign and run on a platform calling or email [email protected]. Bernie Sanders. It is the venue for for a full loaf, at worst you’re gonna competing aspirations for the future of get a half loaf. If you start your cam- ADVERTISING the Democratic Party—can the party paign talking about a need for a half Advertisers who choose In These Times reach a highly educated, motivated and be a vehicle for social democracy or loaf, you’re gonna get crumbs. And civically engaged audience. To request will it be the party of technocratic, the American people today do not a media kit or learn about online gradual improvement, operating want, do not need, crumbs. They and print advertising opportunities, need the whole loaf. contact Christopher Hass at chris@ within the context of an unquestioned inthesetimes.com. neoliberal consensus? In the short term, with Clinton Again and again we hear mea- inching ever closer to the nomination, SPONSORSHIPS Sponsors identify with In These Times’ sured caution from candidate Clin- we face the prospect of a pretty lean mission and receive recognition for ton and her cheerleaders in the victors’ banquet. Where is “change” on their support for an entire year. To learn liberal corporate media: Eschew the menu? Next to “crumbs”? more about how to get your organization radical solutions (no matter how Sanders is thinking beyond where involved, contact Joel Bleifuss at joel@ inthesetimes.com. well-reasoned or established in other the next meal is coming from. Refus- industrial societies) and support doing to be fenced in by election year In These Times (ISSN 0160-5992) is published able, commonsense alternatives. cycles, he is putting ideas on the table monthly by the Institute for Public Affairs, 2040 North Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647. Periodicals Not everyone on the Left, however, that transcend the status quo. postage paid at Chicago, IL and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to In has a bleak view of the Democratic Which brings up the point: Who is These Times, P.O. Box 6347, Harlan, IA 51593. This frontrunner. On page 20, staff writer the real winner of Super Tuesday? issue (Vol. 40, No. 4) went to press on March 3, 2016 for newsstand sales from March 28, 2016 to April Sady Doyle makes a “full-throated” Sanders won some states—including 25, 2016. The entire contents of In These Times are copyright © 2016 by the Institute for Public Affairs, and progressive case for Clinton. And that fabled liberal stronghold Oklaho- may not be reproduced in any manner, either in whole on page 8, Moe Tkacik and Amanda ma—but in terms of pledged delegates, or in part, without permission of the publisher. Copies of In These Times’ contract with the National Writers Marcotte debate the candidates’ Hillary Clinton came out ahead. That Union are available upon request. Contact the union positions on banking reform, sexism being said, in one state after another, at (212) 254-0279 or www.nwu.org. Subscriptions are $36.95 a year ($59 for institutions; $61.95 Canada; and racism. Sanders has won a majority of Demo- $75.95 overseas). For subscription questions, address changes and back issues call (800) 827-0270. In These Times has covered Sand- cratic voters under the age of 30. Complete issues and volumes of In These Times are ers’ political career since March 1981, Clinton and Sanders offered Amer- available from Bell and Howell, Ann Arbor, Mich. In These when the 39-year-old, Brooklyn-born, ica’s millennials two futures. They Times is indexed in the Alternative Press Index and the Left Index. Newsstand circulation through Disticor In These Times-reading democratic made their choice. The future of the Magazine Distribution Services, at (905) 619-6565. Printed in the socialist was elected mayor of Burl- Democratic Party belongs to demo- United States. ington, Vt. And in the 35 years since, cratic socialism. The present, for the we have continued to report on his moment, appears to belong to Clinton. political initiatives. Sanders, for his —JOEL BLEIFUSS

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 5 MIXED REACTION

The whole thing taken together is called magic. — EPA CHEMIST ALAN RUBIN EXPLAINING THE TERM “SLUDGE MAGIC,” WHICH HE COINED TO JUSTIFY THE EPA’S RULE ALLOWING DANGEROUS SEWAGE SLUDGE TO BE APPLIED TO FARMS, GARDENS AND EVEN SCHOOL PLAYGROUNDS

JUST THE FACTS

9 Number of pollutants that wastewater treatment plants must test for, out of 80,000 that may be present in sewage sludge

10 Number of people who have died from Legionnaires’ disease in Flint, Michigan

335 billion: Estimated cost, in dollars, of necessary investments in the U.S. water infrastructure for the period 2007-2027

8 Percentage of needed investments that will be funded by Congress by 2027, at current appropriations levels

W O R K I N G

IN THESE TIMES

XX A. Philip Randolph organized African-American railroad porters into a union, spearheaded the March on Washington, pushed for civil disobedience and draft resistance, and in doing so, changed the face of black radicalism in America. David Cochran interviews Clarence Lang, co-author of Reframing Randolph: Labor, Black Freedom, and the Legacies of A. Philip Randolph.

6 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES VISIT WORKING IN THESE TIMES TODAY: InTheseTimes.com/Working snapshot

PIRAEUS, GREECE—A group of refugees and migrants seeks temporary shelter in a port warehouse on February 29. They constitute only a fraction of the 30,000 people stranded in Greece since November 2015, when several Balkan nations along a main migration route closed their borders to all except those fleeing war. On March 2, the European Union proposed a 700 million euro aid program to help Greece house the trapped migrants. (Photo by Panayotis Tzamaros/AFP/Getty Images)

DEAR ITT IDEOLOGIST, Though you write with boyish brio, I it would be good to resolve healthcare, childcare, free understand you are actually a decrepit the Vietnam conflict but pull- college education, a modern duffer. Assuming the volumes in your ing our troops “Out Now!” as transportation system and cranial hard disc covering the 1960s the peaceniks were demand- other social and civic ben- are still retrievable, let me ask if you are ing would send the wrong efits common to capitalist finding any similarities between politics signal to our enemies. What countries. Politicians tell me way back then versus right now? happened, of course, was that, despite your wealth, —Abby Reefer, Death Valley, Calif. that the impatient prevailed these things are unafford- and the irresolute failed. In able. How can that be? Dear Mr. Reefer, a peaceful revolution, legal —Reginald Flush III, The most obvious déjà vu all over again segregation ended in the Golden, Colo. I’ve noticed are the arguments by some United States, while in a vio- putative progressives and limp liberals lent one, the Vietnamese kicked us out Dear Mr. Flush III, that the proposals by Bernie Sanders and regained control of their country. Being a greenhorn, you have yet to for honest banking, clean elections, Dear Ideologist, master our political code words. In single-payer healthcare, tuition-free col- discussions of public policy, the word lege and such are all fine and dandy in As the spoiled scion of one of the rich- “unaffordable” sheds its dictionary theory but are, in fact, idealistic, imprac- est families on earth, I never lacked for meaning and is used instead to obvi- tical and impolitic. As I recall, exactly ridiculously expensive luxuries. I moved ate any effort to improve the lot of the the same was said in the ’60s about to the United States because it was working and poor classes. By contrast, advancing civil rights and ending the the wealthiest country in the world and “unaffordable” is never used to describe war in Vietnam. Yes, it would be great if therefore compatible with my circum- initiatives to make the rich richer. Such all Americans were treated equally, but stances. I have lived in many countries measures are always called “incentives” the civil rights marchers must be patient and was therefore surprised that yours, or “necessary to national security.” and limited in their demands. Likewise, the richest nation, lacked universal —PETE KARMAN

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 7 ACT LOCALLY

Break Up Banks, End Racism and Sexism? Hillary Clinton’s remarks prompt Left debate

n February 13, ABC reporter Liz Kreutz tweeted a snippet of a Hillary Clinton Ospeech and promptly sent the Internet into a frenzy of debate: Clinton: “If we broke up the big If we broke up the big banks tomorrow….would that end racism? Would that end sexism?” banks tomorrow — and “No!” crowd yells out NBC later supplied a lengthier ver- I will, if they deserve it, sion: “Not everything is about an eco- if they pose a systemic nomic theory, right?” Clinton said, kicking off a long, interac- risk, I will — would that tive riff with the crowd at a union hall this afternoon. end racism? Would “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow—and I will if they deserve that end sexism? it, if they pose a systemic risk, I will—would that end racism?” “No!” the audience yelled back. CREDIT Clinton continued to list scenarios, asking: “Would that end MOE: When I saw this quote on Twit- gest and rottenest of which have been sexism? Would that end discrimi- ter, I just stared for a few minutes, as if with us for more than two centuries. To nation against the LGBT commu- into the abyss or at a really gross zit un- want to see them curtailed is to have nity? Would that make people feel der a magnifying glass. I didn’t want to absorbed more than enough history to more welcoming to immigrants know the “context” because the state- understand that such things don’t hap- overnight?” ment itself defecated all over the very pen “tomorrow.” To discuss the quote and its context, idea of context. When I finally caved and read the In These Times invited Moe Tkacik, a Obviously, no one ever promised a full speech, I found a veritable orgy of former Wall Street Journal writer and piece of legislation would “end” hate straw men, each catering to some cru- the author of an essay in the forthcom- and injustice. Anyone even notion- cial segment of the Democratic coali- ing collection False Choices: The Faux ally sincere about battling the preju- tion. It wasn’t just racism and sexism Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton; dices and cognitive dissonances that that would persist in a landscape of and Amanda Marcotte, who writes for oligarchs and overlords have forever smaller banks, according to Hillary Salon on politics, feminism and cul- promulgated to divide and conquer Clinton. “Gerrymandering and redis- ture, and in November 2015 wrote a humanity understands that “racism” tricting” would also persist, as would column titled, “Let’s get excited about and “sexism” are not forces you can discrimination against immigrants Hillary Clinton: She’s not a savior—but arrest with a pen. and gays. she is exactly what we need.” Then there are the banks, the big- Something about the line just

8 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES louder than words screamed “Bill.” Not shit-eating-grin again when she tries her hand at the President Bill Clinton at the height of same grandiose rhetoric her opponent his virility/virulence, but the Clinton is applauded for. She can’t win. And of today who is occasionally given to we wonder why so many women see BREAKING UP WITH weirdly bitter rants that are simultane- their lives in hers. FOSSIL FUELS ously nonsensical and illuminating, like Setting aside the debate over whether 2015 was the hottest year in re- a warped decoder ring for understand- Hillary Clinton should be permitted corded history. It was also the year ing how the Democratic Party could the use of the over-simplified, revo- world leaders convened in Paris maintain its monopoly on self-righteous lutionary rhetoric her opponent is al- to collectively address climate rhetoric while selling short the New lowed by birthright, it’s quite clear to change, ultimately agreeing to limit Deal and Great Society constituencies me that Clinton is arguing that Sand- global warming to 1.5 degrees that got out the vote all those years: Just ers’ single-minded focus on Wall Street Celsius above pre-industrial levels. That may sound like a big step remind Democratic voters that Repub- isn’t going to be enough to deal with but, as many point out, without licans want to outlaw affirmative action the nuanced problems of racism, sex- concrete measures in place, the and abortion and quarantine everyone ism—all the -isms, really. lofty plan will likely be torpedoed diagnosed with AIDS. No need to blame Bill Clinton, or to by the financial interests of coal, The thing is, we were never dumb treat Hillary like she’s an extension of oil and gas corporations. The Paris enough to sign on to this gutted, soul- her husband. (Though the way she’s climate deal may signal the world’s less, leveraged-buyout version of the treated as her husband’s puppet is a desire to act, but it will take radi- Democratic platform. Bill Clinton eked nice reminder to me why I will never cal efforts by policy leaders and out a White House win with only 43 get married.) Clinton picked this talk- activists on every continent to percent of the popular vote. His trium- ing point up from anti-racism activists force it to do so. phant job performance as president is a who have been critical of Sanders for Break Free 2016, a coalition of international, national and local fiction in which Democrats have been his dodgyness on any race issue that organizations, from Greenpeace inculcated because his surrogates have can’t be reduced to “income inequality.” to 350.org to Bold Nebraska, is so effectively marginalized anyone who David Freedlander of the Daily Beast coordinating a wave of actions dares acknowledge history. interviewed black leaders from Sanders’ across the globe from May 7 to May But when the going gets tough, as home state of Vermont and found that 14. The week will include local ac- it conspicuously has, Hillary (like Sanders had a habit of “benign neglect” tions and more than a dozen major Obama in 2009, alas) falls back on on any race-based issue that wasn’t protests “targeting some of the what worked for Bill, the old New about generic “income inequality.” Cur- world’s most dangerous fossil fuel Dem coalition strategy: getting the tiss Reed Jr. of the Vermont Partnership projects.” The goal? To make sure black community leaders and abor- for Fairness and Diversity told Freed- 80 percent of the Earth’s fossil tion lobby to get out the vote, the lander that Sanders “was just really dis- fuels remain in the ground—which scientists believe will be necessary bank lobby to pay for the ad buys, and missive of anything that had to do with to prevent climate change of more the eternal GOP majority to prevent race and racism, saying that they didn’t than 2 degrees Celsius. anything from transpiring that might have anything to do with the issues of Details of U.S. actions will be alienate the bank lobbyists. income inequality.” posted on usa.breakfree2016.org. Today, as in 1992, this strategy only Under pressure from anti-racism —MADELINE WENSEL works by sacrificing a thing that Hillary activists, Sanders has gotten smarter now maligns as eggheaded “economic about this sort of thing, but he still does theory” but what Sanders supporters things like dismiss reparations as a pipe see as coherence. dream. The fact that Sanders loves pipe AMANDA: We’re in the thick of prima- dreams—like free college—when white ry silliness when a supporter of Bernie voters are in the imagined group of Sanders—Bernie Sanders!—feels enti- recipients is not something that is un- tled to accuse anyone of hyperbole. Not noticed. Clinton, a politician, pounces. picking on the Bern, to be clear. Like If Sanders wins the nomination, his his fellow career politicians, Bernie has supporters, as David Roberts of Vox a shtick that works for him. But glass said, “should get a thicker skin, quick,” houses, stones, all that. because the Republicans aren’t going to And poor Hillary Clinton! Dinged be as gentle as Clinton. repeatedly for an uninspiring nuts- MOE: If it felt a bit hyperbolic to identi- and-bolts approach, only to get dinged fy Hillary’s true nemesis as “coherence,”

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 9 “mainstreaming” of predatory lending as Citigroup. No other institution has employed as many veterans of the Clinton administration. Merely listing the relevant names could fill the better part of a book, but here are three: Pe- ter Orszag, Jack Lew and Michael Fro- man. By 2007, Citi’s balance sheet was the biggest on Wall Street—when you included all its off-the-books assets, in any case—and in 2008 Citi became the recipient of the single biggest bailout. If any corporate monstrosity was worthy of a breakup, it was Citi. Cel- ebrated analyst Meredith Whitney said so, FDIC chairman Sheila Bair said so, TARP overseer Elizabeth Warren said so and former Citi exec Sallie Kraw- check said as much after she was fired by (serial sex-discrimination lawsuit defendant) Vikram Pandit. No one listened. Warren and Bair IN FOCUS At the end of February, members of the Confederation were marginalized—dismissed for fail- of Revolutionary Workers’ Unions (DISK), one of four primary ure to be seen as “team players” by the national trade unions in Turkey, protest the budget plan passed by Clinton/Citi alums who infested the Parliament. (Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images) Obama White House. Nevertheless, a lot of powerful men came around, including Larry Summers and then (un- believably) former Citi CEOs Sandy Weill and John Reed, both of whom well, it wasn’t. The Clintonists don’t tical, needing two critical ingredients wrote op-eds arguing that Glass-Stea- want the electorate to make sense of the to thrive: a culture efficient at dehu- gall needed to be reinstated and their world—or to link cause and effect. manizing victims, and legal impunity. old bank broken up. If they did, they might begin to see First, at Washington Mutual—picked Hillary thinks otherwise—that we breaking up massive unaccountable off for pennies on the dollar in 2008 have not yet reached the hypothetical money syndicates as a vital step toby TBTF bank JPMorgan—subprime in which “they deserve it.” Could that ward achieving racial tolerance and mortgage salesmen who didn’t sell be because Citi, in its current and ap- gender equality. enough predatory negative-amortiza- parently invincible state, is the second At some point between the financial tion mortgages were assigned “train- biggest donor to her campaign? crisis of 2008 and the rise of Occupy ers” whose first words were, “Do not AMANDA: I was just sitting around in 2011, Americans began to under- feel sorry for ‘these’ people.” At Wells thinking about how I’m going to miss stand that predatory lending was the Fargo, where mortgage executives Jeb Bush and his desire to convince us cornerstone of modern finance. Usu- called minorities “mud people” and that Bill Clinton was president on 9/11, rious interest rates, extortionate fees “niggers,” salesmen were directed to so- but I shouldn’t have worried! Now I get and vicious cycles of ever-inflating in- licit new customers at African-Ameri- to enjoy Sanders’ supporters telling me debtedness were a phenomenon that can churches. Sexual harassment was that Hillary Clinton was president from united black retirees in Detroit with indisputably rampant in the industry. 2000 to 2008, during which time I was Mexican day laborers in Hollister, Ca- “Mortgage sluts” peopled a 2008 Busi- under the impression she was the queen lif.; underemployed Vassar grads with ness Week cover story. Is there a more of Fillory. Why shouldn’t I vote for her underemployed University of Phoe- vivid embodiment of rape culture than now, seeing as she was the power behind nix grads; the evaporating coffers of the photos of the 2010 Halloween party Bush all that time? She is clearly a witch Jefferson County, Ala., and Harvard’s held by staffers of the Steven J. Baum and she won’t just know that you voted $36 billion endowment. The mechan- foreclosure mill? against her, but will secretly curse you ics and fine print might differ case to Second, no major financial institu- with her sorceress powers. case, but the business model was iden- tion is as singly responsible for the The efforts to lull Clinton supporters

10 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES into defending the “big banks” have Electoral Justice for usual tone for the office: “It’s time to failed, for good reason. There’s no evi- restore fairness and credibility to our dence of a semi-secret conspiracy of Laquan McDonald criminal justice system.” In addition to Democrats that fucked up our econo- her 12 years as an assistant state’s attor- my out of the evilness of their traitor- n February 24, youth orga- ney (five under Alvarez), Foxx pointed ous hearts. Do they listen too much to nizers disrupted a fundraiser to her own life experiences as qualifi- people who are inside the industry? Oat the City Club of Chicago for cations for the job—she grew up in a Sure. Is Larry Summers a dick? Ab- Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Chicago public housing project and has solutely. Do I think that Democrats Alvarez, linking arms and blocking en- been the victim of crime, as well as seen got lulled into believing they could try into the formidable building with a family members incarcerated. win over some Republican votes by banner reading, “#ByeAnita.” After leaving the state’s attorney’s embracing conservative deregulation Alvarez is seeking a third term as office in 2013, Foxx became the chief schemes? The record shows they did. Chicago’s top prosecutor. She won her of staff for Cook County Board Presi- But I also think the Democrats, last re-election campaign handily, but dent Toni Preckwinkle, a political including Hillary Clinton, have em- this November could be different. In foe of Alvarez. Preckwinkle’s advo- braced reining in Wall Street and the past four months, she has faced a cacy helped launch Foxx’s campaign protecting financial consumers. Read chorus of calls to resign over the fatal in summer 2015, which then gained the White House summary of how ef- police shooting of Laquan McDonald, momentum in the fallout from the fective the Dodd-Frank bill has been, which detractors believe she tried to Laquan McDonald scandal. which has included creating the Con- hide from the public. In a sign of the The results of the March 15 primary sumer Financial Protection Bureau in growing power of the Black Lives Mat- race were not yet known as In These order to protect consumers from pred- ter movement, activists have effectively Times went to press. atory banking practices. (Sanders fans turned the prosecutor’s race into a ref- According to a February poll, 71 might look into the role Elizabeth War- erendum on policing and criminal jus- percent of registered Democrats in ren played in that, because I’ve been as- tice in Chicago. Cook County disapprove of how Al- sured that they really like her.) If Clin- They also helped propel the candi- varez handled McDonald’s October ton had some secret agenda to undo all dacy of a progressive challenger in the 2014 killing. She waited 13 months to that, I doubt Barney Frank would be March 15 Democratic primary. Kim file murder charges against Jason Van advising her on this front. n Foxx’s campaign slogan struck an un- Dyke, the police officer who shot the blueprints DETROIT TEACHERS ‘SICK’ IT TO EMERGENCY MANAGER n February 29, education activ- roaches—went viral. Earley’s resignation, announced in ists cheered as Darnell Earley Earley has an ignominious résumé: early February, is a victory for the rank- Oofficially stepped down from Before he began managing DPS in and-file activists who organized the his position as emergency manager of January 2015, he was the emergency sickouts. But many say the larger prob- Detroit Public Schools (DPS). His de- manager of Flint, Mich., when the city lem is Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s parture came after thousands of teach- infamously switched water supplies, appointment of all-powerful emergency ers staged rolling “sickouts” to protest eventually exposing its residents to managers in cities like Detroit and his role as the unelected head of the lead-contaminated water. Flint, which effectively disenfranchises school system. Teachers say that Earley’s reign in citizens in largely black jurisdictions. Strikes by teachers and other munic- Detroit, likewise, made a bad situation Teachers are still gearing up for a ipal employees are illegal under Michi- worse. The Detroit Federation of Teach- larger fight against a bankruptcy-style gan law, but more than a dozen times ers (DFT), which filed suit against Earley restructuring of Detroit’s schools that this winter, groups of teachers called in and DPS in February, accused him of Snyder hopes to push through the sick to protest frozen wages, balloon- allowing the schools to “deteriorate to state legislature. But they point to the ing class sizes, decaying buildings and the point of crisis.” success of the sickouts as a lesson other conditions they say are the result While the union didn’t endorse the in how to push back against state- of state-imposed austerity. sickouts, its leaders put to good use imposed austerity: “Having none of The largest such action, on Janu- the momentum created by the actions. the usual forms of democracy … this ary 20, forced the temporary closure In January, DFT successfully negotiated is what we have to do,” says Nicole of 88 of the district’s 104 schools. a letter of agreement with the school Conaway, a DPS teacher in the East Photos shared by teachers of the district on staff-meeting time limits, English Village neighborhood. “Mass hazardous conditions inside their paid sick leave, and a joint labor-man- direct action.” classrooms—black mold, rodents and agement committee. —MARIO VASQUEZ

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 11 ILR PRESS SCHOLARSHIP IN SERVICE OF ECONOMIC & SOCIAL JUSTICE

Kim Foxx is challenging state’s attorney Anita Alvarez in a race centered on Chicago police accountability. COURTESY OF THE KIM FOXX CAMPAIGN

“Third Wave Capitalism is a brilliant Black teenager 16 times. A graphic an unprecedented endorsement from take on what ails our society and our politics. John Ehrenreich looks dashcam video of the killing was kept the Chicago Teachers Union, and the beneath and also beyond the con- under wraps for more than a year; its backing of other labor groups. Foxx ventional explanations of the forces release in November 2015 triggered also said she would appoint an out- undercutt ing democracy. By allow- street protests and demands that Al- side prosecutor for all future police- ing us to understand bett er, he also allows us to hope.” varez and other top officials resign. involved shootings. —E. J. Dionne Jr., author of Why the Alvarez said in February that she Alvarez continues to oppose this Right Went Wrong didn’t “believe any mistakes were move, but has been quick to insist that made.” But both Foxx and Donna she’s not afraid to go after law enforce- Moore—a former federal and state ment—her office has charged 96 police prosecutor who also challenged Al- officers since 2008, according to a cam- varez for the nomination—say they paign commercial. Nevertheless, the would have acted differently. McDonald case suggests “a relationship “The truth of the matter is she had between the police and the state’s attor- determined he was a murderer and al- ney where law enforcement is always ADAM TOMPKINS lowed him to go to work every day, to right,” says Cook County commission- walk amongst us every day,” said Foxx er and 2015 Chicago mayoral candidate in a February debate. Critics have asked Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who endorsed whether the state’s attorney would have Foxx in February. pressed charges at all had the city not In December 2015, Salon reported on been compelled by court order to re- a case in which Alvarez had refused to lease the video of McDonald’s killing. prosecute a police officer who admitted “With meticulous research and force- Alvarez defends her actions, saying she to committing perjury, vetoing deci- ful arguments, Ghostworkers and was waiting for a federal investigation sions made by her subordinates and Greens oﬀ ers a strikingly original to conclude before pressing charges. quashing further investigations. And analysis of the relationship between farmworkers and environmental- In a sign of shifting political winds, some critics believe Alvarez deliber- ists in responding to the threats of Foxx picked up key endorsements from ately bungled the prosecution of police chemical insecticides.” Cook County’s Democratic Party and officer Dante Servin, who walked free —Mark H. Lytle, author of former Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, as after he shot and killed 22-year-old The Gentle Subversive well as both the Chicago Tribune and Rekia Boyd while off duty in 2012. Chicago Sun-Times. Her campaign fo- Then there’s Chicago’s ignominious cused on diverting low-level offenders distinction as the nation’s wrongful con- CORNELL into treatment programs, reforming viction capital. Alvarez created a con- the juvenile justice system and prose- viction integrity unit in 2012 that has University Press cuting wage theft and other workplace reviewed more than 350 cases, vacating ... abuses—positions that also won her 13. But she has drawn fire for filing hefty

12 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES charges against political protesters, as heart of several other races around the Worker Co-ops? well as refusing to reopen murder cases country in 2016. In St. Paul, Minnesota of men who claimed they were framed local Black Lives Matter leader Rashad There’s an App by Reynaldo Guevara, a former police Turner is running for state representa- detective accused of obtaining confes- tive with a platform centered on crimi- for That sions by torture for decades. nal justice reform. In Cuyahoga County, This isn’t the first time that a police Ohio, Tim McGinty—the prosecutor or many labor activists, killing has defined the course of a Chi- who urged against indicting the Cleve- “tech” has become a dirty word. cago election. In 1969, armed officers land police officer who shot and killed FWhile Silicon Valley extols the raided the home of Black Panther Party 12-year-old Tamir Rice—faces a tough virtues of the “sharing economy,” crit- leader Fred Hampton under the orders race for re-election after the local Dem- ics argue that platforms like Uber and of Cook County State’s Attorney Edward ocratic Party declined to endorse him. Airbnb allow investors to reap profits Hanrahan. Seven minutes and roughly But Chicago’s race sends the clearest by circumventing labor law and rip- one hundred bullets later, 21-year-old message yet that local officials who fail to ping off workers. Hampton lay dead. Black Democrats hold police accountable may pay a price But what if workers owned the apps? renounced their previous support for at the ballot box. Activists seized on the A new movement called “platform co- Hanrahan, who had dominated the state’s attorney race as an opportunity operativism” hopes to harness the pow- polls in the year before the raid but went for outreach and political education: er of tech to democratize the economy on to lose his 1972 re-election bid. Members of the Black Youth Project and advance labor rights. Still, it’s rare to see a candidate for 100 phone-banked and reached out to In response to the proliferation of prosecutor declaring openly that the young Black people in the streets nearly app-based services, some unions have criminal justice system is “broken” and every day leading up to the election, “re- begun trying to make inroads with running on a reform platform, says minding them what’s at stake,” says Bre- Uber drivers and other gig workers. Fredrick Harris, the director of the anna Champion, the group’s 23-year-old Platform cooperativism embraces Center on African-American Politics organizing co-chair. She’s blunt on that a different principle, articulated by and Society at Columbia University. point: “We believe that Anita Alvarez movement advocate and New School Prosecutors typically adopt a “tough on needs to get out.” But Champion stresses professor Trebor Scholz: “It’s too hard crime” stance. Harris believes this shift that BYP100 did not officially endorse to fix what you do not own.” “is only possible because of the rise of any of her opponents because “no one Instead, Scholz explained in a Janu- the Black Lives Matter movement.” party or candidate will save us.” ary overview of platform cooperativ- Indeed, police accountability is at the —DANETTE FREDERIQUE ism, workers can embrace the kinds of technologies that have emerged from MATT BORS Silicon Valley and put them to use “with a different ownership model, ad- hering to democratic values.” Platform cooperativism comprises a variety of businesses, ranging from media platforms like Stocksy (a cooperative that provides stock photography) to online marketplaces that hope to offer alternatives to tech-giant Amazon and its ilk. Though many of the businesses emerged independently of one another, they are united by common principles rooted in equality and transparency. Some platforms are already proving that they can give traditional Inter- net companies a run for their money. Stocksy is a particularly successful example: Started in 2013, it has a collection of 500,000 photos and has paid out over $4 million to its 900 artist-members. Here’s how it works: Publica- tions that want to use an image from Stocksy pay a fee raging from $10 –

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 13 14 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES $500. Fifty percent of that goes directly to the photographer. That’s a much fairer commission than the 20 percent paid out by the corporate service Getty Images, according to photographer and Stocksy member Thomas Hawk. That’s not the only reason Hawk left Getty for Stocksy in 2013. “The exciting part,” he writes on his personal blog, is that “the members of Stocksy actually own the agency.” Stocksy reflects this by distrib- uting 90 percent of its profits—which are handled separately from commis- sions—directly to artists. Membership is automatic for all Stocksy photographers, and additional community members are carefully se- lected on the basis of what their work IMAGE VIA STOCKSY will add to the company. A staff of 25 Stocksy has more than 500,000 photos—and 90 percent of the profits go to artists. is responsible for day-to-day business operations, and founders and advisers have businesses that are designed to ment), for instance, may begin issuing help make important business deci- make certain people very rich.” a type of non-voting share to investors sions ranging from pricing to com- Fairmondo’s vision of a more equi- that the co-op can later buy back. munity growth strategies. table society has attracted more than To truly transform the tech land- All these groups participate in elec- 10,000 users since 2013, who have scape, platform cooperatives will also tions for Stocksy’s board, and can sub- flocked to the site to buy and sell have to expand into the low-wage mit and vote on resolutions. Democ- goods ranging from ethically pro- service sector. The TransUnion Car racy also works in the other direction: duced smartphones to fair-trade cof- Service is a good example: Launched As Stocksy photographer Kara Riley fee. The company got there with the last year in Newark, New Jersey, the puts it, “before they make any deci- help of some of the largest crowdfund- company offers riders an Uber-like sions high up, they pose questions and ing drives Germany has seen, raising app but is owned by unionized driv- let all of us members give our input roughly €350,000 over the course of ers. San Francisco-based Loconomics, … the ideas of the members end up two campaigns in 2013 and 2014. Weth meanwhile, hopes to create an alterna- being what happens in the company.” hopes that one day the company will tive to TaskRabbit, a sharing-economy While all platform co-ops adopt be able to supplant traditional digital giant that allows users to outsource some form of member ownership, their marketplaces, which he sees as corrupt miscellaneous tasks such as assem- models for democratic decision-mak- and socially destructive. bling IKEA furniture or doing the ing differ. Take, for instance, Berlin- But Weth acknowledges that growth dishes. While “Rabbits” often lack job based co-op Fairmondo, which aims is still a challenge for Fairmondo, security and benefits, Loconomics will to emulate digital marketplaces such which has had to make some tough be owned by the service profession- as Amazon and eBay while promot- personnel cuts in order to shore up als who work on it and offer access to ing sustainable and fair-trade prod- finances. Crowdfunding has been a benefits and career development. ucts. Membership is open to anyone remarkably effective way of attracting Advocates hope that the old plat- who buys a €10 share in the company, members and capital, but Fairmon- forms will be “deleted” as users em- and individuals can control multiple do will need to scale its business up brace new, more equitable ones. Janelle shares. But founder Felix Weth says dramatically if it is to cover costs, let Orsi, director of the Sustainable Econ- that the maximum number of shares alone compete with Amazon. omies Law Center, has a name for the per person is capped at 2,500 and there This points to a larger difficulty for end-goal of this process. Dislodging is a strict “one member, one vote” rule platform cooperatives: They reject ven- the corporate giants that control the to maintain internal democracy. ture capital and typical private inves- tech industry at present would be “the That deliberately prevents anyone tors, and without traditional sources of opposite of an apocalypse,” she said at from getting rich from Fairmondo. startup money these businesses must a November 2015 conference billed as “We need to find a way to address the create and adopt new models of financ- a “coming out party for the cooperative problem of inequality on our planet,” ing. The music-streaming service Res- Internet. It would be a “co-opalypse.” says Weth, “I don’t think it helps if we onate (which is currently in develop- —TOM LADENDORF

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 15 PRESENT PAST

BY RICK PERLSTEIN Goosestepping All the Way to the White House WHY HAS DONALD TRUMP BEEN SO SUCCESSFUL? And, for what it’s worth, it’s true! Hitler built the Au- Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone, thinks he has the answer. tobahn! He conquered inflation! (It’s not hard, if you can He writes, “Reporters have focused quite a lot on the shoot people who raise prices.) Unemployment plummeted! crazy/race-baiting/nativist themes in Trump’s cam- You might even say that for “ordinary Germans” strug- paign.” Taibbi, though, will not be bamboozled: “These gling in the modern economy, things got pretty good. comprise a very small part of his usual presentation. But guess what? Under fascism, economic protection His speeches increasingly are strikingly populist in for the goose accompanies dispossession of the gander. their content.” Trump’s pitch, which Taibbi seems at White people prosper in part because minorities suffer— least partially to accept: “He’s rich, he won’t owe any- whether, under Hitler, by taking away property from Jews, one anything upon election, and therefore he won’t or as Herr Trump expects, by taking back “our” jobs from do what both Democratic and Republican politicians “them,” whether the them is immigrants or our suppos- unfailingly do upon taking office, i.e. approve rot- edly duplicitous trading partners. ten/regressive policies that screw ordinary people.” There’s even a sociological term for it: herrenvolk repub- Taibbi should clean out licanism. We’ve had it here, too, his ears. if in milder form. I attended the same Trump George Wallace said to Wil- rally in Plymouth, N.H., and liam F. Buckley Jr. in 1968 that heard the crazy and the race- the state of Alabama “had five baiting and the nativist themes generations of people who raining down like dirty dollar didn’t go to school because bills at a strip joint. there were no schools for black But leave aside that Mexicans or white.” Then he became gov- and Syrians are also “ordinary ernor and—he claimed—turned people” who struggle in the Alabama into an educational modern economy. And that paradise. Like all authoritarians, you can’t trust anything Donald he lied: Education stayed plenty Trump says. No, the core inanity awful, especially for blacks in All fascists achieve and cement power cuts much deeper. It’s an igno- in remarkably similar ways. segregated schools. rance of a simple historical fact: And, like all authoritarians, the Every fascist achieves and cements his power by pledging to bedrock of his appeal was his hate. As one voter in Mas- rescue ordinary people from the depredations of economic sachusetts asked Wallace’s aide Tom Turnipseed in 1968, elites. That’s how fascism works. “When Wallace is elected president he’s going to round up Read, for instance, this article from a Nazi-friendly web- all the niggers and shoot them, isn’t he?” Turnipseed assured site on “How Hitler Defied the Bankers”: him, “We’re not going to shoot anybody.” To which the voter When Hitler came to power, Germany was hopelessly responded, “Well, I don’t know whether I’m for him or not.” broke. … Germany had no choice but to succumb to debt Which sounds a whole lot like what Trump fans told The slavery under international (mainly Jewish) bankers until Nation’s Sasha Abramsky. “I’d give ’em a choice,” said one 1933, when the National Socialists came to power. Hitler un-cherrypicked voter, concerning Muslims in America. “A began a national credit program by devising a plan of trench on one side or a ticket out of here.” public works that included flood control, repair of public Build infrastructure, jail banksters: Hell, I’m for all buildings and private residences, and construction of new that, too. It shouldn’t take electing thugs to do it. There’s a roads, bridges, canals and port facilities. … Within two reason the saying “anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools” years, the unemployment problem had been solved. … made so much sense in Weimar Germany: Socialism and Germany’s economic freedom was short-lived; but it left barbarism can look very similar in their surface appeals. several monuments, including the famous Autobahn, the The real fools are the media sophisticates who don’t world’s first extensive superhighway.

bother to look a bare inch underneath. n BORS MATT BY ILLUSTRATION

16 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES BACK TALK

BY SUSAN J. DOUGLAS Bernie Sanders: The Anti-Greedy Geezer HOW IS IT THAT A 74-YEAR-OLD MAN HAS INSPIRED was an era of “trickle down” economics, efforts to limit or the loyalty and devotion of thousands of twentysomethings? eliminate the government’s role in redistributing wealth, Aren’t millennials supposed to resent older people, seeing tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of corporations and of them as demanding “seniors” who have greedily attached finance, and widespread privatization of things the govern- themselves to the auricles and ventricles of every government used to run, such as schools, prisons and hospitals. ment-provided social service available and thus are glee- To justify this, the mantra of market fundamentalism fully and selfishly sucking their children and grandchildren glorifies individual responsibility as if it were a sacrament. dry? In 2012, former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson (then We allegedly create our own circumstances by the choices 81) infamously called older people “greedy geezers,” and we make. There are no structural, institutional obstacles numerous pundits have flogged this notion of generational that might thwart such choices, and thus, no need for any warfare, with older people cast as the clear villains. Washing- notion of collective responsibility or the common good. ton Post columnist Catherine Rampell, bemoaning college Millennials have been hit especially hard by this ideo- students’ “misdirected” activism around the need for more logical shift. The massive defunding of public universities cultural sensitivity on campuses, and federal grants and loans suggested that young people has led to the tripling of student focus on “one of the greatest loan debt since the 1990s. More injustices they face: the huge and than three-quarters of renters growing intergenerational wealth between the ages of 18 and 24 transfers away from them and spend more than they earn every toward their parents and grand- month, and they are racking up parents.” Insisting that “young credit card debt at a faster rate people have been done wrong than other age groups. One in by their elders,” she deplored 5 twentysomethings have more the “generous benefits that those credit card debt than savings, older people have not paid for and the usurious interest rates and never will.” Who will pick up and late fees are more burden- the tab? Her answer: Millennials. Bernie Sanders may have lost Super some when you’re just starting Another typical “warfare” story, Tuesday, but he won the youth vote. out. At least 8 million didn’t have in the conservative blog Hot Air, health insurance as of 2014. said older Americans are “content” to use their grand- So when Sanders says that “it’s time to make college children as “ATMs.” So what gives with these same young tuition-free and debt-free,” that the big banks should be people flocking in droves to the Sanders campaign? broken up, that health insurance is a human right, and that Sanders has tapped into the overwhelming sense of the minimum wage should be increased to $15 an hour, no injury, frustration and anger at the toll that market funda- wonder young people cheer for him, pack his rallies and mentalism has exacted on Americans, especially the young. donate to his cause. He may have lost Super Tuesday, but he And in defiance of the “greedy geezer” stereotype, Sand- won the youth vote. His relentless focus on income inequal- ers personifies the fact that older people—the parents and ity has constructed an intergenerational bridge around a grandparents of millennials—actually care deeply about the wholesale rejection of a government by elites, for elites. One financial struggles of young people and know something of his many great contributions during the campaign has about the ravages of market fundamentalism themselves. been to show that such a bridge can be built. During the Great Depression and the post-WWII period, As Hillary Clinton moves closer to the nomination, she there was a general acceptance that the state has a responsi- ignores this lesson at her peril. At stake is the overthrow of bility to mitigate inequality, provide basic services and even this bankrupt ideology, and the need to celebrate Sanders’ vi- out capitalism’s boom-bust cycle. sion of a social solidarity that puts the lie to media-promoted Older Americans saw the dismantling of that acceptance generational “wars” and unites the young and the old around

and the rise of free-market fundamentalism. What followed an emphatic repudiation of market fundamentalism. n PHOTO BY LAURA BUCKMAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 17 VIEWPOINT

BY DARLENA CUNHA No, We Can’t—Without a Revolution “I BELIEVE THAT, AS HARD AS IT WILL BE, THE CHANGE everything we can within our system. Congress is in such we need is coming, because I’ve seen it, because I’ve lived it.” gridlock that Republican leaders are refusing to hear nomi- “We can seize this future together.” nations for a Supreme Court Justice. Because of this, voters “If you are willing to work with me ... then I promise you are ready for the bold statement, “No, we can’t.” change will come.” Bernie Sanders has surprised the country and the main- President Barack Obama said these things on the cam- stream media with his persistent popularity, shooting up paign trail in 2008 and 2012. His stance didn’t waver; his from “protest candidate” (as rival Martin O’Malley initially hope didn’t crumble. President Obama truly believed in dismissed him) to Hillary Clinton’s only threat. “Yes, we can.” And he brought us with him. Having been in politics for decades upon decades, Sand- He brought us as far as he could, anyway. ers has no illusions about the presidency or the Congress. Obama believed we would close Guantanamo Bay; he As he said on CNN back in 2012: believed we could make college affordable. He believed he I think that many people have the mistaken impression could close the tax loopholes that benefit huge corporations that Congress regulates Wall at the expense of individuals, that Street. ... The real truth is that he could push through universal Wall Street regulates Congress. healthcare with lower premiums. Obama believed we could He reiterated that sentiment do all of these things within in a Democratic debate in the system we gave him. October 2015: He thought he could create We need to raise the public con- change by working inside the sciousness. We need the Ameri- establishment, changing the can people to know what’s going policy that sits atop the current on in Washington in a way that structure of our democracy. today they do not know. Obama believed in us, as we are. He was a young candidate. Bernie Sanders came to His tenure in politics had been the campaign trail effec- Sanders has turned Obama’s message of ‘Yes, we relatively short. He had a revital- can’ on its head by demanding structural change. tively screaming, “No, we izing naïveté about him. “Yes, we can’t.” No, we can’t—unless we can” stood for: Yes, we can make our politics work. Yes, we break the corporate chokehold on our democracy. No, can work inside this box to make them happen together. we can’t—unless we muster a popular uprising strong It was a powerful message, and it was necessary to pave enough to transform the structure of our government. the way for Bernie Sanders’ message, which is, “No, we If voters heed this call, if we elect Bernie Sanders as our can’t. Unless we transform the system.” next president, we know it must also go beyond “the Bern.” Sanders, unlike Obama, is bluntly calling for a politi- A president cannot overthrow core tenets of rotten policy cal revolution. He is not working around the faults in our without the political muscle of Congress. As we gear up to system, but laying them bare. The type of change Sanders is vote, we must remember that we’re voting not for one day, using to woo voters doesn’t stay inside our current political or for one year. We tried to let a president do it by himself. box. It is appealing because it tosses that box in the dump- This time, we need to give the president not only the White ster. And it would not have resonated without Obama’s House but a Congress to work with. Because no, we can’t. “Yes, we can” going first and showing us the limits of what Not right now. is possible within our current constraints. Sanders is of course no shoo-in for the White House, or We look back at that refrain and think, “Well, we tried.” even the nomination. But even if we get a President Clinton We tried, and we’ve been in gridlock financially and politi- (or, heaven forbid, a President Trump), we’ve acknowledged cally for seven years. But we tried. The voter base that how deep our problems run and how we indeed need noth-

leans progressive now has viable proof that we have done ing short of a political revolution. n PHOTO BY SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

18 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES THE THIRD COAST

BY SALIM MUWAKKIL U.N. to U.S.: Reparations Now THE CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION ON REPARATIONS The Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign was the primary for African Americans was instigated by Ta-Nehisi Coates organizer of the Chicago visit, with help from groups in an award-winning essay in the June 2014 issue of The like the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in Atlantic. Reparations were also the most salient recom- America (N’COBRA), The National Conference of Black mendation of a United Nations working group that recently Lawyers and Fearless Leading by the Youth. People traveled toured the United States to assess the condition of black from St. Louis, Ferguson, Flint, Madison and Minneapolis America. At the end of its fact-finding mission, the group to testify before the U.N. group on topics that ranged from concluded it was “extremely concerned about the human employment discrimination and the wide-scale closures of rights situation of African Americans.” majority-black schools in Chicago, to police brutality. The United Nations Working Group of Experts on People Noting the “the excessive control and supervision of African Descent was established in 2002. The group targeting all levels of [black] life” and “the persistent gap delivered its assessment at a January 29 news conference in in almost all the human development indicators, such as Washington, D.C., following an 11-day tour that included life expectancy, income and wealth, level of education and stops in Baltimore, Chicago, even food security,” the group New York City and Jackson, concluded: “Past injustices and Miss., where the delegation met crimes against African Ameri- with community organizers, cans need to be addressed with law enforcement officials and reparatory justice.” victims of police violence. The group also recommended Chairperson Mireille Fanon- erecting monuments, markers Mendès France, a French human and memorials to acknowl- rights activist (and daughter edge that “the transatlantic of the writer and psychiatrist slave trade was a crime against Frantz Fanon) summed up the humanity,” accompanied by working group’s preliminary education and acts of reconcili- findings: “Despite substantial ation. In addition, it suggested changes since the end of the The police killings of Laquan McDonald and Eric establishing a national hu- enforcement of Jim Crow and the Garner have heightened calls for reparations. man rights commission with a fight for civil rights, ideology en- division dedicated to monitoring suring the domination of one group over another continues the rights of African Americans, repealing all state laws to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social, restricting voting rights, and passing all pending criminal cultural and environmental rights of African Americans.” justice reform legislation, as well as the H.R. 40 bill for a I spoke with Mendès France during the group’s visit to Commission to Study Reparations Proposals for African Chicago. She expressed disappointment at finding so little Americans Act. Since 1989, at the start of every Congress, progress on racial issues. “These police killings, especially Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has fruitlessly re-introduced the case of Eric Garner and Laquan McDonald, remind me this legislation to acknowledge slavery and racial discrim- of the lynchings of black men in the South,” she said. “It’s ination, study their impact and propose remedies. H.R. 40 shocking that these kinds of abuses persist.” is numbered in recognition of the unfulfilled promise to She added that the history of the United States makes it freed slaves of “40 acres and a mule.” obvious that the legacy of enslavement is an ongoing prob- The group’s findings will be presented in a report to the lem for black Americans, and that “the need for repara- U.N. Human Rights Council in September. The informa- tory justice is very apparent to anyone who really cares to tion will then be grist for whatever mill that best uses it. Past look.” For example, the fact that American policing evolved delegations’ reports on Ecuador, Brazil, Panama, Belgium, partially from slave patrols helps explain the anti-black atti- the United Kingdom, Sweden and the Netherlands have in- tudes endemic to police departments and other institutions fluenced the national discourse. At the very least, this report

with a similar paternity. will boost the argument of reparations advocates. n PHOTO BY SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 19 BY SADY DOYLE A Progressive Case for Clinton n our Hillary vs. Bernie roundtable last July—oh, what a faraway, innocent time July was— II was aware that I was making nice rather than making my case. My reticence was due to a fear that I voiced at the end of the conversation: that “Sanders vs. Clinton will become ugly, and we’re going to get to the finish line unable to get behind the nominee, and then I am going to wake up one day and Ted Cruz will be president.” Now, the ugliness has arrived. So here comes my full-throated case for Hillary Clinton for president of the United States. First, it is impossible to analyze Clin- ton—her policies, her career path, her hair—without understanding how gender bias operates. Bias plays a role in all of our reactions, no matter how femi- Clinton speaks at a ceremony on nist we are. As progressives, it is our Aug. 26, 1995, marking the 75th duty to resist these stereotypes, and, if anniversary of the 19th Amendment. we are journalists, to help our readers FRAZZA/AFP/GETTYLUKE IMAGES understand how gender bias operates at an unconscious level. study reports that “participants ex- and how we can frame criticisms When you hear that Hillary Clinton perienced feelings of moral outrage without feeding into the very real is unlikable, be aware of the study that (i.e. contempt, anger, and/or disgust) misogyny that has dogged Clinton shows competent women are gener- towards them” and that “women were throughout her career—an antipathy ally seen as unlikable; when you hear just as likely as men to have negative once expressed in a “Hillary Clinton that Hillary Clinton is dishonest, know reactions.” In the very same Yale study, dismemberment doll,” complete with that this same study shows women in when “participants saw male politi- detachable limbs. power are generally seen as dishonest. cians as power-seeking, they also saw Once one cuts through that misogy- And know that when the same imagi- them as having greater agency (e.g. ny, one is forced to confront the reason nary job candidate is presented to two being more assertive, stronger and the GOP has fostered hatred against groups, with the only difference being tougher) and greater competence.” her: For much of the early portions of a male or female name at the top of the That is not to say that there can- Clinton’s career, beginning when she résumé, the female candidate is seen not be specific, convincing arguments arrived on the national stage in 1992, as less trustworthy than the man. In against Hillary Clinton, or that there Hillary Clinton was presumed by the each study, these biased reactions were are not arguments against her. It is Right (and many Democrats) to be found in both women and men. to say that people who criticize Hill- too far left to be in politics. She was And realize that when women seek ary Clinton, especially from the Left, Bill Clinton’s left-wing liability, a Saul- power—for example, by running for should be aware of how these stereo- Alinsky-hugging, Children’s-Defense- the nation’s highest office—a Yale types may distort our perceptions, Fund-working, non-cookie-baking,

20 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES VIEWPOINT

mouthy feminist, attacked on the stage Issues and declared that “the United dated, single-axis analysis that, as of the Republican National Convention States must be an unequivocal and un- Andrea Plaid noted in these pages, is for supporting “radical feminism” and wavering voice in support of women’s as myopic as #whitefeminists trying “homosexual rights.” rights in every country on every conti- to make everything “all about gen- It was in part because of this hatred nent.” In short, this is the same Hillary der”). But I won’t. that Hillary Clinton became the person Clinton who is today stressing equal I want to talk about the woman who we know today: a candidate defined by pay for women as a racial justice issue, has survived 25 years of misogynist her caution and her frustrating self- given that the women who are most pe- hatred and GOP attacks, and came contradictions, seemingly torn be- nalized by the pay gap are black women out unbroken and unbowed. I want to tween challenging the power structure and Latinas. talk about the woman who, knowing and gaining enough credibility within And the Hillary Clinton who is “Re- full well how bad it gets, signed up for that power structure to survive. Clin- publican lite,” “more like Reagan than anywhere between a few months to ton believes that you need to be in the FDR” and “to the right of Nixon” does another decade of hideous treatment. system in order to change the system, not seem remotely the same Clinton It doesn’t hurt that she was the first and I think that is true. Clinton’s path whose votes aligned with Sen. Bernie candidate to advocate overturning the has given her tremendous impact, and Sanders’ 93 percent of the time dur- Hyde Amendment on the campaign in many ways, her politics—left sym- ing the two years they overlapped in trail, or that she has been vocal and pathies combined with a survivor’s the Senate. They famously parted ways insistent on equal pay and reproduc- instinct for using the system, and a on the 2002 decision to authorize the tive rights, or that she has responded lawyer’s love of the fine detail—are war in Iraq—a vote that Clinton ac- to pressure for her campaign to dem- reminiscent of Obama’s. While leftists knowledges was a mistake. That doesn’t onstrate a serious commitment to ra- have critiques of Obama, too, I think undo the war, or make her right in ret- cial justice by reaching out to women he’s been the best president in my life- rospect, and it doesn’t even defuse the affected by police brutality and giving time, which started with Reagan. I also idea that she voted for the war specifi- lengthy public statements about the remember that second Bush a little too cally to protect her reputation; many need for white people to recognize well to ever believe that the two parties Democratic politicians with presiden- their own privilege and take part in are “basically the same” (though I have tial aspirations, from John Kerry to Joe resisting and ending racism. been told this many times). Biden, made that same vote. I respect I do not believe she would do all this When I hear claims about Hillary that for a serious and thoughtful per- if she simply wanted personal pow- Clinton, the money-grubbing shill for son, the Iraq vote might rule Clinton er. We’ve seen what a candidate who Wall Street who thinks just like a Re- out; it ruled her out for me in 2008. But wants personal power looks like: Don- publican, I don’t recognize the woman this is not 2008, and this year, her op- ald Trump. If you are a narcissist, ways who once snapped at her husband for ponent’s lack of interest or expertise in exist to make people like you; a lifelong not fighting hard enough for universal foreign policy worries me more than career as a highly visible feminist is, healthcare, telling him, “You weren’t her record. We got into Iraq—a quag- trust me, not one of them. Working for elected to do Wall Street economics.” mire that has lasted, literally, for my a legal fund that provides free defense Similarly, I see no shifty dishonesty entire adult life—not only because of to the poor, or going undercover as a in the Hillary Clinton who, in 2005, U.S. interventionism, but because the civil rights operative to uncover ra- pushed for a 9/11-style commission commander in chief didn’t understand cial discrimination in schools, are not to investigate the Bush administra- the region well enough to know how things the power-hungry do, but Secre- tion’s failure to respond to Hurricane profoundly we would destabilize it, or tary Clinton has done them. Katrina, and who today is the woman how that would trap us in a conflict I am a progressive. I like Hillary Clin- making the administrative negligence that would last for generations. I may ton and I do not feel remotely conflict- in Flint, Mich., central to her campaign. not always agree with Clinton, but at ed. The qualities she’s exhibited over Similarly, the Hillary Clinton who least I believe she knows her stuff. her long career—practicality, resilience, traveled to Beijing in 1995 against the So, yes. There are problems with the ability to use the system to improve wishes of her husband’s administration her record, and I recognize them. I the lives of the least powerful within to declare that “women’s rights are hu- could also criticize Sanders. I could it, the ability, above all, to survive—are man rights” is entirely recognizable as go on about, for instance, his ten- not just admirable. They’re exactly what the Secretary of State who helped to dency to bring every single question progressives need if we are to carry the create the Office of Global Women’s back to economic inequality (an out- White House. n

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 21 BY JOEL BLEIFUSS The Morning After the Nomination hen Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, he marshaled Whis supporters under the banners of “change” and “hope.” “Change We Can Believe In” was the 2008 campaign slogan. “Hope,” the one- word promise of the Obama presidency. For many, that hoped-for change fell short. In 2009, President Obama appointed Wall Street friendly Timothy Geithner to succeed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former chair and CEO of Goldman Sachs. Geithner had been head of the New York Federal Reserve and was a protégé of Robert Rubin, the former co-chair of Goldman Sachs and Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. The disillusionment continued with the 2013, when Obama appointed Wall Street attorney Mary Jo Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) walks onstage in White to head the Securities and Ex- Essex Junction, Vt., to greet supporters change Commission, in which capacity after winning the Vermont primary. she (inspired perhaps by Citizens Unit- PLATT/GETTYSPENCER IMAGES ed) decided not to require all publicly registered corporations to make their industry executives, as she is refusing moved into the White House, he ap- political donations public. to release the transcripts of any of her pointed Edelman’s husband, Peter, Today, Bernie Sanders’ supporters private speeches to corporate interests. assistant secretary for planning and are rallying behind the banner of “A It’s doubtful, however, that she called evaluation at the Department of Health Future to Believe In”—a future that for political revolution. and Human Services. After Bill Clinton Sanders is leading a “political revolu- Similarly, Clinton has yet to fully ex- signed the landmark welfare reform tion” to create. This call to revolution plain why she actively supported the bill, Peter Edelman resigned in protest. is being endorsed by an overwhelming Personal Responsibility and Work Op- As he explained in an Atlantic article majority of Democratic voters under portunity Reconciliation Act, aka “wel- titled “The Worst Thing Bill Clinton the age of 30. And that is shaking up a fare reform,” that President Bill Clinton Has Done”: Democratic establishment that has put triangulated through the Republican The bill that President Clinton its chips on Hillary Clinton. House and Senate in 1996. signed is not welfare reform. It Clinton is a candidate who, from When Clinton graduated from law does not promote work effec- 2013 to 2015, earned $2.9 million by giv- school, she went to work—as she tively, and it will hurt millions of ing 12 speeches to financial institutions, never fails to mention—for Marian poor children by the time it is fully including Bank of America, Goldman Wright Edelman at the Children’s De- implemented. What’s more, it bars Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, fense Fund, an anti-poverty nonprofit hundreds of thousands of legal im- UBS and Ameriprise. We will never in Washington, D.C., that Edelman migrants—including many who know what she said to those banking founded in 1973. When Bill Clinton have worked in the United States

22 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES THE FIRST STONE

for decades and paid a considering “impartiality and evenhandedness than the 2000 candidacy of Ralph Nad- able amount in Social Security and as between the presidential candidates er, which was embraced by many on the income taxes—from receiving dis- and campaigns,” a task at which Was- Left who saw no difference between Al ability and old-age assistance and serman Schultz has failed. Gore and George W. Bush, and conse- food stamps, and reduces food- This failure is most visible in her quently had no problem casting a vote stamp assistance for millions of decision to schedule only six Demo- for Nader—which had the same effect children in working families. cratic debates, three of them on week- as abstaining and thus passively voting Like the $675,000 in speaking fees ends when the least number of people for Bush. from Goldman Sachs, Hillary Clinton’s would see them—a move calculated to Having a politics that makes the per- support for welfare reform has become appease the Clinton campaign, which fect the enemy of the good or holding a campaign issue. Sanders, who voted had argued against even six debates. to the silly notion that things must get against the bill, said while campaigning (In 2008, there were 26.) worse before they can get better, what in South Carolina: When DNC Vice Chair Tulsi Gab- the French call le mal politique, are What welfare reform did, in my bard, a U.S. representative from Ha- both well-traveled dead ends. view, was to go after some of the waii, criticized the lack of debates and As MoveOn put it when announc- weakest and most vulnerable peo- the way the decision was made, Was- ing its endorsement of Sanders, sup- ple in this country. And, during serman Schultz responded by revoking porters of both Clinton and Sanders that period, I spoke out against Gabbard’s invitation to attend the CNN share the common goal of helping so-called welfare reform because I debate in Nevada in October 2015. “the Democratic nominee win and thought it was scapegoating people In response, DNC Vice Chair R.T. keep a Republican out of the White who were helpless, people who Rybak, the former mayor of Minne- House in November.” were very, very vulnerable. Sec- apolis, went on the record: “The person But is the tent big enough to ensure retary Clinton at that time had a who is leading us is not leading us.” everyone inside is a happy camper? very different position on welfare Massachusetts Democratic Party Vice Sanders is thinking long-term. May- reform—strongly supported it and Chair Deb Kozikowski accused Was- be he will win the nomination. Maybe worked hard to round up votes for serman Schultz of “establishing a full- he will not. The nomination is not his its passage. fledged dictatorship at the DNC.” end game. Clinton is running on the slogan On July 28, either Sanders or Clinton Sanders has made no secret of his po- “fighting for us.” But that raises a ques- will give an acceptance speech at the litical agenda. Speaking to supporters tion: Who is the “us” she is fighting for? Democratic National Convention in in Essex Junction, Vt., on Super Tues- Is it the party of Democratic Na- Philadelphia. The next day, Wasserman day, he said: tional Committee (DNC) Chairper- Schultz will be tasked with asking their This campaign is not just about son Debbie Wasserman Schultz? The supporters to come together under the electing a president. It’s about Florida congresswoman is a member big tent of the Democratic Party. Will transforming America. It is about of the “New Democratic Coalition,” the they heed her call? making this great country the na- congressional affiliate of the pro-cor- Surely, Clinton’s supporters would tion that we know it has the poten- porate Democratic Leadership Council vote for a Sanders presidency. But tial to be. It is about dealing with (DLC), which disbanded in 2011. To no would Sanders’ political revolutionar- some unpleasant truths that exist one’s surprise, she announced in March ies be willing to brook political com- in America today and having the that she was co-sponsoring legislation promise and make common cause with guts to confront those truths. … that would eviscerate the Consumer those with whom they differ on issues We are not going to allow billion- Financial Protection Bureau’s planned like single-payer healthcare, breaking aires and the super PACs to destroy regulation of the predatory pay-day up banks like Goldman Sachs, trade American democracy. loan industry. agreements such as the Trans-Pacif- How receptive will the Democratic Wasserman Schultz has told Politico ic Partnership and the Transatlantic Party establishment be? Will they open that she and Clinton have “a special Trade and Investment Partnership, and their arms to legions of young people relationship.” And her favoritism to- the bloated size of the Defense Depart- who have no compunction talking ward Clinton during the campaign ment budget? Would they be willing to about democratic socialism, break- has riled some of her fellow committee vote for Clinton? ing up the banks and dismantling the members. After all, the DNC charter Could good, principled people be health insurance industry? charges the chairperson with exercis- dumb enough not to? Look no further Or will we all get trumped? n

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 23 Is Your Water Worse Than Flint’s? Our nation’s water crisis requires radical solutions

BY LAURA ORLANDO

Flint residents knew there was a serious prob- tar of austerity. In 2011, he ended public oversight by appointing his own man— lem with their water when it came out of the tap an “emergency manager”—to cut costs brown and foul-smelling after the city of Flint and run the city. Flint went through a series of four emergency managers in changed its source from Lake Huron to the Flint as many years. When the extent of poisoning was known, Snyder did noth- River two years ago. They didn’t know, however, ing. He failed to warn people against that lead levels were so high that the Environ- drinking the water and he failed to provide a safe alternative. mental Protection Agency could classify it as haz- It’s infuriating. But anger is not action. What can we do to prevent the ardous waste. It took Michigan Republican Gov. next municipal drinking water disaster? Rick Snyder and the Michigan Department It is already here, flowing into the water glasses of millions of Americans. Chica- of Environmental Quality more than 17 The names of the people who made go, Philadelphia and hundreds of other months to acknowledge the problem. the decisions behind the poisoning are cities with old pipes have a lead prob- As a result, tens of thousands of Flint known. Snyder set the wheels in mo- lem. And that’s just the start of the mu- residents have been—and continue to tion with a scheme that sacrificed the nicipal water pollution crisis. In most of

be—poisoned. health of the people of Flint on the al- the country, once-clean drinking water BRETT CARLSEN/GETTY IMAGES

24 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES sources are now profoundly polluted— drinking supply either from industrial of treated sewage is not unusual. A by treated and untreated sewage, by or wastewater-treatment discharges or, 1980 EPA study (the most recent one chemical-intensive agriculture, by waste more commonly, because it leaches out conducted) indicated that more than from confined animal feeding opera- of lead pipes, solders and brass fixtures 24 major public water utilities got tions and by industrial discharges. Even in the distribution network. their water from rivers in which sew- in Flint, the story begins not with lead Some conditions make the lead leach age treatment plant discharges consti- pipes but with failed attempts to “treat” faster. This is what happened in Flint tuted over 50 percent of the flow dur- the source of the city water supply: the when, under the control of an emer- ing low-flow conditions. In 1985, there open sewer that is the Flint River. gency manager, the city switched its were about 6,700 municipal waste- Pipes and fixtures can be replaced, water source from Lake Huron to the water treatment plants. Since then, Municipalities with money are slowly replacing pipes. Flint, one of the most economically depressed cities in America, has never been a likely candidate for lead pipe replacement. but all of the chemical contaminants in Flint River and then added chemicals an additional 10,000 have been built, our drinking water cannot be removed, that made the situation worse. which collectively disgorge 33,657 mil- no matter how advanced the technol- It’s not that the Flint River has el- lion gallons per day of effluent into ogy. The solution is to prevent them evated levels of lead in it. The trouble— rivers, lakes, streams and oceans. To from getting there in the first place. besides the high bacteria levels and un- give you an idea of how that compares Flint: The whole story told number of harmful chemicals—is to public water use, 23,800 million that its water is corrosive. Depending gallons per day are used for drinking Just as there’s no mystery about the on the rainfall conditions at the time water, landscaping, toilets, showers toxic combination of racism and of measurement, as much as half of the and sinks, and another 18,200 mil- neoliberalism that caused the Flint river is made up of wastewater from the lion gallons per day go to industry and water crisis, there is no mystery about city’s sewage treatment plant. Before it’s commercial businesses. the chemistry that caused the lead to released into the river, the wastewater The Flint sewage treatment plant, leach from Flint’s pipes. Lead rarely is treated with chlorine. located on the banks of the Flint occurs naturally in water. It enters our Pulling drinking water from a river River, keeps 20,000 pounds of chlorine on hand. The wastewater leaving the plant—which averages 32 million gallons per day, but can be as high as 75 million gallons per day—is chlori- nated before being dumped into the Flint River. Disinfecting wastewater with chlorine is a common practice in wastewater treatment that helps the effluent stay below regulatory levels for coliforms— an indicator of fecal contamination. (This does not mean the Flint River is without coliform bacteria. Tests published by the city of Flint show high coliform levels in the river. Sewage treatment overflows, leaks and illegal sewer pipes dumping into the river could be the cause of this.) Adding chlorine to water is an effective way to dramatically reduce patho- Garbage floats in the Flint River on February 7. genic bacteria. But chlorine solves one

SARAH RICE/GETTY IMAGES problem only to create another: It helps

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There is epidemio- logical evidence of a close relationship between DBPs and cancer. The EPA regulates just four of the more than 500 known DBPs, one of which, trihalo- methanes (THMs), was already in the Because of a toxic algae bloom in Flint River at concentrations in viola- Lake Erie caused by agricultural tion of EPA drinking water standards. runoff, Oregon, Ohio, instituted a The city needed to lower bacteria levels two day water ban in August 2014. in its water, but couldn’t add more chlo- AARON BERNSTEIN/GETTY P. IMAGES rine without raising concentrations of THMs, so it switched to chloramine products. So the city made the switch and brain damage. (chlorine plus ammonia), which solves from chlorine to chloramine. It didn’t take long for press accounts the problem of THMs but leaches lead Flint, like all cities in the United of lead poisoning to surface. In 1890, even faster than chlorine. (Chloramine States with pipes over 30 years old, the Massachusetts State Board of also creates its own DBPs, but these are has lead in its distribution system. Health advised the state’s cities and not regulated.) The same story of chloramine corro- towns to avoid the use of lead pipes. Chloramine’s highly corrosive effects sion unfolded in Flint as it had in D.C. By the 1920s, cities across the country are well-documented. In 2001, after a In summer 2015, Dr. Mona Hanna- had banned them. But the lead mining switch from chlorine to chloramine, Attisha, a Flint-based pediatrician, and manufacturing industries pushed tests showed Washington, D.C., water got a tip from a friend at the EPA that back, establishing the Lead Industries was leaching lead from the distribu- Flint might have a leaching problem, Association in 1928, which aggres- tion system. Civil engineering profes- and began studying hospital blood sively advocated for the continued use sor Marc Edwards of Virginia Tech, an samples. A paper she co-authored in of lead solder and pipes. Against the expert on water treatment, sounded the February 2016 issue of American mountains of data on illnesses and the alarm. Just like the whistleblowers Journal of Public Health showed that deaths, industry prevailed. It wasn’t in Flint, the municipality and the EPA incidence of elevated blood lead lev- until 1986 that federal regulations ignored him. It took two years for the els in Flint children doubled, and in banned lead in new drinking water D.C. water authority to notify the pub- some neighborhoods nearly tripled, distribution systems. lic about high lead levels in the water. after the city began using water from But much of the old lead piping still Then the city began partial lead pipe the Flint River. remains. In the post-Reagan era, lo- replacement—a solution that has been Trickle-down poisoning cal governments pay for 95 percent of shown to, counterproductively, “result sewer infrastructure and 99 percent of in significantly elevated levels of lead in Water distribution pipes in the United public water infrastructure. Munici- tap water ... for weeks and months,” as States were initially made of wood, then palities with money are slowly replacing EPA chemist Michael Schock told En- iron, then lead. Lead pipes, first manu- pipes and investing in their water supply vironmental Health Perspectives in 2010. factured in the mid-1800s, had almost systems. The city of Madison spent $19.4 (Scientists are still trying to figure out completely displaced iron by the turn million to replace its lead pipes over an why this happens.) of the 20th century—they lasted lon- 11-year period, beginning in 2001. Flint, The D.C. case was widely publi- ger and were easier to work with. But one of the most economically depressed cized. But if the city of Flint was to con- lead is also poisonous, especially to cities in America, couldn’t afford new tinue using Flint River water, it had to children, who absorb more lead than pipes. Reaganomics failed cities like address the immediate problem of the adults and are more susceptible to its Flint. Today, the city has 8,000 poisoned cancer-causing THMs, the chlorine by- irreversible health effects, such as nerve children to show for it.

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 27 and atrazine—carcinogenic herbicides applied on farms located in the river’s watershed—every day. “Safe” is a moving target in the water business, though your body has some fixed ideas about it. So who is tasked with protecting the public water supply? The EPA’s Office of Water oversees two deeply troubled divisions—the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (OGWDW) and the Office of Wastewater Management (OWM)—both of which act to under- mine U.S. drinking water safety. The Office of Water’s obfuscation, arrogance High-tech wastewater treatment facilities like DC Water’s and anti-science orientation is docu- Blue Plains plant are being mented by David Lewis in the book Sci- touted as the solution to water ence For Sale. When a California crises—but they don’t go to farmer questioned the EPA’s decision the source of the problem. to allow disposal of sewage sludge on NICHOLAS IMAGES KAMM/AFP/GETTY farms and public lands, OWM chem- EPA gone MIA or properly enforced. ist Alan Rubin reportedly harassed her, Where is the EPA in all of this? Evis- Regulations to protect public health writing in a note to her, “Ask not for cerated. It started when Reagan took are set within the boundaries of what whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee!” office in 1981 and appointed Anne Gor- water treatment plants can do to ad- The Office of Water is responsible for such, a Colorado state representative dress the many toxins in public drink- “biosolids”: sewage sludge that is dried who vocally opposed federal regulation ing water supplies, like perfluorinated or otherwise “treated.” The word bio- of energy and the environment, as ad- chemicals, herbicides, lead and DBPs. solids was coined as part of a public re- ministrator. She cut the budget by 22 Most municipal water departments in lations effort to rebrand sewage sludge, percent, hired people representing in- the United States work very hard to a product of wastewater treatment, as dustry while firing long-time EPA staff, keep the water coming out of the tap safe for disposal on farmland. Hun- relaxed existing regulations and re- as safe as possible, but they do not have dreds of peer-reviewed papers show sisted new ones. She was cited for con- the authority or money to change pipes its toxicity, but the OWM continues to tempt of Congress in her involvement and fixtures or stop the more than 23 promote its use on farms, public land in the misuse of over a billion dollars billion pounds of toxic chemicals gen- and in sludge-containing “compost,” in Superfund money. Her deputy, Rita erated annually by U.S. industry from which is sold at Home Depot and oth- Lavelle, went to jail over the scandal. entering their water supplies. The fed- er garden supply centers. The agency has been under assault by eral rules are meant to accommodate Like the Lead Industries Associa- industry-friendly Democrats and Re- those limitations: Look at a few things, tion’s adamant support for lead pipes in publicans ever since. don’t look at many others, and set the the face of evidence of harm, the OWM Current drinking water regulation thresholds at levels the treatment plant uses every trick in the PR handbook to has little to do with the realities of operators can consistently meet. support the disposal of sewage sludge what is actually in our drinking wa- The stated regulatory goal for lead on farms and gardens. Why? The same ter. Like all chemical regulation in the in drinking water is zero, but since reason Flint’s water was poisoned: It United States, regulatory responses the EPA doesn’t think water treat- saves municipalities money to dump happen—if at all—decades after health ment authorities can meet this level, it sludge on land rather than treat it as a threats are documented. Regulators set the acceptable concentration at 15 hazardous waste. turn a blind eye to problems that can parts per billion. Test below that and Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech pro- only be remedied through radical you are not in violation of the drink- fessor who studied D.C.’s water, wrote changes in how we do things (for ex- ing water regulations, but you are still in a blog post on January 22, “When we ample, where we source our drinking poisoning children. exposed cheating in Washington D.C., water or how we grow our food). As a In Kirkwood, Mo., a leafy suburb of New Orleans, Durham and elsewhere, result, drinking water regulations are St. Louis that gets its drinking water OGWDW officials stabbed us in the inadequate, and those on the books from the Missouri River, people who back, and supported wrongdoers in ev- are not being competently monitored drink tap water are drinking 2,4-D ery single case.”

28 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES We might begin cleaning up our troleum for the next century” and esti- lence, Bechtel was sent packing and the water by cleaning house at the EPA. mated that it is a $425 billion “industry.” privatization was reversed. Departments like the Office of Water Here in the United States, a Wiscon- For inspiration on how to demand are often controlled by the industries sin bill was defeated earlier this year investment in public water, we can look they’re meant to regulate. Lock the that would have made it easier to priva- to 19th-century Boston. In his 1826 in- revolving doors and give voice to the tize water services. It was introduced at augural address, Mayor Josiah Quincy people who really care about environ- the request of Aqua America, a Penn- III, namesake of Boston’s Quincy Mar- mental protection. Build a culture in sylvania company that owns water util- ket, said this about the city’s then-pri- the U.S.—and in the EPA—that sup- ities in eight states. vate drinking water: ports biocompatible practices: chemi- Privatization could be on the hori- If there be any privilege which a Protests erupted in 2000 in Cochabamba, Bolivia, when the government privatized the city’s water and the cost of water skyrocketed.

city ought to reserve exclusively cals and techniques that are in har- zon for Flint. The city went through in its own hands, and under its mony with life. The developing field what was essentially a dry run when own control, it is that of supply- of “green chemistry” is looking for citizen oversight was removed. Things ing itself with water. ... No private ways to do just this; but we need the didn’t work out so well. But at the right capitalists will engage in such an public will and the policies to help put price, a private corporation might step enterprise without at least a ratio- these ideas into practice. forward to “rescue” the failed govern- nal expectation of profit. Besides, Pollution is everywhere. Where do ment effort. it being an article of the first we start? How about the pollution sink The privatization narrative goes like necessity, and on its free use so for our discarded human and chemical this: The municipality fails at providing much of health as well as comfort wastes: the sewer. The more than 85,00 clean water in the necessary quantity, depends, every city should re- chemicals we use daily in our homes, so the water service—along with its in- serve in its own power the means, hospitals and industries find their way frastructure—is sold, often at yard sale unrestrained, of encouraging its to the sewer, making wastewater treat- prices, to a private company. use, by reducing as fast as pos- ment plants sentinels for harm. But the failure of the municipal water sible, the cost of obtaining it, not Go up the sewer pipe to stop toxic system was caused by the same people only to the poor but to all classes discharges. Then rethink the entire selling off the water authority. The best- of the community. sewer juggernaut. It’s only 150 years managed utilities have strong citizen Shortly after Quincy’s son, Josiah old. We don’t use horses anymore to oversight and an administration acting Quincy, Jr., became mayor of Boston in carry our goods into the city, maybe for the public good. 1846, the city’s water became public. we should stop using water to carry our We’ve been down this road before. The antidote to toxins wastes out. Private water companies date back to Privatization: The wrong solution at least 1652, when “The Water Works Unimaginable quantities of toxins, Company” incorporated in Massachus- in immeasurable combinations, have Of course, a systemic approach would setts. It is not a new idea, but it is one become part of our environment and involve fundamental changes that cor- that has failed to provide safe and plen- part of us. Chronic disease is the lead- porate capitalism will resist. Why not tiful water to the public. Private coming cause of death and disability in the control the conversation—and the as- panies come and go. They also are not United States and accounts for 86 per- sets—by owning the water? In a 2007 compelled to provide services to those cent of our healthcare costs. paper, University of Minnesota soci- who cannot pay. The best example of One of the illnesses seems to be po- ologist Michael Goldman explained a water privatization failure is in Co- litical paralysis. Sandra Steingraber, in how the World Bank has changed the chabamba, Bolivia. Protests erupted in her book Raising Elijah, addresses the discourse on water privatization from 2000 when the government privatized subject of “well-informed futility”: nonexistent to the global status quo. the city’s water, selling it to a private Ironically, the more knowledge- Today, a country cannot get a World consortium dominated by an Ameri- able we are about such a problem, Bank loan unless it submits a plan for can company, Bechtel, and the cost of the more we are filled with para- privatizing its water system. In 2008, water skyrocketed. One person was lyzing futility. Futility, in turn, Goldman Sachs called water “the pe- killed and after three months of vio- forestalls action. But action is

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 29 AS “IMPERATIVE” NOW AS IT WAS IN 1983.

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30 DONATE NOW: INTHESETIMES.COM/DONATEAPRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES exactly what is necessary to over- come futility. Just down the street from well-informed futility resides denial. … In the face of knowledge too upsetting to bear, there is nothing to do but look away.

Her antidote to futility and denial? “To rise up in the face of the terrible knowledge and do something.” In other words, to act like “a member of the French Resistance.” Since Flint, there’s been a new spot- light on lead in drinking water. But children in minority neighborhoods have been exposed to lead from water and other sources, like peeling lead paint, for a long time. The Centers for Michigan nurses participate Disease Control consistently reports in a mile-long march on that black children have the highest February 19 to highlight the risk of lead poisoning in the United push for clean water in Flint. States, sometimes two or three times PUGLIANO/GETTYBILL IMAGES more likely than white children to have elevated lead levels in their blood. It’s It should include a radical shift in ag- problems wherever they go, but keep- been this way for decades. Lead miti- ricultural policies that support organic ing them out of our drinking water and gation is well understood. Pipes can be practices. And if there is to be a New food while we back off of their produc- changed. Filters can be used. Water au- Deal for water infrastructure, let it be tion is fundamental to protecting hu- thorities can influence how much lead for ecological infrastructure that is built man health. is leached from pipes by influencing on a framework of prevention. Technological responses to the eco- the chemistry of the water, by choosing Boston and New York are examples logical catastrophe in Flint and in safer water sources and by protecting of cities that have gone to extraordi- scores of other cities, like replacing those sources from contaminants like nary lengths to get their water from lead pipe supply lines, are necessary, herbicides and pesticides from farm clean sources, and it shows at the tap. but palliative. Technology should be runoff and sewage outfalls. Boston gets its water from the Quab- the servant of prevention. What would it take to change our bin Reservoir, 65 miles west of the city. Resistance to the systemic poison- water supply lines? A New Deal for The 39-square-mile public water sup- ing we are experiencing in the U.S. water infrastructure. Every four years ply was created in the 1930s. Devel- begins with saying: Enough! We are the American Society for Civil Engi- opment around it is restricted by the hearing this in Flint. Town halls and neers issues a “Report Card for Amer- state. No industries and no sewers dis- community meetings are filled with ica’s Infrastructure.” The last grade for charge into its waters. New York, for people raising their voices and de- drinking water, in 2013, was a D. The its part, has two massive tunnels, with manding change. In February, Flint report said it would take $2.1 trillion a third almost completed, that bring residents Beulah Walker and Justin to replace the nation’s aging pipes. The in water from reservoirs and lakes on Wedes went to the United Nations to EPA has identified $335 billion in wa- protected land in upstate New York. talk about Flint and ask for a fact-find- ter supply infrastructure needs over a Both cities discharge their waste- ing mission from the U.N. to come to 20-year period. Whatever the number, water far from their drinking water the beleaguered city. it is going to be high. So, too, will be sources: Boston’s treated sewage goes Forging our connection to each other hopes for new and improved techno- 9.5 miles out into the ocean. New is as important as disconnecting our logical fixes at water and wastewater York’s outfall pipes are closer to shore, sewers from our drinking water. Water treatment plants. but the state is trying to raise the capi- pollution at the scale we have in Amer- But Flint serves as a warning that try- tal to build an extended ocean outfall ica feels insurmountable, and it will be ing to “clean” polluted water will only pipe. These are not ecological solutions if we do not organize for fundamen- take us so far. The demand should be for for the disposition of wastewater, but tal changes in where we get our water, chemical policy reform that gets rid of it is safer than dumping it into drink- what we put into it, and where it goes harmful chemicals and invests in a new ing water. The disposal of wastewater when we are done with it. Nobody lives generation of biocompatible chemicals. and sewage sludge will cause pollution upstream anymore. n

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 31 BY SIMON DAVIS-COHEN ALEC’s Scheme to Rewrite the Constitution Corporate America is seven states short of a constitutional convention n February, Republican V—have passed resolutions calling for ect called Convention of States, whose presidential hopeful Sen. Ted a constitutional convention to consider proposal for a constitutional conven- Cruz (Texas) signed on to a a balanced budget amendment. tion has also been adopted by ALEC call for a constitutional con- The ALEC-affiliated Balanced Bud- as a model policy. Convention of States vention to help defeat “the get Amendment Task Force (BBATF), has passed resolutions calling for a WashingtonI cartel [that] has put spe- which proffered the pledge signed by convention in Florida, Georgia (2014), cial interest spending ahead of the Cruz, is hoping to meet that 34-state Alabama, Arkansas (2015) and Tennes- American people.” threshold by July 4. BBATF is one player see (2016). Convention of States advo- Cruz, along with fellow Republican in an astroturf movement backed by the cates a constitutional convention to not presidential aspirants Sen. Marco Rubio billionaire Koch brothers and embraced only pass a balanced budget amend- (Fla.) and Gov. John Kasich (Ohio), has by right-wing state legislators. ment, but also to curtail the “power endorsed an old conservative goal of a A balanced budget amendment has and jurisdiction of the federal govern- Constitutional amendment to mandate long been a holy grail for the Right ment.” What precisely this means and a balanced federal budget. The idea since the 1930s. In the 1980s, conserva- how it would be accomplished is not sounds fanciful, but free-market ideo- tives made a push for a balanced budget clear. This uncertainty at once whets logues associated with the American constitutional convention and, 20 years the appetite of anti-government zealots Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a later, the idea was resurrected as part while raising serious concerns about a secretive group of right-wing legislators of the Tea Party platform. That’s when “runaway” convention that could make and their corporate allies, are close to BBATF was formed to carry the move- drastic changes to the Constitution. pulling off a coup that could devastate ment forward. With 16 resolutions held Both BBATF and Convention of the economy, which is just emerging over from the previous wave of conser- States have struggled to address wor- from a recession. Their scheme could vative activism, BBATF has since passed ries of a runaway convention. What leave Americans reeling for genera- resolutions in Alabama (2011), New would stop it from turning out like the tions. A balanced budget amendment Hampshire (2012), Ohio (2013), Geor- Philadelphia Convention of 1787, which would prevent the federal government gia, Tennessee, Florida, Michigan, Loui- led to the scrapping of the Articles of from following the Keynesian strategy siana (2014), South Dakota, North Da- Confederation and the drafting of an of stimulating the economy during an kota and Utah (2015), bringing the total entirely new U.S. Constitution? economic depression by increasing the to 27. This year, BBATF is targeting 13 To address these concerns, a group national debt. (Since 1970, the United states: Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, called Compact for America, which has States has had a balanced budget in only Minnesota, Montana, Oklahoma, South passed resolutions in Alaska, Georgia, four years: 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001.) Carolina, Virginia, Washington, West Mississippi and North Dakota, has pro- Article V of the Constitution lays out Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. In posed that states combine their calls for two routes for changing the law of the six of these states Republicans control a constitutional convention with the land: An amendment can be proposed both legislative bodies and the gover- final ratification process. This would by Congress or by a constitutional con- norship, making passage a real possibil- mean states attending the convention vention that is convened by two-thirds ity and leaving BBATF one state shy of would propose the amendment and of the states (34). Either way, three- the magic 34. ratify it in one fell swoop, which would fourths of the states (38) have to ratify Domino effect require the 38 states needed for ratifi- it. Previously, changes to the coun- cation under Article V, not just the 34 try’s founding document have been While the BBATF’s 27 resolutions are needed to call a convention. achieved by the first process. But as of tied specifically to the balanced budget Convention of States and BBATF today, 27 states—seven shy of the two- amendment, a group called Citizens have tried to quell fears of a runaway thirds threshold required by Article for Self-Governance launched a proj- convention by saying the convention

32 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES STATES THAT HAVE PASSED BALANCE BUDGET AMENDMENT RESOLUTIONS

STATES TARGETED BY THE BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT TASK FORCE would be bound by the subject matter vention as “a very live threat.” “If be- where they’re going.” of the resolutions, and that the con- tween the groups they get to 34 states,” The Kochs and company, with their vention only has the power to propose he says, “there is really nothing pre- gridlock of Washington, have bred a amendments, which then must be rati- venting them from aggregating those type of discontent that has made once fied by the required 38 states. calls even if they’re not identical, and unimaginable change possible. That the subject matter of the reso- pushing for a convention.” Tugging on citizen discontent, Con- lutions will prevent a runaway con- Another uncertainty, Pearson notes, vention of States’ propaganda high- vention may make sense in reference is the controversy over whether the 16 lights the 2013 government shutdown, to the BBATF, whose resolutions fo- resolutions left over from the effort in creeping NSA surveillance, Gallup cus specifically on the balanced bud- the 1980s can still be counted. There is polls showing Americans’ dissatisfac- get amendment, but when applied to no precedent to lean on. Pro-convention with “government” and tales of the Convention of States’ agenda, the tion advocates maintain that Congress, federal bureaucratic waste. argument fails, as the subject of their which is tasked with processing the But such a convention is not the ton- resolutions includes broad language states’ applications, may not meddle ic to satiate this discontent. Democratic to curb the power and jurisdiction of with the process. If a state doesn’t want control is what the American people the federal government. Convention a convention, they argue, it can rescind yearn for, but that is not what the con- of States spokesman Michael Farris its application. Pearson suspects the vention would offer. has written that, “It is relatively cer- Supreme Court would get involved. Maybe the alternative is the revolution tain that there would be at least a few “There are a lot of different parts of Bernie Sanders is envisioning: Electing amendments proposed, perhaps as the Koch machine pulling on this oar,” insurgent candidates to Congress, state many as 10 to 12.” In other words, if says Pearson, “from their think tanks up and local office; strengthening and ex- Convention of States has its way, there through their elected officials, they’re panding direct democratic institutions could well be a runaway convention. pushing on it. They’re pushing on it like the ballot initiative process; making Within striking distance hard.” And, given how red BBATF’s constitutional changes that elevate dem- 2016 target states are, says Pearson, ocratic decisions above corporate per- Arn Pearson at the Center for Media “it’s within striking distance. If [ALEC sonhood; and building a movement that and Democracy, a watchdog group and the Koch brothers] get a conven- engages the thousands of communities based in Madison, Wisc., is closely tion,” says Pearson, “they get to lock in where democratic governance has been tracking the movement. He describes their conservative supply-side policies all but quashed by ALEC-endorsed legal the campaign for a constitutional con- for the next generation or more. That’s doctrine and legislation. n

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 33 IN PERSON

BY DAYTON MARTINDALE Rebecca Solnit Explains Things to Us In a dispatch from Paris for Harper’s, writer and thing and I didn’t do anything more.” Really? You thought the Kremlin was activist Rebecca Solnit called the recent climate going to fall to its knees because you agreement negotiated there “miraculous and horri- went to an upstate New York rally? But the movement had tremendous power. ble.” This tension between the exciting and the aw- When the Soviet Union collapsed there ful, the transformative and the terrifying, motivates was this incredible moment where powerful movements could’ve pushed her book Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild forward total disarmament, but there were no powerful movements. It’s sad. Possibilities. Initially written in response to the Iraq Six years ago, the climate movement War, the book will be re-released this month with decided to stop the Keystone pipeline. As David Roberts at Vox has said, it a new section on climate change. Obama, people so completely put their was not just about changing one pipe- Solnit’s numerous books and essays faith in: “Oh, we’ll elect this magic, line but changing the culture. Watching cover a wide array of topics from envi- amazing super-human and then we’ll that process take place up close is bor- ronmentalism to feminism (famously, all go home and do absolutely nothing.” ing. There were bad meetings and dem- “Men Explain Things to Me” helped The movement that put Obama in of- onstrations that aren’t always triumphs. inspire the concept of “mansplaining”). fice was powerful enough to make real- But then you pull back and, oh my Her history of activism includes Ne- ly profound change, but everyone went God, six years later, we defeated the vada’s anti-nuclear testing movement home because they thought he’d do it. northern stretch of the pipeline and in the 1980s and the protests around That’s what you see with Bernie we’re in a completely different place corporate globalization of the 1990s. Sanders: this infatuation with an al- with the climate movement. A lot of Today we see another corporate most savior-like figure who will do people don’t have the long-term memo- trade deal—the Trans-Pacific Partner- it all. No, actually, massive grassroots ry to see that—not that six years should ship (TPP)—on the table, American movements need to exist the day after even count as long-term. Also, hanging bombs falling across the Middle East the election. Electoral politics are dis- out with people who are passionate ide- and climate change accelerating. In mal; I’m more interested in grassroots alists and deeply devoted has made my These Times sat down with Solnit in power, popular power. life incredibly richer—this heroic sense Berkeley to discuss the hope found in How has your activism influenced how of what it means to be a member of civ- uncertainty, her experience in Paris, the you think about social change? il society, a person with a commitment role of the writer and more. I’ve had a front-row seat in how change that’s bigger than themself. What are your thoughts on the election? gets made, and I’ve seen that it’s often There’s this idea that political en- The current hate-fest on the Left is slow, indirect, unpredictable and some- gagement is some sort of horrible, just… kind of sad. The Left is famous times incredibly wonderful. But I’ve dutiful thing you do, like cleaning the for tearing itself apart. I’m not sure the also seen people who don’t perceive it if toilet or taking out the garbage. But purpose of that exercise. Hating on it’s not quick and direct. The incredible it can be the most fantastic thing you people has never been a great form of nuclear freeze movement in the early do. It can bring you into contact with social change, so far as we know. 1980s was driven by fear of Armaged- hope, with joy, with a sense of deep I have preferences and they’re prob- don. I remember one guy being like, “I connection, with what Martin Luther ably not that hard to guess. But with went to a rally and it didn’t change any- King called the “beloved community.”

34 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES “Oh, I have nothing in common with feminists or labor organizers”? We have a lot of divides that are artificial or not carefully examined. People on both the Right and Left are operating with a lot of stereotypes about each other. What do you think of the argument that we need more women and people of color in power? In a culture dominated by white men, often people succeed through allegiance to that white, male worldview, to those priorities. Thus: Margaret Thatcher, Clarence Thomas and so forth. I am not sure we will see what might be different about non-white and non-male governance until it’s more than a minority in a white-male system. I loved it that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when asked, Rebecca Solnit finds “Do you think there should be more hope in uncertainty. women on the Supreme Court?” said

COURTESY OF JUDE MOONEY PHOTOGRAPHY there should be nine. Can writing drive social change? It’s important not to be prescriptive Disconnection from a larger sense of Diego decided to go 100 percent fossil- and say all writing has to have a politi- purpose and agency, from community free by 2035 and San Francisco finally cal or practical end. Something I recall and civil society, and from hope are implemented its clean-power program. often is Lawrence Weschler’s Vermeer huge factors in unhappiness. Things are happening on a lot of scales. We do need legislation and agree- in Bosnia, about a human rights tri- How do you keep hope amid climate bunal judge dealing with Bosnian war change? ments. As Naomi Klein points out, one of the reasons the Republicans are furi- criminals. Weschler asks how he can It’s tough because we know terrible ous about climate change is that it does bear to listen to stories of horrific atroc- things are happening and are going to require large-scale cooperation and ities day after day. The judge pauses for happen. Hope is that we can steer to- regulation. But a lot of the systems are a moment and then his face brightens ward the best-case scenarios instead of on smaller scales. My solar roof. Your and he says, “After work I go to the mu- the worst. Hope is not like saying, “Let’s transit alternative. Our statewide build- seum and I go to the Vermeers.” That’s pretend I don’t have cancer.” It’s saying, ing code. New York’s fracking ban. the best and most succinct description “Let’s hope this treatment has surviv- of how beauty, pleasure and joy help In Hope in the Dark you argue that the ability. Let’s work for the best-case sce- people do really difficult things. They environmental movement should reach narios.” Things are changing fast. If you often get dismissed as not part of the out and form alliances with rural com- said three years ago that Congress was munities. revolution. But I do believe that writing going to introduce a bill to prevent all has and does and can change the world fossil fuel extraction on public land, It’s really funny talking just after Cliven in direct ways, too. people would be like, “You’re out of Bundy got arrested and charged. He You write a lot about walking, and about your mind,” and that just happened. represents the far-right fringe of ru- past writers like Thoreau and Woolf The science is changing, politics are ral culture. A lot of what rural people walking. Do you walk a lot? changing, technology is changing, and who were suspicious of big government Yes. Part of the solution to climate we don’t actually know what they’re go- think isn’t that different from what rad- change is that we don’t need to rush ing to look like in three or 10 years. icals on the Left think, but right-wing outreach was awesome and left-wing around, we don’t need to consume as The proposed solutions for climate much, we don’t need to move around change require large-scale state plan- outreach was somewhere between pa- thetic and nonexistent. How do you as much, because what’s up close can ning, but you’re very sympathetic to a be pretty magnificent. I’ve been in San local or anarchistic approach. convince them that the world government they should fear is not the U.N., Francisco since 1980 and I still discover Paris was about nation-states, and they it’s the TPP? How do you get outside things all the time. A sense of wonder have a role. But at the same time, San the stereotypes where people assume, can be a revolutionary tool. n

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 35 CARTOONS

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40 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES THANK YOU TO IN THESE TIMES’ 2015 DONORS

Renate and Eve Cholmar Les Clute Wade F. Connick Carter Cramer Barbara and Fernando Noam Chomsky Madeleine Clyde Caitlin Connolly John Cranshaw James Dale Cavalcanti Lynn R Chong B.A. Coda John P. Connolly Kevin Creighan Janet Dales Gerald Cavanaugh Linda Christensen Sharon Cody Philip Conrad Gloria Crenshaw Janet Dalquist Jule Caylor Charlette and Dell Vicki Coffman Elizabeth Raymond Crew Mary Danhauer Randolph Cecil Christianson Carolyn Coglianese Constable Robert Cromwell Michael Dater Natalie Chagollan David Ciampi Bruce S. Cohen Micheline T. Paula Cronin Bruce Daugherty R. Chamberlain Robert Ciesielski Judith Cohen Contiguglia Gloria Crook Carl Davidson William L. Chandler Miguel Cima Larry Cohen Jessie Cook A. Donald Cross Bill Davies Keidra Chaney Jayne Clare Stuart L. Cohn Sam Cook David Crown Andrew Davis Burton Channing Neil Clark Jim Colando S. Benjamin Carolyn Crump Anthony Davis Nicholas J. Shannan Wayne James Cole Cooper John Crump Margaret R. Davis Chaparos Clark Peter Cole S. Cooper Janet Cuenca Robert L. Davis James Charas Theo Clark Norman Coleman Will Cooper Forrest G. Mark Dawson Larry Charbonneau Graham Clarke William and Edvige Edward Copeland Cumberworth Kent Dean Skip Charbonneau Wayne Clark-Elliott Coleman Jim Corlett William Cundiff Richard Decicco Phillida Charly Robert V. Clausen John E. Colier, Jr. Cornelius Cosgrove Ruth Elizabeth John Deden David Chase Jim Clemans Margaret Hart and Kerry Costello Currie Kenneth R. Deed Salome Chasnoff John Clement William Collins William Coughlin Ema P. Currier Joel Deegan Michael Chelednik Bobby Cleveland Michael Collins William Coulter John Curtis Charles Defanti Ching Yeh Chen Robert M. Queenie Collins Joan C.Covici Sheldon Cytron John Defrancis Barry Cheney Cleworth, Sr. Brian Colon Elynn Cowden Kathleen Dahl Charles Deknatel Robert Chervero Timothy Close Edward J. Coltman William Cowlin Bill Dahlk Judith Del Russo M. Chewning Thomas W. Clough Nancy Compton Deanna Cox Sandra Daigneaux Richard Delay Ron Chilcote Robert Cluck Margaret Congdon Theodore Coxe Robert Deleys

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IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 43 THANK YOU TO IN THESE TIMES’ 2015 DONORS

Neil Gladstein Lauren Kaori Shelia and Bernard Hickey Chobee Hoy Lilian Jimenez Michael Glass Gurley Frederick Hatch R. Lloyd Hicks Patricia Hubbard Bill Jirles Howard S Glick Robert Gurley Michael Hathaway L.D. Hieber, Jr. Jeff W. Huebner Richard Jodoin John F. Gloor Julianne H. Darwin Hatheway, John Hiestand Don Hufford Margit Johansson Bruce Gluckman Gustafson-Lira Sr. James Higgins Richard P. Abby Johnnes Frank Goetz Susan Gzesh James Haverkamp Timothy J. Highland Hughes, Jr. Charles E. Johnson Edward Gogol Paris Hachiska Robert Coit Hawley Susan and J.E. Hughes Colleen Johnson Herbert S. Haddie Hadachek Paul Hayden Richard Hill Hobart Hukill Dale Johnson Goldberg David Hadden Edward Hayes Julie Hilvers Lindsay Humpal David Johnson Jay Goldberg Betty Hadidian Mary Hayes Curtis P. Hinckley Ray Humphrey James Johnson Dr. Ruth Goldberg Dan Hadley Milton Hayes Delvin Hines David Hunter Jerry W. Johnson Sharon Goldblatt Jack Hafeli Rev. A. K. Robert Hinger L. Keith Hunter Mary Ann Johnson and Nicolas Edward Hagopian Haynes, Jr. William R. Ann Huntsman Joycelyn and Bloom John M. Hahn- Tamerin and Hintzman John Huot Robert Johnson Bert Golding Francini Oliver Hayward Charles Hirsch Mark Hupf Shannon Johnson Nicky Gonzalez- J. Hailey John Hazard Paul Hirsch John T. Hurst Virginia Johnson Yuen and John Hale Robert Hearst Olivann R. Hobbie Joseph Hussey Cheryl Johnson- Jude Yuen Bruce Hall Marcia and Howard Hobbs Robert Hutchings Odim Allen Goodfellow John Hall Brian Heath James Hobbs Thomas Hutton Thomas Johnston Herbert Goodfriend David Hamilton James Heaton Glenn Hobson Tom and Kathy Anne Jones May and Bernard Melody Hamilton Joan Hebert Jeffrey E. Hobson Iberle Beth Jones Goodstein Clifton Hamlett Alex Hecht Eugene Hodal Edward Ides Charles and Barbara Gordon Dr. Virginia Hamori Richard Heckler Jean B. Hoegler Marie Ann Gale Jones Jill Gordon Rachel H. Hampton Steven Heffley Christine Van Hoek Ingerman Charles Jones Carol and Marc Lynne Hancock Elwood Heikka Fred Hoffman Gerald Ireland Climentene Jones Gordon Ivan Handler James Heim Jo Hoffman Illan Ireland Dorothy Jones Stephen Gosch Patricia Handlin Rachel Heller John Hoffman Jane and Croswell Kenneth Jones Marilyn and Roger and Flint Taylor Joann Eng-Hellinger Larry L. Hoffman Ireland Judith Rosenbaum Gottschalk Bruce Hann and Daniel Rudy Hoffman John Ireland and and Matthew Lynne Graburn Reginald Hellinger Henr y F. Rebeca Itzkowich Jones Robert Grandinetti Hannaford Raymond Helm Hoffnagle, Jr. Donald Irish Nancy Jones C. Grant Edward Hansen Benita Helseth Raymond Hogler Janet Irons T. Jones Carl Graves Richard Klein and James Hemby Thomas Holland Tom Irvine Thomas Jones Katy Gray Brown Nancy Hanson David Hendon Vickie L. Holler Leslie and Bessie Rogers Brian Andrew Gray Paul Hanson Anne D. Jim Hollinger Robert Irving Jordan Gloria Gray Donald J Happy Hendrickson Eric P. Holmberg Janet Irwin John Jordan David M. Graybeal Alex Harasymiw Lucy and Richard Randall Holmes Harold Isaacs Laura Joseph Dennis Gredell Jeff Hardcastle Henighan Robert Holt William Isecke Relora Joyce Jesse Green Ellen and Harry D. Henkel Thomas Holzman William Isenberg William Julian Brian Greenberg Hardebeck Laurie and Daniel Francis Hooley Donald Isenman Eileen M. Julien Jake Greene James R. Hardman Hennig James Hoover Donald Ishmael Mary Julien Kenneth P. Richard Elizabeth W. Henry Linda Hope Mark Ivan Paul Jurczak Greening Hargesheimer Robert Henschen George Hopkins Dave Ivers Elizabeth Kaar Karen Greenler Margaret and William A. Herbert Henry Hopkins Charles Iverson Lynn Kaeding and P. Majors Bart Harloe Bill Herbert James Hopkins Doug Iverson Nancy Kaiser Tom Greensfelder Robin Harper Joel Herman Mary E. Hopkins Charles Ivester Norty and James Greenwald Elizabeth Harris David A. Hermanns Margaret Hornick Joanne Iwasaki Summers Donald Greenwood John Harris Jane Heron Anne E. Hornung- William A. Jack, Jr. Kalishman Alan Greiman Julie R. Harris Gayle Herrington Soukup Edward Jackson Walter Kall Daniel Greven Eugene Harrison Walt Herrs Laura Horton- Dr. Harold Jackson Herschel Kaminsky Martha Griffin Michael G. Michael Charles Adam Jacobs Lawrence Kaplan Ronald Grimm Harrison Herschensohn Motonori Hoshi Helen Japsen Marshall Nicolas Grisouard Donna Hart Daniel Hertz Martin Houger Diana Jarvis Ray Kaplan Georgina Groleau Edward M. Hartwell David Herz William Howald Jean Jean-Baptiste Sarah Kaplan Brian Gross Anne Charlotte Larry R. Hesson John Howe Floy Jeffares Susan Kaplan Leonard Grossman Harvey Suzanne Hetric Linda Howe David R Jefferson Margaret A. Tim Groves Miles Harvey Mark Hetts Brent Howell Thomas Jencius Kaptonak Ray Guillory Christopher Hass Ralph Heymann John Howes Thomas Jennings Carolyn and Martha Gundlach Robert Hastings Barbara and Gary Douglas R. Diab Jerius Martin Karcher Hickernell Howland Hazel Jernigan Robert Kasper

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IN THESE TIMES WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING FOUNDATIONS FOR THEIR SUPPORT:

ÑÑ Bella S. and Benjamin ÑÑ India Foundation ÑÑ Public Welfare Foundation Garb Foundation ÑÑ Isadore Sadie Dorin Foundation ÑÑ Puffin Foundation ÑÑ Beverly Community Impact Fund ÑÑ Park Foundation

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 45 Christopher Mary R. McDermith Gloria Meneses- Hermann Miskelly William R. Philip C. Nolan Martens Mark McDermott Sandoval Joanne Mitchel Muenster Denny C. Nolet Fabrice Martin Mary T. McDermott Janet Meredith Rhoda Mitchell Sandra Mukasa Coral Norris Kristopher Martin Richard R. John Merritt Michael Moats Susan Mumpower- Nicholas Norris Phillip Martin McDonald Yisroel Messik Daisy Lapdidario Spriggs Rose Norwood Manuel Martinez Frank D. McElroy Robert D. Metcalf Palma and Judith Munger Pamela A. Nosse Julie Martini Ms. McFadden David Metzger Frank Modic Edward Munyak Elizabeth Novak Jera Marusic Don McFall Donna Metzler Joey L. Mogul Monica Murphy Kenneth Nowacki Michelle A. Lisa McGiffert Claudia R. Mewes Terri Monley Timothy J. Murphy Ismail Noyan Masbaum Joseph McGinn William J. Meyer Dana Kent and Susan Greene and James Nugent Alida Mascitelli Linda Lee McGrew Earl Meyers Bill Monning Patrick Murray Ken Oberlander Joseph J. Masiello Richard McGuire Phillip Meyers Margaret Margaret Musgrove Lawrence O’Brien Winnifred and Ronald McHehee Walter Benn Monoharan Janet Myers Edwin and Britt Charles Mason Mr. and Mrs. Michaels Theresa Montano Lawrence Myers Ochester John Mason William McIlrath James Michels Lew Montemaggi Ronald C. Myrom Linda and Edward M . Masouredis Neil McIntosh Jarrett and Philip Montez Carol Nash O’Connor Michael Massa Timothy James Elizabeth Jose Monzon Audrey Natcone Maureen O’Connor Mary Jo Matheny McKeown Middleton-Dapier Colleen L. Mooney Jeanette and Patricia Mitchell Mara Matteson Gail McKinne Marcel Miernik Evemarie Moore Keith Navia O’Connor Gary and Polly Joe N. McKnight Jon Miles Teresa and Louis Nayman Terry O’Connor Anne Matthews Jonathan McLeod Luann Mostello Kermit Moore Bob Nelson William Oehlert Jesse Mattingly Steve Jones and Arthur Doris Moran Donald Nemeyer Kurt Oetiker Ronald Mattson McLuckie Milholland Sally Fallon Morell Mr. Nesbitt David Ogden Dorothy Mauser Owen McMahon, Jr. George Milkowski Rita Moreno Mr. Nespor Scott Oglesby Douglas May Elizabeth McMahon James Millard Hugh Morgan L.J. Neuman Colleen Ogrady Sara and Robert McMahon Paul J. Millea Mary Moriarty Cook Elizabeth Neuse Bonnie Oh Thomas Mayer Walter G. McMillan Dan Miller Kate Moriarty Ivy Nevala Susan and Hans Richard Mazon James McMurrer Dwight Miller Barry Morris James Newton Ohanian Dorothy Mazumdar Jim McNeill Edward Miller David Morris Tanya Nguyen Beatrice Ohms Bill McAfee Walt McRee Janet Miller Gilbert Morris Ralph Nicholas Michael Oles R. McAllister Barbara Mead Joseph Miller Hobart Morris Jerry L. Nichols Beverly Olson Kevin McCaffery Glenn Mead Peter Miller James Morrison Eleanor Nicholson Gordon Olson Samantha McCall Philip Meade Robert G. Miller Suzanne Morrissey Philip Nicolai Lynn Olson Michael Alejandro Deborah Meier Thomas D. Miller Christopher Chris Nielsen John J. O’Neill McCall-Delgado Carl Meissner William Miller A. Mors Jerlene Nielsen Martha Onishuk Linda McCarriston Jerry Meldon Edith Miller- James Mortenson Charley Nims Darrell Opfer Charles McCarthy Scott Melillo Siegfried Chris Moser Oommen Ninan Lisa Oppenheim P. J. McClung John C. Melin John Millington Bob Moshiri Charlie E. Nixon Edward Sybil C. McCook Barry Mellitz Kenneth Mills Allan Moxon Hal Nixon Oppenheimer Nancy McCrohon Joan Mencher Michael Mills Glen Moyer Robert Nixon Deborah O’Rell Stephanie Maria Esperanca Bill Mims Ed Mroz June and Frederick Laura Orlando McCullough Mendes John Minsky Walter Mucha Noack Richard Orlando David McCurdy Lee Mirkovic Martin P. Nolan John Ormins

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IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 49 culture

In December 1910, Welsh miners in the pits at Bargoed, near Cardiff, wait to go up to the surface. TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

BY DAYTON MARTINDALE The Secret History of Coal John R. Leifchild, author of Our Coal and Our Coal- Pits; The People in Them, and the Scenes Around Them (1853), saw in the unassuming black rock the under- pinnings of Britain’s economy: “But could they filch our mines of coal / They’d steal our bodies, selves, and soul. / ’Tis COAL that makes our Britain great, / gests, we might be better prepared to end it. Upholds our commerce and our state.” The conventional explanation, Malm writes, Today most of us are less enamored with coal. draws from classical economists like David Ricar- Miners still count on it for work, but at the cost do, Thomas Malthus and Adam Smith: A growing of horrific lung damage. The specter of climate population and limited land meant that only tech- change looms over us, largely driven by carbon nological advance could sustain economic growth. dioxide emissions from coal burning. A contemporary take is what he calls the “Anthro- In Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and pocene narrative,” the notion that human activity the Roots of Global Warming, Andreas Malm seeks has pushed Earth into a new geological epoch. to determine how and why coal came to uphold Karl Marx, instead, theorized that technological “our commerce and our state.” If we understand change drove social relations, not the other way how the fossil economy came into being, he sug- around: “The hand-mill gives you society with the

50 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with Another drawback of waterwheels Today, with developed nations phas- the industrial capitalist.” was the fact that they must remain ing in gas or renewables, China has be- Malm argues that all of these views along rivers, and most of the available come the new “chimney of the world,” rely on some combination of the fol- land was in rural areas. Coal was mo- writes Malm. Coal power blossomed lowing premises: Industry at the time bile. But that would not have become in China because foreign corporations must have been held back by environ- such an advantage if it weren’t for la- took their manufacturing there, moti- mental scarcity; steam power must bor unrest. People of property feared vated by cheap, plentiful labor. Once have been more efficient than its pre- the working classes, and building mills again, the desire for controllable work- decessors, and thus the more rational in cities offered a means of control. ers led to a fossilized economy. choice; the transition must have been embraced across the globe, and its ben- During Britain’s 1842 general strike, efits shared by the species at large. None of these, says Malm, is backed one placard directed workers: ‘Stop up by the historical record. Rather, the getting Coal, for Coal supports the transition to fossil fuels was rooted not in technological superiority or environ- money-mongering Capitalists.’ mental scarcity but in old-fashioned class conflict. Rural areas lacked a ready supply of The blame is not all China’s. It may be The modern coal economy began strikebreakers. Also, housing, schools the largest emitter, but much of those in 19th-century Britain, where James and churches had to be built from the emissions are from making goods for Watt’s steam engine competed with ground up, generally at the mill owner’s export to developed nations. That lets water wheels to be the primary power expense. Cities had ready-made infra- the United States and Europe limit source for cotton mills. At first, this structure and people looking for work. their manufacturing and look like wasn’t much of a competition: Water Malm hints that the steam engine they’re getting a handle on emissions. was significantly cheaper and real es- also allowed for a break with the physi- Meanwhile, China appears the climate tate along rivers remained plentiful. cal world of seasonal cycles and a top- culprit and its people suffocate in smog. But there were two major problems: ographical landscape. Coal must be Malm sees history repeating itself unruly rivers and unruly workers. mined and transported, but it lacks the elsewhere: Sun and wind, like water, First, water was inconsistent: Floods autonomy of a river; it does not dry up are inexhaustible and available to all. or droughts constrained when the mill or flood the factory. A steam engine, Their power can be intermittent. The could operate. Mill owners had a sim- unlike a river, can run faster or slower large-scale renewable energy projects ple strategy to deal with this: To make at the boss’s discretion. The conquest of that might provide something steadier up for lost time, laborers were made to human labor went hand in hand with are difficult to organize, evoking the work overtime. But the Factory Act of the liberation from uncontrollable eco- kind of inter-capitalist squabbling that 1833 limited the workday to 12-hours logical processes. doomed Thom’s sluice schemes. for laborers aged 14 to 18 and effectively Men like Leifchild sang the praises If the primacy of fossil fuels, Malm limited overtime to half an hour per of coal, but workers called it “a ruthless argues, is rooted in power over labor day. Because most mills relied in part on king,” “a tyrant fell.” They wrote dysto- and disjuncture from the earth’s ecol- adolescent labor, this constrained their pian fiction in which “vegetable nature ogy, then the solution might be some- entire operations. had ceased to exist” and “animal life ap- thing more communal, less beholden To keep water flow steady through- peared to be extinct.” Prophetic themes to the ethos of competition. out a region, mechanic Robert Thom of air pollution and heat were common: He offers no blueprint for change— devised a system of dams, reservoirs, steam-powered machines blacking out yet there are grounds for hope. Labor aqueducts and sluices. His system, im- the sun with smoke. groups and (increasingly) entire com- plemented in 1824, worked, but failed Labor uprisings targeted steam en- munities recognize the disproportion- to take off. Here the villain was not la- gines, sabotaging them to bring industry ate environmental impacts faced by the bor but mill-owner obstinacy. Thom’s to a halt. During the 1842 general strike poor and people of color. And coali- complex designs required them to in Britain, a placard directed workers: tions have sprung up to block pipelines, make shared initial investments, and “Stop getting Coal, for Coal supports the fracking and arctic drilling, as well as while his system was still cheaper than money-mongering Capitalists.” build renewable infrastructure. steam, owners often found themselves Coal triumphed, fueling an econom- Malm leaves us with an injunction— unable or unwilling to cooperate. Many ic expansion in Britain and elsewhere. one borrowed from rioting laborers of preferred steam power, which could be When urbanization occurred in the two centuries ago who almost stopped steady and constant, running for pre- United States in the late 19th century, the fossil economy before it had even cisely as long as you wanted it to. the steam engine followed. begun: “Go and stop the smoke!” n

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BY MICHAEL ATKINSON Not Coming to a Theater Near You orld cinema grows Sokurov doesn’t dramatize the story. soldier and accompanies him when he and seethes outside of He folds into his collage first-person wakes into the world outside. our American dome; if revery (a friend Skypes him from a Are dead souls keeping the soldiers Wa movie doesn’t adhere storm-beset freighter carrying art), a dozing? Could be. The sleepers are to a particular narrative and formal visit from Napoleon (“C’est moi!” he ex- equipped in their beds with therapeutic structure, Americans will not pay it claims before various portraits), drone columns of changing light; later in the much mind. (It’s like many other things shots over Parisian rooftops, the ghosts film, entire scenes start to change color, in this way.) of Messerschmitts flying past windows, too, suggesting that we’re in a dream At the world’s film festivals, however, and archival footage, from Chekhov’s that has infected reality—a dream of anything is possible, and that’s where death bed to Hitler eyeballing the Ei- psychic memories of demolished pal- new films by Alexsandr Sokurov and ffel Tower to the building of the Louvre aces to a playground made of dinosaurs Apichatpong Weerasethakul are news- Pyramid. And then there are the paint- to tsunami rings on a banyan tree. making events. Sure, their films get ings, into which Sokurov falls, chang- At one point, a giant paramecium small arthouse releases here, and may ing the light on them and seeming to crawls across a clear blue sky. God- even show up on Netflix (as has Weer- give them three-dimensional life. desses appear at picnic tables. On the asethakul’s mesmerizing 2010 master- “Who would we be without muse- soundtrack, chirring jungle insects work Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall ums?” he asks, making Francofonia a and windy rumbles roll on unabated. His Past Lives, presumably to the baf- semi-documentary, not only a com- “What happens next”—the be-all and fled chagrin of the average Netflix and panion piece to his Hermitage Museum end-all for American movies—is not a chill viewer). Nevertheless, their films epic Russian Ark, but also recent paeans concern. Instead, the tenderness of the are strange-smelling hothouse flowers to museum-ness like Jem Cohen’s Mu- present moment, however bizarre and lost in a landscape of industrialized seum Hours (2012) and Frederick Wise- bewitching it may be, is the meat of the corn fields and feedlots. man’s National Gallery (2014). matter, in fine Buddhist tradition. “Life Russian-born Sokurov is one of the The one-man meta-New Wave from is like candlelight,” someone says deep globe’s most protean voices: In a 40- Thailand, Weerasethakul may be the in, and it feels just about right. n year career so far, his films range from most original working filmmaker alive, Weerasethakul explores dreams 10 minutes to over five hours, from un- which is to say that his gentle, ironic, and reality through young Thai earthly phantasias to psycho Flaubert magical-realist idylls are radically dif- soldiers in an endless slumber. adaptations to gritty documentary. ferent from both mainstream multiplex Francofonia is a ruminative essay fare and Euro-Asian “art films.” about the Louvre, which to Sokurov His latest, Cemetery of Splendour, is isn’t merely the center of Paris but the a poetic tissue of tropical moments, center of the world. Sokurov is a histo- haunted by the irrepressible past. The rian for whom art and museums are es- setting is a country hospital set up sential to our awareness of our past and inside an old school—and, we learn, our cultural selves. The moment for him atop an ancient burial ground for Thai here is the 1940 German occupation of kings. Occupying the beds are doz- Paris, and the face-off between Nazi ens of young soldiers beset by sleep- commander Franz von Wolff-Metter- ing sickness, which does not prevent nich, commissioned to safeguard the them from waking and then passing art, and Louvre director Jacques Jau- out again, mustering erections, or hav- jard. Wolff-Metternich, a sympathetic ing their dreams plumbed by a young aristocrat and art expert who presents psychic. Volunteering at the hospital is an elegant foil to the working-class bu- an aging woman on crutches (the film- reaucrat Jaujard, both seen in archival maker’s go-to favorite, Jenjira Pongpas

photos and embodied by actors. Widner), who bonds with one sleeping CHAI SIRIS/COURTESY OF KICK THE MACHINE FILMS

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 53

AMERICAN POLITICS

Outsider in the White The Killing of The “S” Word Crowds and Party Osama Bin Laden A Short History of an American House by Jodi Dean by Seymour M. Hersh Tradition … Socialism by Bernie Sanders by John Nichols Introduction by John Nichols How do mass protests become Electrifying investigation of an organized activist collective? White House lies about the as- “A chilling reminder of how The political autobiography sassination of Osama bin Laden much rich American history has that lays out Bernie’s plans for been erased by reinvigorating democracy “One of America’s greatest shallow messaging. A crucial investigative reporters.” book.” —New York Times Magazine —Naomi Klein

ECOLOGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Fossil Capital The Shock of the Anthropocene Capitalism in the Web of Life How Did We Get Into This The Rise of Steam Power and The Earth, History and Us Ecology and the Accumulation Mess? the Roots of Global Warming by Christophe Bonneuil and of Capital Politics, Equality, Nature by Andreas Malm Jean-Baptiste Fressoz by Jason W. Moore by George Monbiot

“The definitive deep history on “Revelatory, lucid and daring...” “Moore’s radical and rigorous work Leading political and environ- how our economic system cre- —David Edgerton, King’s College is, and richly deserves to be, agen- mental commentator on where ated the climate crisis. Superb, London da-setting.” —China Miéville we have gone wrong, and what essential reading...” —Naomi to do about it Klein, author of This Changes Everything

ART AND ARCHITECTURE

Strike Art In the Flow The Perpetual Guest Last Futures Contemporary Art and the by Boris Groys Art in the Unfinished Present Nature, Technology, and the Post-Occupy Condition by Barry Schwabsky End of Architecture by Yates McKee The leading art theorist takes on by Douglas Murphy art in the age of the Internet Leading art critic explores the What is the relation of art to connections between art’s past Whatever happened to the last the practice of radical politics and present utopian dreams of the city? today?

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54 OCTOBER 2014 IN THESE TIMES EXIT SIGNS

BY CHRIS LEHMANN The GOP Gets Its Trump-uppance f all the many puzzle- plus votes on repealing Obamacare, ments surrounding the which served no other purpose than meteoric rise of Donald to allow Tea Party incumbents to pre- OTrump, perhaps the great- tend they were advancing the agendas est is that the GOP’s leadership caste they ran on (or any legislation at all). should regard it as a puzzlement at all. There was the GOP’s ritual sacrifice Ever since Trump’s decisive thrashing of John Boehner’s speakership on the of his GOP rivals in South Carolina and altar of ideological purity. There was Nevada, we’ve seen no end of breast- Ted Cruz’s equally empty—though beating displays of bewilderment from immensely mediagenic—filibus- conservatives. Neocon hawk Robert ter designed to provoke a (yes, again) Kagan took to the Washington Post op- government shutdown bid over (yes, ed section to pronounce Trump a again) Obamacare. “Frankenstein monster”—and con- Looking back at this parade of concluded by endorsing Hillary Clinton. frontational nothingness, it’s hard to The New York Times’ David Brooks be- fathom why the Trumpist movement, or ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES wailed the rise of Trumpism as a “can- something like it, didn’t happen sooner. cer” and a worrisome lurch into barba- The Tea Party phase of the GOP deto- In Donald Trump, the GOP is rous “antipolitics” and European-style nated the cynical social contract struck reaping what it sowed. authoritarianism. Brooks’ conservative at the outset of the Reagan revolution, colleague, Ross Douthat, glumly con- in which the business wing of the Right defy the behavioral canons of “politi- curred—but ingeniously found a way to found symbolic common cause with cal correctness.” His genial showman’s blame Trump’s rise on Barack Obama. an evangelical grassroots and, once in mien permits him to opportunistically And Senate Majority Leader Mitch power, duly ignored it. (Actual progress back off from the political fallout. He McConnell, the grand architect of the on the Christian Right’s wishlist would can have a white supremacist kingpin scorched-earth assault on all Obama- make it that much harder to mobilize make get-out-the-vote robocalls on his backed legislation, is reported to have in gospel fury each election cycle). behalf, or play dumb before the cam- fumed at a GOP power luncheon that But a Tea Party electorate took venge- eras while being repeatedly pressed to if Trump’s candidacy threatens the ful note of all the perceived betrayals by disavow his endorsement by former Republicans’ narrow Senate majority, D.C. insiders. Soon enough, the simple Klan wizard David Duke, or have a “We’ll drop him like a hot rock.” When threat of a primary challenge from the group of peaceful black students forced the Trump phenomenon is too much Right was enough to dispel any grown- out of a campaign rally. for a procedural nihilist like McConnell up compromise in the halls of Repub- Trump’s deft culture-war shtick also to stomach, you know the Republican lican power. Meanwhile, the Tea Party permits him to short-circuit expecta- Party is in near-complete meltdown. uprising provided ample play for ugly tions of simple ideological consistency, It’s also lying to itself, in a big way. shows of nativism and bigotry on the let alone purity. He’s been a pro-choice, Anyone paying even cursory attention newly revived grassroots Right. big-government liberal, and seems understands that antipolitics, far from These are all the woeful internal GOP unto this day a more consistent sup- being a Zika-style virus smuggled into dynamics we can now see converging porter of single-payer healthcare than the vulnerable GOP host organism by in the outsized, orange-hued figure of Hillary Clinton. a single “outsider” populist presiden- Donald Trump. Rather than encourag- How the Trump insurgency plays out tial hopeful sporting a Chia Pet pom- ing marginalized, white, middle Amer- within the now-deranged coordinates padour, has been the very lifeblood of icans to dress up as colonial patriots, of Republican electioneering is any- the Republican political class since the Trump encourages them to attack non- one’s guess, but leftists shouldn’t be too great Tea Party uprising of 2010. white protestors, unleash displays of quick to gloat. Donald Trump is every- There was the pointless litany of 60- religious bigotry and otherwise rudely one’s problem now. n

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 55 excerpt

But the real question driving the I’VE A FEELING WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE film is why government leaders and In Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? economists seem to chronically for- (Metropolitan Books), Thomas Frank asks, “What’s the matter with the get the harsh lessons learned during Democratic Party?” He then provides some answers, including: those bitter busts. Unsurprisingly, the As the [Democratic Leadership Council] DLC saw it, whenever Democrats blame falls on classical economics and lost an election, it was because their leaders were too weak on crime, its myopic focus on free market com- too soft on communism and too sympathetic to minorities. petition as an engine of growth, while The DLC had a single-factor theory of politics: that voters had grown simply ignoring the built-in tenden- disgusted with the cultural liberalism of the post-McGovern era. Why did cies toward instability and crisis. En- Carter lose in 1980? Too damn liberal. Why did Mondale lose in 1984? couraged to mistake the map for the Still too liberal. Why did Dukakis lose in 1988? Liberal again. The DLC territory, generations of economists also had but a single prescription for this malady: The Democratic Party cling to their models regardless of could only win if it moved to “the center,” severing ties with its constitu- ent groups and embracing certain free-market policies of the right. … real-world economic upheavals. Thus Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve What made the DLC succeed where others had failed were the contradic- chairman from 1987 to 2006, finally tions it managed to juggle. It was a bluntly pro-business force—friendly admitted, after failing to predict the with lobbyists and funded by corporate backers—that nevertheless proclaimed itself as a warrior for the working class. It was a strictly disastrous 2008 collapse, that his inside-the-Beltway operation that presented itself as the champion of model might have some slight imper- “forgotten Democrats.” One of its early manifestos, for example, berated fections—only to later take back his “higher socioeconomic status Democrats” for temporary mea culpa. antagonizing working-class voters both cultur- The film argues that such denial per- ally and economically ... sists because classical economics dove- Why working-class voters were supposed to tails disastrously with certain tenden- pine for balanced budgets, free-trade treaties cies of human nature. In situations of and the rest of the items on the DLC wish-list relative safety and stability, such as those was a mystery. The answer, it would soon careful, highly regulated interludes that become clear, was that the DLC didn’t really care all that much about working people in often follow busts, people become uni- the first place. The aim of the group was to versally inclined toward euphoric risk- capture the Democratic Party for its lobby- taking and the irrational desire for more ist supporters by whatever means were at that leads to further financial bubbles. hand, and in the 1980s, claiming to repre- Proof for this human nature claim is sent the overlooked middle American prob- offered in the most bizarre section of ably seemed like a good gambit. the film, involving a behavioral study at Monkey Island in Puerto Rico, which is supposed to demonstrate fundamental primate irrationality. FILM way back to the bursting of the colos- In lab tests, Technician #1 repeat- sal tulip bubble of 1637. We hear from edly offered monkeys one grape, then The Greedy economists Dan Ariely, Zvi Bodie, gave them two. Technician #2 offered Andy Haldane and Robert J. Shiller, three grapes, then also gave out two. Monkey Theory of economic journalists Paul Krug- The monkeys all preferred to deal man, John Cassidy and Paul Mason, with Technician #1, which, according Economic Collapse and deceased economists John Ken- to the behavioral scientists in charge, By Eileen Jones neth Galbraith and Hyman Minsky in is irrational, since they get two goofy cloth puppet form. Playwright grapes regardless. The explanation is oom Bust Boom is an odd Lucy Prebble and actor John Cusack that the monkeys are irrationally fix- little documentary co-written also hold forth, for reasons that are ated on the lure of getting more than Bby Terry Jones, formerly of not entirely clear. These talking heads initially expected. Monty Python’s Flying Circus, with describe the grim realities of the work- Somehow, what monkeys will do economics professor and entrepreneur ings of capitalism in strangely chipper to get grapes in lab conditions is sup- Theo Kocken. In it, an assortment of tones, enlivened by puppetry, anima- posed to be proof positive of what hu- experts take us on a tour through the tion, computer graphics and clips from mans will do in speculating for profit. great busts of financial markets, all the South Park. If that isn’t rotten logic, I don’t know

56 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES what is. Just for starters, it’s pretty clear It’s a small, shaky solution to a prob- that the monkeys might very well have lem of such magnitude, which befits a whole different take on the grape this little hodgepodge of a film, clock- situation, one that is perfectly rational. ing in at a mere 74 minutes. Perhaps the I call it “The Asshole Inference.” Once short and sketchy nature of the film is they figure out they’re going to get two due to the filmmakers’ strange disincli- grapes either way, the monkeys would nation to delve into such economically far rather deal with the honest and gen- related categories as “politics” or “ideol- erous broker who gives what he offers ogy” when considering the workings plus a little extra, rather than the jerk of capitalism. Even as the film accuses who promises more but doesn’t deliver. economists of ignoring obviously per- They’re avoiding the asshole, you see. tinent phenomena, it ironically ignores A very useful behavior when dealing the complex history of human devel- with human beings! opment that lies between our primate COURTESY OF BILL AND BEN PRODUCTIONS For Boom Bust Boom, however, pri- ancestry and the dominance of global In Boom Bust Boom, animations enliven mate irrationality is the problem, hu- capitalism, including centuries of shift- the grim realities of capitalism. mans’ idiotic approach to the economy ing political-economic systems. Fortu- is a manifestation, and better education nately, there are other documentaries historically specific economic system is the answer. The film touts a student that demonstrate a richer understand- as an extension of human nature, one group participating in the organization ing of what’s so disaster-prone about which can be diagnosed by study- Rethinking Economics, “an interna- our economic system, including Col- ing incipient monkey-capitalists, isn’t tional network of rethinkers” that is lapse, Inside Job, Capitalism: A Love Sto- much of an analysis. But at least it will challenging economic dogma. One of ry, Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis, fit into a barely feature length-running their goals is, ultimately, better trained and The Shock Doctrine. time, with several minutes to spare for economists. As for Boom Bust Boom, treating our a John Cusack interview. n [ art space]

IN BED WITH THE NSA Filmmaker and reporter Laura Poitras, best known for her Oscar- winning documentary about Edward Snowden, Citizenfour, has a new exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Poitras uses her first foray into fine art to create intimate encounters with our post-9/11 surveillance state. The installation “Bed Down Location,” for example, encourages the viewer to lie on a soft, raised platform and stare up at projections of the dark night skies of Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan—places where the U.S. military conducts nighttime drone strikes. Near the exhibition’s exit, a digital screen with thermal imagery shows that you have been surveilled from above while laying in this piece—a palpable moment of vulner- ability that brings home the reality of our new culture of everyday spying. Astro Noise runs through May 1. —LIZ PELLY

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 57 FROM THE OLD COUNTRY

BY JANE MILLER To Brexit or Not To Brexit e are to have a ref- U.S. influence. Tory Prime Minister, ruption. It has grown fast and perhaps erendum June 23. We’ll Edward Heath took us in in 1973, and awkwardly, so that its member countries be asked whether we we’ve never ceased to realise de Gaulle’s differ hugely in their politics, their econ- Wwant to stay in the Eu- suspicions. We’ve been a perpetual ir- omies, their histories and their cultures. ropean Union or leave it, and we’re told ritant, always negative, always insisting Our lukewarm membership has left us that this is going to be the most impor- on our “special status,” refusing to join unable or unwilling to address these is- tant decision of our lives. The irony for the Euro or be part of the Schengen sues. In our semi-detached relation, we some of us is that, in wanting the Unit- Agreement that abolished border con- have only argued for changes that are ed Kingdom to remain in the European trols—we have the easiest border, after thought advantageous to the United Union, we find ourselves on the Kingdom. In fact, there has been same side as David Cameron, almost no mention of how the the prime minister. He has just minor concessions involving mi- screwed some meaningless—and grant workers and financial regu- mean—concessions out of the lations that Cameron has exacted other 27 EU countries in order from the EU might affect other to deal with a long-standing and countries in the European Union. destructive dispute within his And in his insistence that as non- own Tory party over whether to Euro members we should be ex- remain in the European Union. cused from bailing out countries It is an irony with which we’re like Greece, or from taking in familiar. The first U.K. referen- refugees according to an EU sys- dum on whether we should stay tem of quotas, we have been seen in or leave the European Eco- as embarrassingly self-seeking. nomic Community, the precur- Other EU countries are exasper- sor to the EU, was in 1975, and ated by our demands. it, too, arose out of a split, within Cameron is right about one Harold Wilson’s Labour govern- An anti-EU banner sits outside a ‘Say No, Believe thing: We need to stay in the EU. ment. Those wanting to stay won, in Britain’ event February 22 in Cornwall. People old enough to have lived with more than two-thirds of the through the Second World War feel vote. Now, those Tories who want to all, in the sea that surrounds us. relief that most European countries are leave the Union—or “Brexit” support- In the current debate, members of the able to collaborate. We need the EU as a ers, as they’re known—invoke their government are being allowed by the check on our right-wing government’s somewhat mythical “special relation” to prime minister to campaign on either undermining of the welfare state, par- the United States as part of their deter- side, and several have declared their ticularly the National Health Service, mination to get out, just as the Left of willingness to vote against the govern- education and legal aid. We need its the Labour Party in 1975 saw Europe as ment’s recommendation that we stay. scrutiny of workers’ rights and pay and a distraction from our historical rela- Though Cameron’s offered slogans in- jobs. We need its financial market for tions with the Commonwealth, which clude “safer, stronger and better off” investment and trade. Perhaps we need were also shot through with a certain (“in” rather than “out,” that is) and the it most because the chances are that amount of fantasy and denial. warning that leaving would be a “leap in if we vote to leave Europe, European- The U.K. has never been an enthu- the dark,” some of us fear that it is hard- looking Scots will vote to separate from siastic or committed member of the er to stir up excitement about remaining the insular English (despite hints that European Union. General de Gaulle and the status quo than about change. some Scottish National Party members famously turned us down twice in the There are serious problems with the will vote “Brexit” simply in order to 1960s, fearing that we’d seek to domi- European Union. It is undemocratic hasten Scottish independence). We are

nate things and serve as a conduit for and bureaucratic in ways that invite cor- in for a bumpy few months. n PHOTO BY MATT CARDY/GETTY IMAGES

58 APRIL 2016 IN THESE TIMES The Trump threat made a point to tell them that Obama’s Although the motive has not yet been Continued from back page grandfather had been Muslim. It wasn’t determined, many Muslims fear it was just a “nudge nudge, wink wink.” It was the victims’ religion. Whether or not for many American Muslims as we go an important fact, because even that that’s the case, we now live in an en- through different stages of life: school, tenuous kinship helped us feel like we vironment in which it very well could college, work, relationships, family. belonged here. have been, and I believe it is reasonable When I was in elementary school, Fast forward to November 2008, to say that Trump has contributed sig- there was a Pakistani girl in my broth- when I was knocking on doors for nificantly to that environment. er’s class who wore shalwar kameez to Obama in North Carolina. I had to ex- Trump has condoned violence school every day. She was teased relent- lessly. I was regularly asked about “Gan- dhi dots.” When the Gulf War broke out, It has been said that when Donald Trump kids at school asked me if my family owned oil wells “back home.” But that says, ‘Make America great again,’ he really struggle was supposed to end with our generation. We told ourselves that it means ‘Make America white again.’ would be easier for our kids. And then Donald Trump came plain to a woman that, “No ma’am, he’s against people of color by his support- along. not [Muslim]. I am, but he’s not.” She ers. After a mob at one of his rallies in In December, when I saw a story didn’t immediately respond, but later, Birmingham, Ala. beat up an African- about a sixth-grade Muslim girl who got as she was about to walk away, she said, American Black Lives Matter activist, beat up in school in the Bronx by three “Well, you seem nice enough. I’ll think Trump remarked, “Maybe he should boys who hit her because she was Mus- about it.” By then it was already clear have been roughed up because it was lim, it tore me to pieces and made me that electing Obama wasn’t going to be absolutely disgusting what he was do- worry about my nieces and nephews. our redemption in this country. ing.” When two of his supporters in Racism and bigotry have a long his- Vile as he was, even George W. Bush Boston urinated on and assaulted a tory in this country, and my experi- drew a nominal distinction between homeless Latino man while he was ences with bigotry growing up are far terrorists who happened to be Muslim sleeping, he sent a tweet condemning from unique and are actually pretty and the Muslim people more broadly. the attack but defended the attack- tame compared to those of many oth- But Trump doesn’t even bother with ers, saying, “They love this country er people, Muslim and non-Muslim. those niceties. He doesn’t just seek to and they want this country to be great Attacks against Muslims were wide- “other” us; he seeks to get rid of us. again. They are very passionate.” spread before Trump came along. And he is giving permission to other It has been said that when Trump Hell, our country has been at war people who feel the same way to say says, “Make America great again,” he with Muslims for nearly half my life. I so out loud. really means “Make America white have heard my share of ignorant, big- CNN reported last December that again.” I don’t think that’s true, be- oted comments. In college, a classmate a 68-year-old military veteran at a cause “white” is too inclusive a term penned an op-ed in response to some- Trump rally in South Carolina said, “Is- for Trump’s America. Trump has al- thing I wrote, suggesting that I should lam is not a religion. It’s a violent blood ready told us he doesn’t want Muslims smile politely when airport security cult. OK?” A February poll by Public in his country. He’s talking about get- takes a second look and warning me Policy Polling found that 56 percent of ting Mexicans to build a wall to keep that I’d have to deal with a lot worse Trump supporters in South Carolina themselves out. He is openly flirting if there were another attack like Sep- either believe Islam should be illegal in with the Ku Klux Klan. It would be an tember 11. the United States or are not sure. understatement to say that Trump is During the Illinois Senate primary The reason Trump’s plan to ban all unwelcoming of people of color. But in March 2004, then-state Sen. Barack Muslims bothers me is not because I Trump’s America also has no place for Obama was running in a competitive think it will ever happen. It won’t. But white people who happen to be Jew- seven-way race. Home for spring break, as these kinds of ideas become part of ish or LGBTQ. It doesn’t value white I worked with a group of Asian Ameri- the acceptable discourse, people are women except as objects. In other can community organizers on Elec- emboldened to act on them. words, Trump’s America would ex- tion Day to turn out voters for Obama Just this past weekend, three Muslim pel or marginalize an overwhelming from the heavily Pakistani and Indian men were found dead in Fort Wayne, majority of Americans. That’s the bad neighborhood on Chicago’s far North Ind. According to Vox, they had been news. The good news is, if most Amer- Side, near where I grew up. When we “shot multiple times in what police, on icans are getting the boot, then maybe knocked on Muslim families’ doors, we Friday, called ‘execution style’ murders.” I do belong here, with them. n

IN THESE TIMES APRIL 2016 59 A Muslim woman protests Donald Trump on Dec. 20, 2015 in New York.

BY SAQIB BHATTI Donald Trump Sends a Chill Through My Muslim-American Body he Huffington Post adds a disclaim- all the bigoted statements he has made, the one that hits me er to nearly all of the articles it publishes the hardest—perhaps the only one that hits me at all any about Donald Trump: more—is his call for a Muslim ban. Editor’s note: Donald Trump is a serial I don’t think Trump is spreading bigotry and racism in liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, this country; I think he is unleashing it. He is saying the birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged things that a lot of people already believed but were too po- Tto ban all Muslims—1.6 billion members of an entire reli- lite or afraid to say in public. But there is a flip side to that. gion—from entering the U.S. He is also telling Muslims something that deep down many As an American Muslim, I deeply appreciate that dis- of us have long feared but were afraid to say out loud: We claimer. Trump thrives on media attention. His entire cam- don’t belong here. There is something very unsettling about paign is based on saying outlandish things that will get him it, like someone peeking into your deepest, most personal free press coverage, and this disclaimer helps contextualize insecurity and shining a bright light on it. any coverage the Huffington Post gives him. American Muslims are not monolithic, and I cannot claim But every time I read it, it sends a chill through my body. to speak for everyone. I am an American-born son of Paki- Every single time. Trump has said many offensive things stani Muslim immigrants. Like many other people, I live about Latinos, African Americans, Jews, Asian Americans, in between two cultures and don’t feel like I fully belong women and the LGBTQ community, to name a few. But of to either. Navigating that space is a big part of the struggle PHOTO BY KENA BETANCUR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES CONTINUED ON PAGE 59