Inside Cockburn’s FBI File: Snoops, Snitches and Secrets by David price No Magic bullets: deadly lessons from the Sandy hook massacre by Nancy Scheper-Hughes Is Kathryn Bigelow Our Leni Riefenstahl? By Louis Proyect TELLS THE FACTS AND NAMES THE NAMES January 2013 VOL. 20 NO. 1

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Grasping at Straws...... 7 No Magic Bullets: The Fiscal Sellout Deadly Lessons from by Mike Whitney How Obama sacrificed the real the Sandy Hook Little economic crises to a phantom threat that poses no danger at all.

Tyke Massacre Desert Post ...... 8 by Nancy Scheper-Hughes ...... 12 Every Child Left Behind An Interview with by Christopher Ketcham How should a child be raised as an Magdulien Abaida, A ethical being in a society that so Libyan Women’s Rights loathes the family unit? culture & Activist reviews by Vijay Prashad ...... 17 Machine Politics (The Remix)...... 23 Nato in the Arctic: By Lee Ballinger Is Kathryn Bigelow Our Leni Cowboys and the Riefenstahl?...... 24 Indians Redux? By Louis Proyect by Ritt Goldstein ...... 19 letters to the editor

Land of Despair to the loads of good articles. public outcry. The issue of Bomb Everything Now that the “failure” of Cudos to you and the staff whose bodies are valued In one of the most explicit American culture is being and cheers to you all during in a neo-colonialist state calls for genocide, I recall generally recognized, we the the New Year when many so deeply impacted by the Nixon ordering Kissinger urgently need to examine of us will join in remem- white supremacy of former to have “everything that why this happened. Just in bering AC with a good old european rulers, whose skin flies (bomb) everything the space of a single genera- Bottoms Up! shade is considered enough that moves” in Cambodia. tion America has gone from Carl Finamore of a passport to safety or If history had any justice, at least upset, is of concern being a land of promise and California Nixon, Kissinger and practi- an example to the world to here, as well. cally every President since one of despair. How and Caste and Class T.J. Bryan Roosevelt would be en- why did this happen? Was it Of course, CounterPunch’s Kilkenny, Ireland shrined alongside the Nazi pieces about caste and class generals as the worst men in a built in result of the post Fresh Air World War 2 hubris that will be lost in most dialogues history for their destruction made the US seem invin- on what happened in India In the States, we are bom- of Asia and Latin America. barded with misinforma- cible? and why the outraged upris- Michael Dao tion on the consequences of ing. It seems that low caste Indiana Ron Davis privatizing public services. La Paz, Bolivia women and girls are raped with frightening regularity Reading CounterPunch’s Southwest Sentiments We’re Good Looking by upper caste men, even articles on economics is a RIP, A.C. Carry on, folks, breathe of fresh air. If any- The newsletter look is better killed afterwards, at least now more than ever! one really wants to see the than ever. The white back- according to what I searched Milgracias, results of austerity measures ground gives it a very clean and found out, with nary VGB and privatization of public appearance with the color a whisper coming from New Mexico services they should talk to lending just enough notice anyone. No interest, no mass someone in Georgia about No Good Capitalism the average quality of life Keep talking about in their state. It’s a joke. An CAPITALISM as the funda- insidious joke that talking mental problem. Not “crony heads and the Koch brother’s capitalism” or “vulture PR army are marketing as capitalism” or any other the road to prosperity. adjectival capitalism. It’s a Derrick Lough cop-out to talk that way. It Indiana implicitly sets up an a op- position between “good” and Republican Contradictions “bad” capitalism. But there is I remember in 2005 Harvard no good capitalism. It is what Magazine’s cover story fea- it always was: a criminal sys- tured a giant Social Security tem based on the systematic card ripped in half (obvious- exploitation and oppression ly meant to frighten people).. of the majority of humanity You notice when it comes to by a small minority. SS, Republicans and other John H. Wall Street people have no Montana problem looking way out into the future, 40, 50, 60 The Best of AC years. When it comes to May I say, your collabora- environmental problems — tion with Alex to get CP well, what do next quarter’s to the point it is the most profits look like. vital internet organ of the Brian Dorman english-speaking indy left Arizona is such a tribute. I hope you

4 and Jeff and the rest of your philosophers. Years later my Alexander Cockburn had Religion fine team are coping without friend admitted that I had plenty left in the tank when him; from afar it certainly been right. he passed on. Of course, he (Chordeiles Minor) looks like it. Magnificent Back in Israel, during had more polemics left to by Marc Beaudin contributions - though the the first years of the second write, articles to edit, con- sadness about the big gap Intifada, I approached Alex tributors to nurture. in ideas and personality a number of times asking for But I was also brought Nighthawk throws remains. I hope CP contin- his help and he always did up short by the thought, if its single note song ues to reprint the ‘best of’ his best in disseminating the Alexander Cockburn isn’t across the darkening sky from his oeuvre, as it was information I had passed his around to do these things, certainly the most formative way. who will? Who, in these dif- Then– material I found, when I was He was both a men- ficult times, has the talent, bell of a nearby church growing up in the 1980s. tor and an ally. He was a the knowledge, the experi- begins to measure out Patrick Bond mensch. ence, and his miraculous Durban, South Africa Neve Gordon combination of engagement, the remaining hours of Israel detachment, humor, invec- the day Young Warriors tive, and generosity to fill The day CP goes off-line will Changing Minds the void? Guess we’re on our be like life on earth without Bless you all for your hard own now. The bird falls silent – oxygen. Keep it up, young work. I have learned and Peter Lee listening . . . or not . . . warriors. Alex is watching grown so much from read- Los Angeles over us… And grinning. ing CP; the articles have re- – then returns Wish I had more scratch to ally stretched my ideas and Heterodox Hero give you. even—gasp—changed a few! A late note to say how sorry Raymond M. Thank you so very much! I was to hear about Alex. It’s These opposites are noted Pennsylvania J. Sager a great loss for all of us on by a slightly aging man on Washington the left but, of course, you From Down Under and the CP team must be his back porch: Good luck keeping the site On Our Own feeling it much more per- The pure voice of that going guys … you have I felt considerable surprise sonally. I was happy to see darting, many supporters down this and sorrow in learning of how much press his death way just like me. Regards, the death of Alexander attracted in the UK, and wide-mouthed bird Des Downey Cockburn. He was instru- much of it vaguely sympa- catching Melbourne, Australia mental in getting me started thetic. Given his heterodox as a writer. I owe him a great opinions, that was testament insects on the wing Cockburn vs. Hitchens debt of gratitude for his in itself to the quality of his I never had the chance to interest and encouragement, writing and his talent for and the frail clanging meet Alex, although we did and the platform that he and exposing cant. He remains correspond a few times. I Jeffrey St. Clair have given an inspiration. of two thousand years’ became aware of his writ- me at the CounterPunch All best, worth of dogma ings only in 1994 when I website and newsletter. Jonathan Cook began graduate school in When I wrote, I some- and doggerel Nazareth, West Bank the US. I still remember the times imagined Alexander that only marks the arguments I had with a good Cockburn as the reader at friend, both of us Nation my shoulder. I think it made CounterPunch welcomes moments leading readers at the time. She me a better, bolder, and letters from our readers. to our own impending loved Christopher Hitchens more honest writer. Preference is given to those death. while I became an avid fan However, the biting containing fewer than 150 of Alex. My claim was that sense of loss has more to it words. Please include name Hitchens’ was in love with than the disappearance of a and city of residence. his style and therefore one sympathetic interlocutor, or Email: counterpunch@ could not always trust him the knowledge that, despite counterpunch.org with the content, Alex, on having reached his “allot- or send via surface mail to: the other hand, was driven ted threescore and ten” and Letters to the Editor by social justice and a search burdened by the physical CounterPunch for truth, in the tradition of and emotional miseries of a PO Box 228 the prophets and the great two-year battle with cancer, Petrolia, CA 95558

5 the Palestinians. When the Voice finally roaming charges came to its senses and begged Alex to return, he rightly told the editors to screw off. Blackout There is the censorship of ortho- By Jeffrey St. Clair doxy, which explains Alex’s disgusting treatment at the hands of the Nation magazine, where Victor Navasky and n December, Daisy Cockburn and Saro-Wiwa was censored for his jour- Katrina vanden Heuvel first cut Alex’s I traveled to Oakland to accept nalism. Alex and I have both written columns in half, even though he was the PEN Writers’ annual censor- in dozens of venues and published the magazine’s most popular writer, and Iship award on behalf of her father, a journal and website that is read by then when that didn’t teach him to toe Alexander. The trip was an adventure 100,000s of people around the world their narrow liberal line, they slashed in irony. Oakland was one of Alex’s fa- (with the exception of Iran and China, his columns from twice a month to vorite cities. He loved its vibrancy and where access to the website flickers on once a month. If you want insight into grittiness. It was the city of Jack London and off depending on the temperament how the bosses of the Nation really felt and the Panthers, of jazz and blues, of the regimes.) For us to cry censor- about Alex, read Navasky’s icily written of dockworkers and occupiers, of Sly ship would be a yelp of weakness and and demeaning obituary. Stone and Ishmael Reed, who happened also demean those writers who were Then there’s old fashioned cen- to be on-hand to introduce the prize. being tortured or assassinated for their sorship, as when Nightline host Ted But for nearly twenty years, opinions. Kopple pulled the plug on Alex’s mi- CounterPunch had adhered to an Even so, there’s little question that crophone after the megalomaniacal ironclad rule: we violently opposed all over the course of his 50 year career as a anchor got peeved that Alex was wiping writing awards. Such honorifics, Alex professional journalist Alex did repeat- with floor with him during a live debate reasoned, served as a kind of cultural edly collide with the petty enforcers about the Soviet Union. sedative for unruly writers, a way of of elite opinion. Can one call this cen- Finally, there’s the censorship of enticing them into the corral of politi- sorship? If so, then it assumed several government spying. A few days after cal elites, a habitat of vanity from which guises during Alex’s life. Alex died, I asked our friend David they would rarely stray. There was the quiet censorship of Price, the anthropologist and historian This sensible directive was over- absence, the fact that for most of his of American intelligence agencies, to turned a few years ago when I received career the language’s most savage and file a FOIA request for Alex’s FBI and an early morning call from Alex. His erudite polemicist was excluded from CIA files. After the usual run-around, voice was unusually agitated, but it the editorial pages of the New York Price secured a rather thin, but intrigu- also betrayed a slight quiver of pride. Times and Washington Post. ing, sheaf of pages from the National “Jeffrey, the most unusual event has There is the censorship of negation. Archives. As detailed in Price’s story occurred, that will compel us to amend Consider, for example, the New York in this issue of CounterPunch, the FBI our proscription against journalism Times Book Review’s vicious assault had been keeping tabs on Alex since awards. It seems my brother Patrick has on our book Whiteout, a history of his arrival in the US in 1972. More won the Martha Gellhorn Award for the CIA’s deep ties to dictators, death sobering, the documents (almost cer- war reporting. And, even more trou- squads and drug runners. A writer for tainly incomplete) reveal that an un- bling, he plans on accepting it.” the Columbia Journalism Review called identified informer for Britain’s MI5 spy As the world’s best and most cou- the hatchet job one of the most hostile shop had tried to get Alex deported in rageous war correspondent, Patrick book reviews ever written. The review the mid-1970s for his seditious writings. deserved the accolade. But for Alex had been commissioned by the Times’s Alex was only saved by the FBI’s refusal more unsettling news arrived a couple editors, whose fraternal relationship to disclose the name of the informant to of years later when Patrick was awarded with the intelligence agencies had been the INS. the Orwell Prize for journalism, named exposed in our book. At this point it is hard to get the full after the man who had snitched out There is the censorship of public picture of government harassment and Claud Cockburn, and other leftwing ridicule, such as being smeared as a snooping because the documents are so writers, to British intelligence. There Stalinist by that little twerp George Will heavily redacted. Yes, even Alexander was the strain of weary resignation in or a conspiratorialist by the faux left Cockburn’s FBI, has been censored. Alex’s voice the day he conveyed that twerp Todd Gitlin, one of the shrillest That’s surely something we should all celebratory news. false alarms in American letters. aspire to as writers—it’s a true measure Awards are one thing, the issue There is the censorship of manu- that your prose has power and punch. of censorship is another. We never factured hysteria, as when the Village CP viewed ourselves as being censored, Voice lost its nerve and suspended Alex certainly not in the way that, say, Ken for writing honestly about the plight of

6 “Something got done. But as one Grasping at Straws observer put it, celebrating the Senate for passing a bill such as this is equiva- lent to praising an arsonist for putting The Fiscal Sellout out his own fire.” By Mike Whitney Greenhaus is referring to the Senate’s role in running up the deficits, but, of course, the real blame lies with orking people are getting roy- from the big financial institutions are the people who blew up the finan- ally shafted by the fiscal cliff saying? Here’s a sampling taken from cial system to begin with and who are deal. In fact, it isn’t really a the Wall Street Journal: planning to cash-in on cutbacks that Wbudget deal at all; it’s just “starve the Lewis Alexander, Nomura Global are being imposed on the victims of beast” dressed up as prudent “deficit re- Economics: “The deal just enacted that swindle, working people. Everyone duction”. implies a significant tightening of knows who the real arsonists are, the This is austerity writ large. This isn’t fiscal policy this year. Payroll taxes are bankers. the time to be cutting government going up and federal spending is being You get the picture. They want to spending. The economy still in the cut by the amount anticipated in the shrink the economy, so they can get doldrums. Wages are flat, unemploy- BCA. These measures will be a drag on what they want. That means all this ment is too high, and demand is still growth, starting in the current quarter. fiscal cliff-stuff is just public relations too weak. Any cutbacks now will show Taken at face value, the deal appears pap intended to persuade working up immediately in terms of less hiring to entail somewhat more fiscal drag people that they need to scrape by on and slower growth. That’s why the set- for 2013 than we had assumed in our crumbs in order to save the country tlement is such a disaster. It sacrifices forecast.” from ruin. It’s all one big fiction. the real economy to a phantom threat And here’s a tidbit from G-Sax: “We We need more government (deficit) that poses no danger at all. estimate this package would result in spending, not less. And while the Even the big money guys at the bro- an overall drag on growth from fiscal present agreement will extend un- kerage firms know the whole thing is policy of around 1.5pp. Our forecast employment benefits for millions of a hoax. They realize this isn’t about assumes 1.6pp of fiscal drag on a Q4/ people who still can’t find jobs, ending sensible deficit reduction, but choking Q4 basis in 2013, due to the expira- the payroll tax holiday is going to take off the vital flow of funds to the broader tion of the payroll tax cut, upper more than $100 billion right out the economy to effect some nutcase plan income tax cuts, and new taxes under pockets of the people most inclined to to crush labor and dismantle popular the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that spend it fast. social programs. That’s what it’s really take effect today, and slowing federal What sense does that make? That all about, restructuring the economy. spending due to the spending caps money goes straight into the economy, Just listen to what Akira Takei, head enacted last year.” increases employment, and strengthens of the international fixed-income de- Here’s JP Morgan’s David Kelly: growth. It is the most efficient, effective partment in Tokyo at Mizuho Asset “Because the fight was concentrated on fiscal stimulus imaginable. And it only Management Co. said to Bloomberg how the ‘rich’ should be taxed, many cost $140 billion, chump-change when News: “People in the market are investors may have the impression that you consider the wasted $13 trillion in thinking that an agreement on the fiscal this was a relatively small and narrowly Wall Street bailouts we flushed down cliff will take them back into a risk-on focused tax increase. In fact, this rep- the toilet. It’s outrageous. environment, but it won’t. It’s not about resents a very significant increase in Obama supporters should comb avoiding austerity but how to execute taxation on almost all Americans, with through the details of the “cliff” settle- austerity.” the most pain likely being inflicted by ment carefully. The Dear Leader has That’s it in a nutshell: “How to the expiration of the 2% payroll tax cut. basically given away the farm and opted execute austerity.” The whole fiscal cliff From a macro-economic perspective, for shrinking the economy, extending trope was a ruse to stomp on working this is also where the impact is likely the slump and keeping unemployment people one more time again so the fat to be greatest—consumer spending on needlessly high, just so he could curry cats in the penthouse suites can divert basic goods and services like groceries, favor with the Masters of the Universe, more public money into the corporate clothing, restaurant meals and gasoline the Wall Street bankers. The whole coffers. That’s why the Dow soared should all take a hit over the next few thing stinks. CP nearly 500 points after the deal, because months due to lower take-home pay…. the investor class figures that beating the impact of all of this should be to up on the dwindling and bedraggled slow the US economy in the first half of middle class will boost earnings. It’s 2013 but not put it into recession.” sick. And, here’s my personal favorite from Have you read what the economists Dan Greenhaus at BTIG LLC:

7 public relations complexes; the human Desert Post circus animals in football, basketball, baseball etc.; and the related celebrities complexes (whose members are almost Every Child Left Behind always employed in film, sports, enter- By Christopher Ketcham tainment). Yet why is it that little boys want to operate garbage trucks and locomo- was complaining the other day to my nature is to make purchases in the mar- tives and cranes but show no interest in wife, who gave birth to our second ketplace, and find happiness in the ac- derivatives trading, betting against oil daughter—the first is 17—about what quisition of material things through the futures, or hedging on currencies? Iit means to have kids in America. “We getting and spending of money. It is because the species naturally— hate kids in this country,” I told her. This is a worldview obviously based this being part of the real nature of “Why we do keep having them?” on contempt of man, the presump- man—gravitates to productive work I was thinking about public schools tion that man for himself is worth- with hands and body and mind, abhor- getting defunded; about the bankrupt- less. One does not raise human beings ring that which is manifestly worthless. ing cost of day care and health care; in such a culture; one invests in a unit The parent is faced with despair at the about the fact that one half of all US of exchange, the goal being that the prospects for direct confrontation with children will be hungry enough at children can one day sell themselves in this monstrous normality. The children some point in their lives to go on food the market. are surrounded, besieged, penetrated by stamps; that GDP is up 168 percent And to what end? the culture. since 1975, while “family economic Here is my 17-year-old, immersed in The mass indoctrination inherent in well-being” is the worst it has been in 35 an environment that asks her to be a consumer capitalism has got hold of years. grasping, greedy, ugly, jealous, conniv- the great majority of adults, too many “We hate mothers too,” said my ing social idiot; to mistake accumula- of whom help the indoctrination along, wife. She was thinking about health tion for beauty; to engage in ostenta- either tacitly at home, through ignorant insurance companies. “Well, they want tious display of finery and trinkets; to or careless acquiescence, or actively at mothers to fucking die,” I offered. lionize the rich and vilify the poor. the office writing the advertising copy, Because, you know, these corpora- Thorstein Veblen figured out the designing the iPhone app, and the like. tions think pregnant women are sick. contours of this spiritual disaster more The culture is always looking to rot Why else do “health” insurance com- than a century ago. From Veblen we the brains of the next generation, and panies categorize pregnancy as a “pre- have the concepts of conspicuous con- we who know better have an obligation, existing condition,” as if it’s an illness? sumption—a form of “derangement,” in at the least within the confines of the The disease of carrying the unborn Veblen’s words, because it was predicat- family unit, to hold the monster at bay is reason for a health insurer to stipu- ed on rationalized waste—and pecuni- via a kind of monastic withdrawal. late that for exactly ten months after ary emulation, better known as keeping I think of author Jeannette Walls a woman is first determined to be up with the Joneses. writing in her memoir, The Glass Castle, pregnant she will be ineligible for insur- Veblen’s conclusion was that a society about the quite effective defense her ance if she does not already have it. trapped in cycles of pecuniary emula- parents mounted at Christmastime Hopefully during those ten tion and conspicuous consumption— against the pernicious Santa Claus fable. months the mother will deal with the display and waste based on envy—was “They told us all about how other kids problem—how about abort the fetus, not a society worth living in. It was were deceived by their parents, how the soak it in motor oil, set it on fire, and primitive, “barbaric,” uncivilized. toys the grown-ups claimed were made fling it via crossbow at the executives of What’s more, the young—and this by little elves wearing bell caps in their said insurance companies? was also Veblen’s observation—are workshop at the North Pole actually Which brings me to the issue of how, taught that to be usefully and produc- had labels on them saying MADE IN if you’re lucky enough to bring it into tively engaged in society is dishonor- JAPAN.” Walls’ mother wisely coun- the world alive and with the requisite able, and that to make money doing seled her: “Try not to look down on twenty fingers and toes, a child should as close as possible to nothing is the those other children. It’s not their fault be raised as an ethical being in a society dream. Prestige in our barbaric order they’ve been brainwashed into believing that expresses so fully its loathing for is accorded the classes that produce silly myths.” CP the family unit—which is to say, for the almost no social value commensurate parents doing the raising. with the money they are paid, the acco- The issue turns on our understand- lades they are wrapped in. ing of human nature. This fundamen- The short list of offenders includes tal philosophic question in American the finance-insurance-real estate sector; culture is answered as follows: Man’s the advertising, promotional, and

8 1973 Cockburn in New York Inside Cockburn’s FBI Cockburn’s released FBI file (FBI 100-HQ-478026) was File: Snoops, Snitches catalogued under the FBI’s Central Records Classification System number “100,” indicating he was the subject of an FBI and Secrets Domestic Security investigation. This is the same FBI des- By David Price ignation used for its numerous investigations of suspected communists, anarchists, socialists and other subversives since Over the past decade, while writing pieces for the Bureau’s creation. The cumulative total of FBI “Domestic CounterPunch documenting Federal Bureau of Investigation Security” investigations is unknown, but in the early 1990s (FBI) monitoring of American activist intellectuals, I had the FBI disclosed it had to date undertaken over 1,300,000 several conversations with Alexander Cockburn about FBI “Domestic Security” investigations, producing files occupy- surveillance of political radicals. He took it as a matter of ing over 22,000 cubic feet of space. We can only guess at the course that a nation’s secret police would keep tabs on critics, growth in size of these files in the post 9/11 era. visionaries, and troublemakers. Yet ever the undeterred The FBI opened its initial record of Alexander Cockburn optimist, when considering the possibility of such surveil- on August 15, 1973, with a brief report describing him and lance directed at himself, Alexander maintained a noncha- his work carrying a disclaimer that it was to be “made avail- lant buoyancy, insisting he did not give this possibility much able to the Immigration and Naturalization Service only on thought because his continued ability to freely write remained the understanding that under no circumstances will it, or unfettered. If the FBI was monitoring him, it had not limited the identity of the originating agency, be disclosed to the the freedoms of expression he claimed for himself, so he public, to the subject of the report or to his representatives wasn’t going to waste time worrying about such matters. or employer, in any administrative or judicial proceedings It’s not that Alexander underestimated the power of the without the written prior consent of the originating agency.” FBI to disrupt political movements. Over the years he wrote Alexander had moved to the United States in 1972 to work critically of the FBI’s infiltration of environmental activists, as a freelance journalist. The FBI described him as a, “leading the Black Panthers, his friend Edward Said, COINTELPRO, figure of the ‘New Left,’ a group of revolutionary Marxist and topics such as the dangers of post-9/11 data mining. He academics centered round the ‘New Left Review,’ since 1966. just didn’t let such possibilities alter the course or force of his Although closely associated with members of Trotskyist and attack. Communist groups, he is not known to have been either a Last July, a few days after Alexander’s death, I filed Freedom Trotskyist or a Communist himself, and is probably best de- of Information Act requests for records pertaining to him scribed as a Revolutionary Marxist.” The FBI’s report included with the FBI and CIA. The FBI notified me that their record a copy of Cockburn’s INS application requesting Permanent search revealed one set of documents that had previously Resident Status in the United States. been moved to the National Archives for storage. I re-filed my The following week, the FBI’s New York Special Agent In FOIA request with the National Archives and in November I Charge (SAC) submitted a report to FBI Director Clarence M. received a small collection of FBI documents, only seventeen Kelly summarizing the Bureau’s knowledge of Cockburn. This pages, spanning the years 1973-75. The FBI now claims these investigation occurred during the midst of significant admin- documents comprise Alexander Cockburn’s complete FBI file. istrative upheaval within the FBI, coming just fifteen months It is surprising to find as outspoken a critic of American after J. Edgar Hoover’s death, with Kelly being the FBI’s third capital and empire as Cockburn to have such a paltry record post-Hoover director. The memo header listed Cockburn’s of FBI attentions. There are good reasons to wonder if this name along with the FBI subject heading “SM—SWP,” FBI initial release truly represents all FBI records pertaining to shorthand meaning: Subversive Matter—Socialist Workers him. The FBI is notoriously sloppy and inefficient, and its re- Party, a designation likely revealing more about FBI predilec- sponses to FOIA requests show recurrent patterns of incon- tions for inventing political affiliations than Cockburn’s actual sistently searching for records. Given the outdated state of the party ties. FBI’s older record system, it is likely they hold yet to be iden- The FBI reported Cockburn had submitted a request for an tified records on Cockburn. Unfortunately, during the first “adjustment in immigrant status” and referenced information Bush and Clinton administrations, a broad range of historic coming from a “confidential source abroad,” writing that, “a FBI records were destroyed rather than moved to safe storage review of files at [FBI] Headquarters indicates that Cockburn at the National Archives. The extent of this damage to the his- edited ‘Student Power,’ a British publication relating to torical record is not well understood by FOIA scholars. student protests. No other pertinent information is available But even with unresolved questions about the complete- in Bufiles [Bureau Files] in addition to that furnished by con- ness of Cockburn’s FBI record, the released seventeen pages fidential source abroad and enclosed herewith.” The report combined with what is known of FBI efforts to limit political conceded that Cockburn “has never been known to have discourse during this period provide a disturbing view of how been a member of a Trotskyist or Communist Organization the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) as such.” used McCarthy era legislation to try and limit political dis- The New York SAC wrote FBI Director Kelly that his course in America. office would review its files, incorporate any relevant in-

9 formation along with information from their confidential including John Steinbeck, William Carlos Williams, and sources and submit this on a LHM (Letterhead Memo) to FBI Langston Hughes to Alan Ginsberg were tracked by Hoover’s Headquarters and the INS, stressing that the restrictions pro- FBI, and the Bureau at times worked with the INS to revoke tecting the identity of MI-5’s informer be maintained with the visas of foreign authors residing in or visiting the United INS. This reference to a Letterhead Memo indicated FBI plans States. The breadth of this surveillance remains unknown, to release a memo designed to be distributed with attribution but back in 1991 Tim Weiner documented in a Philadelphia outside the Bureau, in this case, the outside agency receiving Inquirer investigative series that US immigration authorities the LHM was the INS. then maintained a “blacklist” identifying over 367,000 indi- An October 3, 1973 FBI memo referenced eight copies of viduals not to be allowed into the United States. Weiner de- a LHM, including one copy sent to the INS. This LHM de- termined that “ninety-six percent of those names were tacked scribed Cockburn as a “revolutionary Marxist,” biographi- onto the list for ideological reasons,” among those writers cal information, including information on his father Claud denied entry to the US identified by Weiner were Carlos Cockburn and his mother, Patricia Arbuthnot (nee), and Fuentes, Farley Mowat, and Doris Lessing. McCarran-Walter stressed his links to the New Left Reviewand Marxist academ- has been used to deport Graham Greene from Puerto Rico, ics. The FBI included the summary of a 1954 interview, with and to deny Marxist sociologist Thomas Bottomore an entry Claud Cockburn’s former wife, identified by the FBI as Mrs. visa to the US. Robert Gorham Davis, who described Claud’s journalism Such uses of McCarran-Walter powers to limit intellec- career. tual and political discourse are not an archaic practice from While the FBI Letterhead Memorandum portrayed a past age. In 2007 Dr. Riyadh Lafta, the Iraqi scientist who Alexander Cockburn as a subversive involved in radical so- coauthored the 2006 Lancet study estimating the number of cialist movements, no released records indicate further FBI Iraqi deaths resulting from the American invasion exceeded

Today, the Obama administration continues post-9/11 policies allowing the use of secret testimony in INS deportation cases. action or interest in him in 1973. The reasons for the FBI or over 600,000 people was denied entry to the US when she INS’s lack of further activity immediately after this initial 1973 was invited to present an academic talk at the University of series of memos is unclear, but given the rise of Watergate Washington. This past year the US State Department denied investigations, with the impeachment resolution introduced a visa to German journalist Gabriele Weber (well known for in Congress months earlier, and the beginning of scrutiny her anti-Nazi research, having thousands of records on Adolf into a broad range of FBI activities, rapid shifts in FBI leader- Eichmann released), seeking to conduct research at the US ship, and accounts in memoirs of a range of FBI insiders, we National Archives. know that the FBI was adopting a new posture of historically It is this historical pattern of the INS and FBI working relative caution and was not perusing radical political activi- in tandem to monitor progressives or radicals, and at times ties as aggressively as it had just a few years earlier. denying entry or even deporting non-American writers or The next entries in Cockburn’s FBI would come in 1975, but others that the context of these FBI records takes on signifi- before discussing these records, some historical information cance. The FBI and INS interest in Cockburn was part of an contextualizing the FBI and INS’s roles in monitoring, de- ongoing application of the McCarran-Walter Act to limit porting and denying entry visas to suspect writers is in order. American political discourse. FBI Hounding Authors 1975 FBI & INS Deportation Prospects The legal foundation of the INS and FBI’s mid-1970s in- Alexander Cockburn came to the FBI and INS’s atten- vestigation of Alexander Cockburn was the 1952 Immigration tion during a time that his writings were making a significant and National Act, more commonly known as the McCarran- splash on American journalism. His “Press Clips” column in Walter Act. This McCarthyism era law includes provisions for the Village Voice, co-written with James Ridgeway, was pio- barring entry to the US to subversives and allowing the de- neering a new form of media criticism, and his regular con- portation of those involved in subversive activities. Though tributions to The New York Review of Books, Harpers, Esquire, the Act was vetoed by President Truman, his veto was over- and other publication were expanding American political dis- ridden by both House and Senate votes. The Act has been course. revised several times; 1990 revisions removed some politi- After fourteen months of inaction, in January 1975 the FBI cal exclusionary restrictions, but the McCarran-Walter Act began administrative proceedings to release information de- remains in place, now with post-9/11 political manifestations. tailing Cockburn’s involvement in subversive activities that There is a long history of the FBI monitoring authors the could lead to his expulsion from the United States by the INS. Bureau believes subversive. Hundreds of American authors A January 20, 1975 memo from Henry E. Wagner, Assistant

10 Director of Investigations, to the New York FBI Assistant period, adding that, “Alexander believed that at least one of Director in Charge, requested the disclosure of the identity the deportation efforts was sparked by a request from Rep. of the individual who had made accusations to MI5 against Peter Rodino, then chair of the Judiciary Committee, which Cockburn in an FBI Letterhead Memo dated October 3, 1973. controlled the INS budget.” He recalls that Alexander hired a Wager wrote that this information could be used for “depor- top immigration lawyer, Stanley Mailman, “who drove them tation proceedings” against Cockburn. off.” While the specifics of the referenced MI5 information Five months later, the INS’s Assistant District Director for remains unknown, Andrew Cockburn speculates that “MI5’s Investigations wrote the FBI’s Assistant Director in Charge interest in Alexander might have come from his work with reminding him that in January, the INS had requested the Ralph Schoenman, former secretary to Bertrand Russell, who release of the identity of Cockburn’s 1973 informer. This controlled a lot of money donated by Russell and put it to request was to have been sent to the FBI’s Liaison Division use in the antiwar movement in the late 60s. At one point Matters. Schoenman, banned from Britain, smuggled himself in and Released internal FBI Records Branch slips document was looked after by Alexander who among other things took FBI Headquarters personnel searching central records for Ralph, who was being actively hunted by the authorities, to information on Cockburn, locating apparent references in Number 10 Downing Street and photographed him standing at least five other FBI files. These files were indexed relating between two smiling coppers at the front door, said picture to: domestic security, foreign counterintelligence, “miscella- appearing in The Times the next day.” neous-nonsubversive,” research matters, and income taxes. A now declassified July 1975 FBI memo referenced a 1973 Secret Evidence MI5 report of a confidential informer provided unspecified These FBI documents suggest that the reason why deporta- damaging information on Cockburn. This memo stated that tion proceedings against Cockburn were not undertaken was the INS wanted to interview “the original source of informa- the FBI’s refusal to disclose the identity of the MI5 informer. tion for possible use in deportation proceedings.” The memo During the mid-1970s, constitutional safeguards, such as that requested permission to identify the source of the informa- most basic of Sixth Amendment protections allowing those tion on Cockburn for use by the INS in possible deportation accused of wrongdoing to face accusers, prevented the INS proceedings. Among the recipients of the memo was “Legat, from using secret evidence to deport individuals from the London” the American embassy in London’s Legal Attaché, a United States. Today, the Obama Administration continues member of the embassy personnel staff who is an FBI agent. post-9/11 policies allowing the use of secret testimony in INS The released summary of the MI5 report states: deportation proceedings. Jaya Ramji-Nogales writes in a 2008 Columbia Human Note: MI5, in 1973, provided information on Rights Law Review article that while conditions of secrecy Alexander Claud Cockburn and we, in turn, make it impossible to know how widespread governmental provided that information to INS, INS now wishes use of secret evidence is, the use of secrecy in immigration to interview the original source of information for cases has increased since 2001. Ramji-Nogales observes that, possible use in deportation proceedings. This com- “the government has not presented statistics on the use of munication is being directed to determine if they in- secret evidence in immigration court since 2000, and because terpose any objection to our release of their identity records of immigration proceedings are not publicly acces- as the original source of information. . . . Delivered sible, it is practically impossible to obtain this information in- to Washington Representative of XXX by pld. dependently. We do know of consistent efforts in Congress to expand the use of secret evidence in immigration proceedings A July 29, 1975 memo declared that it was impossible to as part of immigration reform legislation.” disclose the identity of the individual providing deleterious The timing of Alexander’s move to America likely played information on Cockburn. The FBI redacted information on a role in limiting the FBI and INS’s action against him. These the individuals and agencies cited in this document under records of the FBI and INS weighing deportation options co- FOIA exemption (b)7-D, an exemption allowing the with- incided with a period of administrative upheaval within the holding of information that could identify informers, or in- FBI following J. Edgar Hoover’s death, the rise of congressio- telligence agencies conducting national security investigation. nal investigations of FBI abuses of power, and during an era The next month, FBI Director Kelly informed the INS that when basic civil liberties mandating the right to face accusers the FBI was “unable to obtain authorization to reveal the still prevailed. The FBI’s 1975 renewed interest in exploring identity of the source in this matter and, therefore, the source the possibility of deporting Cockburn coincided with the rise will not be available for interview.” This ended FBI and INS of the US Senate Church Committee and the House’s Pike interest in Cockburn in files so far released under FOIA. Committee’s hearing investigating FBI and CIA’s illegal inter- Whatever the nature of the information collected by MI5, it ference in domestic and international political activities, and did not interfere with Alexander Cockburn becoming a US it is possible that these larger historical processes limited the citizen, while retaining his Irish passport, in June 2009. FBI’s ability to strike in ways that it had routinely just a few Alexander’s brother Andrew confirms that Alexander years earlier. had protracted legal difficulties with the INS during this Given the pleasure that Alexander found arguing that

11 Gerald Ford was America’s greatest President (largely because Ford’s short term of office transferred “the Hippocratic in- No Magic Bullets: Deadly junction from the medical to the political realm, he did the Lessons from the Sandy least possible harm”) I imagine he would have savored the historical point that it was the Ford administration’s adher- Hook Little Tyke Massacre ence to standards of fair play and the rule of law that prevent- by Nancy Scheper-Hughes ed his deportation from the United States. It is difficult to assess the impact on American letters and “We have met the enemy and it is us”—Pogo political life had the INS undertaken deportation proceedings and expelled Alexander from the United States. Certainly his A few years ago just as I was about to deliver a lecture on critique would have flourished elsewhere, though without the ‘violence in war and peace’ in the auditorium of a large public American flavor he developed and the unique independence university in the US the event was interrupted by police re- he found in Petrolia; but certainly American political and in- sponding to a bomb threat. Although police dogs did not tellectual life would been much the poorer had the decidedly sniff out a bomb, the lecture was rescheduled and moved to un-American activities of the FBI and INS prevailed. the palatial home of the dean of undergraduate studies who lived in a suburban gated community. Or, rather, who lived Postscript in a gated community that had grown, my genial host ex- One final note concerning the diminutive length of plained, like a solid wall of invading kudzu around his lovely Alexander’s released FBI file: the brevity of his file raises more faux Frank Lloyd Wright home precariously encased in glass. questions than it answers. The dean assured me that we would not be stopped or in- Either the FBI has more files which they have either not spected by security guards posted at a kiosk at the gates of his located or have and intentionally won’t release, or it is community that evening. On principle he had refused to pay possible that no further FBI files on Alexander exist. It is the membership dues that supported the elaborate security tempting to speculate whether either outcome is a measure system that monitored the movements of all residents and of FBI incompetence: either a recent incompetence in the their guests. A godfather clause permitted him to do so. Bureau’s ability to search, identify, and release existing files, The whole thing was absurd, he said angrily. The real or a more ancient incompetence in evaluating the threat that threat was not, as feared, from the surrounding low income was Alexander Cockburn. Having studied the extent of FBI neighborhoods but from inside the gated complex itself. surveillance during this period, I am betting on the former, Scattered among the upper middle class professionals living though both remain possibilities. While FBI noncompliance there were some arrivistes who had climbed the economic if with FOIA requests is a measure of the Agency’s contempt not the social ladder by involvement in the local drug trade. of the law and a lack of Bureau professionalism, the federal One of these was the next door neighbor with whose children courts do not look at such incompetence lightly. Three my host’s seven year old son and five year old daughter had months ago, US Federal Judge Edward Chen awarded FOIA struck up a friendship. One afternoon his children came back researcher Seth Rosenfeld $470,459 in legal fees accrued in with the usual stories of hide and seek, cops and robbers decades of Rosenfeld’s legal efforts to access documents (from and cowboys and Indians, but on this occasion they boasted an uncooperative FBI) relating to FBI political oppression at using real guns owned by the neighbor children’s parents. UC Berkeley during the 1950s and 60s. Complaints were made, apologies delivered, and the guns were moved to a more secure locked cabinet, but the dean During the last two decades I have filed several hundred and his family remained trapped inside a pistol-packing, gun- FOIA requests, and recurrently received initial respons- loaded located gated community. He was considering selling es claiming there were few or no files, only later to have his lovely home but would he have to inform prospective hundreds of pages released upon appeal. In early December buyers about the private armory next door? I filed a multi-pronged administrative appeal with the FBI, This was not the first time that a lecture I gave (or arguing that there are indications within the released FBI attended) was interrupted by violence. The first time was in file showing that there are other referenced files relating to 1994 at the University of Cape Town, just before the election Cockburn that were not searched for or released to me. As of Nelson Mandela, when a short but deadly period of politi- results of these appeals become available, I will report on cal anarchy created a vacuum during which several hundred these findings here at CounterPunch. civilians —black, brown and white— were killed in massa- I will be surprised if the currently released files turn out cres in pubs, schools, worker hostels, churches and gasoline to be the final installment of the FBI’s holdings on Alexander stations.1 The Cape Town faculty knew how to duck and hide Cockburn. CP during academic lockdowns which occurred with alarming David Price a professor of anthropology at Saint Martin’s frequency. One of these lock downs occurred during a guest University in Lacey, Washington . He is the author of Weaponizing lecture by the British literary scholar, Terry Eagleton, who for Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State some reason I was charged with introducing. Although I reas- published by CounterPunch Books . He can be reached at sured Eagleton that the calls and response between police and dprice@stmartin edu. . angry protestors were more symbolic than actual skirmish-

12 es, being ‘locked down’ by police in the arts block building an anthropologist. Write about what you know. Write about surrounded by angry, toyi-toying crowds, some of the pro- culture, write about cultures of violence”. Yes, indeed. But testors waving traditional weapons, felt as weirdly crazy as America’s culture of violence is steeped in a deadly histori- being locked down in an armed suburban gated community. cal romance with handguns, pistols, rifles, M-16s, machine My initial impulse was to flee through the basement of the guns and military assault weapons. There is no comparable building and join the protesters, but under the circumstances, romance with, let us say, swords, spears, longbows, or batter- we simply waited it out. ing rams, except for tidbits of Nordic mythology in cult film, Later, in 2001, just prior to a lecture I was to give on cult games like dungeons and dragons and hopelessly nerdy organs trafficking at the Social Anthropology Department Renaissance faires. of Hebrew University a dud of a bomb exploded just outside As a government recruiter for the Peace Corps during the the entrance to the grand old campus on Mount Scopus. The Vietnam War, I built a successful US-wide campus recruit- damage was minor. No one was hurt, and everyone in the ment campaign around a slogan and a poster I designed with audience seemed relaxed, except me. After the talk an Israeli potential Vietnam draftees in mind: “Shovels Don’t Jam like colleague confided that people were so accustomed to a daily M-16s. Join the Peace Corps”. [Peace Corps was not an official dose of violent aggression that they ‘missed’ them when they alternative to military service in those days but it certainly didn’t happen for a period. “It is as if our bodies are wired delayed being drafted while a PCV was in service overseas]. or primed for the violence and we become bored during the However, once Peace Corps Washington learned about the quiet periods.” I replied that some of us in California felt that campaign I was ordered to end it immediately. It was not only way when too much time passed without a moderate earth- ‘inappropriate’ but I was told that I could face prosecution quake or temblor or two. under the appropriately named Hatch Act 2. Once again, I was

We continue to resist the fact that our nation is alone in the industrialized democratic world in tolerating subcultures of violence to form in our cities, towns and suburbs.

These three vignettes on the normalization of violence told not to talk about guns and war and to talk about what I all concern cultures of violence in countries at war, either at knew best, as a former Peace Corps Volunteer in the slums of home or abroad. Violence begets violence. In Israel one learns Brazil: peace and latrines. to be cool when a teenage soldier’s rifle brushes against one Years later I received a tongue lashing from Prof. Glenn in a public bus. In South Africa one learned to drive one’s car Wilson, the charismatic and outspoken founder of the away from the sides of the road and to speed quickly under Department of Social Medicine at the University of North pedestrian overpasses to avoid an angry shelling of large Carolina, Chapel Hill: “You can teach our medical students stones. In the US we use a different normalization strategy: any damn thing you think they need to know, Nancy, but for we go limp and hibernate like obedient little dormice at the Christ sake don’t talk about the public health risks and evils of tea table. Americans have learned to silence and censor them- tobacco! Not in this state or we’ll be doomed from the start.” selves by, for example, collapsing to the powerful gun lobby And so we were then and so we are now: doomed, that is, by and to fundamentalist interpretations of our Constitution self censorship. as if it were all inevitable. If it was our Bible rather than our Constitution we would never allow it, at least not in progres- No Magic Bullets sive circles. You really expect us to believe that when ‘God Schoolroom and schoolyard massacres. We have been separated light from darkness’ he meant to tell us that race here before, déjà vu all over again. How much more can we segregation is God’s will? But we politely acquiesce to censor- take? What are we willing to do, then, to stop the cycles of ship by gun supporters and the NRA, or worse, we respond violence that are destroying our communities? In the weeks with self-censorship. and days following the Sandy Hook tiny tot massacre, the For example, the New York Times invited its readers to pundits and policy wonks have suggested many reasonable participate in the weekly ‘Sunday Dialogue’ on December strategies to help communities, parents, and professionals to 18th, 2012, on the assigned topic: “Beyond Gun Control” in identify and respond to the assumed ‘early warning signs’ that response to the Sandy Hook Kindergarten Massacre. The can precede and even to predict school shootings and other editors message was: no fruitless dialogue on gun control. Get massacres in public spaces such as shopping malls and movie over it! The gunslingers already have won the war. Let’s move theaters. However, just about all the strategies suggested were on… already implemented in 1999-2000 following a spate of mass When I mentioned that I was writing an essay on the shootings culminating in the Columbine disaster that, like tiny tot massacre in New England, a distinguished senior Sandy Hook, was another tipping point when denial and nor- colleague advised sternly: “Do not write about guns. You are malization were the rule.

13 The Columbine massacre resulted in a vigorous national To assist the National Campaign, a Presidential Academic dialogue and response following an impassioned speech by Advisory Board was formed, led by anthropologist John President Clinton in the Rose Garden. It was 1999 and the Devine. The Board included some of the nation’s leading nation was stunned, and its political, businesses and religious scholars of urban America and youth violence—Elijah leaders were mobilized to find a way out of the labyrinth of Anderson, Sissila Bok, Philippe Bourgois, William Damon, violence in America. President Clinton announced the for- Kenneth Dodge, Richard Freeman, James Garbarino, James mation of the National Campaign Against Youth Violence Gibbons, James Gillian, David Kennedy, Alan J. Lipton, (NCAYV). Unlike President Kennedy’s Peace Corps, a child William Pollack, James Short, Joel Wallman, and Frank of what President Johnson called “the Great Society”, the Zimring, among others. I was also a member of the Board. final incarnation of the New Deal, Clinton’s program was a Over the course of several meetings we collaborated in the post-welfare state neoliberal public-private initiative, pre- preparation of a detailed report that identified key variables saging George Bush the First’s ‘thousand points of light”, overlooked by the national campaign. which always reminded me of Disney’s twinkling little fairy, We documented the links between isolated public mass Tinkerbell. shootings in schools and the broader social and political The National Campaign Against Youth Violence was led context of excessively high rates of youth homicides and by a dedicated California public interest lawyer, Jeff Bleich. suicides, of alienation and isolation of youth from their His strategy focused on what he described as a ‘guerrilla’ parents, schools, and communities. Drawing on the expertise Public Service media blitz to raise national consciousness of the advisory panel members we explained the ‘Code of the about ‘youth’ violence. The campaign mobilized business cor- streets’ (E. Anderson) and the ‘Search for respect’ (P. Borgois) porations, volunteer organizations and the media to develop that contributed to homicides and suicides among minority and implement violence reduction programs, including the youth. The hypersensitivity and hyper reactivity to imagined ‘squash it’ campaign that recruited youth leaders from inner insults were the offspring of a profound sense of shame and

The real dangers Americans face are not from isolated rampages or the deranged mentally ill but from unsupervised guns in the house next door. cities in the US to respond to violent ‘flare-ups’ in school- low self-esteem resulting from the extreme marginalization of yards and streets using a then popular street culture slang unwanted and despised (even more than disrespected) popu- (‘Squash it’) with gang hand signs signaling “cool it”! lations. We described the culture of bullying in elementary The National Campaign worked with city officials, schools that was not yet recognized as a trigger in some mass churches, schools, mental health services, and families in shooting incidents. Finally, we touched upon the lethal asso- cities and towns across America to limit children’s access ciation of male honor with physical force and of power and to guns and exposure to media violence. Bleich negotiated might with deadly weapons. This led us to a critique of gun agreements with powerful TV and film media to limit youth culture, but this conversation was derailed by those members access to the most gratuitous representations of violence. of the board who labeled gun control a toxic subject, one that The campaign worked with model cities that adopted anti- had to be carefully finessed. violence programs, some of them based on Nancy Reagan’s We established connections between structural violence— earlier “Just say No” [to drugs] campaign. The newer version the violence of poverty, exclusion and extreme marginal- of ‘Say No to Violence’ campaigns mobilized school children ity—and everyday violence in the homes, streets and schools and their teachers and parents, especially those in hard hit of America. We described an epidemic of youth violence inner cities, to wear purple ribbons memorializing murdered (J. Gillin) that we linked to the punitive and carceral state school mates, to march against violence, and to take pledges and to the militarization of American society following the against alcohol and drugs associated with violence. In one Vietnam and the first Iraqi wars. We debated the problems urban campaign schoolchildren covered city walls with black of homelessness, drug addicted, and traumatized veterans paint child handprints accompanied by pleas for cease-fire and their impact on children and adolescents. We introduced among marauding gangs. Public schools brought in special the category of dangerous and endangered youth (N. Scheper- counselors to teach schoolchildren techniques of self manage- Hughes), young people who were both victims and perpetra- ment and self control through meditation and deep breath- tors of violence. ing. The emphasis was on prevention, on desensitizing ‘at Few of these concepts were familiar to Americans outside risk youth (inevitably meaning poor Black and Latino urban the field of social science and the academy. They did not youth) to the risks of subcultures of youth violence in gangs, travel easily or well. Neither did our advocacy on behalf of hate crimes, drugs and racist and misogynist rap music. the unmet needs of America’s youth for decent housing,

14 safe streets, medical, dental, and mental health services. It Nelson Mandela. Like the dean (above) confined to his dan- was difficult to discuss parental, educational, and even nu- gerous gated community, the protagonists cannot imagine tritional child abuse and neglect. The idea that Americans that their son Duncan was capable of killing his girlfriend’s were not as child-centered as we imagine ourselves to be was casual lover with the kind of gun kept safely in his middle not a popular message. Under the guidance of John Devine, class flat to defend the household against attack byskollies and whose book Maximum Security, drew analogies between gangsters from the de facto segregated African townships. American public schools and US maximum security prisons, The house gun, suggests, as one reviewer noted, a warm the Academic Advisory Panel rejected political proposals fuzzy object, similar to a house cat, both indispensable to to increase technological security systems in schools, video a sense of wellbeing. How could things have gone so very cameras, metal detectors, and the hiring of private security wrong? In post-apartheid South Africa the political tables agents to police school corridors and bathrooms. have turned but the economic tables did not. Peoples’ expec- Many of our conclusions went against the grain and not tations were dashed and consequently violence seemed to surprisingly, the report was controversial and contested. It be in the air, everywhere. The situation Gordimer describes was subjected to many agonizing edits, and passages dealing is not too dissimilar from life in America today. Both coun- with the dangers of readily available weapons in American tries are coming out from under violent histories and violent homes and proposals to buy back weapons from gang leaders struggles, and both are extremely violent and militant soci- were watered down or deleted altogether. It was a noble eties, suffering from the legacies of colonial and postcolonial struggle but in the end censorship and self censorship ruled domination, slaveries, and racisms. Gordimer’s protago- the day. Those board members of a more critical persuasion nist, Duncan’s violent act was, however, a domestic crime of deferred to the those dedicated to real politic. In the end, passion without political motivation. It should have nothing the report, delivered to President Clinton and his staff, was at all to do with South Africa’s violent history but that is not shelved. Today, one can barely find it online hidden in digi- how the South African author wants us to see it. talized US government archives. On one search I could find it Violence breeds violence. Gordimer wrote her novel but parts of the report were redacted and even marked with- amidst political debates in South Africa about ending the drawn. When I searched for it more recently I could only find death penalty and about gun control amidst an alarming the executive summary and some references to members of increase in violence against middle class white South Africans the advisory board. who were once protected by the apartheid terrorist machine. It would be safe to say that the campaign, including the Whites today are forced back to their own private resources— innovative public relations ads, the anti-violence training hired guards, razor wire, electronic security systems. And, programs, the just say no to violence programs had no per- when all else fails (at it inevitably does) they rely on the house manent or lasting effects. Advisory Board member Michael gun, failing to realize that more guns in private homes do not Klonsky’s passionate advocacy for smaller schools with lower mean less crime, a lesson for American as well as for South teacher-student ratios that have a proven record of decreas- African readers. ing incidents of school violence, made no inroads to a US Congress that was all about charter schools and downsizing The Two Specters—Sacrificial Violence and closing failed public schools. The call for building new and the Scapegoat and creative school environments on a human scale seems, in hindsight, almost utopian. “It takes a village to stop a rampage”—Paul Steinberg Thus, after a brief respite the mass shootings in American schools and other public venues resumed at an almost pre- After the Columbine disaster the national focus was on dictable rate. American citizens failed to go far enough and Black youth, the inner city, the ghetto, and Black resentment deep enough inside our collective national unconscious. We against an unnamed oppressor. Black youth were readily continue to resist the fact that our nation is alone in the in- turned into sacrificial scapegoats, the arbitrary objects of dustrialized democratic world in tolerating subcultures of white middle class fears and perceptions. The fact that the violence to form in our cities, towns and suburbs. No other Columbine killers were, like most other school shooters, democratic nation allows its private citizens to assemble white and middle class had no bearing on the public discourse military arsenals in their homes, practices that endanger the on youth violence which was black coded. White children are lives of all in our suffering and disintegrating cities, in our in- not youth, they are adolescents, or young people. Youth refers creasingly armed and dangerous culturally isolated suburbs, to minority children, the children of the Other. As Michael and even in picturesque New England towns. Greenberg and David Schneider aptly named the problem in their 1994 article in Social Science & Medicine, “Violence in The House Gun American Cities: Young Black Males is the Answer, but What In her award winning post-apartheid novel, The House Was the Question?” They contest the then prevailing view Gun, Nadine Gordimer describes a traumatized society that the answer to the cause of violence in American cities is of white, middle class people who seemed to be sleepwalk- young black men. Their comparative study of urban violence ers during the democratic transition that replaced a violent in three relatively poor middle-sized cities of New Jersey— racist police state with an imperfect ANC government led by Camden, Trenton, and Newark— that violence is distributed

15 among young and old, male and female, Black, white and tropic drug regimes over a long period of time. Latino. They identify the real causes of urban violence as In an otherwise disturbing essay linking the poor medical deindustrialization, unemployment, urban deserts, undesir- treatment of schizophrenia to urban violence,4 psychiatrist able land uses and the political and social abandonment of Paul Steinberg made a simple, clichéd but important state- unwanted people: poor and working class whites as well as ment to the effect that “it takes a village to stop a rampage”. Blacks. Violence and premature violent deaths (homicides, One such village is the city of Trieste that has developed over suicides, accidents) were caused by extreme marginalization, the past 40 years an approach founded by the late Italian ghettoes, and segregation. radical psychiatrist, Franco Basaglia,5 to integrate even the Similarly, following the Sandy Hook massacre in which profoundly mentally different into community life free of in- more than 20 youngsters and six teachers and the assail- voluntary confinement and of forced medication. Another of ant’s mother were killed in a rampage that ended in the those therapeutic villages where people managed to live side killer’s suicide, the blame was attributed to another sacrifi- by side with those known as mad, crazy or mentally differ- cial scapegoat, the mentally deranged mass murderer. Today ent, is Geel, a small Belgian city where the ‘mentally ill’ have the pundits and policy wonks, many of them psychiatrists, been visible members of the community for over 700 years. descry the failure of the mental health system to identify, Ordinary townspeople in Geel have traditionally taken in treat and contain the dangerous mentally ill. Today’s policy mentally ill individuals as boarders and then assimilated prescriptions are just that—earlier intervention and treatment them into their families. These boarders were not exploited with prescriptions of powerful and dangerous psychotropic for cheap labor and their special needs and limitations were drugs. The second line of defense is longer confinement of accepted. An Irish psychiatrist and former hospital director the mentally ill (especially schizophrenics) in mental hospital in Cork described an incident that occurred during a pro- wards, wards that are already over-crowded and in psychiatric fessional visit to Geel some years ago. Late one afternoon a hospitals that no longer exist. ‘boarder’ became visibly agitated and increasingly hostile However, the Sandy Hook killer and suicide victim, and aggressive on a city street. As if on cue townspeople as- Adam Lanzer, died without a medical diagnosis although sembled to the location and surrounded the disturbed man. one report described him as having Asperger’s Syndrome, “They were creating a secure circle around him”, David told a condition that is not associated with violence except self me recently during a trip to Ireland. ”It seemed as if they were mutilation in profound cases. Another news report said that performing a ballet, dancing around the person who, in short Adam was already being treated with antipsychotic medica- order, became quiet and allowed his caretaker family to lead tion. Obviously, here is not the place to argue the case for him home for a cup of cocoa and a good nap”. mental patients rights or to provide robust statistics showing Like the residents of Martha’s Vineyard who adjusted that the mentally ill are less dangerous than those who are not to the high degree of congenital deafness among the island under the suspicion of harboring a lethal mental condition, population by becoming a bilingual community of English that is ordinary people like ourselves and like Adam’s mother. speakers and signers6 the villagers of Geel learned the art of Hopefully it is not necessary to remind bio-psychiatric scien- living with the mentally different, including how to deflect tists and practitioners that the over-prediction of the danger- an episode of escalating violence using practical skills passed ousness of the mentally ill resulted in the criminalization of down among families who had taken in the mentally ill as the mentally different for most of the late 19th to mid 20th cen- boarders and extended family members. turies, a gross social injustice we should never seek to repeat. More pertinent is the fact that powerful anti-psychotic A Way Forward and anti-depressive medications are already over-prescribed What, then, is the solution to our current impasse? due to the stranglehold of the pharmaceutical industry over Americans once thought that parents had the right to slap the psychiatrists who depend on them. The so-called second down their children as righteous punishment. We once generation psychotropic drugs are, despite the pseudoscience thought that smoking in public spaces (even in hospitals) was produced by pharmaceutical industry, still powerful tran- a civil right. We once thought that carefree motorcycle rides quilizers and they are toxic. They have paradoxical effects, without protective headgear was a right. Today most of us especially on young adults, among these irritability, aggres- think differently about these practices which were less about sion, and suicide. David Healy, an internationally recognized individual rights than risks to our freedom. professor of Psychiatry in Wales and an expert in modern Ultimately we have to accept that our national commit- psychopharmacology, published a cohort study of mortality ments to seemingly interminable wars abroad, to dysfunc- among schizophrenics hospitalized one hundred years ago tional wars on drugs and drug cartels along our borderlands and a contemporary sample.3 While both groups died prema- with Mexico have consequences at home. These wars create a turely, the causes of death were different. In the early cohort culture of hyper-arousal and hyper reactivity that circulates the patients died from communicable diseases, especially tu- and spills over into our private lives, and into our homes, berculosis, as a consequence of institutionalization in giant schools, shopping malls and other public institutions. If there asylums. The contemporary cohort of schizophrenics died is to be another national discourse on violence in America, young from coronary events and suicides, both of which, ac- another national campaign or another Presidential academic cording to the researchers, could be the side effects of psycho- advisory panel, they will have to do a better job of identifying

16 the deep structural and cultural causes of our growing isola- responsible for any accidents, injuries, or road deaths com- tion from the mores that guide other democratic nations. We mitted by those we allow to drive them. Guns are weapons, have to face up to the increasing militarization of everyday and because it is people and not guns that kill, those who life in America and to resist the forces of censorship and own them must be held accountable for their use and misuse self censorship that discourage a real and open debate on by those given access to them. President FDR brought the meaning of the right to bear arms in the context of late Americans out of despair during the Great Depression by modern society. telling us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. The We also need to address the magical power Americans NRA is telling Americans that they need to fear the govern- attribute to privately owned weapons, including the belief ment. Perhaps the time has come to give freedom from fear a that the house gun can protect a family from a rampage. chance. CP While President Obama’s newly unveiled campaign to fight Nancy Scheper-Hughes is professor of medical anthropology at gun violence is a decisive move, it leaves three large stones the University of California, Berkeley . She was a member of the unturned: the responsibility of parents who have obtained Academic Advisory Council of the National Campaign Against legal gun permits, who are themselves mentally stable, but Youth Violence . She has contributed articles to Counterpunch . who may have an adolescent child with severe emotional, be- havioral, or adjustment problems. The proposals to expand Endnotes background checks will not detect parents who, like many of 1, 2. According to Wikipedia “The Hatch Act of 1939, officially An the parents of children who attended Sandy Hook elementa- Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, is a United States ry school, are themselves gun owners. Tom Britton, a Sandy federal law whose main provision is to prohibit employees (civil Hook parent of three and spokesperson for Newtown victims servants) in the executive branch of the federal government, except said: “We hunt, we target shoot. We protect our homes. We’re the president, vice-president, and certain designated high-level of- ficials of the executive branch, from engaging in partisan political collectors. We teach our sons and daughters how to use guns activity. The law was named for Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico. safely”. (NY Times, January 15th, 2013,p. A18). According to 3. David Healy, et al. 2012. “Mortality in schizophrenia and related a casual friend of Nancy Lanzer, Adam’s mother taught her psychoses: data from two cohorts, 1875—1924 and 1994—2010”. BMJ son how to shoot a rifle from the age of 9. He told the New 2012 York Daily News: “Nancy was a responsible gun owner,” the 4. Paul Steinberg, “Our Failed Treatment of Schizophrenia”, The friend said. “It was important that she teach her son how to New York Times, Op-ed page, December 25th, 2012. responsibly use a firearm. We will never know why Ms. Lanza 5. Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Anne M, Lovell, 1986. Psychiatry thought that gun training was appropriate for a son with dete- Inside Out: Selected Writings of Franco Basaglia. Columbia riorating mental health. Perhaps she thought it would help to University Press (a new edition of this book is underway). empower and to protect him, as do some of the parents who 6. Anthropologist Nora Ellen Gross, who lived in Martha’s Vineyard were victims of the Sandy Hook Little Tyke disaster.” in the 1970s, published her findings in the book, Everyone Here The new presidential mandate that would require a range of Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard professionals to report to officials any dangerous or threaten- (1985, Harvard University Press), ing behavior by their clients is extremely problematic. Neither psychiatrists, psychiatric social workers, or school counselors can predict violence. “Dangerousness” is not a clinical diag- An Interview with nosis, it is a moral judgement. Mandatory reporting of sus- picious, ‘dangerous’ thoughts, gestures, words is psychiatric Magdulien Abaida, a Libyan profiling. It criminalizes expressions of anger, resentment, Women’s Rights Activist and revenge that are not uncommon among normal adoles- cents. by Vijay Prashad In many times and places people under siege have armed Magdulien Abaida, age 25, has already lived several life- themselves with magical clothing or salves or incantations. times. Born in Libya, Abaida grew up in Tripoli in a middle From the Ghost Dance of the Plains Indians to Kony’s child class household (her father is a lawyer). The February 2011 soldiers, terrified people have maintained a mystical belief revolution swept Abaida, and many other young people, into in their invulnerability to bullets. When NRA chief Wayne places they could not anticipate. She became a courier for Lapierre called a press conference in response to the Sandy the movement, helped build up logistical lines from Cairo Hook school massacre in which he announced that the and helped organize solidarity movements in Egypt and else- solution to guns was more guns and armed guards stationed where. in all our schools he was thinking like a Ghost Dancer, be- When the 42-year old Qaddafi regime collapsed in August lieving in magical powers of invulnerability. The real dangers 2011, Abaida returned to Tripoli. Her agenda was simple: to Americans face are not from isolated rampages, as horren- help reconstruct Libya on a progressive foundation, with dous as these events are, and not from the deranged mentally women’s rights at the core of her vision and project. The new ill, but from unsupervised guns in the house next door. regime, putatively liberal in terms of its social program and Cars are not weapons, but since they pose a threat to genuinely neo-liberal in its economic program, disappointed public security they are registered and car owners are held her and her friends not long afterwards.

17 In early 2012 Abaida and her network created the 7 Attassimou run by Ayesha Gaddafi]. When the Revolution February Movement. They planned to take to the streets on started, I support it because I was waiting for this moment. that date in Tripoli and Benghazi to push for women’s rights— I was waiting for Qaddafi to fall. I never thought it would reservation of seats in the national constituent assembly happen in my lifetime! being the prime issue. In early January, the draft law for the VP: What was it like to be a part of the rebellion? I am told elections had promised a ten percent quota of seats, but on that you were in Cairo and Paris, helping to organize logistical January 28 this was rescinded. Abaida and those who would support for the rebellion. What was the experience of women in form the February 7 movement were furious. “In our society, the rebellion? Were there any women as fighters? Was there a people will not vote for women,” she said at that time. “That women’s detachment of fighters? Or were the fighters all men? is why we need the quota.” The other demands of February MA: Well, during the revolution we did not feel the difference 7 included laws against sexual harassment and wife beating. between women and men. We felt that we were all Libyans Abaida called upon the new government to fully adopt working together for our country. We did not do any dis- the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of crimination. It was the first time you saw women and men Discrimination Against Women, the UN Charter of Women’s all united hand-in-hand for their country. No difference. In Rights. Libya had signed this in 1989, but ignored Article 2, Cairo, we organized many demonstrations, with men and the core of the Charter (in its women standing together. And report to the UN, Libya’s letters you could see men holding mi- in 1991, 1998, 2008, noted, crophones for women to speak “Article 2 of the Convention shall and vice versa. When Qaddafi be implemented with due regard supporters entered the demon- for the peremptory norms of the strations, men would protect Islamic Shariah”). The February women. Some women fought in 7 movement pushed the parties the frontlines with the rebels. to add women to their electoral Others were at the frontlines as lists. doctors. We never felt the differ- Things, however, got much ence. harder for the movement and for Abaida personally. In August VP: Certainly there has long been 2012, she was at a women’s con- an Islamist current inside Libya, ference in Benghazi. Abaida was the Libyan Islamic Fighting abducted from her hotel room Group for instance. In that case, by one of the militias in the why was it a surprise to see that city. She was released, and then Madgulien Abaida — Photo Credit: Abaida current rise to the surface, even captured again the next day and as early as October 2011, when held in a militia base. These are the militias with an Islamist Mustafa Abdul Jalil made his statements about polygamy? bent. “Someone came in and started kicking me,” she said at MA: There is a rise of Islamism in Libya, especially the Muslim the time. “Then he started hitting me with his gun. He was Brotherhood. Those living outside the country in exile came telling me, ‘I will kill you and bury you here and nobody will back. And they want to apply their views to the system. know.’ He was calling me an Israeli spy, and a whore and a However, most Libyans do not welcome them. Even in the bitch.” Eventually released, a physically and emotionally ex- election they couldn’t win. Of course we have other Islamists, hausted Abaida fled for Britain, where she is now in exile. like the Salafis. However, they have little mass support. But She hopes to return to Libya, where she knows her revolution they are powerful because they have weapons and would like from February 2011 is unfinished. to use these to apply their rules to society and make chaos Vijay Prashad: Magdulien, thanks for this interview. Please tell in our country. Mustafa Abdul Jalil disappointed us with his us a little about your life before the February 2011 Revolution speech. It was a big shock for women. against Qaddafi? What was your general political orientation This rise is surprising to us. When we started our revolu- when you joined the rebellion, and what were your influences tion, we wanted democracy and life without discrimination, beforehand? with justice and dignity. We did not want Islamism. Magdulien Abaida: Before the Revolution, I was working at VP: In your opinion, what has happened to the liberal current a Tripoli construction company in accounts payable. I was defined by Fathi Terbil, Terbil Salwa and Idris al-Mesmari, all studying law at the Open University in Tripoli. I used to of whom played a central role as the spark of the February re- blog online about the situation in Libya. In 2008, I received bellion? What about Dr. Najat al-Kikhia, whose election was a phone call asking me to delete my blog, or I would be the heralded as the emergence of the new Libyan woman? Some only one to blame if anything happened to me. My blog was point to the thirty-three women in the Congress, and suggest not about politics. It was critical of society and the NGO that that this is real progress. What is your opinion on this? Qaddafi’s daughter was running at that time [this NGO is Wa MA: Fathi Terbil was a lawyer on behalf of the Libyans killed in

18 Qaddafi’s jails. It was brave of him to support this cause under kind of tasks that it has set for itself? a dictatorship. However, he was not very progressive when he MA: Hakki (My Right) organization was officially founded was the Youth Minister after the revolution. He did nothing in May 2012. However we were working before that, as most for the youth. He was a useless minister. of the founders of Hakki were from February 7 Movement, Najat al-Kikhia won the election to Benghazi Council. It which organized the demonstration (the Day of Anger for was a great step for women. Her family history played a big Libyan Women). We felt that we must keep working on role. Her father Mansour el-Kikhia was the Libyan Minister women’s rights in Libya especially with the rise of extrem- of Foreign Affairs [1972-73] and Libyan Representative to ism and the talk of cancellation of laws that favor women. the UN [1975-1980]. He turned against the Qaddafi regime We started working on a project called “Stand for Her.” It and went into exile. They kidnapped him in Egypt in 1993 is about creating a youth group to advocate for women’s where he went to attend a conference of the opposition Arab rights. However we were not able to finish this project after Organisation for Human Rights. In November 2012, his body the attack on Hakki, and the accusation that we are violating was finally uncovered in one of the Qaddafi government Islamic rules. We want to lay out the real picture of women’s villas. Najat is his daughter. It is sad that she had to resign rights in Libya: our hopes, our demands. Islamist voices give from her position. She was not able to solve the problems a false picture of the reality of women’s lives. We want to raise confronting Benghazi, because of endemic corruption. awareness about domestic violence, street harassment, forced VP: Could you tell us a little about Amina Mahmoud Takhtakh, marriage, divorce, and marital rape. We have a long way to go the only candidate who ran for Congress as an independent? to reach the minimum rights for women in Libya. CP You say that if the various parties did not feel obliged to put Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair in women on their lists (perhaps to please the West in some South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at abstract way), that Amina Mahmoud “would be the only TrinityCollege . He is the author of Arab Spring, Libyan Winter (AK woman in the parliament by now.” And yet, you say that she is Press) . in hiding because she represents the town of Bani Walid. Tell us a little about her, and why she is in hiding. MA: The political parties put women on their lists not to please Nato in the Arctic: Cowboys the West. It was the law. After a long fight by Libyan women, this law was established. The first draft of the election law had and Indians Redux? a ten percent quota for women. The second draft removed the By Ritt Goldstein quota. Libyan women formed the February 7 Movement of Dalarna, Sweden. The catastrophe of global warming is which I am a founder member. We had a Day of Anger for rapidly bringing accessibility to the Far North, an often dis- Libyan women on 7 February 2012. Other organizations, such cussed ‘rush’ to claim land and resources ongoing as I write as Women for Peace, joined us. We fought until we got this this. Historically, there have been numerous other ‘rushes’ new law established to assure that women would be part of for land and resources, America’s 19th century West being the General National Congress. one of these, the conduct shown Native Americans by those Amina won the election as an individual candidate. People ‘rushing’ being today increasingly appreciated as ‘far less than voted for her not because she was on a party list (which she kind’. Of course, if human nature doesn’t change much, then was not), and despite the fact that she was in hiding. She one might expect history could repeat. stood against the attack by the militias against her city, Bani It was March 2011 when The Economist headlined, ‘Now Walid. She spoke openly against this attack, and told the truth it’s their turn’, subheading ‘The Inuit prepare to defend their about what was happening in Bani Walid with the Misrata rights’—it was an article addressing perceived sources of militias. They were making up stories about Bani Walid potential Arctic conflict. As for state conflict, the article to take revenge on the city. None of the propaganda they noted, “countries surrounding the Arctic do not have much released was correct: they said there were criminals in Bani to argue over. The resources on land lie within clearly de- Walid, and even that Qaddafi’s son, Khamis, was there. They lineated borders and those under the sea…are largely in used rumors to justify their attack. Amina fought against this. shallow waters within the uncontested jurisdiction of coastal She had to go into hiding. states.” However, while observing that a big-power threat of Amina was not alone. Another woman, Dr. Mariam Talyeb, frozen confrontations seems to be minimal, the piece did was on the frontlines of Bani Walid, fighting with the rebels. indeed seem to emphasize that “potential for conflict with But after the revolution, she went into hiding. [In September native groups is in rich supply.” 2011, the New York Times’ Sarah Elliott and Anne Barnard In this day and age, is it really possible that govern- celebrated her as “a woman on Libya’s Front Lines,” with the ments might try to run roughshod over Indigenous Peoples’ story of this 32 year old who was seven months pregnant with rights? Is it conceivable that the use of military force could her first child, armed and brave. Today, there is no story about be contemplated in securing national visions of ‘Arctic how she lives in fear of her life.]. Development’? VP: Could you let our readers know a little about the Hakki By itself, the Economist headline means little, but curious- Organization? When did you found it, and what has been the ly, almost exactly a year later, came an exercise called ‘Cold

19 Response 2012’. Its preparation phase began March 5th, its op- parties and the legislature is consensus-based. The head of erational and withdrawal phases running from March 12–23, government, the premier of Nunavut, is elected by, and from according to the Norwegian Military’s (NM) website. The NM the members of the legislative assembly.” And, the Danish website further described the exercise as one “to rehearse high Inuit received even further independence in Greenland, intensity operations in winter conditions within NATO with Wikipedia observes: “Greenland (Kalaallisut: Kalaallit a UN mandate”, adding that “everything from high intensity Nunaat) is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of warfare to terror threats and mass demonstrations” would Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, be “handled” by participants. And, according to a NM press east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.” However, the Inuit release, “approximately 16000 participants from 15 nations are not the only Arctic People, and Scandinavia’s Sami do not (both Nato and PfP {Partnership for Peace})” were involved, seem to enjoy the full range of freedom which some of the with the “main international forces” (those other than other Indigenous People have found (ie, the Greenlanders), Norwegian) coming from “Canada, France, The Netherlands, something which arguably seems particularly true for the Sweden, UK and USA”. Sami of Sweden. Okay, on the surface of this it just seems one more Nato/ Could ‘Cold Response 2012’ have been an exercise aimed at PfP war game was played, but, perhaps it’s worthwhile to a fictional Indigenous Peoples adversary? probe just a little bit deeper. And, my gosh, articles relating Needless to say, this journalist wasn’t present when the to the exercise did appear in Swedish and Finnish media military planned Cold Response. Fortuitously, Finland’s (Finland was reported as having a 215 man contingent partici- largest paper, the Helsingin Sanomat, publishes an English- pating). language edition, and On the 18th of March, they did cover Cold days before ‘Cold Response Response 2012. According 2012’ ended—but after a to the Sanomat’s article: “’It Norwegian C-130J Hercules would be silly to rehearse a aircraft had crashed in the situation if it were not real- mountains of Northern istic’, says the Norwegian Lt. Sweden—Sweden’s major Commander Per Rosta, the conservative paper, Svenska chief of media and commu- Dagbladet (SvD) ran a story nications at the command titled “Crash puts focus on centre in Bardufoss.” While NATO’s presence”. But the this seems straightforward, crash itself pales in interest I contacted Swedish Armed to the war game scenario the Forces headquarters for article describes. more details. My own translation of a After some technical dif- key excerpt seems to show “A Sami family in Norway around 1900” — Photo Credit: Wikipedia ficulties, my phone call was the SvD article reported that: forwarded to a media officer “On the Armed Forces’ website you can find the scenario. An who was said to be knowledgeable of the 2012 event. At first, undesirable population has settled in northernmost Sweden I understood him as noting that the war game was “a good and established ‘Gardaland’. This country has now invaded way for us to have an exercise that’s really, or much like, a real an area in Norway. Under a UN mandate, Nato implements a operation.” Interestingly, though I repeatedly asked about ‘peace enforcement’ operation to drive out the invaders.” the Cold Response scenario, no mention of the mythical ‘Gardaland’ entered the conversation until I introduced it. At Cold Response that point, my impression is that the officer in question began Now, this does seem like an interesting scenario, particu- stressing the war game as completely fictional, just imaginary larly if one considers just what kind of a group would be scenarios developed to fit the desired training. When queried able to establish a state within a state. Could it be Russians, regarding ‘crowd control’, he could not recall if Cold Response could it be an invasion from the Middle East, or would such a 2012 included it; he advised me to contact the Norwegian scenario suggest the idea of a group with local roots that had military for more explicit details. declared its independence? Of course, if it was such a local Norway was the lead country in Cold Response. Its military group, that also might explain the need for training to handle websites says it involved “everything from high intensity ‘mass demonstrations’. But, since we’re not talking US States warfare to terror threats and mass demonstrations”. That seceding because of Mr. Obama’s reelection, what kind of a seemed to fit with what the military might practice for an ‘local group’ might this be? operation targeting an Indigenous People. However, nothing One potential model could be that of the Inuit in the occurs in a vacuum, and as such it appeared vital to examine Canadian province of Nunavut, where, according to the broader context of events—since Cold Response 2012 Wikipedia: “The members of the unicameral Legislative targeted the Swedish Arctic, maybe we should examine what’s Assembly of Nunavut are elected individually; there are no occurring there.

20 A Corporate Invasion this comment by noting, “I think the Swedish legislation is in According to Annika E Nilsson, PhD, Arctic research- favor of the mining industry…” er at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI): “I think Sweden’s Sami Parliament was established in 1993, but sadly what you see in the Arctic right now is very much increas- has much less power than one might imagine. According ing interest from actors who are not necessarily from the to Wikipedia, in the section termed ‘responsibilities’, the region. Transnational mining companies, international Parliament exists “to recognise the Sami minority as an indig- energy companies, etc, wishing to exploit the resources that enous people to distinguish it from other minorities; to raise are there, in the Arctic. But it’s of interest to some of those the Sami minority influence which comes into conflict with people living in the Arctic as well, who have rights to those the European majority democracy system, i.e., the group with resources. It’s a complex picture, what’s going on right now, the most votes wins.” Given this, I wasn’t surprised when Utsi and connected very much to a global resource scarcity, high- further described his vision of events. price situation.” In other words, there seems to be a rush by “I’m working with some initiatives from the Sami corporate interests from outside the Arctic region to secure Parliament in Sweden, and (with what) the Sami Parliament access to resources, but, what such access entails can conflict in Norway and Finland has done, and what we’re doing in with the lives and livelihoods of those already there. cooperation with other indigenous peoples Utsi told me. But, “Competition for space actually becomes an issue in the we have until now no possibilities to have any impact on the Arctic. It might not have been such a big issue previous- Swedish legislation. It’s said from the Swedish government ly because it’s sparsely populated, but the more industrial they are trying to find ways to take into account the needs activity you get, the more risk there is that there are many from indigenous peoples, the needs from environment pro- actors competing for the same space. Could be a mining tectionists, and so on, but nothing really is happening.” company, could be a reindeer herder, needing the same valley In 1989, the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) for different purposes”, Nilsson explained, adding such com- spawned a human rights document known as the ‘Indigenous petition would “then be especially acute if you need more and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989’. The Convention has space to be able to adapt to climate change”, stressing that in been described as “the most important operative interna- the Arctic such adaptation will indeed be needed. tional law guaranteeing the rights of indigenous peoples”, and As once occurred in the American West, Indigenous while Norway ratified it in 1990, and Finland is slated to do Peoples are facing pressures from outsiders desiring access to so in 2015 (according to Swedish Radio), Sweden has so far their traditional lands and the resources they hold. As to the refused ratification. severity of the issues, prior to my interview with Dr. Nilsson When I asked SEI’s Nilsson to comment upon Sweden’s I contacted key members of Sweden’s Sami community. The failure to ratify the Convention, she starkly observed, “I picture they painted is not a pleasant one. But it helps to think it’s appalling…but it really comes down to many having footnote their concerns, concerns primarily regarding mining claims for the same areas and conflicting interests.” Of course, interests. Such mining operations were a topic addressed I imagine 19th century Native Americans faced circumstances by Radio Canada International (RCI) just this August. that might bear some similarity to these. “Investment keeps mines booming in Northern Sweden”, I contacted the executive branch of Sweden’s national read the headline from RCI’s ‘Eye On The Arctic’, the report government, sought the ‘official view’ of what’s ongoing, ini- noting that Sweden’s SvD had reported the country’s mining tially speaking with Foreign Minister Carl Bildt’s press sec- industry “has seen investments of over US$ 6 billion in the retary, Erik Zsiga. I contacted Minister Bildt’s office first as past four years”. More telling, the report added that: “Most he has been very active in addressing Arctic Development, investments in industry in Sweden are happening in the Sweden currently holding the Presidency of the multina- northern mining industry,’ says Magnus Ericsson, a profes- tion ‘Arctic Council’, a body representing the eight Arctic sor at Luleå University and founder of the mining analyst nations and indigenous tribal groups. Following my contact company Raw Material Group.” with Zsiga, I was referred to the Arctic Council’s President, Swedish Ambassador Gustaf Lind. As much has been said by Sweden’s Indigenous Sami the Swedish Government about the need for ‘sustainable’ ex- Given this report, it would seem that Northern mining ploration and development in the Arctic, upon reaching the is what Sweden has currently pinned much of its hopes for Ambassador I asked what this meant. foreign investment to, but, the North is the very area the Sami “I think in the Arctic it’s quite evident that you need devel- have traditionally pursued reindeer herding and fishing, their opment—the people in the Arctic need jobs, and you need way of life. It would appear that corporate industrial pursuits tax incomes, and you need to develop the communities of are competing with those of the Sami…and so, I interviewed the North in a way which you can only do with economic the President of the Sami Parliament of Sweden, Per Mikael activity. But, in the same time, the sustainable part of it is Utsi, discussing the issues mining was posing. extremely important”, Ambassador Lind observed, further “I think we have special problems in the Sami area because noting that “in the case of where we have the much needed we have a rather good infrastructure for mining compared economic activity, we have to do so with the greatest respect with other regions of the world where indigenous peoples for the environment and for the people living in the region, live”, Utsi immediately observed. More pointedly, he prefaced their traditions, in order to move forward”.

21 I then asked Lind how he might reply to those who charge short-term profit. That’s why we are worried about the future”, these terms are “nothing more than negotiated definitions Bergblind emphasized, the concern in his voice evident, based upon the relative strength of the involved actors, adding that “the problem is, for us, that the new coming com- business interests effectively dominating the process”. The panies, they go in, and they destroy a big part of the land, Ambassador responsed noting: “I would say that we have grazing land for the reindeer, and also they cut the reindeer good government regulation in place, and of course, business, herd in parts.” if they want to act, they have to respect this regulation. So, As Bergblind tells it, mine operations, roads, infrastruc- you can see that in Northern Sweden, and what we are sort ture—these block routes to and from seasonal reindeer of working in the Arctic Council, is to get better circumpolar, pastures, with it being evident in the Kiruna region that the multilateral frameworks for these issues.” However, with all reindeer “avoid the area up to ten kilometers around the due respect to the Ambassador, though Northern Sweden is mining”. Elaborating further upon his vision of the issues held up as an example, a recent news report from the North he said: “Our worry about the future is the fact that, if these did detail a current mining issue. mining plans come through, they are going to destroy the On 9 December, Sweden’s state television, SVT, did a report whole balance in nature”. on a gold-mining problem where “large emissions of heavy In an interpretation of events this journalist personally metals, such as zinc and cadmium, have been recorded, af- found both particularly disturbing and insightful (I had not fecting the surrounding waterways.” I used Google trans- mentioned this work’s title), Bergblind compared what’s late on the SVT report’s summary highlights: “Investigation happening now in Sweden to the 19th century US/Native complete bill for cleaning up mines at Ersmarksberget and American experience, noting that—following the onslaught swear Swamp can at worst be well over 200 million. The two of business interests and the military—it was the destruc- companies conducted mining operations have only allocated tion of the buffalo that “destroyed the traditional way of three million for the cleanup. This means that taxpayers will living for the Native Americans—that’s the way they defeated have to pay most of the bill.” them. And, the same thing happens now in Scandinavia”. “I feel that the mining regulations read as if they’ve been written by the unions together with the mining compa- Cowboys and Indians Redux? nies. That is, other interest, which is the environment; or, for To return to the title of this work, ‘Nato in the Arctic: that matter, the reindeer herders, the Sami culture, has not Cowboys and Indians Redux?’, there yet remain questions, been taken into consideration, and the result is that these including those of recent precedents. As regards precedents interests are at risk”, Charles Berkow, political adivsor of the for military action against the North’s Indigenous People, the Swedish Green Party’s parliament group, told me. SEI’s Nilsson recalled, “if you look at the location of the Thule Addressing this issue the SEI’s Nilsson raised regarding ‘in- Airbase in Greenland…it was certainly military interests creasing interest from actors who are not necessarily from the forcing the relocation of a whole indigenous community. The region’, I asked Berkow: “In other words, a foreign company Arctic has always been heavily militarized, it has been a high interested in quick profits can basically, effectively, come here politics, security zone during the whole Cold War…it’s more and do whatever they will, and get away with it?” Berkow coercion than military force.” And, Wikipedia describes a replied: “The risks of that is all too high.” Norwegian example, that of the Alta Dam. Returning to the Sami, I asked the Foreign Ministry’s “In the fall of 1979, as construction was ready to start, Zsiga to respond to criticism of Sweden’s failure to ratify protesters performed two acts of civil disobedience: at ‘Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989’: “The the construction site itself at Stilla, activists sat down Government considers ratification still to be complicated, and on the ground and blocked the machines, and at the is working on the matter. The reason for not ratifying essen- same time, Sami activists began a hunger strike outside tially relates to Article 14, land rights, which poses a major the Norwegian parliament. Documents that have since obstacle for Sweden. The Government wishes to maintain the been declassified, show that the government planned to present balance between the two competing interests in the use military forces as logistical support for police au- area concerned.” thorities in their efforts to stop the protests.” In terms of how the Sami see the issues, the Sami Parliament had directed me to both its President, Mr. Utsi, To put all of this in a geo-political context I contact- and another individual—Matti Bergblind, a well-known Sami ed historian Michael Parenti. “As they’re doing in Central spokesman. Bergblind first spoke of how he had grown up in America and other places, that (Cold Response 2012) might Kiruna, Sweden’s furthest city in the North, and how Swedish be a scenario to do the same thing up there in the Northern mines have been there for a hundred years. “But, what region,” Parenti told me, “which is to wipe out the Indigenous happens now is that the prices of minerals go sky high, and Peoples, remove them as was done here in the lower 48 states”. that means that there are a lot of foreign companies that come He said that the NATO regime views indigenous people as into the area and want to make quick money. That money “just a nuisance … who can be brushed aside like gnats.” The they earn on my and my people’s coats, so to speak. We are war games, Parenti observed, are a rehearsal for a certain kind the losers in the long-run when they come out and take out of reality.” CP all the minerals that are possible—they want to make just Ritt Goldstein is a journalist living in Sweden .

22 Or are you going forwards? The show held its intensity to the culture & reviews end, the inevitable closer being “Killing in the Name.” The band took a bow as the crowd roared “Fuck Simon Cowell! highlight the band’s playful side as they Fuck Simon Cowell!” Machine Politics skewer Wall Street and America’s one Why would a band like Rage waste its party political system. time with Cowell, a man who literally (the remix) The most compelling extra is the smirks for a living and whose non-tele- by Lee Ballinger “Battle of Britain” concert DVD. That vision claim to fame is that he signed Rage Against the Machine’s first gig, show was the result of a 2009 Facebook the Teletubbies to a record deal? On the a 1991 outdoor college show, is included campaign in England started by Jon concert DVD, Public Enemy’s Chuck D on DVD in Rage Against the Machine and Tracy Morter to have Rage’s asks if the whole affair might be “small XX 20th Anniversary Edition Deluxe “Killing in the Name” be the most and inconsequential.” Chuck’s answer is Boxed Set (Epic/Legacy). Only a few downloaded song and thus the number that all those people coming together to people are watching so it feels like a re- one Christmas single in the UK. They stick it to the mainstream was indeed hearsal. The working parts are interest- were up against the winner from Simon meaningful. ing but they only add up to possibilities, Cowell’s vapid pop music TV show Now wait a minute. Rage Against to potential. The X Factor. The band promised that the Machine, a band which has sold By the time Rage’s first album, Rage if they won they would do a free show. millions of CDs and sold out stadiums, Against the Machine, was released They did win and on June 6, 2010 they is part of the mainstream. Indeed, a year later that potential was fully played in London’s Finsbury Park for there’s been sniping by some journalists realized. It contains ten tracks, now eighty thousand fans. and musicians throughout the band’s road tested for two decades. career that with their radical Like many country songs, politics, Rage’s proper place the titles reveal a lot about is as part of some vaguely each tune, in thought or defined underground. Mike feeling or both. “Bombtrack,” Muir of Suicidal Tendencies “Killing in the Name,” “Take wrote a song attacking them the Power Back,” “Settle and went on to say that they For Nothing,” “Bullet in the were hypocrites for “talking Head,” “Know Your Enemy,” about how evil corporations “Wake Up,” “Fistful of Steel,” are, and they’re signed with “Township Rebellion,” one of the biggest corpora- “Freedom.” Several lines tions in the world.” from these songs have That’s a false issue. Most become catchphrases world- of us work (or seek to work) wide, such as “Anger is a gift,” Rage Against the Machine in Concert — Photo Credit: Lisa Johnson Photography for corporations or for in- “Fuck you, I won’t do what Midway through a concert featur- stitutions controlled by cor- you tell me,” “They say jump, you say ing Rage at its incandescent best, the porations. The choices are, to say the how high.” Morters came onstage as part of a least, limited, even more so for musi- But Rage is more than a political victory celebration. A check represent- cians who want to be paid for their poster with sound effects. The songs ing fan donations and royalties from work. What matters is what you do are concise, well-written, and bril- the song was presented to the homeless from where you’re at. A rock star can liantly arranged. The rhythm section charity SHELTER. The crowd was in do things beyond the reach of cult fa- of Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford is full throat, exulting in support of the vorites, however worthy. For instance, rock solid while Tom Morello brings homeless and in their own collective during the 2003 supermarket strike hip-hop style into his guitar playing power in making the concert happen. in Los Angeles, I was standing next to without sacrificing the power of major Zach de la Rocha spoke about the in- Tom Morello at the Roxy in Hollywood riffage. Zach de la Rocha commands spiration drawn from British bands, before a benefit show he’d arranged the mic with a unique combination of just before Rage plunged into a cover with many top names. His phone kept rap, spoken word, and speechifying. of the Clash’s “White Riot,” whose lyrics ringing—some of the calls were from Besides that first show, the boxed set confirm Rage’s roots: other bands who have millions of includes the first album on vinyl, a re- fans saying they were on the road but mastered version of the CD with live Are you taking over wanted to be involved. On May 1, 2012 bonus tracks, and twenty live video Or are you taking orders? at Occupy Wall Street, Morello led a clips. Plus twelve music videos which Are you going backwards Guitarmy of several hundred guitarists

23 in street demonstrations, an expan- a passage in Glenn Greenwald’s savage him as “The Teacher of Us All”. Lev sive new form of mobilization made take-down of the film: Kuleshov and Sergei Eisenstein, two of possible by his rock star status. the greats of Soviet cinema, also revered That doesn’t mean riding a main- Do defenders of Zero Dark Thirty him. Orson Welles said “I have never stream wave doesn’t have its contradic- view Riefenstahl critics as overly really hated Hollywood except for its tions. The boxed set is retailing for up ideological heathens who demand treatment of D. W. Griffith. No town, to $110 which means the majority of that art adhere to their ideology? no industry, no profession, no art form the band’s fans may never see or hear If the KKK next year produces a owes so much to a single man.” it. But that’s just further proof that the superbly executed film devoted But the biggest surprise of all was current social arrangement doesn’t to touting the virtues of white James Agee’s take on the man who work. Getting out your music with the supremacy, would it be wrong to arguably made the most racist film in help of a large corporation is a tactical object if it wins the Best Picture American history. Agee was the Nation decision, not a moral one. Oscar on the ground that it magazine’s film critic in the 40s and In any event, the mainstream music promotes repellent ideas? 50s and a powerful voice for the down- industry won’t exist much longer. It’s trodden. His name is also honored Before addressing comparisons be- being destroyed by technology and its by a group of leftwing film critics that tween Bigelow and Riefenstahl, it would own greed. I’d be willing to bet my last was launched by Prairie Miller, the be useful to consider the KKK question. “Home Taping is Killing Music” T-shirt James Agee Film Society (I suggested I am willing to bet that Greenwald that whatever comes next, Rage Against Agee’s name as the title of our group.) had D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” the Machine will be in the middle of In a review for the September 4, 1948 in mind since that pretty much de- it, drawing lines and taking sides as edition of the Nation Magazine, Agee scribes how it is viewed nowadays: an they’ve always done. CP wrote: apologia for the night riders. In my last Lee Ballinger is the West Coast editor of CounterPunch article devoted to the He achieved what no other known Rock and Rap Confidential and lives in Oliver Stone/Peter Kuznick “Untold man has ever achieved. To watch Los Angeles, California . History” series on Showtime, I men- his work is like being witness to tioned that “Birth of a Nation” was the beginning of melody, or the Is Kathryn shown in the White House in much the first conscious use of the lever or same way as the Obama-friendly films the wheel; the emergence, coor- Bigelow Our like “Lincoln” or “Zero Dark Thirty” dination, and first eloquence of might be shown today: language; the birth of an art: and Leni Riefenstahl? to realize that this is all the work Wilson even screened D. W. By Louis Proyect of one man. We will never realize Griffith’s pioneering though no- how good he really was until we As a member of New York Film toriously racist film Birth of a have the chance to see his work Critics Online (NYFCO) for over Nation at the White House in as often as it deserves to be seen, a decade I was not surprised to see 1915 for cabinet members and to examine and enjoy it in detail Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” their families. In the film, a heroic as exact as his achievement. But named best movie of 2012 since the Ku Klux Klan gallops in just in even relying, as we mainly have group had picked “Hurt Locker” time to save white southerners, to, on years-old memories, a good as the best for 2009. Among the 36 especially helpless women, from deal becomes clear. One crude but members there were only two who had the clutches of brutish, lascivi- unquestionable indication of his problems with this choice—Prairie ous freedmen and their corrupt greatness was his power to create Miller, a WBAI Arts Magazine host and white allies—a perverse view of permanent images. All through (CounterPunch contributor), and me. history that was then being pro- his work there are images which Perhaps feeling a bit of peer pressure, mulgated in less extreme terms by are as impossible to forget, once I emailed my colleagues: “I actually had William Dunning and his students you have seen them, as some of no problem voting for this movie in one at Columbia University. Upon the grandest and simplest passages category or another. Katherine Bigelow viewing the film, Wilson com- in music or poetry… is our Leni Riefenstahl, after all.” (I mented, “It is like writing history “The Birth of a Nation” is did not bother to explain that my vote with Lightning and my only regret equal with Brady’s photographs, might have been for cinematography or is that it is all so terribly true.” film score, but certainly not for screen- Lincoln’s speeches, Whitman’s play, direction, or best picture.) After In grappling with the problem of re- war poems; for all its imperfec- Prairie told me that she was surprised actionary but breakthrough filmmak- tions and absurdities it is equal, by my comment, I began to grapple ing, I checked the Wikipedia entry on in fact, to the best work that has with the question of reactionary film- D.W. Griffith and to my surprise dis- been done in this country. And making, all the more so after reading covered that Charlie Chaplin described among moving pictures it is alone,

24 not necessarily as “the greatest”— the editor E.L. Godkin wrote an edito- citadels. However, the critical consen- whatever that means—but as the rial in 1874 that was very much in the sus on Leni Riefenstahl would tend one great epic, tragic film. (Today, spirit of “Birth of a Nation”: more to the negative since the Nazis “The Birth of a Nation” is boycot- were an Official Enemy Number One ted or shown piecemeal; too many As the 1870s began, Godkin unlike the Klan, a group that Harry more or less well-meaning people openly broke with the Radicals, Truman once considered joining (again still accuse Griffith of having made assailed carpetbaggers, and called we are grateful to Stone and Kuznick it an anti-Negro movie. At best, for the restoration of white power for pointing this out.) this is nonsense, and at worst, it in the South. In an 1874 editorial Suffice it to say that Riefenstahl is is vicious nonsense. Even if it usually celebrated in much the were an anti-Negro movie, a same way as Agee celebrated work of such quality should D.W. Griffith, for her mastery be shown, and shown whole. of the image rather than for her But the accusation is unjust. odious politics. But then again, Griffith went to almost pre- there was a time and place posterous lengths to be fair when those politics seemed not to the Negroes as he under- particularly offensive. This is stood them, and he under- a review of her documentary stood them as a good type of on the 1936 Olympics from the Southerner does. March 30, 1940 New York Times. Apparently the paper had not There are two things that yet figured out that the film struck me when I read these that opened just 5 blocks from shocking words. The first was my apartment in the Yorkville James Agee’s focus on the image. neighborhood in Manhattan (a If film is primarily about moving bastion of German-American pictures, it should not come as support for the Nazis at the time) any big surprise that someone was inimical to all the values we like Agee would be fixated on the hold dear. visual aspects of the film. But defending the film against At 86th St. Garden Theatre NAACP protests is obviously After a run of three weeks the a lot more questionable. What first part of “Olympia, Festival it suggests to me is that racism of the Nations,” the German was so deeply embedded in celluloid record, directed by American society that even a Leni Riefenstahl, of the 1936 nominally progressive journal Olympic Games in Berlin, has like the Nation would be in- Leni Riefenstahl-Produktion made way for the latter half at sensitive to the film’s racism. he advised The Nation’s readers the Eighty-sixth Street Garden Of course, there is a precedent for this that he found the average intel- Theatre. While it gets off to a in the magazine’s history as I pointed ligence of blacks “so low that rather slow start, Part II speeds up out to Ricky Kreitner, an intern there, they are slightly above the level when the exciting military riding who had written a very good article on of animals.” He longed for the competition hits the screen and Spielberg’s latest movie and the histori- return of southern conservatives continues at a lively pace through cal background. It turns out that despite to power in 1877 eagerly, writing the field hockey, polo, soccer and its abolitionist reputation, the magazine Harvard professor Charles Eliot cycling events and the Marathon had little use for Thaddeus Stevens. Norton and fellow adversary of race to the thrilling finale of the Consulting the magazine’s archives, democratic rule that “I do not see decathelon, where Glen Morris, Kreitner discovered an obituary on . . . . the negro is ever to be worked the American, won the title of the Stevens that described his demand for into a system of government for greatest all-around athlete in the slave plantations to be confiscated and which you and I would have much world. The photography is always the land given to ex-slaves as a sign of a respect.” effective and sometimes brilliant. “mental defect”. There is an adequate account of I wrote Kreitner that this was not the Given the self-righteousness of the doings spoken in English. half of it. In an article I wrote for Swans American liberalism, it might be H.T. S. in 2008 on “The Early Days of the expected that a film that glorified the Nation Magazine”, I pointed out that KKK would pass muster at one of its The Wikipedia article on “Olympia,

25 Festival of the Nations” takes note of the responsibility to which Riefenstahl in a theatrical version a year later, is technical breakthroughs that wowed should be held. But that similarity cast as Larry. When I recognized Edgar the reviewers: “She was one of the first does not qualify her films to be Ramirez, a light bulb went on over my filmmakers to use tracking shots in a mentioned in the same sentence head. Of course, this is the same kind of documentary, placing a camera on rails with “The Battleship Potemkin” “get the terrorist fiend” movie but from to follow the athletes’ movement, and among the masterpieces of film a different POV. Carlos appears in every she is noted for the slow motion shots history. scene in the 2010 television movie while included in the film. Riefenstahl’s work Words like ‘best,’ ‘great,’ and ‘art’ bin Laden appears in none in Bigelow’s on Olympia has been cited as a major ought to be resisted when discuss- (assuming that his corpse does not influence in modern sports photogra- ing Leni Riefenstahl, just to avoid count.) phy.” the cant and obfuscation which Carlos the Jackal is a man on a But it added that its pro-Hitler have become synonymous with mission. As directed by Olivier Assayas, agenda was crystal-clear. This mattered her name. Give her the credit (and who counts Guy DeBord as his major not a whit to Avery Brundage who blame) that she deserves: she was intellectual influence, “Carlos” is a film called the film the greatest ever made a pioneer of what might be called that makes absolutely no effort to probe about the Olympics or to Walt Disney mass cinematography, a producer the psychological depths of an urban who gave Riefenstahl the red carpet and planner of film spectacles that guerrilla. He is motivated strictly by his treatment when she visited Hollywood required dozens of cameras, feats ideology and a willingness to use force on a tour. (Then again, few would ever of coordination and logistics, and in the interests of pursuing his political associate Brundage or Disney with complex organization of footage goals. Both in life and as a character in liberal causes.) for editing. Her films are mixtures a movie, he is a compelling figure even While I have no doubt that her work of the remarkable—such as the if he remains unknowable. was marked by major innovations, I diving scenes in Olympia, which Essentially Boal and Bigelow have tend to agree with Robert Sklar’s assess- involved splicing reverse action replaced the terrorist bogeyman with ment in an April 1994 Cineaste article footage into the sequence to his pursuers who now occupy center- titled—appropriately enough—“The heighten the uncanny effect—and stage but remain as unknowable as Devil’s Director”: the commonplace. Carlos in the final analysis. The first half hour of the film is devoted to It seems incredible the length to Will Kathryn Bigelow ever be held CIA agent Dan (Jason Clarke) physi- which some of Riefenstahl’s de- in such esteem as D.W. Griffith or Leni cally and verbally abusing his captives, fenders—particularly among film Riefenstahl, leaving aside political con- while Maya, the lead character played scholars in the United States— siderations? Does “Zero Dark Thirty” by Jessica Chastain, looks on impas- have gone to endorse her self- deserve to be described as a break- sively. That, my friends, is exactly what proclaimed status as a great artist, through at least in narrative, technical, you see in “Carlos” for most of its 330 regrettably ignorant of politics or visual terms? In other words, the sort minutes except that the abuse is meant in her tireless quest for esthetic of criteria that matter at places like the to alienate a movie audience that has perfection. The answer perhaps NYU or UCLA film schools? been hard-wired to loathe and fear “ter- lies in a laudable desire to protect I have my doubts. rorists”. When the same kind of abuse is creative persons from political While I may be the only person who applied to our enemies who are tied up persecution, however unsavory has made the connection, I find “Zero and gagged like Carlos’ captives, then their work. A case might be made Dark Thirty” to be highly derivative of it becomes high-class entertainment— for Riefenstahl in spite of herself, another terrorist-manhunt-of-the-cen- the equivalent of an Eli Roth movie rather than the case that has been tury-movie. To paraphrase Christopher geared to the liberal carriage trade, the made, which buys into her every Marlowe, that was in another century kind of people who take a rave review self-aggrandizing claim. and besides the terrorist is dead. I am in the New Yorker magazine at face Riefenstahl’s defenders reach speaking here of Carlos the Jackal who value. If there is one thing Hollywood a point of absurdity when was the Osama bin Laden of his day. has learned over the years, it is that tor- they compare her with Sergei One of the minor characters in “Zero turing people sells popcorn even if it is Eiseinstein. It’s somewhat disin- Dark Thirty” is a spook named Larry frequently useless in garnering critical genuous to link the two names as whose technical expertise and detec- intelligence. CP great film artists who were also tive work helps the CIA track the cell Louis Proyect reviews films for propagandists for murderous phone signals that lead to Osama bin CounterPunch and blogs at http:// regimes, when Riefenstahl denies Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. louisproyect wordpress. com. and is the that her works are propaganda at Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez, who moderator of the Marxism mailing list at all. Eisenstein and other Soviet just happened to play Carlos the Jackal http://greenhouse economics. .utah edu/. filmmakers require reassessment (a Venezuelan by birth) in the 2010 tele- mailman/listinfo/marxism) . over the same issues of political vision series “Carlos” that was released

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Julien Mercille rips the cover off one of the dirtiest secrets of the war Cruel Harvest Cruel Harvest: US Intervention on Afghanistan: the corrosive relationship between the CIA and the opium trade. Mercille vividly chronicles how US forces and intelligence operatives have been complicit in the heroin trade, actively working to protect favored drug networks, even as the dope exacts an ever more in the Afghan Drug Trade dreadful toll on the streets of American cities. This is hard-boiled history from the front lines of America’s longest and cruelest war. —JEFFREY ST. CLAIR, editor of CounterPunch, co-author of Whiteout: the CIA, Julien Mercille Drugs and the Press

US drug policy is intimately linked to fundamentalist forces in “Julien Mercille rips the cover off one of the dirtiest secrets of Afghanistan and provides a convenient pretext for war. But, as Mercille shows, it also reflects America’s own hypocrisy and culpability in the the war on Afghanistan: the corrosive relationship between flourishing drug trade. —SonALI KoLhATKAR, author of Bleeding Afghanistan (2006) the CIA and the opium trade . Mercille vividly chronicles how US Intervention in the Afghan Drug Trade Drug Afghan the in Intervention US Mercille provides a useful exposition of the counter-narcotic rationale US forces and intelligence operatives have been complicit for the West’s continued war in Afghanistan and its wider relationship to American primacy. in the heroin trade, actively working to protect favored drug —Doug SToKES, author of America’s Other War: Terrorizing Colombia (2005) networks, even as the dope exacts an ever more dreadful toll Exposing the faces of Jehadi fundamentalists is very important so the world is aware that the US ... continues to keep them in power. on the streets of American cities . This is hard-boiled history Mercille’s book breaks this taboo. —MALALAI JoYA, former member of Afghanistan’s parliament from the front lines of America’s longest and cruelest war ”.

Cruel Harvest lifts the lid on the reality of Afghanistan’s skyrocketing drug trade and the role played by the US military. Conventional accounts blame — Jeffrey St . Clair, editor of CounterPunch, the Taliban for the expansion of drug production. However, Julien Mercille shows that the US in fact shares responsibility by supporting drug lords, co-author of Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press

refusing to adopt effective drug control policies and failing to crack down on MERCILLE drug money laundered through Western banks. Mercille argues that the best way to address drug problems is by reducing demand in consumer countries, not by conducting counternarcotics missions in Afghanistan. Pluto Press Use Promo Code: P356ED JuLIEn MERCILLE is a lecturer in the School of Geography, Planning and plutobooks.com and Save 20% Off Environmental Policy at University College Dublin, Ireland.

POLITICS Order by phone: 888-330-8477 or cover design: James Kynvin Online: www.palgrave-usa.com Cruel Harvest | ISBN: 978-0-7453-3232-1