Zuma—And Capitalism—Have Got to Go

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H The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. —Karl Marx H MAY/JUNE 2017 VOL. 17 NO. 3

Civilians return via Baghdad Road to a neighborhood in southwest Mosul on March 31. Read Mosul: Shifting the Blame on page 6. On the Front Cover: s Immigrant Rights demonstration in San Francisco on May 1, 2017.

The automobile industry takes massive risks with workers’ and consumers’ lives every day. Read Parts NFL star, Colin Kaepernick, in the protest that spread From Hell on page 43. resistance throughout the sports world and beyond. Read Kapernicking on page 48.

Texas prisoner, Rashid Johnson, framed and punished for exposing torture (Artwork by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson). Read Exposing Torture on Constructing Workers Power - Page 2 page 66. Trump’s Indonesian Allies in Bed with ISIS-Backed Militia Seeking to Oust Elected President - Page 25 « « « Attention Prison Mail Room: « « « Capitalism On Trial - Page 31 Prisoners retain their free speech rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That means you cannot Two Wins for Mumia Abu-Jamal - Page 56 legally suppress the expression and consideration of ideas. Prison walls do not form a barrier separating prisoners from the protection of the Constitution, according to the Turner v. Safely ruling. [482 U.S. 78, 107 Sct 2245 (1987)] If you exclude printed matter on an improper basis, or give a false pretext or rationale for its exclusion, because of the ideas expressed in it, you are breaking the law. The prisoner denied access to material he wants to read can bring a civil rights lawsuit against you with cause for seeking punitive damages. In the case of Police Department Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95, 92 Sct 2286, 2290 (1972) the court found that “[A]bove all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, subject matter or content.” April 2017

The Earth Is Not Theirs To Destroy! Global Warming and Global Climate Change Is Global Warming Real? Our Earth Has its Limits Yes it’s real. There is no question that the overall temperature Life has evolved and adapted along of our Earth has increased over the past 50 years and continues with the environments that have to increase each year. The world has warmed more than 1.8°F developed on our Earth. Serious since the late 1800s and the massive expansion of industry. disruption doesn’t provide choices – The 10 warmest years have been since 2000, with the it means death. We are already in exception of 1998. The year 2016 was the warmest on record. the midst of what scientists have The Source is the Burning of Oil, Coal and Natural Gas identified as the 6th Mass Extinction releasing enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. of life on our planet. We are living on a planet under conditions that humanity has never experienced before Climate change is happening now, not in some distant future. We have reached our limit! Here are just a few of the impacts: . Changing rainfall and hotter temperatures are devastating "…..Find out just what any agriculture around the world. In Africa alone, at least 36 people will quietly submit to million people are facing hunger due to record heat and and you have found out the drought. Famine warnings have now been issued for Rwanda, exact measure of injustice and Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Somalia, all of which are wrong which will be imposed experiencing their worst droughts in decades. upon them, and these will . We can expect to see massive crop failures, especially as industrial agriculture has reduced the variety of crops grown. continue till they are resisted . In the next few decades, big parts of 400 towns and cities, with either words or blows, or including New Orleans, New York City and San Francisco are both. The limits of tyrants are at risk of going under water due to sea level rise. prescribed by the endurance of Denial is the Choice of the Exploiters – Not Ours those whom they oppress." Trump and those he represents deny the reality of Global -‐ Frederick Douglass Warming and its link to the extreme weather events and environmental impacts. It is a reality that interferes with the system of profiteering that they defend. Obama, didn’t take real steps to address the real problem and sources of this climate change, because his role, like presidents before him, was to defend the interests of this system of capitalist production – not the interests of the majority. Our World, Our Choice What Can We Do? We face a choice humanity has never confronted. We either This change is not inevitable. change the system of carbon-based production or face extinction. We can begin to reverse this This system of capitalism has no regard for the Earth and the destruction – if we have the majority of us. Those in power look at the Earth as a resource to imagination and the will. exploit; in the same way as they look at us as labor to exploit. See the other side for a start. The scientific knowledge exists and technological solutions can be developed to solve these problems. We have the possibility to reorganize society. It is a huge challenge but if we organize our power and fight, we guarantee ourselves a chance. The past may belong to capitalism, but the future can be ours.

FC SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 SocialistViewpoint May/June 2017 Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT www.socialistviewpoint.org CONTENTS email: [email protected] (415) 824-8730 U.S. and World Politics Obituary Constructing Workers’ Power ...... 2 In Loving Memory of Lynne Stewart ...... 50 By Bonnie Weinstein By Ralph Schoenman Mosul: Shifting The Blame ...... 6 Lynne Stewart: A Love Story ...... 51 By Ralph Schoenman By Cindy Sheehan Iraq Veterans Against the War Statement on Syria Strikes .7 Lynne Stewart: People’s Lawyer, Freedom Fighter . . . .BC By IVAW National By Mumia Abu-Jamal Another Dangerous Rush to Judgment in Syria ...... 8 By Robert Parry Environment Dangerous Escalation of U.S. Wars in the Offing . . . . .11 March for Science ...... 52 By Barry Sheppard Speech by Kathy Setian at the San Francisco March U.S. Out of Syria Now! ...... 13 Worse Than Flint ...... 53 Statement Issued By Labor Fightback Network By Louisa Oreskes From Drone Strikes to MOAB ...... 15 Round Up Seeds Kill More Than Bees ...... 54 By Hoda Katebi By Katherine Paul Our Migrant Crisis ...... 17 The Earth is Not Theirs to Destroy! ...... FC By Ernie Tate By RevolutionaryWorkers.org Trump’s Dangerous Saber-Rattling ...... 19 By Barry Sheppard Incarceration Nation U.S. Starvation Strategy in Yemen ...... 21 Two Wins for Mumia Abu-Jamal ...... 56 By Gareth Porter By Rachel Wolkenstein South Africa: Zuma—and Capitalism—Have Got to Go . 23 Emerging Fear-States ...... 58 By Glen Ford By MumiaAbu-Jamal Palestinian Hunger Strike in Israel’s Prisons ...... 24 On Death Row—With No Death Sentence! ...... 59 By Marwan Barghouti By Mumia Abu-Jamal Trump’s Indonesian Allies in Bed with ISIS-Backed Militia Numbers Don’t Lie ...... 60 Seeking to Oust Elected President ...... 25 By Lorenzo Johnson By Allan Nairn Major Tillery, The Man ...... 61 Capitalism On Trial ...... 31 Interview by Shakaboona Marshall By Ajamu Nangwaya Julian Assange Political Prisoner ...... 65 Libyan Slave Market ...... 35 By Mark Weisbrot By Emma Graham-Harrison Exposing Torture ...... 66 Labor Must Unite and Fight! ...... 37 By Carole Seligman By John Peterson The Abuse Goes On ...... 68 “Sanctuary Cities” and Black Community Control of the Police .38 By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson By Glen Ford Jeffrey Sandusky: Like Father, Like Son ...... 73 Chicago’s Criminal Cops ...... 39 By Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall By Jamie Kalven Introspection of Capitalism ...... 73 Revolutionary Feminism in Theory and Life ...... 41 By Kelvin “Khaysi” Canada By Andrea Bauer, Freedom Socialist Party Chelsea Manning Free May 17 ...... 78 Parts From Hell ...... 43 By Courage to Resist By Dianne Feeley Truth and Injustice ...... BC Far Right Rampage in Berkeley ...... 46 By Dellano Cleveland By Alex Schmaus Kapernicking ...... 48 Letter to Editors ...... 79 By Dria Roland Socialist Viewpoint (ISSN 1535-5438) is published bi-monthly by the Socialist Viewpoint Publishing Association, 60 29th Street, #429, San Francisco, CA 94110. Rates: For one year (6 issues): Introductory rate in the U.S. $20.00; Regular rate in the U.S. $30.00; Bargain rate: $35.00 for two years; All other countries $50.00 (Money orders, checks, etc., should be in U.S. dollars.) Periodicals Postage Paid at San Francisco, California. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Socialist Viewpoint, 60 29th Street, #429, San Francisco, CA 94110

Vol.Vol.Vol. 17, 17,3, No.No. 233 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 1

U.S. and World Politics U.S. AND WORLD POLITICS

Constructing Workers’ Power Capitalism is responsible for all the violence in the world—only workers have the power to bring peace. By Bonnie Weinstein

“That is what I want to urge upon the campaign in the hopes of paralyzing any military budget to protect their finan- working class; to become so organized on the and all opposition to their growing cial interests. In fact, the military economic field that they can take and hold interventions across the globe. This is industrial complex is the most lucra- the industries in which they are employed. the only way they can hope to even tem- tive business in the U.S.—and the “Can you conceive of such a thing? Is it porarily maintain and increase their world. possible? What are the forces that prevent wealth, and the power it buys them. They spare no expense on their you from doing so? You have all the indus- Their power seems insurmountable. weapons of mass destruction. Just last tries in your own hands at the present time. Their accumulated wealth is incompre- year, the U.S. dropped 26,171 bombs 3 “There is this justification for politi- hensible. In fact, according to a January on the world. cal action, and that is, to control the 15, 2017 Fortune article by Reuters, eight In a April 7, 2017 article in Fortune forces of the capitalists that they use men—Microsoft’s Bill Gates; Inditex by Jen Wieczner titled, “Syria Airstrikes against us; to be in a position to control founder Amancio Ortega; investor Instantly Added Nearly $5 Billion to the power of government so as to make Warren Buffett; Mexico’s Carlos Slim, Missile-Makers’ Stock Value:” business magnet (America Movil, Latin the work of the army ineffective, so as to “Raytheon stock surged Friday America’s biggest mobile telecom firm,) abolish totally the secret service and the morning, after 59 of the company’s force of detectives. That is the reason that investor and philanthropist; Tomahawk missiles were used to you want the power of government… Amazon boss Jeff Bezos; Facebook’s strike Syria in Donald Trump’s first Mark Zuckerberg; Oracle’s Larry “…If I didn’t think that the general major military operation as Ellison; and former New York City President…. The Tomahawk missile strike was leading on to the great revolu- mayor Michael Bloomberg—are now as used in the strike is made by tion which will emancipate the working wealthy as half the world’s population.2 Raytheon…whose stock opened 2.5 class I wouldn’t be here. I am with you This obscene fact has a two-fold percent higher Friday, adding more because I believe that in this little meet- than $1 billion to the defense con- reality. One, the commanders of capital ing there is a nucleus here that will carry tractor’s market capitalization. The on the work and propagate the seed that have more money than anyone could shares of other missile and weapons will grow into the great revolution that possibly spend in a lifetime—or even a manufacturers, including Boeing… will overthrow the capitalist class.” — hundred lifetimes; and two, they are a Lockheed Martin…Northrop Big Bill Haywood.1 tiny, miniscule portion of humanity— Grumman…and General an infinitesimal despotic regime that Dynamics…each rose as much as The world capitalist system, com- could not stand on its own without the one percent, collectively gaining manded primarily by the U.S., is doing enslavement, both physically and men- nearly $5 billion in market value as the only thing it can do to maintain its tally, of the masses of the working class soon as they began trading, even as power a little longer—plunder the to do their bidding. the broader market fell.” world back into barbarism. The statistics below illustrate that The top five military revenue earn- 4 They have no hope of establishing the terms, “capitalism” and “war,” are ing corporations in 2016 were: permanent power over the world’s synonymous. They show that the need 1. Lockheed Martin, earning 46.132 wealth because there is a limit to how for a fundamental change from capital- billion representing 88 percent much destruction they can carry out ism to socialism is necessary if we are to revenue from defense. before the entire Earth is destroyed save the world for future generations. along with them. 2. Boeing, earning 96.114 billion representing 31.62 percent reve- They can’t kill everyone. They still What the capitalists spend to nue from defense. need workers to do their bidding in both maintain their power industry and as cannon fodder for their Besides the accumulated wealth 3. BAE Systems, earning 27.357 bil- military exploitations. The U.S. and its held by the capitalists, they spend trillion representing 92.40 percent allies are on a military destabilization lions of our tax dollars on a massive revenue from defense.

2 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 4. Raytheon, earning 23.247 billion were more than 2.3 million people Workers together with our own rev- representing 93 percent revenue confined in the U.S. in 2016. olutionary party, completely indepen- from defense. The prison industrial complex is a dent of the capitalist class, have the 5. General Dynamics, earning vital extension of the military on a local power to end the barbarity of capitalist 31.469 billion representing 60.85 scale. Our working class and poor enslavement and war once and for all. percent revenue from defense. communities live in armed camps Workers have been taught from That’s a total of 224.319 billion in patrolled by militarized police, while kindergarten that we have no real revenue from defense spending—for those same police guard and protect political power except to exercise our just the top five! And that’s not all: the property of wealthy communities. “democratic right to vote” for one of the major capitalist political parties. • “Industry experts highlighted Under capitalism human beings are expendable—profits and property take The capitalist class knows full well that that approximately 800,000 without the cooperation and collabo- defense jobs, intelligence jobs precedence. Not a dime is stolen from the wealthy without the severest retali- ration of workers, the capitalist parties and other occupations are tied to would be utterly powerless. the defense industry. In addition, ation. Even selling loose cigarettes on more than ten percent of U.S. the street without a license comes with Capitalism is in a downward spiral manufacturing demand in the a death sentence as the family of Eric and they can’t stop it. War is irrational U.S. is dependent on aerospace Garner found out. yet they can’t stop it because they prof- and defense spending with con- Our tax dollars fund all of it so that it from war. They sell their weapons tractors including Lockheed the profits of the war and occupation anywhere and everywhere to maximize Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grum- industry can remain in the hands of the their profits both in selling weapons man and General Dynamics.”5 miniscule capitalist class so they can and capturing the spoils of war—the continue to rule. oil, land, natural resources and cheap • “The U.S. outpaces all other labor left among the crumbling debris. nations in military expenditures. And therein lies our only hope for World military spending totaled ending this capitalist, profit-driven The only way to stop this inevitable, more than $1.6 trillion in 2015. insanity once and for all. Without our deadly, descent into chaos is for us to The U.S. accounted for 37 per- participation and labor, they cannot massively organize, independently of cent of the total. U.S. military continue! the capitalists, to end capitalism, and expenditures are roughly the size build a socialist world. Smoke and mirrors of the next seven largest military Organizing workers independent budgets around the world, com- The power of the capitalist class of the capitalist class bined. U.S. military spending depends upon how effective they are in Capitalism can’t be reformed. It dwarfs the budget of the #2 convincing the working class that we must continue on its profit-driven war- country—China. For every dol- have no power. path. It cannot fulfill the needs of the lar China spends on its military, They own the mass media that bom- majority of humanity—it never has. the U.S. spends $2.77.”6 bards us with lies and subterfuge. They The vast majority of the Earth’s • “U.S. spending on Middle East convince us that we are powerless human population under capitalism wars and Homeland Security will against them—not only to end their has been impoverished for centuries. It reach $4.79 trillion in 2017.”7 power over us—but to even dream that a another world beyond capitalist war is an economic system based upon the Think of what we could do with this and exploitation could exist. exploitation and oppression of the money instead of spending it on death working class—the overwhelming and destruction! Workers can change the world majority. Capitalism has no other This doesn’t even include the Not only is another world possible, source of power other than the enslave- roughly $80 billion8 spent on the U.S. it is the most logical way to end pov- ment of the working class and the prison industrial complex, not count- erty and injustice, and it is attainable. exploitation of our labor, which is how ing the police. In down to earth terms, All we need to do is realize that the they maintain their power. “...the cost of jailing someone in New power is in our hands, and our hands Capitalists are not Gods; they are York City has ballooned to nearly alone. Together we workers can end human. Without us, the working class, $250,000 a year, roughly the cost of a capitalism and build a world that can they are a tiny, untalented, helpless four-year Ivy League degree...”9 That’s fulfill the needs and wants of all, instead minority of despots posing as super- just at New York’s Rikers Island. There of providing profits for the wealthy. human deities.

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 3 Workers on the peace-path ers and streams. Their sole concern is those parties that seek to reform capi- It is the working class that has the to increase their profits. talism into a “kinder and gentler” capi- power to change the world for the bet- That’s why the capitalist class as a talism—because there is no such thing! ter because it is the working class that whole can never be an ally of the work- Placing the blame of violence knows how to do all the work. We can ing class. Individuals, of course, can where it belongs change the war industry into a human come over to our side—and they do industry— building things we all need from time to time. But to be on our Such an independent party of the to live a fruitful and happy life with side, they must oppose capitalism and working class must oppose violence equality and justice for all—a world embrace socialism as the only way to against the working class in all its free of poverty, want and war. rid the world of this vicious system. forms. The more united we are, the better chance we have to stop the vio- Only workers can build a new and Independent political action lence against us. better world. Donald Trump doesn’t know how to work in an auto plant or A first step toward ending capital- This is why we want to rid the world pick fruit and vegetables on a farm. ism is to build an independent labor of capitalism that uses violence—war, The capitalists can’t build bridges or party—a nation-wide party of the incarceration, police violence, and pave roads or respond to medical working class with an international oppression—relentlessly to maintain emergencies. Workers perform these program building solidarity with work- their wealth and power. We oppose capi- and all the jobs necessary for civiliza- ers everywhere. talism because we want to build a world tion. The capitalist class, in fact, is a This party must have the perspec- of peace, democracy, economic and hindrance to all the necessary work tive of challenging the rule of capital at social equality—a world without vio- needed to build a healthy and prosper- every step. This means organizing at lence, oppression, slavery and starvation. ous future for all of us. our workplaces, communities, jails and It is the capitalist class that invented Instead of building homes, schools schools. It must include the unique and uses weapons of mass destruc- or hospitals, they invest in building needs of Blacks, Latinos, LGBTQ, tion—nuclear weapons, MOABs bombs, guns, and jails. Instead of youth, Muslims, the homeless, all those (Massive Ordinance Air Blast or maintaining a pristine environment, who are doubly oppressed. All of our “Mother Of All Bombs,”) Sarin gas, they poison the land and water with diverse communities must stand Agent Orange, tanks, bombers, rock- pollutants and pesticides. Instead of together in unity in defense of all ets, drones, aircraft carriers, automatic focusing on clean and renewable ener- because that is where our power lies. weapons—and who profits from them! gy, they spew oil and coal byproducts And it must be in diametric opposi- Capitalism promotes and festers onto the land and into the oceans, riv- tion to the capitalist parties—including violence among the working class over superficial differences in order to divide us—to convince us that we are each other’s enemy—and to hide the fact that it is they who are the enemy of all human kind. They are the purveyors of violence because it serves their purpose of maintaining power. They unleash weapons of mass destruction and deploy militarized police in our communities to enforce their oppressive infrastructure— including their phony “elections” that have no relationship to democratically deciding what the masses of humanity actually want and need. Instead we get to vote for one capitalist liar or another—all of whom are dedicated to defending capitalism by

4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 ty, and a thriving and healthy planet http://fortune.com/2017/01/16/world-richest- free of capitalist exploitation and war. men-income-equality/ 3 “Why Did the U.S. Drop 26,171 Bombs on the World Last Year?” 1 Rebel Voices, Page 49, Google Books The Nation, January 15, 2017 https://books.google.com/books?id=n2ATBwAA https://www.thenation.com/article/why-did-the- QBAJ&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=That+is+what us-dropped-26171-bombs-on-the-world-last-year/ +I+want+to+urge+upon+the+working+class+to 4 “Top 100 for 2016,” Defense News +become+so+organized+on+the+economic+field http://people.defensenews.com/top-100/ +that+they+can+take+and+hold+industries+in +which+they+are+employed.&source=bl&ots=Eo 5 “Defense Jobs Make up 10 Percent of U.S. Js6RMcDe&sig=HhSO8m7D5OGUeE8OzEc_ Manufacturing Demand” ENdbK7g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXpYfL- Cleared Connections tbTAhVbVWMKHbWoCLgQ6AEIKTAB#v=onep http://www.clearedconnections.com/security-clear- any means they deem fit—by violence age&q=That%20is%20what%20I%20want%20 ance-news/security-clearance/defense-jobs-make-up- or any other oppressive means. to%20urge%20upon%20the%20working%20 10-percent-of-u-s-manufacturing-demand.htm class%20to%20become%20so%20organized%20 6 “U.S. Military Spending vs. the World” Our common interests as the on%20the%20economic%20field%20that%20 https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/ working class they%20can%20take%20and%20hold%20indus- us-military-spending-vs-world/ tries%20in%20which%20they%20are%20 7 “Costs of War,” Brown University We workers have much more in employed.&f=false https://news.brown.edu/articles/2016/09/costsofwar2 common with one another than our “Big Bill” Haywood, (February 4, 1869-May 8 “Does the U.S. Spend $80 Billion a Year on differences. We all want to live a happy 18, 1928) was a founding member and leader of Incarceration?” and comfortable life. We want to see a the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget bright future for our children. We want and a member of the executive committee of http://crfb.org/blogs/us-spends-80-billion-year- to enjoy the comfort of our homes. We the Socialist Party of America. During the first two decades of the 20th century, he was involved incarceration want good food, housing, education, in several important labor battles, including the 9 “Closing Rikers Island Is a Moral Imperative” clean water, air, and a pristine environ- Colorado Labor Wars, the Lawrence Textile https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/opinion/ ment that flourishes with life. We want Strike, and other textile strikes in Massachusetts closing-rikers-island-is-a-moral- to heal the sick and care for our elders and New Jersey. imperative.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncolle and safeguard the planet for the future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Haywood ction%2Fnyregion&action= of all the life that shares it with us. 2 “The World’s 8 Richest Men Are Now as click&contentCollection=nyregion®ion=stre Wealthy as Half the World’s Population,” For- An independent party of the working am&module=stream_unit&version=latest&cont tune, January 15, 2017 entPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront class can establish the democratic mech- anisms to bring us all together into a powerful force for peace and justice. We must temporarily put aside our differences, and embrace our commonal- ity, our love of life and of a better future. We can begin by organizing meetings with open and democratic discus- sions on what our main objectives are and how we can best work together to win them. It doesn’t have to be a difficult struggle to see beyond our differences if we always remind ourselves that our common interests overwhelm those differences. Once we begin traveling down this road toward organizing ourselves into a massive and unified force for ending capitalism, we will be able to keep our eyes on the prize of justice and equali-

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 5 Shifting The Blame The cover-up of U.S. war crimes in Mosul By Ralph Schoenman

The scope of the murderous assault hundreds of civilian men, women, and of Mosul as “a humanitarian catastro- by U.S. imperialism on the Iraqi city of children on March 17, 2017. Over the phe” resulting “in the martyrdom of Mosul—with its genocide-scale war course of the following week, the Iraqi hundreds of civilians.” He called for an crimes—was beginning to filter into Civil Defense Department announced emergency session of the Iraqi parlia- the mainstream media. And then—just that 531 further bodies were dug out, ment and an official investigation of as Trump, the Democratic Party, the with more to come. the slaughter. Joint-Chiefs of staff, and the U.S. intel- By March 28, 2017 Lieutenant Al-Nujafi charged that these ongo- ligence apparatus were about to be General Stephen Townsend, U.S. ing mass civilian casualties were the indicted for these war crimes before Commander in Iraq and Syria, admit- result of new and “changed rules of world public opinion—came the April ted to Pentagon reporters: “We proba- engagement” by the U.S.-led coalition 4, 2017 chemical attack on the town of bly had a role in those casualties.” that minimized any attempt to protect Khan Shaykhun in Idlib province in the lives of unarmed, men, women, northwestern Syria. Townsend later attempted to blame the victims, claiming that there was no and children trapped in Mosul. Iraqi Responsibility for launching this reason for civilians to congregate inside officers cited by the New York Times on attack was immediately placed on buildings targeted by U.S. war planes, March 28, 2017 noted that, “the Bashar al-Assad, though no evidence and going on to blame ISIS for using American-led coalition has been quick- was provided to back this claim. No civilians as “human shields.” er to strike urban targets from the air matter. The U.S. government seized Independent media outlets, however, with less time to weigh the risks for upon this tragedy to shift the blame told another story, based on interviews civilians, a change reflecting a renewed from its war crimes in Mosul to the with survivors: Entire families had push by the U.S. military under the Syrian government for its alleged sarin- congregated in the basement of neigh- Trump administration to speed up the gas assault in Khan Shaykhun. borhood homes to escape the relentless battle for Mosul.” What were these U.S. war crimes bombing by U.S.-trained forces. Their Reporting from the scene of the in Mosul? personal accounts are devastating. devastation, the New York Amnesty International published a So horrendous was the carnage that Times account assumed ominous pro- devastating report on March 28, 2017 even Iraqi Vice President Osama al- portions for the Trump administration charging U.S. rulers with war crimes, Nujafi, who is from Mosul and serves and U.S. rulers. It described: specifying “disproportionate and indis- as the most senior Sunni official in “A panorama of destruction in criminate” saturation bombing of resi- Iraq, responded to Townsend by desig- the neighborhood of Jadida so vast dential areas of Mosul that slaughtered nating the U.S. targeting and bombing one resident compared the destruction to that of Hiroshima, Japan, where the United States dropped an atomic bomb in World War II. There was a charred arm, wrapped in a piece of red fabric, poking from the rubble; rescue workers in red jumpsuits who wore face masks to avoid the stench, some with rifles slung over their shoulders, searched the wreckage for bodies.” The Amnesty International report confirms that the war crimes in Jadida are only the bloodiest in a series of attacks carried out by U.S.-led forces. “‘Evidence gathered on the ground in East Mosul points to an alarming pattern of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes

6 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside,” reports Iraq Veterans Against the War Statement on Amnesty’s senior crisis response advis- Syria Strikes er Donatella Rovera following field By IVAW National investigations in the war-ravaged city. The high civilian toll suggests that coalition forces leading the offensive in April 12, 2017—Iraq Veterans Against entrenching the violence. We know that Mosul have failed to take adequate pre- the War (IVAW) condemns in no uncer- without self-determination, including cautions to prevent civilian deaths, in tain terms the bombing of Sharyat air- an end to all foreign intervention, the flagrant violation of international base in Syria six days ago by Donald Syrian people can’t truly be free. humanitarian law.” Trump’s administration. As veterans of We also know that the Trump admin- By March 21, 2107 the monitoring the unending and expanding wars con- istration, following the pattern of admin- group Airwars recorded over 1,000 ducted over the last 16 years, we know istrations before it, is deeply intertwined “civilian casualty events” resulting from intimately that U.S. military intervention with the military-industrial complex and airstrikes by the United States and its exacerbates and further militarizes con- seeks to increase mutual profit through allies in Iraq and Syria in March alone.1 flicts overseas and that the people who expanding U.S. wars. This is reflected in pay the greatest price are the everyday Not surprisingly, the changed “rules the erratic and dangerous foreign policy people of occupied nations. We also of engagement” enacted by the that the Trump administration is engaged know that this is not the first time our Pentagon under the Trump adminis- in, as well as the military has been tration have not elicited any protests astronomical pro- used in the Syrian from the leadership of the Democratic posed increase of conflict. U.S. U.S. military Party. This is because the war escala- the U.S. military bombs have been tion in Iraq and Syria enjoys full bipar- intervention budget by $54 bil- dropped on Syria tisan support. In fact, as the Amnesty lion. We see global under both the exacerbates and International report documents, the arms dealers, weap- Trump and Obama further militarizes carnage in Mosul was already well ons manufacturers, administrations, under way before Barack Obama left conflicts overseas and defense con- resulting in more the White House. and that the people tractors as benefi- than a thousand ciaries of the vio- Jadida, of course, never became a civilian deaths. who pay the greatest lence in Syria who household word in the United States. As we oppose stand to turn a prof- Reports were only beginning to make price are the the long history of it with each new their way into the corporate media U.S. intervention everyday people of strike and each suc- about the extent of the U.S.-sponsored and destabilization occupied nations cessive deployment. carnage in Mosul. The sarin attack in in Syria and in the Syria came just at the right moment to We call for a region, we also enable Trump and his Democratic stop to all U.S. military actions in Syria, Party allies to shift the blame for their acknowledge and oppose the many including the removal of all U.S. troops war crimes in Mosul to the Assad actors causing death and devastation to and bases in the country. These cruise regime; all the better to justify the U.S. the people of Syria. Bashar Al-Assad has missile strikes were launched without missile attacks against the sovereign responded brutally to a popular, non- consultation with Congress nor with the nation of Syria. violent uprising for democracy and United Nations Security Council. They freedom, which emerged in 2011, and continue a series of dangerous prece- (Reprinted from the April 2017 issue in the years since has descended into dents that justify military force “as of The Organizer newspaper) civil war. The government has used humanitarian” in nature and expand barrel-bombing campaigns, tactics executive power at the expense of demo- designed to create famine, “disap- cratic oversight. Time and time again, 1 “Civilian deaths from U.S.-led airstrikes hit peared” lead dissidents and voices of this drive towards war-making has served record high under Donald Trump,” by Thomas opposition, and tortured. In addition to to create the conditions for further desta- Gibbons-Neff the U.S., foreign nations including bilization, displacement, and civilian http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, casualties that have devastating conse- americas/us-politics/donald-trump-civilian- and Turkey have utilized Syria as a bat- quences locally, regionally, and in this deaths-syria-iraq-middle-east-a7649486.html tleground for their proxy wars, further case globally as we have seen in recent

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 7 days with the building tensions between North Korea and the United States. Another Dangerous Rush to Judgment in Syria By Robert Parry As the Trump administration claims that its strikes on Syria are for humanitarian reasons, its policies at home and With the latest hasty judgment the poison gas (the exact type still not abroad instead demonstrate their strat- about Tuesday’s [April 4, 2017] poi- determined) for potential use against egy in mobilizing war, Islamophobia, son-gas deaths, in a rebel-held area of Kurdish forces operating in northern and anti-immigrant sentiment as a northern Syria, the mainstream U.S. Syria near the Turkish border or for a means of leveraging fear and consoli- news media once more reveals itself to terror attack in a government-controlled dating power. Just as we have chal- be a threat to responsible journalism city like the capital of Damascus. lenged the so-called “War on Terror” and to the future of humanity. Again, Reporting by investigative journal- and this most recent military strike, we we see the troubling pattern of verdict ist Seymour Hersh and statements by continue to challenge Islamophobia first, investigation later, even when some Turkish police and opposition and the “Muslim ban” at home. If the that behavior can lead to a dangerous politicians linked Turkish intelligence Trump administration wants to be war escalation and many more deaths. and Al Qaeda-affiliated jihadists to the humanitarian, it can begin to address Before a careful evaluation of the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin gas attack outside the crises it has inherited by ending its evidence about Tuesday’s tragedy was Damascus that killed hundreds, policy of denying immigration from possible, The New York Times and although the Times and other major majority Muslim countries and accept- other major U.S. news outlets had U.S. news outlets continue to blame ing Syrian refugees in significant num- pinned the blame for the scores of dead that incident on Assad’s regime. bers to the United States. on the Syrian government of Bashar We call for an independent investiga- al-Assad. That revived demands that Seasoned propagandists tion by U.N. arms inspectors into the the U.S. and other nations establish a On Tuesday, the Times assigned two recent release of chemical weapons on a “no-fly zone” over Syria, which would of its most committed anti-Syrian- civilian population, and for an interna- amount to launching another “regime government propagandists to cover tionally led effort to broker a cessation of change” war and would put America the Syrian poison-gas story, Michael B. violence in Syria. From the hundreds of into a likely hot war with nuclear- Gordon and Anne Barnard. civilians killed in Mosul last week to the armed Russia. Gordon has been at the front lines ongoing attacks on Yemen, U.S. military Even as basic facts were still being of the neocon “regime change” strate- operations continue to worsen political assembled about Tuesday’s incident, gies for years. He co-authored the instability and erode people’s chances we, the public, were prepped to disbe- Times’ infamous aluminum tube for survival. We call for accountability lieve the Syrian government’s response story of September 8, 2002, which for the war crimes that the U.S. has com- that the poison gas may have come relied on U.S. government sources and mitted in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, from rebel stockpiles that could have Iraqi defectors to frighten Americans Pakistan, Somalia, and countless other been released either accidentally or with images of “mushroom clouds” if countries since the beginning of the so- intentionally causing the civilian they didn’t support President George called “War on Terror.” deaths in a town in Idlib Province. W. Bush’s upcoming invasion of Iraq. As we recognize that U.S. foreign One possible scenario was that policy primarily relies on war and war Syrian warplanes bombed a rebel weap- profiteering, we also recognize the ons depot where the poison gas was danger in failing to acknowledge that stored, causing the containers to rup- the people and countries it targets are ture. Another possibility was a staged distinct from each other. When it event by increasingly desperate Al comes to local needs, demands, and Qaeda jihadists who are known for accountability moving forward, we their disregard for innocent human life. aspire to follow the lead of the people While it’s hard to know at this early directly impacted by these wars. stage what’s true and what’s not, these —Iraq Veterans Against the War, alternative explanations, I’m told, are April 12, 2017 being seriously examined by U.S. intel- https://www.ivaw.org/blog/ivaw- ligence. One source cited the possibility statement-syria-strikes that Turkey had supplied the rebels with

8 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 The timing played perfectly into the of the co-authors of the article, waited about early U.S. government and administration’s advertising “rollout” until December 28, 2013, to publish a Syrian rebel claims that the Syrian for the Iraq War. halfhearted semi-retraction. [See military was responsible for intention- Of course, the story turned out to be Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Backs Off ally deploying poison gas. false and to have unfairly downplayed Its Syria-Sarin Analysis.”] Perhaps for the first time, The New skeptics of the claim that the alumi- Gordon was a co-author of another York Times cited President Trump as a num tubes were for nuclear centrifug- bogus Times’ front-page story on April reliable source because he and his press es, when the aluminum tubes actually 21, 2014, when the State Department secretary were saying what the Times were meant for artillery. But the article and the Ukrainian government fed the wanted to hear—that Assad must be guilty. provided a great impetus toward the Times two photographs that suppos- Gordon and Barnard also cited Iraq War, which ended up killing near- edly proved that a group of Russian the controversial White Helmets, the ly 4,500 U.S. soldiers and hundreds-of- soldiers—first photographed in rebels’ Western-financed civil defense thousands of Iraqis. Russia—had entered Ukraine, where group that has worked in close prox- Gordon’s co-author, Judith Miller, they were photographed again. imity with Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and became the only U.S. journalist known However, two days later, Gordon has come under suspicion of staging to have lost a job over the reckless and was forced to pen a retraction because heroic “rescues” but is nevertheless shoddy reporting that contributed to it turned out that both photos had treated as a fount of truth-telling by the the Iraq disaster. For his part, Gordon been shot inside Ukraine, destroying mainstream U.S. news media. continued serving as a respected the story’s premise. [See In early online versions of the Times’ Pentagon correspondent. Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Retracts story, a reaction from the Syrian mili- Russian-Photo Scoop.”] Gordon’s name also showed up in a tary was buried deep in the article supporting role on the Times’ botched Gordon perhaps personifies better around the 27th paragraph, noting: “vector analysis,” which supposedly than anyone how mainstream journal- “The government denies that it has proved that the Syrian military was ism works. If you publish false stories used chemical weapons, arguing that responsible for the August 21, 2013 that fit with the Establishment’s narra- insurgents and Islamic State fighters sarin-gas attack. The “vector analysis” tives, your job is safe even if the stories use toxins to frame the government or story of September 17, 2013, traced blow up in your face. However, if you go that the attacks are staged.” the flight paths of two rockets, recovered against the grain—and if someone The following paragraph mentioned in suburbs of Damascus back to a Syrian important raises a question about your the possibility that a Syrian bombing military base 9.5 kilometers away. story—you can easily find yourself out raid had struck a rebel warehouse on the street even if your story is correct. The article became the “slam-dunk” where poison gas was stored, thus evidence that the Syrian government No skepticism allowed releasing it unintentionally. was lying when it denied launching the But the placement of the response sarin attack. However, like the alumi- Anne Barnard, Gordon’s co-author on was a clear message that the Times dis- num tube story, the Times’ “vector Tuesday’s Syrian poison-gas story, has believed whatever the Assad govern- analysis” ignored contrary evidence, consistently reported on the Syrian con- such as the unreliability of one azimuth flict as if she were a press agent for the ment said. At least in the version of the from a rocket that landed in Moadamiya rebels, playing up their anti-government story that appeared in the morning because it had struck a building in its claims even when there’s no evidence. newspaper, a government statement descent. That rocket also was found to For instance, on June 2, 2015, was moved up to the sixth paragraph contain no sarin, so it’s inclusion in the Barnard, who is based in Beirut, although still surrounded by com- vectoring of two sarin-laden rockets Lebanon, authored a front-page story ments meant to signal the Times’ made no sense. that pushed the rebels’ propaganda acceptance of the rebel version. But the Times’ story ultimately fell theme that the Syrian government was After noting the Assad government’s apart when rocket scientists analyzed somehow in cahoots with the Islamic denial, Gordon and Barnard added, the one sarin-laden rocket that had State though even the U.S. State “But only the Syrian military had the landed in the Zamalka area and deter- Department acknowledged that it had ability and the motive to carry out an mined that it had a maximum range of no confirmation of the rebels’ claims. aerial attack like the one that struck the about two kilometers, meaning that it When Gordon and Barnard teamed rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.” could not have originated from the up to report on the latest Syrian trage- But they again ignored the alterna- Syrian military base. C.J. Chivers, one dy, they again showed no skepticism tive possibilities. One was that a bomb-

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 9 ing raid ruptured containers for chem- claims about the Syrian government’s good for their careers, so they endorsed icals that the rebels were planning to use of chlorine gas, a set of accusations a couple of other alleged cases despite use in some future attack, and the that the Times and other media now their inability to conduct a field inves- other was that Al Qaeda’s jihadists report simply as flat-fact. tigation. [See Consortiumnews.com’s staged the incident to elicit precisely Yet, the claims about the Syrian mili- “UN Team Heard Claims of Staged the international outrage directed at tary mixing in canisters of chlorine in Chemical Attacks.”] Assad as has occurred. supposed “barrel bombs” make little Now, that dubious U.N. report is Gordon and Barnard also could be sense because chlorine deployed in that being leveraged into this new incident, wrong about Assad being the only one fashion is ineffective as a lethal weapon one opportunistic finding used to jus- with a motive to deploy poison gas. but it has become an important element tify another. But the pressing question Since Assad’s forces have gained a deci- of the rebels’ propaganda campaign. now is: Have the American people sive upper hand over the rebels, why U.N. investigators, who were under come to understand enough about would he risk stirring up international intense pressure from the United States “psychological operations” and “strate- outrage at this juncture? On the other and Western nations to give them gic communications” that they will hand, the desperate rebels might view something to use against Assad, did finally show the skepticism that no lon- the horrific scenes from the chemical- support rebel claims about the govern- ger exists in the major U.S. news media? weapons deployment as a last-minute ment using chlorine in a couple of Investigative reporter Robert Parry game-changer. cases, but the investigators also received broke many of the Iran-Contra stories Pressure to prejudge testimony from residents in one area for The Associated Press and Newsweek who described the staging of a chlorine in the 1980s. His latest book is America’s None of this means that Assad’s forc- attack for propaganda purposes. Stolen Narrative. es are innocent, but a serious investigation ascertains the facts and then reaches One might have thought that the —Consortiumnews.com, April 5, 2017 a conclusion, not the other way around. evidence of one staged attack would have increased skepticism about the https://consortiumnews. However, to suggest these other other incidents, but the U.N. investiga- com/2017/04/05/another-dangerous- possibilities will, I suppose, draw the tors apparently understood what was rush-to-judgment-in-syria/ usual accusations about “Assad apolo- gist,” but refusing to prejudge an investigation is what journalism is supposed to be about. The Times, however, apparently has no concern anymore for letting the facts be assembled and then letting them speak for themselves. The Times weighed in on Wednesday with an editorial entitled “A New Level of Depravity From Mr. Assad.” Another problem with the behavior of the Times and the mainstream media is that by jumping to a conclusion they pressure other important people to join in the condemnations and that, in turn, can prejudice the investigation while also generating a dangerous momentum toward war. Once the political leadership pro- nounces judgment, it becomes career- threatening for lower-level officials to disagree with those conclusions. We’ve seen that already with how United Nations investigators accepted rebel

10 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Dangerous Escalation of U.S. Wars in the Offing By Barry Sheppard

The disarray among the politicians Another example is the Islamophobia Strike that took place in some 30 coun- of both capitalist parties seen in last that the Bush and Obama administra- tries. In past years, there have been very year’s election campaign and following tions pushed after the 2001 attack on modest March 8 actions in the U.S. The the election of Donald Trump has the World Trade Center to justify their difference this year was the election of intensified in the first two months of “War on Terror” against largely Muslim Trump and his reactionary agenda. his presidency. countries in the Middle East and Africa, On March 10, Native Americans Charges and counter-charges between beginning with the wars against marched for their rights in the capital, the Democrats and the Trump administra- Afghanistan and Iraq, widening to demonstrating that the many months- tion are hurled, prompting Congressional Libya, Yemen, and Syria. Trump raised long struggle at Standing Rock against investigations that may bring in the FBI, that hatred of Muslims to a new level. the Dakota Access Pipeline has awak- CIA and other spy agencies. ened a new fighting spirit among One of these charges being raised by They also want to Native Americans. the Democrats is that Trump is collud- The Democrats took notice, and ing with Russia against the United States. deflect attention feared they would be left behind. They Some even say he is a puppet of Vladimir from the reality that switched gears from “working with” Putin. This serves the Democrats in two the Democrats have Trump to taking an oppositional ways, domestically, and in a dispute over stance, in hopes of corralling this new U.S. foreign policy. been part of the movement into the “safe” channels of Before discussing the foreign policy bipartisan policies trusting the Democrats to somehow side, and the danger underlying it, that have set the stop Trump. domestically the Democrats are raising stage for Trump. The Democrats’ charge that Trump the alarm—“The Russians are coming! colluded with Russia to influence the The Russians are coming!” in an U.S. elections and U.S. foreign policy attempt to divert and co-opt the deep Before Trump’s inauguration, in relation to Russia reeks with hypoc- opposition to Trump’s anti-immigrant, risy. Of course Russia wants to influ- Islamophobic, misogynistic, xenopho- Obama, Clinton and even Sanders raised the idea of “working with” the ence U.S. policy toward it, and “med- bic, white nationalist, climate change dles” and hacks into computers, etc., denial, etc., policies into placing hope new administration. The Democratic leader in the Senate, Charles Schumer, just like every other country that has that the Democrats will be the vehicle the power to spy and influence does. to stop Trump one way or another. went so far as to defend Trump’s nom- ination of the notorious racist Senator But the U.S. as the most powerful They also want to deflect attention Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, say- country has far outstripped Russia and the from the reality that the Democrats ing he was a good Senator to work rest of the world in this respect. “In slight- have been part of the bipartisan policies with, and that he had changed and was ly less than a hundred years from 1898 to that have set the stage for Trump. One no longer a racist. 1994, the U.S. government has intervened example is the Obama administration’s The day after the inauguration saw successfully to change governments in vast increase in the deportation of Latin America a total of at least 41 times,” undocumented immigrants, reaching the huge Women’s March against Trump, the largest demonstration in U.S. history wrote historian John Coatsworth in around two million, more than the ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America. total of all previous administrations in nearly 700 cities, with the actions in combined, with Republican support. Washington, D.C. and New York alone A political scientist at Carnegie While Obama did this without fanfare, drawing in over one million participants. Mellon University calculated that so most non-Latinos weren’t even Many more protests of Trump on vari- Washington intervened in presidential aware of it, Trump has taken over the ous issues have continued. elections in other countries 81 times deportation machinery that Obama set There were two recent ones. Tens- between 1946 and 2000. up to unleash even a greater assault on of-thousands turned out for What the Democrats’ offensive rep- the undocumented, and openly fanning International Women’s Day on March resents is one side of a tactical debate in the flames of intolerance and racism. 8, part of the International Women’s the ruling class. Since the overthrow of

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 11 “…various sections of the U.S. ruling class are increasingly panicked by the decline in U.S. power in the world…. Losing confidence, they have demonstrated a growing support for the use of heavy-handed military means to maintain the U.S.-dominated global order, enlisting the population as a whole in a patriotic quest for increased geopolitical dominance. “Whichever party was to occupy the White House after the elections, all the indications were that a more aggressive military posture abroad was in the cards. The main dispute…was whether to primarily target Russia or China. In this respect, the Trump administration’s grand imperial strategy of directly confronting China, the world’s fastest growing economic powerhouse, before it is too late from the stand- the Soviet Union by its ruling bureau- to increase the military pressure on point of U.S. world hegemony, is a cracy and the re-establishment of mar- Russia may be designed to try to hold change in emphasis rather than ket capitalism, U.S. policy has been to together the European Union, which is broad aims. It promises an even step-by-step challenge Russia militari- in danger of disintegrating, by strength- more aggressive, nationalist-imperi- ly. This has been done by bringing into ening the NATO military alliance. alist posture, one in line with the NATO former countries of the Soviet At bottom, this is a desperate Trump administration’s overall ‘America First’ stance…” bloc in Eastern Europe and some for- attempt to maintain the old “world mer republics of the USSR. order” in Europe that emerged after In other words, more war. Washington is pressing to also the Second World War, where the U.S. —March 17, 2017 incorporate Ukraine into NATO, com- dominated the European imperialisms, pleting the military buildup on Russia’s which did enjoy some of the fruits of western border. This has met with stiff this alliance but also became vassal resistance from Russia. states to the U.S. “In slightly less than Hillary Clinton ran as the proponent Trump (and his advisors) down- of this aggressive military stance against graded the importance of NATO, and a hundred years Russia. Before the election campaign called into question the old “world from 1898 to 1994, she went so far as to propose establish- order” in Europe. A more aggressive ing a “no fly” zone in Syria, which stance toward Europe, and especially the U.S. government would be enforced by the U.S. Air Germany, was called for, an economic Force. This would have meant a direct nationalism as opposed to “globalism.” has intervened military challenge to Russia, which was Russia, which competes very little with successfully to backing the Assad regime with its U.S. capitalism economically is not the planes. Either Russia would back down, main enemy in this view. And a deal change governments or there would have been a clash. with Russia could open up U.S. pene- in Latin America a Obama rejected her advice as too tration of Russia’s vast oil and gas dangerous. reserves, which former Exxon chief total of at least Rex Tillerson had already begun to set Trump in his campaign proposed a in motion before he became Trump’s 41 times...” shift, from mainly targeting Russia to Secretary of state. targeting China. This reflected the view of a growing section of the ruling class, An editorial in the current issue of a shift in tactics. The Democrats drive Monthly Review sums up:

12 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 U.S. Out of Syria Now! It’s time for unity in the streets! Statement Issued By Labor Fightback Network

On April 6, 2017, President Donald having won complete control of appointed Donald John Trump to be the John Trump ordered a massive missile Aleppo. The Trump administration policeman and trial judge. How does the barrage on the Shayrat Air Base in appeared to have dropped the Obama United States claim the right to be the Syria’s Homs province. It was an act of administration’s call for regime change moral arbiter in the Syrian conflict? war, for which there can be no justifi- in Syria. As late as the last week of To be sure, the videotape images of cation. The Syrian Arab Republic is no March, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson the Khan Sheikhoun victims provoke threat to the security of the American asserted that the choice of the future of an emotional response—and it pro- people. The President did not even the Assad regime was one to be made voked an emotional response on the bother to claim that it is. “by the Syrian people.” part of the President. Well-meaning The President’s justification for the people are saying to one another, “we attack was an April 4 chemical attack can’t just let this happen and do noth- on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib ing.” They are then willing to give the province in northwestern Syria. Idlib President grudging support for his province is under the control of armed decision to launch a missile strike. opposition groups who are linked to However, even the horror of a sarin gas al-Qaeda. About 80 civilians, including attack does not give the United States children, died in the attack, and many the right to take military action, espe- others were injured. It is alleged that cially when similar attacks on civilian the gas used was sarin, one of the dead- populations are occurring in other areas, such as Yemen, where U.S. ally liest weapons in the chemical arsenal. Sa’udi Arabia is committing war crimes The Trump administration was on as high a scale as anything happen- quick to blame the Syrian government, ing in Syria, but from which videotape headed by Bashar al-Assad. The evi- does not find its way to television net- dence that President Trump provided work news in the United States. was about as definitive as the evidence Though President Trump’s approv- No, working people in the United that former President Barack Obama al rating is the lowest in history for a States need to demand that the wiretapped Trump Tower in the president so early in his term, Americans seemed to agree with his Administration get out and stay out of months before the election. If Trump Syria—immediately, totally, and has better evidence than “I’m hearing” stated policy of keeping out of the Syrian civil war. unconditionally. That means no mis- or “everybody knows” he has not yet sile strikes, no aerial bombardment, no shared it with the American people. An attack using sarin gas against drone strikes, no reconnaissance The working people of the United civilians would be so counterproduc- flights, no weapons, no money, no States deserve to know the truth—after tive to the Syrian government’s overall “support troops,” and no combat experiences such as the Gulf of Tonkin strategic interests that it raises the troops. That means whether or not incident at the beginning of the question of whether some other party Bashar al-Assad remains in power, Vietnam war and the allegations that is guilty of carrying it out—an attack whether or not Russia, Iran, or para- President Saddam Hussein possessed often called a “false flag” operation. It military groups such as the Lebanese “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq must be acknowledged that there is no Hizbullah militia are helping the Syrian in 2003—weapons which were never more hard evidence that the Khan government fight the Islamic State and found because they never existed. Sheikhoun attack was a false flag attack al-Qaeda forces. And it means now, not In terms of military and political than there is that Assad’s forces did it. after a settlement is negotiated, not tactics, a poison-gas attack on civilians, However, in a larger sense, the ques- after we “figure out what’s going on,” even in al-Qaeda-controlled territory, tion of responsibility for the chemical and certainly not after U.S. casualties makes little sense. The Syrian govern- attack is irrelevant. Even if Bashar al- reach unacceptable levels. ment has been regaining the upper Assad is guilty of the attack—and the Clear, principled demands for hand in Syria’s five-year-plus civil war, evidence does not prove it at all—no one immediate, total, and unconditional

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 13 withdrawal and non-intervention conclusive evidence—and then only That is the right thing to do. Donald stand in stark contrast to the mealy- calling on President Trump to Trump has taken a step towards escalat- mouthed evasions coming from the “explain” his military action to the ing U.S. involvement in the Syrian con- politicians of the Democratic Party. Congress. Representative Tulsi flict. It’s up to working people through- The most honest and forthright expres- Gabbard of Hawaii took the strongest out the country to unite to demand that sion came from defeated presidential stand of any member of Congress he does not take a next step. candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, against Trump’s action, but her state- Lastly, Americans who are demand- who called for a military strike against ment fell short of calling for uncondi- ing that the United States stay out of the Syrian government even before tional withdrawal. She even called for Syria need to add one more demand: President Trump announced that he Assad’s “execution” if he were found that the United States open its borders had ordered it. After hearing of guilty of the Khan Sheikhoun attack at to Syrian civilians who are fleeing the Trump’s decision, Clinton expressed the International Criminal Court in violence in their country. The Trump her support for it. Senate Minority The Hague. Administration is hypocritical in the Leader Chuck Schumer of New York United action by the labor move- extreme when it launches a missile also expressed support for the missile ment and antiwar organizations is a strike into Syria because of violence strike, only complaining that the vital necessity. Unfortunately, united against civilians and then refuses to President had not come to Congress to action has been hampered by toxic hos- allow civilian refugees into the United ask for authorization. Similarly, House tility between activists who support the States. This has to change. Let them in! Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sup- removal of Assad from power and those —Labor Fightback Network, April 8, ported the air strikes, calling them a who recognize that it is not a decision in 2017 “proportional response,” but urging which Americans can have any say. Trump to come before Congress for Insisting that the United States stay out laborfightback.org any further authorization of use of of a conflict is not the same as endorsing Labor Fightback Network military force. one side in a conflict. When polemics P.O. Box 187 Senator Elizabeth Warren of among activists become more impor- Flanders, NJ 07836 Massachusetts issued a statement tant than working together for peace, it https://www.facebook.com/laborfightback which began by condemning the benefits only the war-makers. United “Syrian regime” for the Khan action is the vital necessity today. Sheikhoun attack—despite the Trump Emergency actions have been scheduled Administration’s inability to present for as early as the afternoon of April 7. Americans who are demanding that the United States stay out of Syria need to add one more demand: that the United States open its borders to Syrian civilians who are fleeing the violence in their country.

14 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 From Drone Strikes to MOAB The strategically silenced By Hoda Katebi

April 19, 2017—U.S. foreign policy presence of unmistakably large civilian sible task when the suspect in question consists of trading bodies for approval populations—and the fact that these has been conveniently killed and is ratings, guilt for innocence, absence for populations were placed in immediate therefore unable to speak or go to trial life, and strategic silencing, all for fear physical and psychological dangers—is and the only statements provided are of a threat both feigned and self-made. not at all an uncommon practice. given by the U.S. military personnel On April 13, 2017, the Trump Much like the history of physical, rhe- who conducted the strikes. Drone regime dropped the GBU-43 massive torical, ideological and academic era- strikes are supposedly designed to ordnance air blast (MOAB) also known sure of Indigenous people from North assassinate only those posing a “con- as the “Mother of all Bombs” in the America, there is a continual erasure of tinuing, imminent threat to U.S. per- Achin district of Nangarhar in mass populations in the Middle East sons,” yet this threat is determined Afghanistan. While the official state- and Africa, who are frequently invisibi- based on minimal or poor “intelli- ment from the Headquarters of the lized and deemed irrelevant by those gence” gathered from phones (which United States Forces in Kabul, who wish to craft a narrative that constantly shift hands) and emails in Afghanistan, notes that the military excuses violence and mass destruction. undeclared war zones, such as Yemen “took every precaution to avoid civil- Afghanistan carries a deep histo- and Somalia, unreliable government ian casualties” in what White House ry of being designated as a testing watch lists, and information gathered Press Secretary Sean Spicer called on ground for Western and Russian mili- by machines and subject to fallible Thursday morning a remote, moun- tary weaponry (as India, Ghana and human interpretation. tainous area, the Achin district is, in other Asian and African countries are Anyone unfortunate enough to be fact, home to a population of for Western medicine.) Although its passing through the targeted area 150,000 and sits a little over 20 miles population is significantly larger than (however ambiguous or random it may from the capital of Nangarhar, a prov- that of Berkeley, California, Achin is be) at the time of a drone strike is ince in Eastern Afghanistan with a portrayed as empty and vacant—a deemed “guilty by association” and population of almost 1.5 million. This place where the dropping of a never- designated by the military as an “enemy population now has to endure, at the before-used, 30-foot-long, 21,600- killed in action” or EKIA, and there- very least, the lasting psychological pound bomb filled with 18,000 pounds fore no longer a civilian. Therefore, not effects of witnessing a massive mush- of explosives is portrayed as carrying only are those killed by drone strikes room cloud rising from their back- no risk of civilian casualties. more often than not simply unintend- yards, as well as the ongoing threats to Beyond recognizing the continual ed victims targeted based on faulty their safety. erasure of civilians and populations at evidence, but determinations of guilt or innocence are largely arbitrary and Bilal Sarwary, a journalist based in the state’s discretion, it is important to contextual. Afghanistan who spoke to locals in the ask: According to the U.S. government, area after the bombing, told BBC who is classified as a “civilian?” Who is Ultimately, the distinction between Friday morning that “their doors are not considered a “civilian,” and is instead enemy and civilian is irrelevant when destroyed or damaged and every single marked with the ever-shifting and conta- there is no trial, little evidence, and vir- window or glass is broken...[they felt] gious label of “enemy combatant?” tually no follow-up in response to casu- more like doomsday...like the sky is To answer this question, we must alties. Despite the ambiguity or messi- coming down.” Fresh bombings in turn toward the foreign policy hall- ness of official labels, at the end of the Achin continued through this morn- mark and legacy of the Obama admin- day, anything seen through a drone ing, according to local sources. istration: drone strikes. scope is deemed utterly worthless. Nangarhar has been noted by many According to The Drone Papers, On March 17, 2017, U.S.-led coali- Afghans as one of the more beautiful secret CIA and military documents tion airstrikes hit Mosul, Iraq, killing the parts of the country, with perpetual leaked to The Intercept under Obama’s highest number of civilians in one blow spring-like weather. term, anyone on the ground is largely since the start of the 2003 invasion. The U.S. government and main- deemed guilty until proven innocent— The same day, a U.S. airstrike tar- stream media’s failure to mention the and proving as much is a near-impos- geted a mosque and religious school in

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 15 Syria (which the U.S. later denied, profit from consequent anti-Muslim despite photographic evidence) while violence both domestically and abroad; 300 people were praying. Forty-two by Zionist groups working to maintain people were killed and many more an ethno-supremacist apartheid regime were injured. in Israel; and by other individuals and Although it has recently escalated, organizations seeking to maintain and NO WAR the murder of civilians in the ongoing increase their power and privilege, polit- “war on terror” is not new. Consider ically, socially and economically. ON SYRIA the U.S.’s targeting of Yemen, where, Certainly, erasing populations, des- according to a UN News ignating them as test subjects and retro- Center report last year, “children are actively applying “enemy” labels to hide paying the heaviest price.” Salon report- mistakes have become normalized strated that ongoing U.S.-backed Saudi egies of U.S. foreign policy. These strat- No single drone strike or bombing bombing “intentionally targets food egies are tied to systems of profit and should be seen in isolation, but rather production” and Truthout has analyzed privilege, as well as to political popular- within this larger context of a social, how strikes have continually worsened ity. From Thomas Jefferson and political, military and economic anti- the ongoing famine in Yemen. the Barbary Wars to Donald Trump, Muslim system. There are people and According to comments given to airstrikes, bombings, coups, wars and organizations that profit off of the era- The Intercept by a source within the violence against the AMENSA (Africa, sure and destruction of Muslim bodies intelligence community wishing to Middle East, Muslim, South Asia) and bodies of color. This profit-driven remain anonymous, official reports of region have been seen as quick fixes for murder becomes infinitely easier to civilian casualties from the U.S. gov- low presidential approval ratings. carry out when Afghan, Iraqi, Somali, Yemeni and other voices and narra- ernment are “exaggerating at best, if In a tweet from 2012, Trump fore- tives are intentionally and consistently not outright lies.” casted that then-President Obama excluded from Western spaces and would conduct airstrikes against This all, of course, fits plainly and conversations. clearly into a larger structure of the Muslim countries as a way to increase physical and ideological “war on terror,” his approval rating, a tactic that Obama Individual narratives and stories are in which anti-Muslim racism is funded used and now-President Trump has crucial: narratives of what it feels like by weapons manufacturers looking to adopted as well. for your mother to be killed by a drone strike; the preference for cloudy days over blue skies because drones can only fly on clear days; the haunting feeling of being on the U.S. drone kill list and watching family, friends and strangers die in your place due to miscalculation; the perpetual ominous hum of drones flying above your community; or not knowing which Friday prayer will be your last. Buried beneath state-sanctioned narratives of erasure are human lives that are continuously tor- mented, tortured and haunted. These lives are exactly what the regime wants you to forget. —Truthout, April 19, 2017 http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/ item/40261-from-drone-strikes-to- moab-the-strategically-silenced

16 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Our Migrant Crisis A view from Canada By Ernie Tate

A by-product of the present toxic However, there’s a loophole in the melts in the spring. Recently, two atmosphere in the United States against agreement, which many of those seeking young men from Ghana were discov- immigrants and refugees has been a to cross the border have discovered. ered nearly frozen to death just outside sharp increase in this country in recent Because Canada deems the U.S. to be “a the farming community of Emerson, weeks in the number of asylum seekers safe third country,” at legal entry Manitoba, which is close to Minnesota walking across the Canadian border, points—customs and border posts— on the American side. Parts of their often placing themselves and their fam- claimants for refugee status can be hands had to be amputated because of ilies in harm’s way from our extremely refused entry. And that is what usually severe frostbite. harsh winter. It’s also a consequence it happens. But if they’re able to avoid We are accustomed to seeing this should be noted, of the military inter- these border stations somehow and kind of tragedy play itself out in ventions by the American empire in the make their way across the border, which Southern Europe and other places, and Arab and African world—now greatly they do usually on foot, they have a right where hundreds-of-thousands of des- destabilized because of it, especially under the Geneva Refugee Convention, perate migrants have risked their lives since the fall of the Soviet Union. And of which Canada is a signatory, to make on flimsy water-craft, in their attempt like everywhere else, reactionary forces an application for asylum, no matter to find a safe haven, but never in here are attempting to exploit it to how they’ve arrived here. Canada, and although not on the same stoke up anti-immigrant and anti-refu- Those we see on television every scale in terms of numbers, it’s our ver- gee sentiment. night are taking advantage of that sion of that crises. Canadians, these days, are seeing loophole. The RCMP, the Royal While the number of people cross- the refugee crises play itself out in real Canadian Mounted Police, have been ing the border in this way has jumped time every night on television. arresting them as they come over. significantly in the past few months, it Journalists are patrolling the border to None have been charged with any had been gradually increasing in the see who is coming across and inter- offence, but they are questioned and previous years and long before Trump’s viewing those they find and even tak- handed over to the CBSA, the Canadian election. It’s now estimated that up to ing them to safety. The images are truly Border Security Authorities, where 500,000 non-status migrants are living appalling, as the asylum seekers franti- they can make a claim for asylum and here, and it’s only going to increase. cally try to get around Canada’s “Third then are released. Safe Country” agreement with the Dangerous conditions Risking lives United States, signed in 2002, the main purpose of which was to stem the flow Crossing the border on foot, Because of the intolerance and the to Canada of refugees fleeing Latin through open fields and walking the xenophobic environment south of the America’s dictatorial regimes—espe- back-roads, along railway tracks and border, and fearful of being arrested by cially Colombia’s—when the year trails for long hours through the night the security forces and having to spend before, 2001, over 45,000 crossed the at so-called “illegal entry” points all many months in detention centers, border. This agreement, sarcastically along the border—but mainly in people, many of whom have lived in renamed, the “None is Too Many” Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba—the the United States, are risking their lives agreement, alluding to a statement migrants can be seen making their way to get to Canada. Last year, 7022 made by a Canadian immigration offi- into Canada, sometimes a single indi- crossed, up 40 percent from the year cial during the Second World War vidual, usually young men, but mainly before. And with better weather now about Jewish refugees seeking asylum families, mothers and fathers frequent- approaching, immigration authorities in Canada from European fascism ly carrying babies and with small chil- are expecting many more. when many were turned away, was vig- dren by their side, pulling their bags But in the midst of this sadness, orously opposed by all civil liberties behind them, ill-prepared for the deep what has been truly heartening and organizations, churches, refugee sup- snow and sub-zero temperatures. awe-inspiring, is the solidarity of many port groups, by lawyers’ associations, Such are the terrible conditions that local people from the small communi- by the trade unions and by the New many farmers are wondering what ties near the border who have been out Democratic Party. they’ll find in the fields once the snow on the back-roads, CBC television

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 17 reports, frequently throughout the Nonetheless, the “Safe Third But, Kelly Leitch, a cabinet minister night, searching for migrants. They Country” agreement and how it is in the previous government, seems to provide them with warm food, often being applied, has provoked a wide- be ignoring that lesson. A candidate in putting them up for the night and ranging discussion. Primarily because the leadership campaign in the arranging for them to be housed in of the extreme physical danger the Conservative party to fill Stephen local community centers or in shelters. migrants are confronting, national civil Harper’s shoes as leader, she is doing In Toronto, almost 900 have been liberties organizations, immigrant sup- her best to imitate Trump in propos- taken in and municipal officials are port groups, labor and the NDP— ing, “in an unmistakable bit of racist demanding that the provincial and fed- Canada’s Labor Party—are pressuring dog whistling,” as the Globe and Mail eral governments provide assistance. In the government to repeal it. The U.S., writes, that all new immigrants be addition, and in a gesture of solidarity, especially with Trump’s election, they questioned about whether or not they several of Canada’s major cities— say, can no longer be considered “safe” subscribe to “Canadian values,” what- Toronto, Hamilton, London and for asylum seekers. The NDP’s leader, ever those are, before they are allowed Vancouver, with Ottawa and Edmonton Thomas Mulcair, has even character- into the country. presently considering it—have declared ized Trump a “fascist.” But it is unlikely the Liberals will themselves “sanctuary cities,” more a Reactionaries mobilizing against repeal the agreement and offend the token than anything else because they refugees new American administration, which haven’t allocated resources to make it a is questioning NAFTA, the North As we’ve seen in many places around reality, but it is meant to allow refugee American Free Trade Agreement, the world these past few years, and claimants to apply for municipal ser- between Canada, Mexico and the U.S., Canada is no exception, opposition to vices such as access to homeless shel- wanting to “tweak” it, under a threat of refugees is an issue around which all ters, community centers, libraries and imposing heavy import taxes on reactionary forces are mobilizing, seek- police services, without the need to Canadian exports to the U.S.—almost ing to exploit the rise in Islamophobia, show proof of citizenship or residency. two-billion dollars Canadian every anti-Semitism and racism generally, day. Trudeau is unlikely to do anything With a population of just over and even stoke it a little more vigor- 35,000,000, Canada has been much that will annoy the new president. And ously with their incendiary racism. last week, Ralph Goodall, the federal more generous than its next-door neigh- Newspapers in Canada report an bor on this issue. Some 300,000 immi- government’s Minster of Public Safety, appreciable increase in the number of who was in Washington having talks grants will enter the country this year, attacks upon mosques, synagogues, with Trump officials about the matter, out of which 30,000 most likely will be and Jewish cemeteries. In a truly shock- confirmed this by stating emphatically refugees. Soon after his election in 2015, ing expression of this, in Quebec in that there will be no changes to the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sharply January of this year, where laws have “Safe Third Country” agreement, differentiated himself from the previous been proposed to prohibit the use of despite the widespread opposition to Prime Minister, the hard-right Stephen the hijab by Muslim public servants, it. So it will remain as it is for now and Harper, and from the Muslim-hating six Muslim worshippers were mur- we will continue to see on television Donald Trump, in welcoming into the dered by an anti-Muslim fanatic. every night refugee seekers endanger- country over 40,000 Syrian refugees. Tory politicians are supporting the ing their lives as they make their way And at the announcement of Trump’s “Safe Third Country” agreement but across the border. infamous anti-Muslim ban, Trudeau demanding from the Liberals that Ernie Tate is a lifelong revolutionary pointedly Tweeted to the world that, those crossing the border be sent back who immigrated to Canada from “Canadians will welcome you, regardless or charged with a “crime.” They talk of Northern Ireland as a young man. He of your faith.” Nice sentiment, but it refugees “jumping the queue,” and crit- was one of the most important activists should be noted that there’s an element icize the Liberals for not enforcing the of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in of hypocrisy going on here. As the agreement more forcefully. But it’s the 1960s and has recently published a National Post’s Michael Barutciski notable, however, that the Tories have two-volume memoir, Revolutionary recently pointed out, “The fact that been somewhat cautious in how they’ve Activism of the 1950s and 1960s. Canadian visa policy makes it impossible approached this issue, not having quite for most people from the designated recovered from the last election when —Left Unity, March 22, 2017 countries to enter Canada legally is an their targeting of immigrant groups http://leftunity. inconvenient truth ignored by those who lost them many votes, contributing to org/a-letter-from-north-america-our- want to hear a compassionate message.” their defeat. migrant-crisis/

18 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Trump’s Dangerous Saber-Rattling By Barry Sheppard

During last year’s presidential elec- This show of force is largely sym- At the same time, the U.S. military tion campaign, both Hillary Clinton bolic. The cruise missile strike against a remains more powerful than the military and Donald Trump favored a more Syrian military airport did not affect powers of all other nations combined. militarized foreign policy. They differed the actual military struggle in that This situation creates frustration on the main target: Clinton aimed at country. The civil war in Afghanistan is among U.S. rulers—if the U.S. is so Russia, while Trump singled out China. between the Taliban and the equally dominant militarily, why is its “world Clinton wanted to continue the pol- reactionary forces around the current order” weakening?” icy of both Republican and Democratic government, not ISIS. So far, the The powerful wounded beast is tempt- administrations since the collapse of threats against North Korea and China ed to lash out with its main strength—its the Soviet Union of steadily expanding remain verbal. military. This makes it especially danger- NATO up to Russia’s borders in But all this saber-rattling is very ous, as warmongering will not reverse the Europe. She also proposed challenging dangerous. The U.S., Russia, China decline of the U.S. Empire. Russia in Syria. and North Korea are nuclear powers. The wars the U.S. has launched in With the U.S.’s April 6 cruise mis- Any actual military confrontation on the Middle East and Afghanistan, grind- sile strike on Syria, Trump has adopted any front could get out of hand. Trump Clinton’s position. The strike was has openly said nuclear weapons were ing on for years and destroying whole ostensibly aimed at the Syrian regime “useable” in any potential conflict. countries, are a case in point. There is of Bashar al-Assad, but it quickly no realistic path out of this morass for became apparent that its real target was Trump’s agenda the U.S. short of ignoble retreat from Russia. Russian leaders have character- Democratic and Republican politi- the region. Far from retreating, howev- ized relations with the U.S. as having cians, and the capitalist media in gener, the U.S. keeps plunging in deeper. eral, have rallied around Trump’s reached a new low. Trump has publicly Korea said the same thing. ratcheting up of military threats. His new belligerence against Russia has Little is widely known in the U.S. At the same time, Trump has ratcheted muted Democratic charges that he is a about Washington’s history of brutal up the U.S. confrontation with North puppet of Russian leader Vladimir imperialist aggression against Korea. Korea—with the larger target being Putin. After the defeat of Japan in WWII, the China. Trump was eating dessert with U.S. sought to take over the former Chinese President Xi Jinping at Trump’s The saber-rattling comes in a con- Japanese colony. However, the U.S. “second White House” in Florida when text of Trump’s failure to corral the was only able to occupy the southern the U.S. leader casually mentioned the Republican Party to deliver on repeal- part of the country, with the USSR cruise missile attack against Syria. The ing “Obamacare,” his difficulties in opposing U.S. troops near its border. implicit threat was clear. getting support to rewrite the tax code The U.S. imposed military rule over Subsequently, Trump has publically and his lack of progress on his pledge the part of Korea it occupied until 1948. demanded China force its North to “bring jobs back to the U.S.” The It then organized rigged elections to Korean ally to give up its nuclear pro- president is using the time-honored install a South Korean dictator. In 1950, gram. Otherwise, he said, the U.S. tactic of military aggressiveness to would “solve the problem” unilateral- refurbish his strongman image. the U.S. invaded Korea to back South ly—explicitly leaving military action The bipartisan support Trump is Korea in a civil war with the North. on the table. receiving has deep roots. The U.S.- When U.S. forces drove deep into Further flexing his military muscle, dominated “world order” is weakening. North Korea, China intervened. The Trump then dropped the MOAB The European Union, part of the U.S. threatened to keep going into super-bomb on Afghanistan. The most structure of the U.S.-led imperialist China to reverse the 1949 revolution. powerful bomb used in warfare since system, is wobbling. Russia is fighting Chinese and North Korean forces the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on back against NATO’s aggressiveness. In drove the U.S. out of the North, and Nagasaki at the end of World War II Asia, China is rising and threatens U.S. the war ended in a stalemate. was aimed at the small ISIS forces in economic dominance and even military This resulted in a ceasefire in 1953, that country. dominance in the South China Sea. but not a peace treaty. Legally, the U.S.

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 19 and South Korea remain at war with nuclear intimidation of North Korea Russia North Korea. goes back to the Korean War. The U.S. is also continuing to By the time of the ceasefire, the U.S. “After the Korean War, in 1958, expand NATO towards Russia. In the war killed about a quarter of the popu- we installed hundreds of nuclear Ukraine, the fighting between the Kiev lation in North Korea and destroyed weapons in the South, the first coun- government in the west and the almost all of its urban centers. try to bring nuclear weapons onto the Russian-speaking east smolders. The peninsula. North Korea has, since the U.S. supports Kiev, while Russia backs The U.S. has remained hostile ever late 1950s, had to find a way to deter the east. since the ceasefire. In a Democracy the U.S. from using those weapons. Now! interview on April 17, the new “For decades, they built under- A flash point is Syria. The cruise threats were discussed by Bruce ground. They have something like missile attack has caused Russia to dig Cumings, professor of history at the 15,000 underground facilities of a in its support for the Syrian regime— University of Chicago, and Christine national security nature. but not necessarily Assad as an indi- Hong, associate professor at the “But it was inevitable that when vidual in the future. Russia wants to University of California. threatened with nuclear weapons… keep its long-standing military bases in Hong noted, it was just inevitable that North Syria, which give it access to the eastern “[Former president Barack] Korea would seek a deterrent.” Mediterranean. Obama waged a campaign of cyber- With both Russian and U.S. air warfare against North Korea. Far China’s stance forces bombing Sunni Islamist forces, from being a kinder, gentler or even China is extremely worried about fostering Sunni extremism, a clash softer policy, Obama’s policy was, in the present crisis. It opposes any could happen. For example, the U.S.- point of fact, warfare … attempt by the U.S. to defeat North led coalition is fighting to retake “Even the policy of military Korea and impose a unified Korea Raqqah from ISIS. So is the coalition of action against North Korea would under the U.S. military umbrella right Russia, Iran and the Syrian regime. be inconceivable if the Obama on China’s borders. administration hadn’t made the mil- These forces could clash, leading to itarization of the larger Asia-Pacific During U.S. Vice-President Mike a new crisis. region one of its topmost foreign Pence’s recent provocative visit to In his historic 1967 speech denounc- policy objectives. South Korea, he went to the demilita- ing the Vietnam War, Martin Luther “Under the Obama strategic rized zone separating the two Koreas to King Jr. said that the U.S. was the pivot to the region, the U.S. concen- glare across into North Korea for the greatest purveyor of violence in the trated its naval forces to a tune of 60 cameras. He also reiterated that a mili- world. This remains true. We must percent…in the Pacific region… tary option was on the table, and that oppose U.S. military adventures and “I want to remind your listeners the U.S. would go ahead with building threats, and all governments that sup- and viewers that the United States a missile defense system in South port them, in these dangerous times. performs the largest war games in Korea. China correctly claims this sys- —Green Left Weekly, April 22, 2017 the world with its South Korean ally tem is really aimed at it. twice annually… https://www.greenleft.org.au/con- In this volatile situation, any miscalcu- “It rehearses the decapitation of tent/behind-donald-trump’s-dangerous- lation or U.S. military action could swiftly the North Korean leadership, the saber-rattling invasion and occupation of North get out of hand, renewing the Korean War Korea. It rehearses a nuclear first with extremely dangerous consequences. strike against North Korea with The whole situation could be solved The whole situation dummy munitions.” by the U.S. signing a peace treaty with could be solved by the There have been many crises North Korea, finally ending the Korean U.S. signing a peace between the U.S. and North Korea over War, and ending the provocative twice the years. One example occurred in yearly war games aimed at the North. treaty with North Korea, finally ending 1994 when then-president Bill Clinton North Korea has repeatedly pledged threatened a preemptive strike on a that if those steps were taken, it would the Korean War, and Yongbin plutonium facility. end its nuclear program and destroy its ending the provocative Cumings told Democracy Now! that, nuclear weapons. All this could be twice yearly war games “…each crisis is treated as if it has no negotiated via a peace treaty, but aimed at the North. background. The fact is that American Washington rejects this out of hand.

20 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 U.S. Starvation Strategy in Yemen By Gareth Porter

As Yemen’s population has teetered the rest of the Red Sea coast, saying it port of the Obama administration for a on the brink of mass starvation in would worsen the humanitarian crisis war to reinstall the Hadi government recent months, the United States has in Yemen, the Trump administration by force. But the Saudi-led coalition played a crucial role in enabling the has clearly given the green light to the advance soon stalled, as the Houthi- Saudi strategy responsible for that Saudis to launch that offensive. Saleh forces demonstrated their mas- potential humanitarian catastrophe. Furthermore the commander of tery of guerrilla tactics. So the Saudis Both the Obama and Trump admin- Central Command, General Joseph started to rely on a strategy that istrations have prioritized the U.S.’s Votel, has called Yemen a “vital inter- deprived the population in the Houthi- alliance with the Saudis and their Gulf est” of the United States, arguing that Saleh area of control of food and fuel. allies over the lives of hundreds-of- anti-Iranian forces must be in control The administration’s permissive thousands of Yemenis under imminent of it to prevent Iranian threats to the stance toward the Saudi war strategy was threat of starvation. Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. That argument, evident from the beginning of the war. Although the UN agencies have which conjures a wholly artificial threat When the United Nations Security offered no public estimate of the num- to commercial traffic through the Council was negotiating the April 2015 ber of Yemenis who have died of mal- Strait, clearly implies active support for resolution on Yemen, the original text nutrition-related conditions, it is likely the Saudi strategy of recapturing circulated for discussion included a that the figure is much higher than the Hodeidah and choking off all access to requirement for “humanitarian pauses” estimate of 10,000 killed directly by the food for the portion of the Yemeni in military operations, but after the Saudi-coalition bombing. United population under the control of forces Saudis and other coalition members Nations agencies have estimated that loyal to the Houthi and to former objected vigorously to the language, it 462,000 Yemeni children under five President Ali Abdullah Saleh. was dropped from the final text, accord- years of age are already suffering severe ing to journalist Sharif Abdel Khouddous. acute malnutrition, putting them at So it should come as Essence of Saudi strategy serious risk of death from starvation The Saudi coalition quickly revealed and malnutrition-related disease. no surprise that the essence of its strategy in Yemen: to The Saudi coalition has pursued a the Pentagon has impose extreme hardship on the popu- war strategy of maximizing pressure been the main driver lation in Houthi-controlled governor- on the Houthi resistance by destroying ates. The strategy included not only agricultural, health and transportation in the U.S. policy of bombing raids that targeted Yemen’s infrastructure and by choking off supporting the fragile infrastructure for transportation, food production and medical access to food and fuel for most of Saudi strategy of Yemen’s population. The United States care, but a naval blockade, ostensibly has enabled the Saudis to pursue that starvation. to prevent any arms from reaching strategy by refueling the Saudi-led Yemen, but also clearly intended to coalition planes bombing Yemen and limit severely the population’s access to But the Obama administration had foodstuffs and fuel. selling the bombs. Equally important, already acquiesced to a series of moves however, the U.S. has provided the by the Saudi-led coalition to impose Even in peacetime, Yemen is depen- political-diplomatic cover that the ever-tighter restrictions on the popula- dent on imports for 90 percent of its Saudis need to carry out this ruthless tion’s access to food, fuel and medical staple foods as well as virtually all of its endeavor without massive internation- supplies. A coalition of Houthi rebels fuel and medical supplies. The conse- al blowback. and troops loyal to former President quences of the blockade on the nutri- The Trump administration has Saleh had driven the U.S.- and Saudi- tion and health of the civilian popula- gone even further in supporting the backed Saudi-supported tion were bound to be devastating. Saudi strategy. Whereas the Obama President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi Oxfam-America humanitarian policy administration opposed a Saudi-led from power in 2015, and he ultimately adviser Scott Paul testified to the Tom coalition offensive to regain control escaped from Aden to Riyadh. The Lantos Human Rights Commission in over the main port of Hodeidah and Saudis sought and obtained the sup- January 2017 that, after imposing a naval

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 21 blockade, the Saudi-led coalition had people on the government payroll, the The Hadi government promised begun to withhold or delay permission vast majority of who were still loyal to that the relocated CBY would continue for major commercial and humanitarian former president Saleh and are now fight- to maintain the bank’s role in provid- vessels to berth in Yemen ports. The ing the Saudi-led coalition forces along- ing liquidity and financing imports. In coalition held up approval of the delivery side the Houthis. It was also financing the fact, none of Yemen’s civil servants of such shipments for weeks, and food commercial shipments of food and fuel have been paid since the Sanaa-based often spoiled. “By setting up an arbitrary still arriving at Hodeidah and other ports. CBY was cut off from Yemen’s foreign and onerous regime,” Paul told the The international financial institu- currency reserves abroad, further Commission, the coalition created a “de tions—with the support of Western increasing the number of Yemenis who facto blockade” preventing food, fuel and governments, including the United can no longer purchase food. medicine from reaching the population. States—understood the crucial role of Oxfam humanitarian affairs adviser The climax of the blockade strategy the CBY as an “economic truce” Scott Paul recalled in an interview that was a series of airstrikes on August 17, between the warring Yemeni parties Obama administration officials had 2015, that destroyed all of the cranes that was a necessity to avoid a complete told him that they had informed the used to unload container ships at the humanitarian catastrophe. But in early Saudis that they disapproved of the main commercial port of Hodeidah, July Prime Minister Ahmed Obeid bin Hadi government’s decision. But the Yemen’s only port capable of receiving Daghr of the Saudi-backed govern- administration said nothing about the such ships. The strikes also destroyed ment in Aden explicitly criticized that move publicly, signaling that it had an entire World Food Program ware- “economic truce” indicating the inten- decided to accept the move. “The idea house, one of the berths, the port tion to bring it to an end. And on that the administration should tell the authority warehouse, the port control August 6, bin Daghr accused the CBY Saudis that Hadi had to back off his building and the customs building. of having used its funds to finance the replacement of the Central bank gover- By February 2016, the humanitarian Houthi-Saleh war effort and called on nor was never going to fly,” said Paul. crisis in Yemen as a result of the Saudi banks and financial institutions hold- Obama was unwilling to override blockade was already worse than Syria’s. ing large Yemeni foreign reserves to cut Saudi policy because of his administra- The UN Security Council had a series off relations with the CBY. tion’s firm commitment to the alliance of meetings about humanitarian access The bank’s governor, Mohammed with Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies. in both Syria and Yemen, and the Awad bin Humam, a highly respected In testimony before the Senate Foreign members of the Council agreed that technocrat, wrote a letter to President Relations Committee on March 9, 2017, resolutions should guarantee humani- Hadi denying the charge and proposing former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State tarian access—the ability to get food that the IMF send a reputable account- in the Bureau of Democracy, Human and other humanitarian assistance—to ing firm to verify his staff’s management Rights and Labor Dafna Rand recalled those in need in both countries. But of the bank’s accounts. In a press brief- that the administration’s policy toward once again, after the Saudis intervened ing on September 1, IMF press spokes- Yemen had reflected “unconditional sup- with the United States and its European man Gerry Rice endorsed bin Human’s port for the coalition,” because of what allies to oppose such a resolution on proposal and confirmed that the CBY she called “our deep loyalty to our allies” Yemen, the idea was dropped. had played “a crucial role in facilitating and their aims in regard to Iran. minimum levels of import of basic food That “deep loyalty” primarily reflects Last barrier to starvation removed items, fuel and medicine” over the pre- the overriding U.S. interest in military In mid-2016 the Saudis and the vious 16 months and had “averted an relations with the Saudis and their Gulf Hadi government began planning a all-out humanitarian crisis.” allies. The Saudis and Qataris control much more drastic form of pressure on But in mid-September the Hadi the major U.S. bases in the Arab world, the population in the Houthi-Saleh- government went ahead with its plan such as the naval base in Bahrain—a controlled North: eliminating the last to name a new governor of the Central Saudi client state—and the air and institutional barrier to starvation, the Bank, who would serve in Aden, which ground bases in Qatar. Moreover the Central Bank of Yemen (CBY). was under Saudi coalition control. An Saudi-led coalition had accounted for The CBY, which was located in the unnamed Western diplomat harshly $130 billion in U.S. arms sales during Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, was criticized the move to Reuters, calling it the Obama administration alone, gener- playing a key role in providing a mini- an effort to “weaponize the economy ating crucial foreign revenues for major mum of liquidity in the society. It was by preventing the central bank access arms contractors and more lucrative paying the monthly salaries of 1.2 million to funds abroad.” future jobs for senior military officers.

22 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 So it should come as no surprise that the Pentagon has been the main driver South Africa: Zuma—and Capitalism—Have Got to Go in the U.S. policy of supporting the By Glen Ford Saudi strategy of starvation. In August 2016, the Saudis bombed a bridge that In South Africa, everyone speaks the within the ANC, the party of Nelson the Obama administration had put on a language of revolution and socialism, Mandela. It is a left-right struggle, with list of targets that were not to be hit, but the country remains under the neoliberals and Black capitalists calling because it was crucial to getting human- yoke of international capital, 23 years the shots in the ANC. The crisis has itarian goods to population centers in after the end of white minority rule. become so acute, that the ANC’s long- northern Yemen. But the administra- Jacob Zuma, the current president and standing partners in the historical tri- tion did nothing in response. head of the ruling African National partite alliance, the South African In fact, the Pentagon openly Congress (ANC), is widely considered Communist Party and COSATU, the declared its disinterest in which targets to have been “captured” by the billion- Congress of South African Trade the Saudis and their Gulf allies were aire Gupta family, a clan of vulture Unions, are also calling for Zuma to actually hitting. A spokesman at the capitalists whose many properties step down—although they are deeply Central Command told journal- include television stations that are rou- implicated in the ANC’s pro-capitalist ist Samuel Oakford that the U.S. refu- tinely compared to FOX News, in the policies. eled the coalition’s jets without regard United States. President Zuma sparked The strongest opponents of the to the target or whether and how it had outrage among the opposition, and ANC’s capitulation to capital are the been vetted, and that if the Saudis unprecedented dissent within his own Economic Freedom Fighters, headed decided on more bombing targets, the party, when he fired Pravin Gordhan, by Julius Malema, with 24 seats on the command would refuel more missions. the minister of finance, along with National Assembly, and the labor The United States shares responsi- about a third of his cabinet. Former movement-based activists grouped bility with the Saudi-led coalition for finance minister Gordhan was thought around the metalworkers union, the Yemeni deaths from starvation that to be on the outs with Zuma because NUMSA, the nation’s largest, led will result from the Saudi war strategy, he blocked deals that were favorable to by Irvin Jim, which promises to soon because of the coalition’s dependence the Gupta family. The fact is, most of launch “a genuine revolutionary social- on U.S. logistical and political-diplo- the international financial communi- ist political party of the working class.” ty—the people who actually own South matic support. But the Pentagon and The pro-capitalist political forces in the Central Command are already Africa’s economic infrastructure—got along just fine with Gordhan, and have South Africa, like the white business actively diverting attention from that dominated Democratic Alliance party, shared guilt by focusing media atten- enjoyed a cozy relationship with the ANC government. want to get rid of Zuma because he has tion on what they claim is a new threat given collaboration with capital a bad from Iran. The result will be to com- But, in this instance, global capital name. They want to make “corrup- pound the U.S. guilt for mass starva- reacted quickly to Gordhan’s firing, tion” the issue—not social transformation in Yemen. threatening to lower South Africa’s tion. But, the real problem is capital- —Truthout, April 8, 2017 credit rating. Suddenly, the political ism. In the words of Zwelinzima Vavi, crisis became general, with virtually http://www.truth-out.org/news/ former head of COSATU and an ally of every other party in the country calling Irvin Jim: item/40147-the-us-provided-cover-for- for Zuma to step down. But, the ANC “We have a crisis of capitalism, a the-saudi-starvation-strategy-in-yemen has such a huge majority in the National system that was never designed to Assembly that a vote of no confidence address the interests of ordinary in Zuma is impossible unless a bare people. But more importantly, it’s a minimum of 51 ANC lawmakers break crisis of the cut-throat laissez-faire with their leader—which is punishable fundamentalist capitalist system by expulsion from the party and, ulti- which is being led by Jacob Zuma.” mately, expulsion from the legislature. —Black Agenda Report, April 18, The nation’s Constitutional Court is 2017 now considering whether a no-confidence vote can be held by secret ballot. https://www.blackagendareport.com/ zuma_got_to_go The struggle over the future of South Africa remains largely a battle

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 23 Palestinian Hunger Strike in Israel’s Prisons By Marwan Barghouti

Hadarim Prison, Israel—Having me afterward, saying that I would never mary target of Israel’s policy of impos- spent the last 15 years in an Israeli procreate because people like me give ing collective punishments. prison, I have been both a witness to birth only to terrorists and murderers. Through our hunger strike, we seek and a victim of Israel’s illegal system of A few years later, I was again in an an end to these abuses. mass arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment Israeli prison, leading a hunger strike, Over the past five decades, accord- of Palestinian prisoners. After exhaust- when my first son was born. Instead of ing all other options, I decided there ing to the human rights group the sweets we usually distribute to cel- Addameer, more than 800,000 was no choice but to resist these abuses ebrate such news, I handed out salt to by going on a hunger strike. Palestinians have been imprisoned or the other prisoners. When he was bare- detained by Israel—equivalent to about Some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners ly 18, he in turn was arrested and spent 40 percent of the Palestinian territory’s have decided to take part in this hun- four years in Israeli prisons. male population. Today, about 6,500 ger strike, which begins today, the day The eldest of my four children is now are still imprisoned, among them some we observe here as Prisoners’ Day. a man of 31. Yet here I still am, pursu- who have the dismal distinction of Hunger striking is the most peaceful ing this struggle for freedom along with holding world records for the longest form of resistance available. It inflicts thousands of prisoners, millions of periods in detention of political pris- pain solely on those who participate Palestinians and the support of so many oners. There is hardly a single family in and on their loved ones, in the hopes around the world. What is it with the Palestine that has not endured the suf- that their empty stomachs and their arrogance of the occupier and the fering caused by the imprisonment of sacrifice will help the message resonate oppressor and their backers that makes one or several of its members. beyond the confines of their dark cells. them deaf to this simple truth: Our How to account for this unbeliev- Decades of experience have proved chains will be broken before we are, able state of affairs? that Israel’s inhumane system of colo- because it is human nature to heed the nial and military occupation aims to call for freedom regardless of the cost. Israel has established a dual legal break the spirit of prisoners and the regime, a form of judicial apartheid, Israel has built nearly all of its pris- that provides virtual impunity for nation to which they belong, by inflict- ons inside Israel rather than in the ing suffering on their bodies, separat- Israelis who commit crimes against occupied territory. In doing so, it has Palestinians, while criminalizing ing them from their families and com- unlawfully and forcibly transferred munities, using humiliating measures Palestinian presence and resistance. Palestinian civilians into captivity, and Israel’s courts are a charade of justice, to compel subjugation. In spite of such has used this situation to restrict family treatment, we will not surrender to it. clearly instruments of colonial, mili- visits and to inflict suffering on prison- tary occupation. According to the State Israel, the occupying power, has ers through long transports under cruel Department, the conviction rate for violated international law in multiple conditions. It turned basic rights that Palestinians in the military courts is ways for nearly 70 years, and yet has should be guaranteed under interna- nearly 90 percent. been granted impunity for its actions. tional law—including some painfully It has committed grave breaches of the secured through previous hunger Among the hundreds of thousands Geneva Conventions against the strikes—into privileges its prison ser- of Palestinians whom Israel has taken Palestinian people; the prisoners, vice decides to grant us or deprive us of. captive are children, women, parliamentarians, activists, journalists, including men, women and children, Palestinian prisoners and detainees are no exception. human rights defenders, academics, have suffered from torture, inhumane political figures, militants, bystanders, I was only 15 when I was first impris- and degrading treatment, and medical family members of prisoners. And all oned. I was barely 18 when an Israeli negligence. Some have been killed with one aim: to bury the legitimate interrogator forced me to spread my while in detention. According to the aspirations of an entire nation. legs while I stood naked in the interro- latest count from the Palestinian gation room, before hitting my genitals. Prisoners Club, about 200 Palestinian Instead, though, Israel’s prisons I passed out from the pain, and the prisoners have died since 1967 because have become the cradle of a lasting resulting fall left an everlasting scar on of such actions. Palestinian prisoners movement for Palestinian self-deter- my forehead. The interrogator mocked and their families also remain a pri- mination. This new hunger strike will

24 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 demonstrate once more that the prisoners’ movement is the compass that Trump’s Indonesian Allies in Bed with guides our struggle, the struggle for ISIS-Backed Militia Seeking to Oust Elected Freedom and Dignity, the name we have chosen for this new step in our President long walk to freedom. By Allan Nairn Israel has tried to brand us all as ter- Associates of Donald Trump in haps millions—to Jakarta’s streets, rorists to legitimize its violations, Indonesia have joined army officers Governor Ahok is currently standing including mass arbitrary arrests, tor- and a vigilante street movement linked trial for religious blasphemy because of ture, punitive measures and severe to ISIS in a campaign that ultimately an offhand comment about a verse in restrictions. As part of Israel’s effort to aims to oust the country’s president. the Quran. On Thursday, the day after undermine the Palestinian struggle for According to Indonesian military and he hears the results of the very close freedom, an Israeli court sentenced me intelligence officials and senior figures governor’s election, he is due back in to five life sentences and 40 years in involved in what they call “the coup,” court for his blasphemy trial. prison in a political show trial that was the move against President Joko Yet in repeated, detailed conversa- denounced by international observers. Widodo (known more commonly as tions with me, key protest figures and Israel is not the first occupying or Jokowi), a popular elected civilian, is officials who track them have dis- colonial power to resort to such expe- being impelled from behind the scenes missed the movement against Ahok dients. Every national liberation move- by active and retired generals. and the charges against him as a mere ment in history can recall similar prac- Prominent supporters of the coup pretext for a larger objective: sidelining tices. This is why so many people who movement include Fadli Zon, vice the country’s president, Jokowi, and have fought against oppression, colo- speaker of the Indonesian House of helping the army avoid consequences nialism and apartheid stand with us. Representatives and Donald Trump’s for its mass killings of civilians—such The International Campaign to Free main political booster in the country; as the 1965 massacres that Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian and Hary Tanoe, Trump’s primary were endorsed by the U.S. govern- Prisoners that the anti-apartheid Indonesian business partner, who is ment, which armed and backed the icon Ahmed Kathrada and my wife, building two Trump resorts, one in Indonesian military. Fadwa, inaugurated in 2013 from Bali and one outside Jakarta. Serving as the main face and public Nelson Mandela’s former cell on voice of the generals’ political thrust Robben Island has enjoyed the support This account of the movement to has been a group of what Indonesians of eight Nobel Peace Prize laureates, overthrow President Jokowi is based call preman—officially sponsored 120 governments and hundreds of on dozens of interviews and is supple- street thugs—in this case, the Islamic leaders, parliamentarians, artists and mented by internal army, police, and Defenders Front, or FPI (Front academics around the world. intelligence documents I obtained or viewed in Indonesia, as well as by NSA Pembela Islam). Originally established Their solidarity exposes Israel’s by the security forces—the aparat—in intercepts obtained by NSA whistle- moral and political failure. Rights are 1998 as an Islamist front group to blower Edward Snowden. Many sourc- not bestowed by an oppressor. Freedom assault dissidents, the FPI has been es on both sides of the coup spoke on and dignity are universal rights that are implicated in violent extortion, espe- condition of anonymity. Two of them inherent in humanity, to be enjoyed by cially of bars and sex clubs, as well as expressed apparently well-founded every nation and all human beings. murders and attacks on mosques and concerns about their safety. Palestinians will not be an exception. churches. During the mass protests Only ending occupation will end this The coup movement against the governor, FPI leader Habib injustice and mark the birth of peace. On the surface, the massive street Rizieq Shihab has openly called for Marwan Barghouti is a Palestinian protests surrounding the April 19 Ahok to be “hanged” and “butchered.” leader and parliamentarian. gubernatorial election have arisen from Joining Rizieq at the protests atop a —New York Times, April 16, 2017 opposition to Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese mobile command platform have been the FPI’s spokesman and militia chief, https://www.nytimes. incumbent governor, Basuki Tjahaja Munarman, as well as Fadli Zon, who is com/2017/04/16/opinion/palestinian- Purnama, known as Ahok. As a result known for publicly praising Donald hunger-strike-prisoners-call-for-justice. of pressure from the well-funded, well- Trump and appeared with the candi- html organized demonstrations that have drawn hundreds-of-thousands—per- date at a press conference at Trump

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 25 Tower during the opening days of the he attended a mosque targeted for key movement figures as being among presidential campaign. Fadli Zon serves extermination by the FPI. In one case of their most important supporters. Last as the right-hand man of the country’s murder carried out by an FPI mob, Friday night, when I sat down with a most notorious mass-murdering gen- a memo states, police were unable to roomful of such figures—none of eral, Prabowo Subianto, who was arrest and detain the FPI suspects whom requested anonymity—they defeated by Jokowi in the 2014 election. because they were afraid the mob would expressed excitement about their close- Munarman, who has been video- attack and burn the police station. ness to Hary and his personal and taped at a ceremony in which a roomful Another intercept links FPI figures financial relationship with President of young men swear allegiance to ISIS to an offshoot of Jemaah Islamiyah, the Trump, who along with his son and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is jihadist network implicated in the 2002 Eric welcomed Hary to Trump Tower also a corporate lawyer working for the Bali bombings, and details weapons and the inauguration. They said they Indonesian branch of the mining colos- training delivered by officers of the hoped Hary, who is building two sus Freeport McMoRan, now controlled Indonesian national police special Trump resorts in Indonesia, would by Carl Icahn, President Trump’s friend forces to FPI Aceh members. serve as a bridge between Trump and and deregulation adviser. Although the General Prabowo. Manimbang The NSA had no comment on the Kahariady, an executive of Prabowo’s Trump connections appear to be very content of the intercepts. The White important for the coup plotters, it is political party, said he had met with House did not respond to requests for Hary three days before. He and others unknown whether Trump or Icahn comment. have any direct knowledge of the at the meeting were convinced that Indonesian coup movement. Revealing internal intelligence Hary is telling Trump about the need reports to back the movement and remove Munarman did not respond to their adversaries, beginning with Ahok. requests to comment for this article. As the FPI’s mass protest movement Tommy Suharto could not be reached The FPI demonstrations in Jakarta, has proceeded over the last six months, I received detailed information from five for comment. Hary Tanoe declined officially shunned by the country’s top repeated requests for comment. mainstream Muslim groups, have been Indonesian internal intelligence reports. endorsed in messages from Indonesian The reports were assembled by three dif- A third report asserted that some ISIS personnel in Syria. The FPI, for its ferent Indonesian agencies. Each one FPI movement funds came from for- part, has waved black ISIS flags at was confirmed by at least two current mer president and retired general Prabowo rallies and has official- army, intelligence, or palace officials. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY)— ly endorsed the call of Al Qaeda chief One intelligence report asserted that information that apparently angered Ayman al-Zawahri for Al Qaeda and the FPI-led protest movement was President Jokowi, was leaked to the ISIS to pursue their common fight in being funded in part by Tommy public, and was in turn denied publicly Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Suharto—son of the former dictator by an angry SBY who asserted at once that the facts were false and that the The Snowden archive contains Suharto—who once served time for having a judge who displeased him shot government had tapped his phone to numerous documents related to the get them. Nonetheless, seven current Islamic Defenders Front, including an in the head. Tommy’s financial contri- butions were also affirmed to me by or former army or intelligence officials Australian intelligence document I spoke to said that SBY had indeed describing FPI as a “violent extremist retired General Kivlan Zein. Kivlan, who helped the FPI lead a massive given funds but had channeled them group.” The documents include indirectly. One official, retired Indonesian-language intercepts of November protest in Jakarta, is currently facing the charge of treason Admiral Soleman Ponto, who is not a reports by police officials complaining supporter of the coup movement, is the that the Indonesian public distrusts the (makar) for allegedly trying to overthrow the government during the recent former chief of military intelligence police because it uses violent groups (BAIS) and currently advises the state like FPI. The intercepted Indonesian protest drive. He is also the former campaign chair for General Prabowo, intelligence agency (BIN). Though he police reports also note that although declined to comment directly when I FPI is largely a creation of the state who was defeated by President Jokowi in the 2014 presidential election. asked him about specific intelligence security apparatus, it at times escapes reports, Soleman said that it was “very Another report asserted that some the state’s control, particularly when clear” that SBY, whom he called a funds came from Donald Trump’s bil- fomenting mob violence, such as in a friend, helped fund the movement, lionaire business partner Hary Tanoe, well-known case in which a man was “giving through a mosque, giving who was repeatedly described to me by beaten to death on videotape because through a school, SBY is the source.”

26 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 More broadly, Ponto said, “almost Ustad Muhammad Khattath and Haji they want peaceful revolution, but also all the retired military” and “some cur- Usamah Hisyam. insisted that not long from now there rent military back SBY” in supporting will be a revolution by theumaat, sev- the FPI-led protests and the coup Interviewing the pro-coup leaders eral weeks in the future. The palace is movement. He said he knows this Ustad Khattath had been referred to afraid, they said, they are afraid Jokowi because—in addition to his being an me by the Freeport lawyer and FPI will fall. They said the upcoming street intelligence man—the pro-coup gener- militia chief Munarman, who had actions would all be with revolutionary als are his colleagues and friends, many declined to see me. Haji Usamah steps because peace has not yet brought of whom correspond on the WhatsApp accompanied Ustad Khattath and they down Ahok. gave a joint interview. group known as The Old Soldier. The Ustad Khattath and Pak Usamah admiral said that for the movement’s (The material in this section is told me that if the president does not military sponsors, the Ahok issue is a attributed to “they” and presented accede to their demands, there will be mere entry point, a religious hook to without quotation marks, because more massive action, using a stronger draw in the masses, but “Jokowi is their since our interview, Ustad Khattath style of pressure, and added that their final destination.” has been arrested and charged direct destination will be the president. with makar (treason), a legal concept As for the tactic of a straight army They saw the revolution beginning that I view as being unjust and repres- assault on the palace in a coup d’etat, with days-long occupations of the con- sive and have denounced when it has Ponto said that would not happen. gress and the palace and noted that if the been used before.) This one would be “a coup d’etat by people are hurt by being rebuffed, they law,” resembling in one sense the Barely mentioning religious ques- will take the shortcut outside the law. uprising that toppled Suharto in 1998, tions, they said Indonesia’s problem Anything could happen. There could be except that in this case the public was New-Style Communism, and the millions that take the law into their own would not be on the revolt’s side—and army must be able to step in and guide hands. Their position was, remind the the army, rather than defending the the situation because Indonesia is not president not to break the law by failing president, would be working to bring mature, not ready for democracy. to jail Ahok or the people will get mad him down. The FPI-led protestors, he Jokowi, they charged, was providing a and out of control. It’s a disorderly situ- said, would enter the palace and con- space for communism, and the only ation; one that they felt would resolve gress grounds, then try to get inside strong organization that can face up to itself by the army stepping in. and set up camp until someone made that is the army. them leave. After Ustad Khattath was arrested As to their street protest movement, by police and charged with treason, “It would look like People Power”— they said, we civilians must be backed Usamah texted me to say he had now the people gathered by FPI and their by the military, something they said taken command of the street actions, allies, but in this case, “with everything was indeed happening secretly because just as Ustad Khattath had done after paid. The military would just do noth- now under reformasi the military can’t FPI leader Rizieq was brought up on ing. They only have to go to sleep” and engage in politics. According to Haji pornography and other charges. let the president fall. Usamah, “It’s an intelligence operation The admiral’s description of the by military personnel, but the army 1965 again movement’s strategy matched that of a can’t be out front. They give the strate- Soon after our interview, I received an dozen top officials I spoke to, some of gic view and direction. The army army document from an officer inside them still active in the aparat—some doesn’t like the communists.” the aparat that could be seen as providing for the coup, some against it. They said there are communists in the template for Khattath’s and Usamah’s remarks about the street actions. Another possible scenario was the legislature and the executive described by another large group of branch. They must be targeted. For the Titled “Analyzing the Threats Posed officials: that the FPI-led rallies would street movement, the key strategic and by the New-Style Communism in get out of hand, with Jakarta and other tactical guidance was given to them by Indonesia,” it is a series of PowerPoint cities tumbling into chaos, and the an anti-communist general who works slides used for ideological training at army stepping in and assuming control with them. The army can only step in if army bases nationwide. to save the state. This second, more there is chaos. If there is peace, they New-Style Communism, or Komunisme violent option was discussed in detail can’t do anything. Gaya Baru, abbreviated “KGB,” is a con- when I met in late February, on the Ustad Khattath and Pak Usamah cept whose menace is framed with sketch- record, with FPI movement leaders told me that they don’t want blood, es of Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler—and

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 27 appears to be broadly enough defined to tions of any kind. It was about the ogize to the PKI [communist party].” include any critic of the army anywhere. army and its crimes. “If Jokowi sticks with that”—the Referring to such purportedly com- “If not for the Symposium, there no-apology stance—“he won’t be over- munist policies as “free healthcare and wouldn’t be a movement now,” Kivlan thrown. He will save himself. But if he education programs,” the document told me. “Now the communists are on apologizes, [he is] finished, denounces “idealizing pluralism and the rise again,” Kivlan complained. over,” Kivlan said. diversity in the social system” as a spe- “They want to establish a new commu- I again wanted to be sure he was cific “KGB” threat now rising in nist party. The victims of ’65, they all really saying the army would take Indonesia. Using threat assessment blame us. …Maybe we’ll fight them action, like ’65 again. techniques drawn from Western intel- again, like ’65.” “Yes, it will secure the situation, ligence doctrine and texts—excerpts I was taken aback by that and want- including like in ’65.” from which are used, sometimes in ed to make sure I had heard correctly. English—the document warns of the “No say surrender,” he concluded “It could happen,’65 could be communist enemy “separating the army in English. repeated all over again,” he repeated. from people” and “using human rights Though Kivlan is regarded as being and democracy issues while positioning among the more ideological of the gen- oneself as victim to gain sympathy.” “It’s an intelligence erals, it’s worth noting that many of his colleagues have been toying with oust- The statement about human rights operation by mili- victims is an apparent reference to fig- ing Jokowi even if he doesn’t apologize. ures such as the brilliant social justice tary personnel, but In that sense, Kivlan belongs to the advocate Munir Said Thalib, my friend, the army can’t be movement’s moderate wing. Remarkably, the idea of a mere apology who was assassinated in 2004 with a out front. They give massive dose of arsenic that caused to the army’s victims is enough to him to vomit to death on a flight to the strategic view motivate generals to move to overthrow the president. Amsterdam, or the victims of the 1965 and direction. The Kivlan is often credited with helping slaughter of perhaps a million civilians, army doesn’t like carried out by the army with U.S. back- to create the FPI, after Suharto’s fall. In ing in order to consolidate power after the communists.” our conversation he denied to me that an attempted coup. he was responsible for setting up the FPI but went on to discuss in detail The 1965 massacre came up when I And the reason? how the group was just one example of sat down with retired General Kivlan “They are seeking redress.” the broader army and police strategy of Zein, who said that if Jokowi refused to In other words, Kivlan was raising creating civilian front groups, some- accede to the army’s wishes, similar the specter of new mass slaughter if the times Islamist, sometimes not, that tactics could be deployed again. old victims did not learn to forget. could be used to attack dissidents while Like many officials I spoke with, Kivlan then went on to detail why the keeping the aparat’s own hands clean. Kivlan said that the current army- ’65 coup was justified. He said that the He said that days before the massive backed street movement and crisis ousted president, Sukarno, who was by Jakarta demonstration of November 4 began as a result of the Symposium, a then the army’s virtual captive, had last year, he received a text message 2016 forum organized by the Jokowi given an order for the army to take from retired Major General Budi government that allowed survivors and over. The army “was handed power” Sugiana asking him “to join and take descendants of ’65 to publicly describe by the congress. over the 411 [November 4] movement.” what had happened to them and to Could that happen again now, I asked? discuss how their loved ones died. For The mission, he said, was “to save much of the army, the Symposium was “It could,” the general said. “The Indonesia,” by joining FPI leader an intolerable outrage and in itself jus- army could move again now, like Habib Rizieq on the mobile stage at the tified the coup movement. One general Suharto in that era.” demonstration, because “they need told me that what most outraged his The general told me that last July, someone if [Rizieq] is shot and dead to colleagues was that “it made the vic- Jokowi had visited armed forces head- take over the mass” outside the palace. tims feel good.” The Symposium, of quarters in the aftermath of the In December, Kivlan was arrested course, had nothing to do with Symposium and had told the assembled by the police for trying to overthrow Governor Ahok or with religious ques- generals that “he was not going to apol- Jokowi, but as we spoke in late February

28 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 he remained free and had been travel- Kivlan praised the stance of General well as charging movement financiers ing outside the country. Indeed, he Wiranto, saying “Wiranto is with ISIS money laundering. told me he had been carrying out mis- good.” Kivlan said Wiranto “wants to In exchange, Hendro and his allies sions for General Gatot Nurmantyo, build harmony” with the movement, have received what they view as guar- the current armed forces commander, often pressing its case from his current antees of immunity from prosecution. attempting to release Indonesian hos- post as coordinating minister for poli- And under prevailing aparat rules, if tages held in the Philippines. tics, law, and security. It was under they’re safe, everyone else is as well, On the question of who privately Wiranto’s command that the FPI was since there’s a tacit agreement to reject backs the movement and who precisely first created. When Wiranto received the prosecution of colleagues, even if the “communists” are, Kivlan spoke FPI’s Rizieq during the demonstrations, they’re bitter enemies. he described him as “an old friend.” both on and off the record, and both In February, under palace pressure, precisely and generally. His character- Kivlan added that Wiranto, who is a Jakarta administrative court declared ization of his fellow generals’ stances himself under indictment for East that the Jokowi administration could meshes closely with what the Timor war crimes, has a “good plan” duck its legal obligation to officially other aparat people said, but, unlike on the army’s pivotal issue. He is press- release a government fact-finding most of them, he said it on the record. ing Jokowi for “no human rights trials.” report that openly addressed Hendro’s “So many retired military—and in responsibility for the Munir assassina- the military—are with the FPI.… tion. Munir’s widow Suciwati and Because the goal of the FPI is also ...in order to stave Haris Azhar of Munir’s human rights against the communists.” off one group of group, Kontras, denounced that verdict as “legalizing criminality.” After his discourse to me about oust- killers, the president ing Jokowi and taking actions like ’65, I In similar fashion, the coup move- asked him: Does General Gatot—the cur- has embraced ment has also been helpful for Freeport. rent armed forces commander—agree? another group of Since last year, the Jokowi government, after decades of state quiescence, has “He agrees!” equally murderous been trying to rewrite the state contract But he noted that as a younger, still- generals who have with Freeport and has been dialing active officer, Gatot has to “be very exacted a price. back their export rights. At the same careful” in his public stances. time, the government has been shaken Kivlan’s on-the-record remarks by the movement led in part by a law- about Gatot’s role are consistent with The strategic elegance of the army yer associated with the company. those of other generals and coup people, push for a coup is that the army wins even In early April, after the movement as well as with the purported remarks if it loses. Even if Jokowi stays in office, launched the first of what the police of President Jokowi himself. When I the generals will be safer than ever—they claimed were four planned attempts to asked an official with regular access to think—from human rights trials, since in seize congress and the palace, the Jokowi the president about a claim that Jokowi order to stave off one group of killers, the administration shocked Indonesia’s had said that “Gatot is the main factor president has embraced another group of political world by unexpectedly giving in the coup,” the official replied, yes, the equally murderous generals who have in to copper and gold miner, PT president said it, privately. Gatot did exacted a price. Freeport Indonesia (a branch of the not respond to requests for comment. Foremost among them is General American mining company, Freeport- As for his old boss General Prabowo, A.M. Hendropriyono, the former BIN McMoRan, based in the Freeport- Kivlan also echoed what others said: chief and CIA asset, who has been McMoRan Center in downtown “Prabowo doesn’t want to be close, but implicated in the Munir assassination Phoenix, Arizona,) and green lighting he does it through Fadli Zon.” If he and a series of other major crimes. new copper exports. The sudden retreat Throughout the coup crisis, it has been were openly close to the movement, it didn’t end the dispute—deep, long- Hendro’s men—army, intel, police, would be difficult for him, so Fadli Zon term contract issues remain—but it civilian—who have been leading the suggested, as Jokowi officials later told is the front. Regarding General anti-coup defense of Jokowi against me, that the government now felt its Ryamizard, the current minister of their colleagues. It is mainly Hendro’s position had been weakened. defense, Kivlan claimed that “his heart people who have organized the treason agrees. He agrees with our goal,” but he arrests and hobbled Habib Rizieq In a story with the droll headline can’t “speak candidly.” Shihab with pornography charges, as “Freeport gets red-carpet treatment,

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 29 again,” the pro-U.S. and pro-business phemy in suggesting that non-Muslims Beyond that, when I sat with English-language Jakarta Post observed: could lead Muslims. (Ahok is also justly Usamah and the movement leaders “The government has defended its criticized for his evictions of the poor.) whom he half-joking called his politbu- decision, even though there is no legal It was therefore quite illuminating to reau, they casually contradicted their basis that backs [it]. … Freeport is seen hear the leaders of the coup movement position that non-Muslims cannot lead as having dodged the bullet again.” privately minimize those themes. Muslims. They did so while discussing On April 20, Vice President Mike Kivlan surprised me when he Hary Tanoe, who they all effusively Pence is due in Indonesia. Jokowi admin- remarked offhandedly that Ahok had praised as their movement’s top sup- istration officials have been saying pri- given the movement a “gift” with his porter—through direct aid and by vately that they expect Freeport’s demands “slip of the tongue” regarding the Quran. means of his TV stations, which were admonished by Indonesia’s broadcast to be at the top of his wish list. At the The required public stance of move- commission for unseemly pro-move- meeting of movement figures last Friday, ment leaders was to claim to be forever ment political bias and inaccuracy— one of them looked at me and exclaimed: wounded by Ahok’s remark asking people and their perceived lifeline to President “Pence will threaten Jokowi on Freeport!” not to be deceived by rivals trying to use a Donald Trump. Freeport Indonesia did not respond Quranic verse against him. But here was to requests for comment. one of them—with a small smile— Those in the room all agreed they acknowledging that strategically Ahok’s wanted a Prabowo-Hary Tanoe gov- Blasphemy as pretext statement was welcome, because it had ernment, perhaps with Hary as presi- Although privately movement lead- enabled the FPI and its sponsors to shift dent and Prabowo as vice president, or ers and their sponsors spoke inces- the balance of power inside the state, ele- the reverse, depending on the polling. santly of the army, evading justice, and vate themselves from street killers to theo- The catch, which didn’t seem to seizing power, on the streets out- logians, and alter the cultural climate to bother them, is that Hary, like Ahok, is side the theme was decidedly religious. boot. And here he was, accepting that the an ethnic Chinese Christian, which if Walking among the huge crowd at one fateful remark was a “slip of the tongue.” they believed in their own standards action at the Istliqlal mosque near the With that, he not only appeared to should disqualify him from leading palace, it was clear to me that although be conceding that the blasphemy crim- Jakarta, let alone Indonesia. the protest movement was fronted by inal case against Ahok was bogus—as —The Intercept, April 18, 2017 the FPI, it had drawn a wide swath of we spoke, Ahok’s lawyers were arguing people, many of whom were demon- in court precisely that he had just spo- strating simply because they were con- ken loosely, intending no offense—but https://theintercept.com/2017/04/18/ servative or felt aggrieved. also that the coup movement’s sole big trumps-indonesian-allies-in-bed-with- The proximate cause of that griev- public issue was something that, in isis-backed-militia-seeking-to-oust- ance was Ahok and his alleged blas- private, they did not take seriously. elected-president/

A member of the hard-line vigilante group shouts slogans after burning an effigy of Jakarta Gov. Ahok in front of Jakarta’s city hall.

30 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Capitalism On Trial Caribbean reparations movement must put capitalism on trial By Ajamu Nangwaya This article previously appeared Capitalism and slavery in the justify a simple economic fact: that in Pambazuka News. Caribbean the colonies needed and resorted to [African] labor because it was the A key goal of all yearly progressive April 18, 2017—Why is the repara- cheapest and the best. This was not tions movement in the Anglophone remembrance activities in the a theory, it was a practical conclu- [English speaking] Caribbean not put- Caribbean and elsewhere should be to sion deduced from the personal ting capitalism on trial in its campaign educate or remind people of the fact experience of the planter.”1 to force British imperialism to provide that capitalism was the primary force Williams asserts that slavery, as financial compensation for its indus- behind the extraction of the labor “basically an economic institution,” trial and agricultural capitalists’ power of enslaved Africans. Of equal gave birth to racism. He further states enslavement of Africans? To what importance is the need to etch into the that “Unfree labor in the New World extent is capitalism such a sacred spirit consciousness of the public that white was brown, white, black and yellow; or god whose name should not be pub- supremacy or racism was simply an Catholic, Protestant and pagan.” licly called in order to avoid attracting ideological tool used by the capitalist Racism or white supremacy is now an its vindictive and punishing rebuke? enslavers and various European states autonomous system of oppression that Are the advocates of reparations truly to morally justify the enslavement of intersects with patriarchy and capital- convinced that British imperialism’s Africans. Racism was deployed by these ism to create differing degrees of labor payment of financial compensation for early capitalists and their respective exploitation within the ranks of the the enslavement of Africans would end national states to mask the purely eco- working-class. the economic marginalization of the nomic motivation behind the develop- laboring classes who are toiling under ment of an enslaved labor force. The point that should be centered in capitalist regimes throughout the the minds of revolutionaries and radi- region? Why are we willing to place cals in the Caribbean is that capitalism, racism or white supremacy in the dock Why are we willing the architect of racism, is still negatively but not its creator—capitalism? to place racism or impacting the lives of the working-class descendants of enslaved Africans as well On December 17, 2007, the United white supremacy in as the societies that were built by their Nations’ General Assembly passed a exploited labor. The late revolutionary, resolution that made March 25 the the dock but not its organic intellectual and historian, Dr. annual commemorative International creator—capitalism? Walter Rodney, convincingly argues Day of Remembrance of the Victims of and documents in his ground-breaking Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave text, How Europe Underdeveloped Trade. This day should be used as a ral- In the seminal and classic Africa, that capitalism was the main lying point by people of good con- book Capitalism and Slavery that was contributor to the stagnation of Africa’s science to press the former major slav- written by the late historian and states- economic development (see Chapter 4 ing states [including the U.S.] such as man Dr. Eric Williams, he states that the – “Europe and the Roots of Africa’s Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, brutal, exploitative and exacting labor Underdevelopment – To 1885.”) Holland, Portugal, Russia, Spain and condition of white indentured workers Sweden to pay reparations for their served as the template for the institution Rodney’s indictment of capitalism participation in the economic exploita- of African enslavement or slavery: and its retardation of the potentiality of the greater portion of humanity (the tion and racist dehumanization of “Here then is the origin of enslaved Africans. The General [African] slavery. The reason was laboring classes) should be duly noted Assembly’s initiative is an acknowl- economic, not racial; it had not to by the reparations activists or advocates edgement of the over fifteen million do with the color of the laborer but who are playing footsie with capitalism: Africans who landed in the Americas the cheapness of the laborer….The “… the peasants and workers of and the over thirty million captives features of the man, his hair, color Europe (and eventually the inhabit- who died during the process of catch- and dentifrice, his ‘subhuman’ ants of the whole world) paid a huge ing and delivering them into the characteristics so widely pleaded, price so that the capitalists could make Holocaust of Enslavement. were only later rationalizations to their profits from the human labor

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 31 that always lies behind the machine. ment, budgetary and development institutions, they should know that capi- That contradicts other facets of devel- challenges as seen in the call for debt talist economic relations and practices opment, especially viewed from the cancellation, technology transfer and a are a major source of oppression. standpoint of those who suffered and formal apology and not statements of still suffer to make capitalist achieve- As such, they ought to educate the regrets in this regional body’s Ten Point public on the reality that the capitalism ments possible. This latter group are Action Plan for Reparatory Justice. the majority of [humanity]. To that exploited the labor of enslaved advance, they must overthrow capital- While these governments are acting Africans is the same capitalism that ism; and that is why at the moment like capitalism was not the real culprit exploited them as wage slaves after the capitalism stands in the path of further behind the economic exploitation of end of slavery. Capitalism is still human development. To put it anoth- enslaved Africans, progressive civil exploiting Caribbean workers and tak- er way, the social (class) relations of society groups and individuals who are ing the lion’s share of the profit that capitalism are now outmoded, just as comes from the labor power of the slave and feudal relations became out- working-class. moded in their time.”2 ... white supremacy CARICOM’s ten-point reparations Dr. Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor or racism was proposal is implicitly using the societ- of the University of the West Indies, has ies in the global North as the model of written an excellent and easily compre- simply an social and economic development. The hended book, Britain’s Black Debt: ideological tool used mature capitalist societies in North Reparations for Caribbean Slavery and by the capitalist America and Europe are characterized Native Genocide. It is a must read for by widespread income inequality and people who would like to understand enslavers and concentration of wealth as well as the the basis of the claim for reparations various European political marginalization of the work- from Britain for its role in the enslave- ing-class. How can such societies in ment of Africans and genocide against states to morally good conscience serve as the standard Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean. justify the of social, political and economic devel- Unfortunately, Britain’s Black enslavement of opment for the Caribbean? Debt has placed the misbegotten child Africans of capitalism—racism—on trial, but Reparatory justice for social not the inherently exploitative and soul transformation and dual power destroying parent: capitalism. If we are advocating for reparations should not In the Caribbean, the revolutionar- going to throw the book at capitalism be silent or conveniently forgetful of ies and radicals must advance a repara- for chattel slavery, we are morally and this historical fact. We should expect tions agenda that demands Britain/ politically obligated to do the same for the liberal petite bourgeois or middle- Europe’s financial compensation for the wage slavery of capitalism under class reparations advocates to not the economic exploitation and racist which the Caribbean working-class is indict capitalism. Their class interests dehumanization of enslaved Africans. currently being exploited. and aspirations are totally immersed It has been estimated that Britain’s and dependent on the continued exis- reparations payment to Africans in the Caribbean states and reparations tence of capitalism. The petite bourgeois Caribbean would be in the region of Today, we are witnessing the uncon- elements, unlike the laboring classes, £7.5 trillion.3 The £20 million paid to scionable, but politically understand- display high levels of class-conscious- the enslavers of Africans after the 1838 able behavior of the neocolonial states ness and the former group tends to abolition of slavery in the British in the Caribbean Community allow its class interests to guide its Empire would be worth about £200 (CARICOM) in divorcing their call for thoughts and actions. billion in today’s currency.4 reparations from measures aimed at However, radical and revolutionary The proposals below ought to be a throwing capitalism into the cesspool reparations activists and supporters have part of the Caribbean reparations of history. These member states of no business not putting capitalism on movement’s program and be seen as a CARICOM are all committed to the the stand in their activism and general part of the general class struggle. The implementation of social, economic public education initiatives. As political neocolonial Caribbean states do not and political policies that have activists who are committed to ending need the immediate payment of repa- enshrined capitalism in the region. inequity and exploitation that are rooted rations to undertake some of these They are interested in reparations as in the social, economic, political and demands. The social movements in the a way to deal with their balance of pay- cultural structures of society’s principal region must organize around these

32 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 demands as a part of a dual power curriculum that prepares learners, at dants must now exercise stewardship strategy or infrastructure of dissent or public expense, to work in capitalist and control over it. 5 anarchist transfer cultures: enterprises. The worker self-manage- In order for them to take land out of Promote labor self-management ment ideas and practices should be the capitalist speculative market and to and economic democracy: The gov- integrated throughout the curriculum. end the idea of the ownership of land ernments in the Caribbean must capi- Develop comprehensive land by individuals, these governments talize national and regional worker reform program: According to Tony must create the legislative framework self-management and entrepreneur- Weis in the paper “Restructuring and for the establishment of community ship funds from allotments out of the land trust (CLT). CLTs are structures respective annual national budgets. that are used to protect land from the These funds would be controlled by If we are going to rise or fall in the value of land based on progressive civil society forces. These speculation or the whims and fancies financial resources would be used to throw the book at of capitalist demand and supply of land finance and support worker coopera- capitalism for and housing. The access to land should tives and other labor self-managed be based on the right of collective use companies as well as the work of the chattel slavery, we or usufructuary rights and not the right support organizations and structures are morally and of private ownership. Each generation that are necessary to ensure the viabil- politically obligated should be the steward of land and not ity of the workers’ ownership, control its owners as under capitalism. to do the same for and management of their workplace. Create a cooperative housing pro- It would be the duty of the revolu- the wage slavery of gram: The condition of a large propor- tionary and radical organizers to ensure capitalism under tion of the housing stock in the that a critical mass of the worker-coop- Caribbean is an assault on human erators embrace labor self-manage- which the Caribbean decency, especially for those who live ment as a part of the class struggle and working-class is in urban squatter settlements or over- the fight for socialism. The worker’s currently being crowded, ill-repaired housing in urban democratic control of the workplace and rural communities. The state must combined with popular assemblies exploited. create national funding program to would be the laboratory or training support the development and mainte- ground for the self-management of the nance of cooperative housing by the future stateless, classless and self-orga- people through their organizations. Redundancy: The Impacts and Illogic nized (communist) society. of Neoliberal Agricultural Reforms in Cooperative housing is a way to Include labor self-management in Jamaica,” “Jamaica’s landscape still engender popular, democratic and col- school curriculum: The governments bears the scars of the most ferocious lective control and management over in the Caribbean should restructure form of agricultural production ever the housing by the people who live in the curriculum and place at its center devised, as plantations kept their vice- these units and to undermine the idea knowledge of the oppressive nature of like grip on the best land after of housing as a tradeable commodity. chattel slavery and wage slavery as sys- Emancipation in 1838, with all subse- The members of cooperative housing tems of labor extraction and exploita- quent distribution program only ever would have security of tenure but tion. Of equal importance is the strate- acting on the margins of these inhu- would not be able to pass on the prop- gic need to adequately educate the manly constructed yet sacrosanct insti- erty to their heirs. 6 students in primary, secondary and tutions.” The preceding state of affairs Establish working-class friendly tertiary educational institutions about is essentially the situation in the rest of labor laws: The system of chattel slav- workers’ control, ownership and man- the Anglophone Caribbean. ery in the Caribbean and the rest of the agement of the workplace. The governments in the Caribbean Americas was a very vile form of labor Further, the students would be must undertake a comprehensive land exploitation. The slave masters did not equipped with the knowledge, skills reform program that puts flat, arable simply exercise power over the labor and attitudes to collectively self-man- land in the hands of the laboring class- power and the fruit of the labor (prof- age worker cooperatives and other es. Enslaved Africans and indentured it) of the enslaved African workforce. worker self-managed companies. We South Asians and the Indigenous peo- These capitalists also owned the must challenge the public education ples worked the land and their descen- enslaved Africans.

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 33 The brutal legacy of exploitation of inating economic, social, cultural and power over the political institutions African workers continued after political institutions. In this contesta- that govern their lives. A system of Emancipation in 1838. In the tion for power, the people’s organiza- popular assemblies with the capacity to Anglophone Caribbean of today, pro- tions would use all available and ethical challenge the authoritarian liberal cap- gressive organizations ought to devel- means to advance their liberation. italist democracies for power would be op broad national and regional cam- Perry Mars documents in his the one of the best expressions of repa- paigns to force these neocolonial gov- book Ideology and Change: The ratory justice in the Caribbean. ernments to create worker-friendly Transformation of the Caribbean Conclusion labor laws that make it easier for work- Left that a section of the the Left in the ers to join or form trade unions. Severe Caribbean has a tradition of using or The struggle for reparations in the or prohibitive fines must be levied advocating the deployment of assem- Caribbean should become a site of the against employers who violate the blies to connect with the people: “What class struggle and organizing the peo- rights of workers to form or join trade these parties have in common is their ple for socialism or communism. unions. It is hypocritical of govern- strong advocacy of what are called Capitalism must be put on trial for aid- ments to demand reparations from variously ‘people’s parliament’ or ‘peo- ing and abetting the enslavement of British imperialism for slavery, while ple’s assembly’ representing mass dem- Africans and genocide against the facilitating the exploitation of workers ocratic participation in grass roots self Indigenous peoples. through laws that titled against the organizations.”7 The proposals that are outlined power of workers in the workforce. above for adoption by the Caribbean The rate of unionization is very low reparations will not become a reality in in the Caribbean and it must become a Each generation the absence of national campaigns that priority of progressive social move- should be the stew- organize the people into their self- ment organizations, socialist organiza- ard of land and not organized class-based and other popu- tions, the revolutionary petite bourgeoi- lar organizations. We are seeking to sie and trade unions to push for legisla- its owners as under build a counter-hegemonic force or tion that will give workers a greater capitalism. alternative power bloc to contest the level of bargaining power in the work- existing forces of domination and to place-based class struggle. advance the long-term struggle of put- Establish popular, democratic and Further, the Left sees assemblies as ting them out of business. horizontal assemblies of the political instruments that compensate The neocolonial governments have oppressed: The revolutionary and rad- for the fact that the liberal capitalist jumped in front of the reparations ical forces in the Caribbean’s repara- democracies in the region are not bandwagon and are trying to set the tions movement must work with other responsive or representative of the agenda. It is incumbent on the popular progressive forces throughout society needs of the people. Assemblies should forces to organize the people in order to to establish a federated system of pop- not be used as consultative or informa- wrest the agenda-setting initiative from ular, democratic and horizontal assem- tion-sharing bodies by nationalist and the state and impose their program of blies of the oppressed. These assem- socialist revolutionaries or radicals. action on the state through the organiz- blies would function as the direct dem- These political assemblies are sup- ing of the laboring classes and other ocratic structures of political self-man- posed to be proactive and positive struc- oppressed groups within its ranks. agement that seek to approximate the tures that familiarize the people with the It is critically necessary for the orga- communist self-organizing concept of idea and practice of shaping all decisions nizers who are organizing the people “the administration of things and not that impact their lives. Mars notes that from below to do everything possible to the governance of people.” in the Caribbean “The problem with the utilize all available opportunity to build The assemblies would be the local, ‘people’s assembly’ is that the imple- the capacity of the oppressed to chal- regional and national organs through mentation does not necessarily elimi- lenge and undermine the existing white which the laboring classes discuss, plan nate the tendencies towards political supremacist, patriarchal and capitalist and determine their economic and centralization and elitism as far as lead- political order. It is for this reason that 8 social priorities. The masses would ership of the movement is concerned.” a dual power strategy must build the implement their main concerns From the period of chattel slavery to embryonic economic, social and politi- through their alternative and opposi- the current period of neocolonial flag cal structures of the future socialist tional institution as well as organize independence, the Caribbean laboring society, while engaging and contesting and impose them on existing and dom- classes have yet to exercise substantive the existing institutions of power.

34 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 It is in this light that the develop- Libyan Slave Market ment of worker self-management over their workplaces and the establishment UN migration agency says selling of people is rife in African nation that of a system of popular assemblies as the has slid into violent chaos since overthrow of Gaddafi seat of working-class political power By Emma Graham-Harrison become necessary. The reparations movement can play an important cata- West African migrants are being “The men on the pick-up were lytic role in helping to ideologically bought and sold openly in modern-day brought to a square, or parking lot, prepare the people for the completion slave markets in Libya, survivors have where a kind of slave trade was hap- of the Second Emancipation in the told a UN agency helping them return pening. There were locals—he Caribbean and the rest of the Americas. home. described them as Arabs—buying sub- Ajamu Nangwaya, Ph.D., is a writer, Trafficked people passing through Saharan migrants,” said Livia Manante, organizer, educator and a lecturer in the Libya have previously reported vio- an IOM officer based in Niger who Institute of Caribbean Studies at the lence, extortion and slave labor. But the helps people wanting to return home. University of the West Indies. new testimony from the International She interviewed the survivor after he —Black Agenda Report, April 18, 2017 Organization for Migration suggests escaped from Libya earlier this month that the trade in human beings has and said accounts of slave markets were https://www.blackagendareport.com/ become so normalized that people are confirmed by other migrants she spoke reparations_for_slavery_and_capitalism being traded in public. to in Niger and some who had been “The latest interviewed by colleagues in Europe. 1 Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, reports of ‘slave (London: Andre Deutsch, 1964), 18-19. Avail- markets’ for ...trade in human “Several other able online at: https://urbanartiphax.com/ebooks/ migrants can be beings has become migrants con- files/Eric-Williams-Capitalism-Slavery.pdf added to a long list firmed his story, 2 Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdevel- of outrages [in so normalized that independently oped Africa, (Washington, D.C.: Howard Uni- versity Press, 1974), 10. Available online Libya],” said people are being describing kinds of at: abahlali.org/files/3295358-walter-rodney.pdf Mohammed traded in public slave markets as 3 Hilary Beckles, Britain’s Black Debt: Repa- Abdiker, IOM’s well as kinds of pri- rations for Caribbean Slavery and Native Geno- head of operation vate prisons all over cide, (Kingston: University of the West Indies and emergencies. “The situation is dire. in Libya,” Manente said. “IOM Italy has Press, 2013), 175 The more IOM engages inside Libya, confirmed that this story is similar to 4 Ibid. 144. the more we learn that it is a vale of many stories reported by migrants and 5 Jeff Shantz, Re-thinking Revolution: A Social tears for all too many migrants.” collected at landing points in southern Anarchist Perspective, Philosophers for Change, Italy, including the slave market reports. Accessed on April 6, 2017, https://philosophers- The North African nation is a major forchange.org/2012/03/07/re-thinking-revolu- exit point for refugees from Africa trying This gives more evidence that the stories tion-a-so....Shantz is opposed to using the con- to take boats to Europe. But since the reported are true, as the stories of those cept “dual power” but his preference for “infra- overthrow of autocratic leader Muammar who managed to cross-match those who structure of dissent” or “anarchist transfer cul- are returning back to their countries.” tures” is not a variance with a dual power strat- Gaddafi, the vast, sparsely populated egy that focuses on self-organization of the country has slid into violent chaos and After his sale, the Senegalese migrant working-class and oppressed identity groups migrants with little cash and usually no was taken to a makeshift prison of a within that class. papers are particularly vulnerable. kind that has been well documented in 6 Tony Weis in the paper “Restructuring and One 34-year-old survivor from Libya. Those held inside are forced to Redundancy: The Impacts and Illogic of Neolib- Senegal said he was taken to a dusty lot work without pay, or on meager eral Agricultural Reforms in Jamaica,” Journal of rations, and their captors regularly call Agrarian Change, 4, no. 4, (October 2004): 463. in the south Libyan city of Sabha after family at home demanding a ransom. 7 Perry Mars, Ideology and Change: The crossing the desert from Niger in a bus Transformation of the Caribbean Left, (Detroit: organized by people smugglers. The His captors asked for 300,000 West Wayne State University Press, 1998), 113. group had paid to be taken to the coast, African francs (about £380,) then sold 8 Ibid. 113. where they planned to risk a boat trip him on to a larger jail where the to Europe, but their driver suddenly demand doubled without explanation. said middlemen had not passed on his Men who lingered there too long fees and put his passengers up for sale. without the ransom being paid were

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 35 “There are now more migrants coming back from Libya, so that’s also why all these stories are coming to the surface,” he said. “And conditions are worsening in Libya so I think we can also expect more in the coming months.” Even growing international awareness of the problems migrants face is being exploited. IOM has had credible reports of criminals posing as aid groups that help migrants to lure in people who have escaped or bought their freedom and want to return home. The organization is working to spread awareness across West Africa of the horrors of the journey through the personal taken away and killed, he said. Some three months of this year—almost the stories of those who return. Though wasted away on meager rations in same number as in the whole of 2015. He most migrants know the boat trips to unsanitary conditions, dying of hunger fears more horrors are likely to emerge. Europe are extremely risky, fewer realize and disease, but overall numbers never fell. “If the number of migrants goes down, because of death or someone is ransomed, the kidnappers just go to the market and buy one,” Manente said. His terrified family began scraping together loans. As he spoke fluent English, French and some local languag- es, he translated for his jailers to win time for relatives to collect the money. Many other migrants flee Libya with similar stories, said Giuseppe Loprete, chief of mission at IOM Niger. “Its very clear they see themselves as being treated as slaves,” he said. Loprete’s office has arranged for the repatriation of 1,500 people in the first

they may face even worse dangers in Libya before even reaching the coast. “Tragically, the most credible mes- sengers are migrants returning home with IOM help,” said spokesman Leonard Doyle. “Too often they are broken, brutalized and have been abused. Their voices carry more weight than anyone else’s.” —The Guardian, April 10, 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2017/apr/10/libya-public-slave-auc- tions-un-migration?CMP=share_btn_tw

36 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Labor Must Unite and Fight! By John Peterson

In classic “divide and rule” fashion, an objective obstacle to working class level. No matter how well-intentioned, Donald Trump seeks to drive a wedge militancy and struggle. an informational picket is not a strike. into the working class. By giving tiny As an example, take the president of Solidarity is the workers’ strongest crumbs to a few and scapegoating oth- the AFL-CIO labor federation. In the face weapon, and laws and injunctions ers, he hopes to distract us from the of Trump’s intensifying assault on labor, against solidarity strikes will have to be real source of the problems faced by all has Richard Trumka appealed to com- disregarded as the real class balance of workers: capitalism. mon interests of all workers—those in forces is measured in the workplaces Contrary to the poisonous rhetoric and out of the AFL-CIO, the trades, and on the streets. Instead of organizing of the so-called “white” and “econom- industrial, service, and public sector consumer boycotts and protesting Wal- ic” nationalists, the fundamental divid- unions, the organized and unorganized, Mart from the outside, workers’ solidar- ing line in society isn’t urban versus the documented and undocumented? ity strike action across the distribution rural, Christian versus Muslim, or Has he called for a break with the chain has the power to paralyze this immigrant versus native-born. It is Democrats and the formation of a labor colossal company at the ports, on the class—with the workers standing on highways and railways, at the warehous- one side of the barricades and the capi- es, and in the stores. The fight for $15 is talists on the other. ...the real source of only the first step and must include an all-out effort to unionize, as modestly Labor unions are the front-line of the problems faced higher wages are not enough to guaran- defense against the capitalists, a way for by all workers: tee a decent quality of life. And to pro- workers to collectively confront the capitalism tect our immigrant sisters and brothers, bosses to improve wages and condi- “A Day Without a Mexican” is far from tions by threatening to withhold their sufficient. Organized labor must set a labor. On average, unionized workers party? Has he called for a general strike to date and build for an all-out general enjoy significantly better wages, bene- stop the terrorizing of immigrant work- strike to prove in practice that an injury fits, conditions, and protections than ers and pending national “right to work” to one is an injury to all. nonunion workers. legislation? Far from it. He continues to tail-end the Democrats, has praised The eight-hour day, weekends, pen- None of this will come about over- sions, paid vacations, and more, were Trump’s protectionism and called their night or without perseverance in the won by a militant strategy and a left-wing meeting “honest and productive.” face of fierce resistance by the bosses leadership, not through business union- The petty in-fighting and cowardice and their state. American workers have ism and class collaboration. But all of this of the labor leaders, who grovel before had their heads down for many years is an impossible dream for millions of Trump and sell out the rest of their class and most are not willing to risk their workers who must endure low wages, no for a handful of temporary jobs is dis- livelihoods just to “send a message.” benefits, unsafe conditions, precarious gusting to the most class-conscious They have to know their sacrifices will employment, irregular scheduling, split workers and youth. They want real be worthwhile and stand a good chance shifts, and arbitrary dismissals. change and are not attracted by stale of success. There is no way to predict defeatism and those who accept the sta- precisely when they will move. But we Unfortunately, the current crop of can say this: the pressure is building and labor leaders has led the movement into tus quo. They instinctively understand that the only way forward is to embrace when they do enter the scene of history, a dead end. With this or that exception, nothing on earth will be able to stop the they have accepted decades of conces- the principle that the workers’ and bosses’ interests are diametrically opposed. elemental power of the class-conscious sions and moved might and main to working class. As Marx and Engels put keep their own members in check. In Only by collectively withholding our labor and shutting down production it in the Communist Manifesto: “let the the name of a class-collaborationist ruling classes tremble!” “team partnership,” they use the unions can we disrupt the flow of commodities to control the workers and impose give- and services and strike at the bosses’ —Socialist Appeal, March 14, 2017 backs on behalf of the bosses. Far from fundamental interests: profits. http://socialistappeal.org/news-anal- representing the workers’ interests as a The struggles that have simmered the ysis/editorials/1842-labor-must-unite- whole, the union bureaucrats represent last few years must be taken to the next and-fight.html

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 37 “Sanctuary Cities” and Black Community Control of the Police By Glen Ford

March 29, 2017—Advocates of ment. Local police departments have ance in the amounts spent on local Black community control of police successfully evaded even their base-line Black community housing, health and need to do some serious examination responsibility to report the number of education needs, and maintenance of of the swirl of issues surrounding the civilians they kill every year to the FBI, the police state. In this context, defund- fight over “sanctuary cities.” Attorney whose estimate of the national carnage ing the police is a matter of community General Jeff Sessions this week upped is thought to be off by half. Black priorities and empowerment, rather the ante, threatening to withhold not Richmond, Virginia, congressman than an appeal for the national govern- only future federal funding to cities Bobby Scott, got a bill passed in 2000, ment to set things right. that refuse to vigorously enforce fed- that would have required the collection The democratic solution to police eral immigration laws, but to claw back of data on fatal encounters with police, oppression lies in the exercise of self- Justice Department grants previously with vague provisions for withholding determination through Black commu- awarded to resistant municipalities. funds for failure to do so. But the law nity control of the police. When local Although there is no question that was allowed to quietly die in 2006. In community representatives control the police-oppressed communities have a December of 2014, in the wake of the budgetary, hiring and firing process, huge stake in resisting the Trump appeals to a “higher” authority are nei- administration’s anti-immigrant jug- ther necessary nor desirable. gernaut, the demand for Black com- The democratic Donald Trump’s war against immi- munity control of police must not be solution to police compromised in the shuffle and scuffle grants is a fascist-inspired offensive between Democrats and Republicans. oppression lies in that is inseparable from his plans to forcefully pacify Black America. Back At the heart of the issue is the fed- the exercise of in January, Trump vowed to “send in eral role in law enforcement. self-determination the feds” to tame Chicago. This week, Traditional “civil rights” forces have he met with the head of the Chicago long sought to curb police abuse through Black com- Fraternal Order of Police, who was through appeals for federal interven- munity control of eager both to enforce oppressive immi- tion, including demands for cut-offs in the police. Washington’s aid to local departments. gration laws and to “reduce the gun Everybody knows the dance by now: violence in the city of Chicago”— community outrage over police terror Ferguson rebellion, Scott’s bill was through application of more massive is channeled into the U.S. Justice reauthorized by Congress, and was police violence. Department, which promises investi- joined on the U.S. Senate side by a Former president Obama’s position gations and the possibility of federal Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Barbara is no different than Trump’s; his rheto- suits, sometimes culminating in “con- Boxer (D-CA) bill that would provide ric is simply softer. Obama’s Justice sent decrees” that imposed limited grants for “tip lines and hot lines” to Department announced, last July, that reforms on the offending department. allow the public to report to the feds on it would withhold federal grants to When the reforms fail to stop the cops police killings. However, Booker and local jurisdictions that refuse to pro- from behaving like an occupying army Boxer did not push for defunding of vide immigration data to federal agen- in the Black community—as in uncooperative departments. cies. In other words, he set up the Cleveland, which has been subjected to Defunding cops is a non-starter machinery for Trump’s crackdown— two consent decrees in the 21st centu- among most Democrats and virtually after racking up a record as the cham- ry—repeat the process. all Republicans—a political fact that pion deporter in U.S. history. The profoundly conservative civil further neuters the traditional, call-in- Solidarity with immigrant commu- rights establishment has only one the-feds response to police terror. nities is crucial to the struggle for Black response to systemic white supremacy However, starving the criminal injus- liberation in the United States. at the local level: call in the feds, a time- tice system on the local level is a differ- However, that does not mean making consuming process that is designed to ent story. Last year, the Movement for common cause with the Democratic dissipate dissent and diverts attention Black Lives launched a nationwide Party, which attempts to portray itself from the goal of community empower- campaign to dramatize the huge imbal- as a friend of immigrants, and white-

38 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 washes the fact that Trump’s offensive Chicago’s Criminal Cops against the undocumented is essentially Obama’s policy with a meaner, Victims of criminal cops in Chicago are fighting to overturn their orange face. It certainly does not call wrongful convictions for an alliance with the likes of mayors By Jamie Kalven Rahm Emanuel, of Chicago, and Bill di Blasio, of New York, whose police Anthony McDaniels was walking to to the ground. The gun “eject[ed] from wage relentless war against Black his car, a Ford Taurus parked in front his waistband area” and landed on the neighborhoods. These cities provide of his home, on November 21, 2008, sidewalk. Leano recovered the gun, no “sanctuary” from police predation when he encountered Chicago police while Nichols apprehended McDaniels. for people of color, immigrant or officers Kallatt Mohammed and After his arrest, McDaniels volunteered native born, and it is a damnable lie to Douglas Nichols. He knew them, at the station that he had bought the pretend otherwise. Sanctuary is only McDaniels stated in an affidavit, gun for protection and was trying to possible when the cops are directly because over the years they and other get it out of his car. answerable to the people, through members of a gang tactical team Having served nine years of a Black community control of the police. under Sergeant Ronald Watts had 12-year sentence, McDaniels is now Hopefully, these first two months of repeatedly shaken him down for money. challenging his conviction with the Donald Trump has taught folks what The officers took his car keys, and help of the Exoneration Project of the they should have learned under Mohammed asked him, “What you got, University of Chicago Law School. His Obama: that calling in the feds is no man?” McDaniels understood him to be future depends on the assessment of substitute for building people’s power. asking whether he had drugs or money. these competing narratives. It’s often just the opposite. He told them he didn’t have anything. According to McDaniels, the first —Black Agenda Report, March 29, “I’m tired of you guys fucking with time he saw Leano was when the officer 2017 me,” he said. testified in court. This is consistent with https://blackagendareport.com/sanc- Mohammed searched him and found the pattern in other cases in which tuary_cities_community_control $638.00, which he pocketed. Nichols members of Watts’ team who were not searched the car and emerged with a at the scene are listed as arresting offi- gun. McDaniels denied it was his. cers or witnesses. McDaniels also denies that he made a voluntary admission These cities provide “We can make this go away,” about buying the gun. He maintains he Mohammed told him, “if you give us was silent at the station. The gun at no “sanctuary” from something.” issue, a Glock, was inventoried as hav- police predation for When McDaniels replied “I ain’t got ing a defaced serial number, but the people of color, nothing to give you,” the officers gun introduced into evidence during arrested him and charged him with the trial bore a legible serial number. immigrant or native illegal possession of a handgun. The police testified that McDaniels born, and it is a The story told by the officers in entered the passenger door of his car damnable lie to police reports and sworn testimony is and then fled. They said there was a very different: Officers Nichols and male driver and a female passenger in pretend otherwise. Manuel Leano were engaged in narcot- the car, but there was no testimony Sanctuary is only ics surveillance when they saw about any effort to locate and appre- possible when the McDaniels running from his house, hend those individuals. Mohammed holding his waistband and yelling “go, testified that he had driven McDaniels’ cops are directly go, go.” He entered the passenger side Ford Taurus from the site of the arrest, answerable to the of the Taurus and fled. The officers supposedly several blocks from pursued him for several blocks. McDaniels’ home, to the district sta- people, through McDaniels jumped out of the moving tion. This testimony is contradicted by Black community car and ran, still holding his waistband. that of a tow truck driver who provided control of the police. Pursuing him on foot, Leano saw the documentation that he had picked up butt of a gun protruding from the Taurus in front of McDaniels home McDaniels’ waistband. McDaniels fell and deposited it at the police pound.

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 39 The trial and appellate courts found months. No other members of the team see corruption such as that of the Watts the officers’ richly detailed account were criminally charged or otherwise cohort as “a victimless crime”—a mat- credible and relied on their word in disciplined; several, including Nichols ter of criminals preying on criminals. reaching the conclusion that McDaniels and Leano, remain on the force and one To the extent such an attitude holds was guilty. Both resolved all ambiguities has been promoted to sergeant. sway, it both expresses and enables the and inconsistencies in favor of the police However limited the charge and conditions of structural racism that narrative. It is impossible to do so now, light the sentences, the fact that Watts Watts and his co-conspirators, operat- however, in light of other exoneration and Mohammed were convicted, in ing primarily in impoverished public cases in which members of Watts’s combination with the documentary housing developments, exploited for team are known to have fabricated evi- record generated by Spalding and their criminal ends. It renders invisible dence and falsified official reports. Echeverria’s whistleblower lawsuit, the abandoned communities they were Nichols, Leano, and Mohammed did which was settled by the city of Chicago supposed to serve. It also disregards the not respond to requests for comment. for $2 million, created a beachhead fact that while some they falsely arrest- The Chicago Police Department said it from which civil rights attorneys at the ed were drug dealers, those individuals does not comment on pending litigation. Exoneration Project have successfully were innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. Viewed in this A criminal conspiracy in the challenged the convictions of several individuals who were convicted based light, the ultimate source of the impu- Chicago police department on testimony by Watts and his crew. nity these officers enjoyed for so long In “Code of Silence,” a four-part was the social status of their victims. investigation published in The Intercept Convictions overturned When whole populations and commu- last October, I reported on a massive To date, there have been four cases in nities are presumed criminal, it confers criminal enterprise within the Chicago which convictions have been overturned upon abusive officers a fearsome power Police Department. That reporting was and certificates of innocence issued: Ben to toy with people’s lives. based in large part on the accounts of Baker (twice), Clarissa Glenn, and It is thus striking, after years of fruit- Shannon Spalding and Danny Lionel White. These cases have certain less investigations by major law enforce- Echeverria, Chicago narcotics officers common elements. In each case Watts ment agencies, that the process of detailed to the FBI to investigate or members of his team arrested the exposing the damage done by the Watts Sergeant Ronald Watts and his team, individual because he or she refused to team is now being pushed forward by who they alleged were major players in cooperate with their criminal purposes. their victims, who have become visible the drug trade in South Side public They fabricated evidence, and then con- and audible by virtue of the legal strate- housing. Spalding and Echeverria spired to support the arrest by falsifying gies of the Exoneration Project. charged that senior police officials dis- official reports and making false state- closed their identities within the ments under oath. In response to a petition I filed in department and ordered a campaign of November 2016, the Cook County According to Joshua Tepfer of the retaliation against them in an effort to States Attorney’s Office has agreed in Exoneration Project, the case of subvert the investigation. principle to appoint a special mas- Anthony McDaniels conforms to this There was hardly a time during ter for the purpose of identifying valid pattern. On March 30, Tepfer filed a claims of wrongful conviction based on Watts’ 18-year career when he and his petition for post-conviction relief on team were not under investigation by false arrest by members of Watts’ crew, behalf of McDaniels. A hearing was subject to securing adequate funding one or more agencies; among them, the scheduled for April 12. FBI, the CPD’s Bureau of Internal for the purpose. For the moment, its Affairs, the DEA, the ATF, and the Cook As one Watts-related exoneration Conviction Integrity Unit is re-investi- County States Attorney’s Office. Yet case follows another, a seismic shift is gating cases of individuals currently those investigations yielded little. In the occurring in the meta-narrative that incarcerated, such as Anthony end, Watts and his partner Kallatt presumes the police are telling the McDaniels, whose convictions rest on Mohammed were caught in an FBI truth in the absence of definitive evi- the word of these officers. sting, taking $5,200.00 from a confiden- dence to the contrary, while defendants As the wrongful conviction cases tial informant they believed to be a drug known to participate in the drug trade accumulate, the pattern of abuses by courier. Convicted in 2013 on a single are presumptively not credible. Watts’ team becomes ever clearer. That count of stealing government property, Shannon Spalding recalls a high- pattern in turn provides context for Watts served a sentence of 22 months ranking police official remarking to her assessing credibility in future cases. In and Mohammed a sentence of 18 once that federal prosecutors tend to addition to the McDaniels case, Tepfer

40 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 and his colleagues are preparing to chal- Freedom Socialist Party: lenge the convictions of a dozen other individuals who allege they were framed Revolutionary Feminism in Theory and Life by members of the team, and at least By Andrea Bauer one other attorney has several more post-conviction challenges in the works. Socialist Viewpoint received a pro- Make no mistake, FSP is a revolu- A clear pattern of police abuse and posal from a reader that we open the tionary party. We know that the only corruption having been established, pages of the magazine for a discussion way to win a good life for the world’s where is the tipping point at which among political groups who consider majority is by workers seizing power. both justice and efficiency dictate themselves to be revolutionary socialists. But we understand the importance of exonerating all those whose cases con- The subject we proposed to the various reforms in educating and mobilizing form to that pattern without having to groups was “Why should people join people and achieving changes (for a litigate the cases one by one? There are your organization?” Thus far, the time, anyway) that help people survive. a number of precedents for such group Freedom Socialists Party has responded FSP has been and is active in many of exonerations—notably the Rampart to our offer and has submitted the fol- these fights, from defending Native sov- scandal in Los Angeles that resulted in lowing piece. —The Editors ereignty, affirmative action and abor- some 156 criminal defendants having We are living in remarkable times. tion rights to initiating united fronts their convictions vacated, and the case Trump’s election, volatile capitalism in against neo-Nazis. Right now our com- of a rogue undercover narcotics agent decline, and the rise of the far right rades in New York City are collaborat- in Tulia, Texas, that led to the exonera- make it urgent for radicals to find coming with other community members in tion of 37 defendants. More recently, mon ground and work together. For leading the charge for an elected civilian there have been upwards of 700 con- this reason especially the Freedom review board over the police. victions vacated by group exoneration Socialist Party (FSP) appreciates By no means does FSP discount the in Philadelphia; and in Ohio the Socialist Viewpoint’s invitation to say essential role of organized labor in Conviction Integrity Unit of the something about ourselves. achieving lasting change! A big per- Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office centage of FSPers are in unions, where is working to vacate all convictions Like the publishers of Socialist we push for internal democracy and tainted by a team of corrupt officers Viewpoint and other U.S. Marxist for militant struggles against the boss- who operated in East Cleveland. “We groups, FSP’s roots are in the Socialist es. Many comrades have organized didn’t go all the way to determine Workers Party. FSP’s founders left the unions where they work. All our mem- whether they were factually innocent SWP in 1966 to build a party attuned bers walk picket lines and support or not,” said Jose Torres, the head of to feminism and the key leadership role labor battles. the unit, in an interview. “We were of women and other oppressed people, convinced that they were legally inno- Blacks especially, in fighting for funda- Ultra-left abstentionism is not for cent, and that’s enough for us.” mental change in the imperialist heart- us, whether in the labor movement or land. Our bedrock ideas are expressed the electoral arena. We have run candi- Tepfer believes the time for such an in the terms socialist feminism and dates in New York, California, approach is at hand in Chicago. “The revolutionary integration. Washington, and Oregon; joined elec- question is simple,” he told me. toral coalitions; launched an energiz- “Knowing what we know now about The power of specially oppressed ing presidential write-in campaign in Watts and his team, would the States workers to lead working-class struggle 2012; and regularly supported other Attorney bring a case today that was has been borne out over and over again anti-capitalist contenders while noting based simply on the investigations of through the political ups and downs our criticisms. But we don’t fetishize these officers? For the same reason, since FSP’s founding. At times of crisis the electoral process. It isn’t the bas- justice demands that any prior convic- and opportunity when cautious labor tion of democracy that Democratic tion based on this corrupt crew must officials have made themselves scarce, and Republican politicians and the be dismissed.” militant movements of women, Blacks, Chicanos, other people of color, anti- media claim it is. Hell, no! But it is an —The Intercept, April 12 2017 war youth, LGBTQ folks, people with important sphere in which to meet https://theintercept.com/2017/04/12/ disabilities and others have raised hell people, find out what they are think- victims-of-criminal-cops-in-chicago- and raised consciousness. And they ing, and wage the war of ideas. are-fighting-to-overturn-their-wrong- have scored important victories along In this time, one of those battles is ful-convictions/ the way. over nationalism versus international-

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 41 bers. No one of us is going to make the revolution alone! We don’t have to agree on everything to challenge Trump’s agenda. We can march together but strike separately, as revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky wrote. If you would like to find out more about FSP, check us out and subscribe to the Freedom Socialist at socialism.com. If you are interested in joining, get in touch at 206-985-4621 or fspnatl@igc. org. We need many more thinkers and doers! Readers in the Bay Area are invited to join a study group on fascism. Call 415- 864-1278 or email [email protected]. Write to us at: FSP National Office 4710 University Way NE #100 ism. FSP is globalist in its perspective ence and facts! We are activists for and on the ground. environmental sanity. Seattle, WA 98105 The party recognizes that the world We are also a nonsectarian party working class is one working class. We that believes in cooperating with other confront the same enemy and we stand fighters for social justice in united or fall together. And that extends all fronts. There are many obstacles to the way to the fight for socialism, this, from racism and sexism to cul- which can only be real when it is inter- tural nationalism and separatist-tend- national. Workers and oppressed peo- ing radical feminism, which divide ple are tied into one capitalist and struggles rather than bring them imperialist system across the planet, together. Also playing a role is compe- and will only be able to free ourselves tition among left groups over num- from it together. FSP has affiliated sections and at- large members in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and England. We are part of the Committee for Revolutionary International Regroupment (CRIR) with organizations in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica. CRIR members have worked together as part of the campaign to free political prisoner Lynne Stewart in the U.S. and as leaders in the mobilization to liberate Nestora Salgado in Mexico. FSP is democratic-centralist; we believe in the strength of free-wheeling internal discussion that results in acting as one. We believe in the importance of education. We believe in sci-

42 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Parts From Hell The automobile industry takes massive risks with workers’ and consumers’ lives every day. By Dianne Feeley

The U.S. automobile industry has Internally, two GM engineers, Ray lied in front of the GM headquarters issued more than one-hundred-mil- DiGiorgio and Gary Altman, attempt- and met with GM CEO Mary Barra. lion recalls over the last two years at ed to modify the design, considering They demanded compensation for vic- considerable cost to automakers. But two potential fixes in 2004. But in a tims and their families, for company these costs are nothing compared to decades-old pattern, GM rejected both officials to be held criminally liable for the deaths and injuries caused by faulty as too costly, despite being less than a their actions, and for changes in the ignition switches, defective air bags dollar per switch. Instead it kept tabs law to improve safety standards. that explode shrapnel into drivers’ on the number of resulting front-end Laura Christian, spokesperson for necks and chests, secondary hood crashes caused by the defective switch. the survivors, and mother of Ambrose latches that stick to the open position, Evidence now shows that after Rose, killed at fifteen while driving a fuel leaks, water seepage into electronic DiGiorgio’s suggestions were rejected by 2005 Cobalt, stated her objective in controls, and power steering failures. GM’s Safety and Research Strategies coming to Detroit: “I believe the share- After Ralph Nader exposed the auto- team, he went around the company’s holders need to know that they may be mobile industry’s total lack of concern decision, signing a contract in April 2006 the key to helping hold GM to a safety for safety in Unsafe at Any Speed more for a modified version with Delphi, the standard rather than a profit.” than fifty years ago, federal regulations supplier. But anxious to avoid being As early as May 9, 2009 GM had the were put in place. But enforcement caught going against a corporate decision, data from black boxes of Chevrolet remains problematic. Recent lawsuits DiGiorgio never changed the switch’s Cobalts confirming that the defective against General Motors and Japanese code number. As a result dealerships had ignition switch was responsible for component giant, Takata, show how no idea a replacement part existed. deaths and injuries. Yet when families the desire for profit continues to over- The results have been devastating; attempted to investigate why the death shadow safety and consumer rights. lives and families have been destroyed from deaths and injuries caused by the occurred, GM claimed there was no “The switch from hell” faulty switches. In 2013 members of evidence of a defect and in at least one As early as 2001, GM engineers dis- GM Recall Survivors traveled to Detroit case threatened to sue if the family did covered that the ignition switch it used for the company’s annual sharehold- not withdraw their lawsuit. in its compacts could easily slip out of ers’ meeting. Calling on shareholders By February 13, 2014 GM had been place and stall a car. If the switch was to hold GM executives accountable, forced to recall 1.37 million cars, joggled to its accessory position by the group held press conferences, ral- replacing what Ray DiGiorgio—the either a heavy key chain or a person bumping against it, the car could lose power. Heedless of this dangerous possibility, General Motors kept installing them in their Cobalts and Saturn Ions, and even added them to their Chevrolet HHR, Pontiac Solstice, and Pontiac Pursuit. Evidence now indicates that from the beginning, the switch met neither internal GM standards nor the federal standard. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requires auto companies to notify it within five working days if a product flaw is detected, yet GM remained silent, and between 2003 and 2007 installed the defective switch on 2.6 million cars.

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 43 design engineer who first okayed the The new airbags were considered States Council on Automotive part—deemed “the switch from hell.” superior, and were widely adopted. Research, which sets and updates By September 2016, GM had recalled When the first injury occurred with the design and performance specifications, 2.6 million cars because of the ignition Honda Accord in 2004 both Honda and these controls can be easily circum- switch and paid $2 billion in criminal the supplier considered it “an anoma- vented, as we have seen. and civil penalties—including $900 ly.” Yet, the problem reoccurred, and The NHTSA has also been caught million to NHTSA for failure to inform cases of Takata airbags spontaneously sleeping at the wheel. Of course today the federal agency and customers. exploding and injuring drivers mount- NHTSA and the independent monitor But GM remained defiant. When ed. In response, Takata analyzed its of Takata and the Coordinated Remedy CEO Barra was called to testify before product and came up with one reason Program aggressively promote the Congress on April 1, 2014, she insisted and then a second. Meanwhile, Honda recall, and call on the media to help that, after many tests, the engineering filed a standard report with NHTSA, spread the word. But as a rule, the fed- department reported the switch was but the agency never investigated. eral agency trusts that auto assemblers safe enough for even her own son to The problem kept occurring in airbags and suppliers will report problems in a drive as long as there was nothing else manufactured in different facilities and timely and accurate manner. It assumes on the ring but the ignition key. Only in under different conditions. Takata stud- they will comply with safety standards, passing did she acknowledge that sim- ied the problem, but never halted produc- and it passively accepts paperwork that ply bumping the key ring could cause tion. Instead it expanded its supplier base. companies fill out. In the case of the switch to rotate and the engine to In 2014, after more than one-hun- Takata’s airbags, no official was stall. That same month Time magazine dred people were severely injured or assigned to investigate why their air- named her one of the hundred most killed, Takata finally admitted the bags were exploding shrapnel into influential people in the world. instability of its compound. According driver’s faces, necks, and chests, caus- To date GM has settled cases involv- to a NHTSA press release, airbags in ing some to bleed to death and others ing 124 deaths and over 1,250 injuries. cars residing in hot, humid states or in to suffer severe injuries. Industry analysts insist that Barra han- older cars rupture at a rate as high as What about the workers? dled the ignition switch crisis well and fifty percent in a laboratory setting. in January 2016 she became chair of Last June the Department of As an autoworker (now retired), GM’s board of directors. Fifteen GM Transportation warned vehicle owners I’ve seen how supervisors constantly lawyers, and engineers DiGiorgio and under recall to drive them directly to a talk about quality but really value Altman, have been fired but no crimi- dealer for repair, but this is easier said numbers. I wasn’t surprised to read nal charges have been filed. than done for people who rely on their about how a now closed Takata plant vehicle to get to work. Using a different in La Grange, Georgia handled a defec- Exploding airbags propellant, Takata is now churning out tive airbag inflator. Instead of scrap- On October 20, 2016 the NHTSA a million replacement airbags a month, ping the parts when a helium test confirmed an eleventh death from a but at that rate, it will be several years detected a leak, the test was simply Takata airbag rupture. The woman had before replacements are fully available. repeated until the helium was gone. been driving a Honda Civic, but the The defective part was then assigned a problem wasn’t restricted to Honda. Who’s at the wheel? new barcode so that the repeated test- Nearly seventy million similar airbags These two cases—and they are just ing couldn’t be tracked. Only the have been installed in the vehicles of two of many—show that the auto anonymous testimony of an engineer, fourteen auto manufacturers including industry is incapable of monitoring recently given in a deposition, revealed the Detroit Three. itself. In both cases the industry chose this practice. The engineer said that when he questioned the manipulation Takata, a Japanese component sup- to continue production. Despite of the test, he was told to leave the plier with production facilities on four wreckages, injuries, and deaths, the meeting; later he left the company. continents, had developed a compact companies hid their problems and airbag and began mass-producing the refused to take responsibility until The dangerous products being pushed bags in 1998. Earlier air bags emitted a years went by and enough lawsuits and out by auto companies raise questions toxic fume when deployed, but Takata’s public exposure clearly established about the role of workers. How many bags were different. They were inflated their culpability. knew that their company was endanger- by a tiny explosion caused by a com- Although companies have internal ing customers through negligence and pound commonly used in fertilizer. standards and belong to the United greed? Perhaps they didn’t have enough

44 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 of an overview of the production and worked a ten-hour day; five days a Unfortunately it didn’t manage to design process to come to that conclu- week, with an additional eight hours of open the door to developing a broader sion, or perhaps they felt powerless. But mandatory overtime every other vision of how workers could be an certainly if we are looking for what force Saturday. Today working conditions integral part of building safe products might be able to fight for safe products, are even worse; assembly lines run and services. Sure, unions have been workers are an obvious place to start. The much faster and even with all the ergo- under ferocious attack, making it hard auto industry has proven it cannot police nomic technology, workers suffer from to think beyond their own member- itself and a federal agency alone is clearly high rates of injury from repetitive jobs. ship. But the long-term impact of not up to the task. Indeed, most of the Asking workers to monitor safety unions’ defensiveness is impossible to evidence received about company mal- may seem more impossible with the deny; today even basic workplace safe- practice is the result of whistleblowers or election of President Donald Trump, ty is being undermined. paper trails discovered in the course of who has already issued an executive Some unions are developing a litigation, but only after much damage order on reducing regulations: broader vision however, whether that’s has occurred. calling for Medicaid for all or for From this point of view, workers are strengthening Social Security. Nurses’ a logical force to fight for consumer ...if we are looking and teachers’ unions are clear exam- safety. That, of course, would mean a for what force might ples. Nurses have demanded lowering very different method of production, be able to fight for staffing ratios to improve patient care, one that would put safety first. It would while teachers’ unions have fought for certainly not study a safety problem safe products, work- programs that make schools more cre- while still continuing production or ers are an obvious ative and welcoming to their students. expanding its market as Takata did. place to start These unionized workers understand Workers—including engineers, assem- that their working conditions are tied blers, skilled trades, and manage- to the people they serve. ment—would have an overview of “In addition to the management In fact, their concerns go beyond the plant processes and would be report- of the direct expenditure of taxpayer workplace to support community ing, and working to solve, problems. dollars through the budgeting pro- issues. During Hurricane Sandy in 2012 But how can we begin to shift the cess, it is essential to manage the costs the New York State Nurses Association associated with the governmental dynamic to prioritizing safety over prof- staffed mobile clinics in Staten Island imposition of private expenditures it? Let’s consider what could have hap- required to comply with Federal regu- and the Rockaways, going door-to- pened when the federal government lations. Toward that end, it is impor- door to find people in need of medical bailed out GM and Chrysler. It could tant that for every one new regulation help. That experience led the union to have demanded reorganization that put issued, at least two prior regulations organize around climate change and workers in charge of safety. Instead the are identified for elimination . . .”1 build a contingent in the million-strong U.S. Treasury demanded that the work- Given this statement, federal agen- People’s Climate Mobilization demon- ers, who had no say in corporate deci- cies charged with protecting consumer stration two years later. Several unions sion-making, sacrifice wages and bene- safety may very well find their budgets are organizing contingents for the fits so that they would be comparable to cut to the bone. In this situation, it’s upcoming People’s Climate March in those working in non-union auto plants. essential to consider the tools we have Washington, DC April 29. Granted, asking workers to assume at our disposal and in particular the The community-focused stance of responsibility over the production pro- alliances we can forge. nurses’ and teachers’ unions offer a cess seems daunting at a time when Once upon a time most occupations stark contrast to the position of build- worker strength and unions are declin- that were seen as “men’s jobs” were ing trade officials, who support any ing. And autoworkers have their own dangerous. Workingmen were expect- and all construction projects, including safety problems to contend with, from ed to shoulder the risk as the masculine the Keystone and Dakota Access pipe- excessive heat, fumes, toxic chemicals, way to feed one’s family. But unions lines. These officials lobbied the AFL- noise, repetitive work, and malfunc- fought to change this and waged a suc- CIO to support these construction tioning equipment. Thirty-five years cessful struggle to pass the Occupational projects over the concerns of indige- ago, when I first worked at a Ford plant, Safety and Health Act of 1970. OSHA nous and environmental activists. To I had a minute and twelve seconds to benefited all workers and helped to their credit a number of unions pro- complete my job on the assembly line. I change how people viewed work. tested the AFL-CIO position.

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 45 In the struggle over whether to iden- Far Right Rampage in Berkeley tify with employers or develop an independent perspective, autoworkers have Racist goons, given new confidence by Trump’s election, turned down- also found ourselves on the wrong side town Berkeley, California, into a battleground. historically. UAW officials sided with the By Alex Schmaus Detroit Three, testifying in Congress on numerous occasions in opposition to The liberal San Francisco Bay Area Coulter will to speak in late April [She higher fuel standards. But this position city of Berkeley has become the prime backed out of the engagement.] was reversed in 2012—unfortunately not target for violent far-right individuals But in the best-known of these con- because it is an environmentally sound and organizations emboldened by the flicts, Yiannopoulos’ speech was called direction to take but because the Big reign of Donald Trump. off on February 1 by UC officials after a Three and its suppliers needed to become Their latest provocation on April 15 2,000-strong demonstration ringed the more fuel efficient to compete with shows the physical threat that the far site of the speech to show that Berkeley Japanese and European companies. right represents as it gains confidence— students and the community oppose Instead of developing its own view about and underlines the urgent need for all his reactionary rants. securing a better future the UAW those who oppose bigotry and reaction Right-wingers have been looking remains locked in the narrow framework to mobilize in large numbers to show of only thinking about its members’ ever since to take revenge in Berkeley, that the racists will be opposed when- not so much against the UC adminis- jobs. What if unions demanded a “just ever they try to claim the streets. transition” so that even if an industry tration as the larger number of people had to shut down or retool in the transi- While thousands joined Tax Day who had the courage to show their marches in cities across the U.S. to tion to a sustainable economy, workers’ revulsion for the right’s one-time hero oppose the billionaire president and lives were not linked to the corporation? Yiannopoulos. As David Neiwert of the demand he release his tax returns, sev- Southern Poverty Law Center pointed Although we are far from being a eral factions of the “alt right” and out, organizers of the April 15 rally working class that has an independent “patriots movement” mobilized up referred to it on social media as “the vision and the confidence to fight for and down the West Coast to bring 150 Next Battle of Berkeley.” genuine quality control over our work or more goons to the so-called Patriots On April 15 itself, the true inten- and the products of our labor, we do Day rally organized by the local tions of the far right—to target liberals, have a few genuinely positive examples Berkeley Liberty Revival Alliance. of how this can be accomplished. The the left and oppressed people for vio- Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza and solidarity exemplified by these examples lence and intimidation—were exposed the area around it, adjacent to the isn’t a generous gift one group hands to by their words and their deeds. municipal administration building, another; it is the reciprocal understand- “I don’t mind hitting,” Stewart police headquarters and Berkeley High ing that leads to a community better able School, was transformed into a bloody Rhodes told the Los Angeles to defend itself. In this scary moment battlefield as the racists clashed with a Times when asked about his attitude that lesson can propel us forward. smaller number of anti-racist demon- toward left-wing counterdemonstra- Dianne Feeley is a retired autoworker strators, mainly those who call them- tors. “In fact, I would kind of enjoy it.” active in Autoworker Caravan, a rank- selves “antifas” (anti-fascists.) Rhodes is the founder of the Oath and-file group and an editor of Against The far right’s rally was ostensibly Keepers militia, reportedly composed of the Current. She is active in eviction called to protest supposed violations of former law enforcement and military defense in Detroit. the free speech rights of conservative personnel. Rhodes claimed to have —Jacobin, March 10, 2017 speakers in Berkeley, famously the site brought about 50 militia members with him from Montana to the Berkeley rally. https://www.jacobinmag. of the mid-1960s Free Speech com/2017/03/cars-automobiles-safety- Movement struggles at the University Members of the Proud Boys, a accidents-gm-takata-airbags-negligence/ of California at Berkeley. bizarre masculinist and Western chau- The UC Berkeley administration did vinist fraternity founded by Vice maga- cancel two speaking events organized by zine co-founder Gavin McInnes, were 1 Presidential Executive Order on Reducing the College Republicans to feature noto- also looking for a fight. Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs rious right-wing provocateurs Milo Days before the Berkeley rampage, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- Yiannopoulos and David Horowitz, and McInnes introduced a new initiation office/2017/01/30/presidential-executive-order- reducing-regulation-and-controlling there is controversy over whether Ann ritual for the Proud Boys that involves

46 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 getting in “a major fight for the cause.” “Once the brawl got into the street, because a contingent of 100 or so “You get beat up,” McInnes reportedly [the right wing] had weapons,” said masked Black Bloc activists carried out said, or “kick the crap out of an antifa.” Lucy (not her real name). “People hit their own unannounced action—start- Unlike the mass protest against each other with poles and sticks and ing more than an hour after the much Yiannopoulos in February, the major- bike locks. One old boy had a gun in larger picket had begun—setting off ity of the counterdemonstrators against his pocket.” fireworks and smoke bombs, pulling the far-right goons were individuals Lucy recalled how “we just kept get- down police barricades, breaking win- who consider themselves part of the ting pushed farther and farther back” dows and starting fires. “antifa” current, which sees physical for several city blocks. “I was scared Reports of small numbers of far- confrontations with the right a goal of sometimes when the streets were filled right Yiannopoulos supporters its mobilizations. with smoke bombs and tear gas, and attempting to intimidate protesters There are several problems with everyone was running. You couldn’t tell were ignored in almost every main- their strategy, but one of most obvious who was who, and you just kind of ran.” stream media account. Eventually, uni- became evident on April 15 when the “I saw a guy wearing a shirt that said versity administrators canceled the antifas were apparently outnumbered he provided legal justice aid for incar- event, citing safety concerns. by a much larger-than-expected turn- cerated people get pummeled by a zil- As Berkeley law student Mukund out by the racists. The antifas used lion guys,” Lucy said. “It was a lot of Rathi, an organizer of the larger pro- some of their usual tactics in engaging head punching.” test, wrote at SocialistWorker.org, “[T] the right-wingers, but were generally The police reportedly arrested 21 peo- he tactics of the Black Bloc minority... overwhelmed and pushed back. ple, but a Mother Jones writer reported purposefully sideline the majority of The media treated the entire event that most of the right-wing fighters the protesters and foreground their as a street brawl with victims on both “walked away scot-free and full of pride actions, giving everyone from the uni- sides, but videos of the confrontations about this supposed victory.” Eleven peo- versity administration to the corporate and accounts of people who were ple were injured, with six hospitalized. media to the right-wingers themselves an excuse to ignore the issues raised by there show that the right was on the There was an earlier street battle in offensive, while police intervened with the wider crowd, and shift their atten- Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza on March tion to the ‘violence.’” pepper spray and violence of their own 4 when local right-wing activists orga- directed at both right-wingers and nized a smaller demonstration on a day Now the far right has gotten its counterdemonstrators. Trump supporters were encouraged to revenge, and it won’t abandon Berkeley Nathan Damigo, founder of the rally and show support for the presi- where it has had an attention-getting white nationalist group Identity dent. The right-wingers were outnum- success. But our side is weaker—in Evropa, was caught on video punching bered that day. part because the Black Bloc tactics that a counter-protester in the face. attract so much attention of their own But this was nothing like the mass don’t function as an effective deterrent A member of the Democratic protest on February 1 against then- against the right. Socialists of America (DSA) was also Breitbart News contributor punched while acting as a street medic. Yiannopoulos, who planned to give a The far right has shown what it is “Some random person ran up out of speech on campus sponsored by the capable of in mobilizing for a riot in nowhere and clocked me in the face,” Berkeley College Republicans. Berkeley on April 15. There is an urgent Albert (not his real name) said in an need to confront them before they gain It was rumored that Yiannopoulos any further confidence. interview. “I chipped my tooth and would be launching a campaign to tar- had a black eye.” get undocumented students and their The left needs to rebuild the mass “I’d say we had half as many folks as supporters on sanctuary campuses like popular opposition that turned out them, maybe a bit more than half,” Berkeley. But he and the College several thousand people back in Albert said. “We were definitely out- Republicans were unable to carry out February. We can show, using our numbered, they were definitely more this plan after they were confronted by strength in numbers, that the far right organized and much more militant.” some 2,000 or more students and com- won’t go unopposed. Another DSA member joined the munity members chanting, “No hate, —Socialist Worker, April 25, 2017 counterdemonstration with some no fear, refugees are welcome here!” https://socialistworker. friends to show that there was an oppo- The February 1 protest was inaccu- org/2017/04/25/far-right-goes-on-a- sition, but they didn’t come to fight. rately portrayed in the media as violent rampage-in-berkeley

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 47 Kapernicking Colin Kaepernick saw this coming By Dria Roland

In pop culture years, 2012 was ages his tattoos, his pet tortoise named • for an athlete be convicted of ago. But try to remember. That was the Sammy, his being a biracial kid adopt- assault, get signed to America’s year quarterback Alex Smith suffered a ed by white parents. Team, and keep working. concussion in the first half of the Niners You remember how he would kiss • for an athlete to abuse his wife for game against the Rams in Week ten, and his biceps after scoring a touchdown? years and keep working. a backup QB named Colin Kaepernick “Kaepernicking,” we called it. had to fill in. The game ended in a tie, • for an athlete to kill someone in “Tebowing” was the thing until Kap a DUI and keep working. the NFL’s first in four years. The next became a bigger story, and then sud- week Kaepernick started, and led the denly Kaepernicking got so popular • for an athlete to serve prison team to victory. And even after Smith that he filed to trademark the term. time for financing a dogfighting was declared healthy, Kaepernick con- You probably Kaepernicked back then, operation and keep working. tinued to start—and to win. A “quarter- just a few years ago. Ah, the glory days. • to name an entire team a racial slur. back controversy” brewed, but coach • to spy on other teams and deflate Harbaugh went with the guy “with the Now, Colin Kaepernick is unem- balls in championship games. hot hand,” as they say. ployed and might remain that way. Now the media is calling him “an ungrateful, But in the NFL, it is not OK: With that, a star was born. A sec- entitled idiot.” And league execs are • for players to advocate for same- ond-year, backup QB led the Niners all reportedly calling him a “traitor.” the way to Super Bowl XLVII, and even sex marriage rights. Because in the NFL, it is OK: though the Ravens came out on top, all • for a player to engage in silent pro- people could talk about was Kap. His • for an athlete to be accused of sex- test, as Kaepernick has learned. spread in the ESPN Body Issue made ual assault twice and keep working. In the fall of 2015, Kaepernick’s women swoon all around the nation. • for an athlete to knock his fian- Instagram went from glossy pics of him He signed endorsement deals with cée out cold in an elevator and living the high life—hobnobbing it Jaguar, Nike, Beats, and Electronic keep working. at GQ parties, posing with sports cars— Arts. Feature stories were written about

48 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 to political memes and controversial Smith and John Carlos raised the Black in which he promised to donate $1 mil- moments in Black history. Quotes by Power salute on the podium in the 1968 lion plus all the proceeds from his 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm Olympics, they were expelled from the jersey sales to organizations working in X began to appear often. If you fol- Games. You have to imagine Kaepernick oppressed communities. His goal is to lowed @kaepernick7 for any length of took all this into account. Yet, when he donate $100,000 for ten months, and in time, you would already know he was was asked why he did not stand during January the funds went to nonprofits that thinking deeply about civil rights and the National Anthem, he did not tiptoe, focus on climate change, legal advocacy social justice. You would know he like Tom Brady did when asked about for reproductive rights, human rights for found parallels between the struggles of the Make America Great Again para- immigrants and refugees, and programs those leaders and the issues people of phernalia he intentionally placed in his for veterans transitioning to civilian life. color still face. But it would be a year locker. Kaepernick, on the other hand, If humanitarian work is a distraction, it’s before he would make the fateful deci- gave a simple and direct answer: one any team should be happy to have. sion that (potentially) ended his career. “I am not going to stand up to “I am not looking for approval. I I think that after a while—after Eric show pride in a flag for a country have to stand up for people that are Garner, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, that oppresses Black people and oppressed,” Kaepernick said when the Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Alton people of color. To me, this is bigger news first broke. ”If they take football Sterling, Terrence Crutcher, the list goes than football and it would be selfish away, my endorsements from me, I on my part to look the other way.” on—Kaepernick felt moved to go know that I stood up for what is right.” So don’t think for one second beyond social media and actual- In pop culture years, 2012 was ages Kaepernick is waiting for the phone to ly do something. He weighed his options, ago. Long enough to forget about ring. He is not spending free agency won- and his convictions were heavier than Kaepernick’s pet tortoise, or the Bible dering why all the teams in need of a the millions he stood to lose. This is a verses he has tattooed on his arms. QB haven’t dialed him up. That’s because man who managed to keep a 4.0 GPA Long enough to go from golden boy to he is busy doing what he can to offer solu- while earning All-State nominations in pariah. And maybe, just maybe, long tions to real-world problems, work the three sports; that is to say, a very intelli- enough for the term Kaepernicking to government has failed to do. He helped gent and aware individual. He knew he become a synonym for doing the right raise awareness of the famine in Somalia, was placing himself at risk, because this thing, despite the cost. is a country that historically has valued and assisted efforts to charter a plane to Black production, so long as it is deliver tons of food and water. He created —ComPlex Sports, March 30, 2017 detached from Black humanity. It’s why a Know Your Rights camp, to inform http://www.complex.com/ so-called fans expect players to just shut citizens how to handle interactions with sports/2017/03/colin-kaepernick-saw- their mouths and play the game, as police. He made a Million Dollar Pledge, this-coming though signing a contract reduces them from people to chattel, belonging to teams and armchair analysts alike. Yet he protested anyway. Kaepernick was fully aware that history is not on the side of athletes who take a stand. When Muhammad Ali, at the height of his career, said he was a “conscientious objector” and refused to be drafted into the Vietnam War, he was arrested, his title was immediately stripped, and his boxing license was revoked. When NBA player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf refused to stand during the National Anthem on the grounds of his religion, he was shuffled out of the league, losing out on millions and enduring death threats. His home was burned to the ground. After Tommie

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 49

Obiturary OBITUARY In Loving Memory of Lynne Stewart October 8, 1939-March 7, 2017 Remarks by Ralph Schoenman Read at Memorial

As long as Lynne drew breath she rang with a torrent of cries and banged summoned the better angels of our plates as the name of the martyred nature. prisoner echoed from cell to cell. When she arrived in prison, deprived Faced with surgery in that prison of medical attention and continuously hell hole, her wrist was shackled to the denied medical procedures, she could left upper bed post, her ankles spread barely walk. She was shackled, her eagled and shackled to the bed posts wrists to her ankles, and made to sham- below. This was how Lynne endured ble great distances to reach a lavatory or what passed for surgery and the chi- secure what passed for a meal. mera of recovery. Always in the Gulag, Lynne looked Oh, Lynne. Nothing could impair after the women around her—ailing your spirit, tame your heart or break women denied access to lavatories, your indomitable will. deprived of medical care. Risking soli- How do I tally the ways I mourn Lynne Stewart tary herself, Lynne half carried a col- your passing, grieve for your pain, lapsing cellmate to a distant lavatory. Sisters and Brothers, smile with your memory and sustain The woman died in her arms on the the will to struggle blessed by your lov- All of us here are in pain that catch- floor. Lynne was warned by the author- ing heart. es our breath and presses on our hearts. ities that if she breathed a word about We feared we would lose her and yet it, she would be placed in solitary, For articles by and about Lynne her lock on life was so encompassing incommunicado. Lynne responded by Stewart, covering her persecution and that it drew us daily into her embrace putting out a call to her fellow imprisonment by the U.S. government, and allowed us to hope the dying inmates: “Raise your voices for our go to Socialist Viewpoint at http:// would not come. fallen comrade.” For hours the prison www.socialistviewpoint.org. Yet the cancer was relentless in its advance, invading her organs ad seriatim. Lynne looked upon each new day as a gift—a blessed opportunity to sustain her cri de coeur, the summons to struggle—Lynne’s evocative voice ever raised on behalf of that army of the disadvantaged—who inhabit the American Gulag—6,977,700 acknowledged by the oxymoronic “U.S. Bureau of Justice,” supplemented by a vast system of “Super-Max” prisons secret- ed across the length and breadth of the United States—prisoners held in 24 hour solitary confinement with senso- ry deprivation—people buried alive, people without funds, adequate defense, advocates, human contact or the prospect of relief.

50 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Lynne Stewart: A Love Story By Cindy Sheehan

March 14, 2017—I was dismayed to communication from her. I marveled at I send my deepest condolences to learn that my friend and hero Lynne her cheerfulness while being treated for Ralph (who lost not only a spouse, but Stewart had made her transition due to cancer in a Federal Prison. I am even a comrade) and Lynne’s other family at complications of treatment for cancer more in awe of her spirit after caring for this time of profound loss. on March 7th, 2017. my sister Dede who also suffered from It’s one thing to observe a public I met Lynne in the flesh in 2005, breast cancer and the awful side affects figure and draw conclusions, but if you about one year after my son Casey was of the treatment and Dede was in a knew Lynne, you knew that her life and killed in Iraq and a few months before I comfortable home always surrounded her activism (inseparable from her life) went to Crawford, TX to try and con- by loved ones. was motivated by love for the poor and front George Bush there at his fake ranch. Lynne was able have several years oppressed. It is a cliché to say that a Lynne was on a speaking tour to raise with her family, friends, and comrades “bright light has been extinguished,” money for her defense (from charges after she was given “compassionate” but I can think of few people that this stemming from her defense of the “Blind release from prison at the very end of is more true of than our dear Lynne Sheik.”) I was invited to speak about the 2013 and I am grateful (as I know many Stewart. Lynne’s legacy will persist and war alongside Lynne and Matt Gonzalez. others were) for the time she had with her light will keep shining whenever we At that point, I called Lynne: “Atticus them. Right after her release, she went work to end war and other oppression! Finch in the flesh.” on a tour to say “thank you” to her supporters and I was so happy to see her in —The People Speak with Cindy Sheehan, Since that time, and getting to know Sacramento. Unfortunately, the time she March 14, 2017 http://cindysheehanssoapbox. Lynne better over the years, I know that had free coincided with the time I had to bmetrack. she was far more than Atticus, who (fic- remain close to home here in California com/c/v?e=ADB356&c=1BD0F&l=54F34DF& tionally) made a very unpopular choice to care for Dede, or I would definitely email=lHhPeuhExLkovw4D9gBVy08MZWBW to defend a Black man accused of raping have loved to see more of Lynne. 99JJU2dmoBGJ1i8%3D&relid=A0B1B3E a white woman in the 1930s in the American South, but Lynne believed in the revolutionary causes of the unpopular people she defended. As an attorney in New York, Lynne defended Black Panthers, poor people who couldn’t afford to pay, and even a member of the Weather Underground. Lynne courageously opposed the phi- losophy of non-violence and was quoted once as saying about violence “directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism and sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions, and accompanied by popular support.” Not a very popular position to hold, but revolutionaries aren’t always well-loved, but, especially in Lynne’s case, very principled. I wrote to Lynne frequently while she was unjustly incarcerated in prison in Texas (far from her husband, Ralph Poynter) and I always got a very upbeat

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 51

Environment ENVIRONMENT March for Science Speech by Kathy Setian at the San Francisco March

Kathy Setian was a project manager dollar spent preventing air pollution Or in 1984, when Union Carbide at the U.S. Environmental Protection would save $30 in future healthcare released a poisonous gas in Bhopal, Agency and a Steward for Engineers and costs, according to a 2011 study. India. Hundreds-of-thousands of peo- Scientists of California, IFPTE Local 20. So how do we protect ourselves? ple were killed or injured. Worldwide The following is the speech she delivered outrage forced our Congress to enact to the San Francisco March for Science Protection of Human Health and community right-to-know laws, which on April 23, 2017. the Environment requires a strong EPA made decades of chemical data public- and strong environmental rules. I was a project manager and engineer ly available. Another law now on the at EPA for 20 years. But before that, I chopping block. worked in the tech industry. I left a The pursuit of profit BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: higher paying corporate job for the leads corporations Pollution does not affect everyone higher honor of public service, protect- equally. Who’s hit the hardest? ing human health and the environment. down pathways that Children under five suffer most of the I never regretted that decision. But now, might be quicker disease from dirty air. Also hit hard are everything my colleagues and I have and cheaper in the the poorest people and minorities. And worked for is at risk of being disman- short term, at the EPA’s office of Environmental Justice? tled. That’s why I’m marching today. Targeted for closure. expense of public EPA is in the cross-hairs, because If environmental rules protect we produce the analyses and solutions health and safety. health and save money in the long to problems that Washington won’t The very definition term, why are they being attacked? even admit to. of greed. And today To understand we need to enter the As federal scientists we work for the the captains of realm of smoke and mirrors. public interest, and here, organized industry rule It is a myth that environmental labor has a critical role to play. EPA rules kill jobs. workers are here today thanks to their unions: Engineers and Scientists of The facts prove otherwise. Between California, NTEU and AFGE. Environmental rules are created, 1990 and 2012, we greatly reduced pollut- defended and expanded by demand of ants while doubling the Gross Domestic Today’s march brings together two a mobilized public. Product. Economic growth and environ- powerful forces: dedicated scientists mental rules can exist side by side. who investigate the real world, and acti- For example, in 1969 a Cleveland vated citizens who demand application river caught fire due to unregulated We support retraining for workers of that science to our most pressing dumping. And the Charles River in who have lost jobs and real income problems. We are all under attack. Boston was so polluted that you had to over the past several decades. go to a hospital if you fell in. These Worldwide, green energy production is It starts with the budget. For exam- events gave birth to the Clean Water poised to spawn a multi-trillion dollar ple, at EPA, the Trump administration Act, now on the chopping block. industry, and create thousands of jobs. wants to cut thousands of jobs and But U.S. workers won’t benefit from slash funding by almost a third. Or in 1978, when residents in Love Canal had to be evacuated. Chemicals the green economy if our leaders stub- Is this a good way to save money? linked to cancer and birth defects had bornly cling to coal and climate denial. EPA’s budget is tiny. The average taxpayer been buried in leaking containers It is also a myth that EPA funds pays only $26 per year for EPA, compared beneath their homes. This and other could be better spent by the states. to thousands per year on the military. outrages led to the Superfund Law, Pollution does not stop at state bound- And investments in environmental which requires polluters to cleanup con- aries. It requires consistent federal reg- protection pay huge dividends. Every tamination. Also on the chopping block. ulation. And the states alone don’t have

52 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 the technical capacity. For example, in Worse Than Flint 2014 the city of Toledo wondered why their water supply was turning green. Childhood lead poisoning in 29 California neighborhoods They consulted EPA scientists who By Louisa Oreskes were able to identify a rare liver toxin. With all these myths, what are the More than two-dozen communities says any lead level over five micro- real reasons why EPA and other science in California have experienced recent grams per deciliter is considered ele- agencies are under attack? rates of childhood lead poisoning rival- vated for children under six. ing or exceeding those in Flint, Today corporate profiteers are in According to California’s Public Michigan, according to data collected positions of power to dismantle envi- Health Department, the state tests only by Reuters and detailed in a report pub- at-risk children, which includes those ronmental protections. 1 lished Wednesday, March 22, 2017. enrolled in Medicaid or living in older The pursuit of profit leads corpora- Following an article in December housing. This selective type of testing tions down pathways that might be documenting nearly 3,000 towns, cities, results in a higher percentage of children quicker and cheaper in the short term, and neighborhoods nationwide that showing lead exposure in California com- at the expense of public health and have lead poisoning rates double those pared to states where all children are test- safety. The very definition of greed. found in 2016 along the Flint River in ed. To address the broader problem, And today the captains of industry rule. Michigan, Reuters’ data-gathering California Assemblyman Bill Quirk, who EPA chief Scott Pruitt worked close- uncovered 29 California neighborhoods chairs the state legislature’s committee on ly with Oklahoma gas and oil compa- where children have elevated rates of Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials, nies such as Devon Energy; their oppo- lead: There were particularly high rates introduced a bill that would require blood sition to EPA methane rules were cut- of exposure in the Bay Area and down- lead screening for all children. and-pasted directly onto Oklahoma town Los Angeles. In one Fresno County The tests don’t indicate the source State letterhead. zip code, 13.6 percent of blood tests on of the lead exposure, but some com- They want to hoodwink Americans children under six came back high for mon potential sources include crum- into thinking unregulated industry will lead, compared to five percent across bling old paint, contaminated soil, and not pollute; and that climate change is the city of Flint during its recent water tainted drinking water. not real. contamination crisis. And in nine other zip code areas in Fresno County, lead —Vice News, March 22, 2017 But in order to do so, they must levels in children’s blood were similar to https://news.vice.com/story/child- attack real evidence to the contrary. the levels found in Flint. hood-lead-poisoning-in-29-california- Ignorance is dangerous, and a threat to neighborhoods-found-to-rival-flint democracy itself. Once a common ingredient in household paint, gasoline, and plumb- Because we scientists produce the ing systems, lead is a neurotoxin that facts that expose the lies currently 1 “Exclusive: Lead poisoning afflicts neigh- causes irreparable health effects, like being purveyed, the tip of the spear is borhoods across California” cognitive deficiency and attention dis- pointed at us. Galileo, the father of the By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell orders, in young children. The Centers scientific method, and survivor of the http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lead- for Disease Control and Prevention california-exclusive-idUSKBN16T18Y Inquisition, would probably agree that science is not political, but sometimes politicians come gunning for scientists. That’s why scientists need unions: for a workplace free from fear of corporate influence that corrupts policy debates. It is time for scientists and informed citizens to decide our own priorities. Our lives and livelihood depend on it. We are marching to defend and expand our hard-won protections; and in solidarity with others who remain resolved and organized against these threats..

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 53 Round Up Seeds Kill More Than Bees Monsanto isn’t feeding the world—it’s killing our children By Katherine Paul

“How could we have ever believed Yet here we are, in 2017, facing the global corporations that manufacture that it is a good idea to grow our food prospect, in what is unfolding as the pesticides, accusing them of the ‘sys- with poisons?” —Dr. Jane Goodall most corporate-friendly administra- tematic denial of harms,’ ‘aggressive, tion in history, of dismantling what unethical marketing tactics’ and Two new reports published in recent heavy lobbying of governments which weeks add to the already large and con- little remains of the government’s ability to stop the rampant poisoning of has ‘obstructed reforms and para- vincing body of evidence, accumulated lyzed global pesticide restrictions.’ over more than half-a-century, that our soils, food, water, air and wild- “The report says pesticides have agricultural pesticides and other toxic life—the very resources upon which all life depends. ‘catastrophic impacts on the envi- chemicals are poisoning us. ronment, human health and society Both reports issue scathing indict- In his book, Poison Spring: The Secret as a whole,’ including an estimated ments of U.S. and global regulatory History of Pollution and the EPA, pub- 200,000 deaths a year from acute systems that collude with chemical lished in 2014, E. G. Vallianatos, who poisoning. Its authors said: ‘It is companies to hide the truth from the worked for the EPA for 25 years, wrote: time to create a global process to public, while they fill their coffers with “It is simply not possible to transition toward safer and healthier ill-gotten profits. understand why the EPA behaves the food and agricultural production.’” According to the World Health way it does without appreciating the The UN report was authored by Organization, whose report focused on a enormous power of American’s Hilal Elver, special rapporteur on the industrial farmers and their allies in range of environmental risks, the cost of right to food, and Baskut Tuncak, spe- the chemical pesticide industries, cial rapporteur on “toxics.” The report a polluted environment adds up to the which currently do about $40 billion deaths of 1.7 million children every year. stated that chronic exposure to pesti- per year business. For decades, indus- cides has been linked to cancer, try lobbyists have preached the gos- A report by the Special Rapporteur Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, pel of unregulated capitalism, and on the right to food, presented to the hormone disruption, developmental United Nations Human Rights Americans have bought it. Today, it disorders and sterility. It said the pop- Council, focused more narrowly on seems the entire government is at the ulations most at risk are farmers and agricultural chemicals. The UN report service of the private interests of agricultural workers, communities liv- states unequivocally that the storyline America’s corporate class.” ing near plantations, indigenous com- perpetuated by companies like That was three years ago. As public munities and pregnant women and Monsanto—the one that says we need opinion shifts toward condemnation children, who are especially vulnerable pesticides to feed the world—is a myth. of the widespread use of toxic chemi- to pesticide exposure and require spe- And a catastrophic myth at that. cals on our food, here in the U.S., gov- cial protections. The fact that both these reports ernment officials entrusted with public The Crop Protection Association, a made headlines in mainstream outlets health and safety appear more deter- lobbying group representing the like the Washington Post and the mined than ever to uphold the “rights” $50-billion agri-chemical industry, fired Guardian is, on one hand, good news. of corporations to poison everything in back at the report with its standard false On the other, it’s a sad and discourag- sight, including our children. claim that pesticides “play a key role in ing commentary on our inability to “UN experts denounce ‘myth’ control corporate greed. ensuring we have access to a healthy, pesticides are necessary to feed safe, affordable and reliable food sup- Ever since Rachel Carson, in her the world” ply.” But Elver told the Guardian: book Silent Spring, so eloquently out- The headline in the Guardian’s “It is a myth. Using more pesti- lined the insanity of poisoning our story on the report delivered this week to cides is nothing to do with getting rid environment, rational thinkers have the UN Human Rights Council said it all. of hunger. According to the UN warned that at the least, we ought to Food and Agriculture Organization From the Guardian: follow the precautionary principle (FAO), we are able to feed nine bil- when it comes to allowing the wide- “A new report, being presented to lion people today. Production is defi- spread use of poisons to be unleashed the UN human rights council on nitely increasing, but the problem is into the environment. Wednesday, is severely critical of the poverty, inequality and distribution.”

54 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Sustainable Pulse also reported on make children more vulnerable to the What will it take? the story, noting that the report warns harmful effects of polluted environ- If you find yourself unsurprised by that some pesticides can persist in the ments, the report says. the findings of these reports, or the environment for decades: According to the WHO reports, which recommendations that follow, it’s no “The excessive use of pesticides focused on a wide range of chemicals, wonder. Many organizations, includ- contaminates soil and water sources, including those found in food, electron- ing ours, have been calling for reforms causing loss of biodiversity, destroy- ics, contaminated water supplies, sec- for decades. ing the natural enemies of pests, and ond-hand tobacco smoke, and others, But we can’t let our lack of surprise reducing the nutritional value of one-fourth of all children’s deaths and food. The impact of such overuse also translate into complacency. In diseases in 2012 could have been pre- imposes staggering costs on national an op-ed published recently in The economies around the world.” vented by reducing environmental risks. Hill, Devra Lee Davis, president of The UN report, which mentioned From the WHO press release: the Environmental Health Trust, and the efforts of the Monsanto Tribunal to “Children are also exposed to author of The Secret History of the War raise global awareness about the dan- harmful chemicals through food, on Cancer, draws the parallel between gers of pesticides, included a long list of water, air and products around our failure to regulate the tobacco recommendations for moving away them. Chemicals, such as fluoride, industry and our failure to regulate the lead and mercury pesticides, persis- from chemical-based agriculture. At the chemicals that today are largely respon- tent organic pollutants, and others in sible for two sad statistics: 1) one-in- top of the list was a call-out to the inter- manufactured goods, eventually find national community to work on a com- two of us will be diagnosed with cancer their way into the food chain. And, in our lifetimes; and 2) the rate of prehensive, binding treaty to regulate while leaded petrol has been phased hazardous pesticides throughout their childhood cancer has increased by 50 out almost entirely in all countries, percent since President Nixon declared life cycle, taking into account human lead is still widespread in paints, a war on cancer, 40 years ago. rights principles. Such a treaty should: affecting brain development.” • Aim to remove existing double Authors of the WHO report recom- Davis, who says we’re fixated on standards among countries that are mended: “the wrong enemies, with the wrong weapons,” says we should ask ourselves: particularly detrimental to coun- • Housing: Ensure clean fuel for “Why did we wait until nearly forty tries with weaker regulatory systems heating and cooking, no mold or years after tobacco was understood to • Generate policies to reduce pes- pests, and remove unsafe build- cause cancer and other diseases before ticide use worldwide and devel- ing materials and lead paint mounting a major effort to curtail its op a framework for the banning • Schools: Provide safe sanitation production and use? What took us so and phasing-out of highly haz- and hygiene, free of noise, pollu- long to reduce the amount of benzene ardous pesticides tion, and promote good nutrition in gasoline or toxic flame retardants in • Promote agroecology our waters, food, furniture, bedding, • Health facilities: Ensure safe fabrics and breastmilk?” • Place strict liability on pesticide water, sanitation and hygiene, producers and reliable electricity Unfortunately, we know why—corporate control of our regulatory sys- • Urban planning: Create more tem. Perhaps the better question is, “Exposure to pollution kills green spaces, safe walking and millions of children” having failed to rein in Congress’ loy- cycling paths alty to a handful of ruthless, embold- In a March 5 story, the Washington • Transport: Reduce emissions and ened corporations, can we elect new Post reported on two World Health increase public transport people, at every level of our govern- Organization reports on how exposure ment, who will work for us? More to polluted environments is linked to • Agriculture: Reduce the use of critically, can we do it in time to save more than one-in-four deaths among hazardous pesticides and no ourselves? children under the age of five. child labor Katherine Paul is associate director of Worldwide, the deaths of 1.7 mil- • Industry: Manage hazardous the Organic Consumers Association. lion children are attributable to envi- waste and reduce the use of ronmental hazards such as exposure to harmful chemicals —Alternet, March 17, 2017 contaminated water, indoor and out- • Health sector: Monitor health out- http://www.alternet.org/food/mon- door pollution, and other unsanitary comes and educate about environ- santo-isnt-feeding-world-its-killing- conditions. Weaker immune systems mental health effects and prevention our-children

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 55

Incarceration Nation INCARCERATION NATION Two Wins for Mumia Abu-Jamal By Rachel Wolkenstein

After testing on March 31, 2017 direct appeal in 1988, responsible for personal involvement in Mumia’s case, showed Mumia Abu-Jamal had stage- all the legal briefs and arguments pre- as was presented in the Williams case. four cirrhosis, an irreversible scarring of sented by the District Attorney to the Swarns also addressed the exceptional the liver caused by his untreated Hepatitis Pennsylvania Supreme Court to uphold circumstances of Mumia’s case and C, the Pennsylvania Department of Mumia’s conviction and death sen- that the DA’s office had misrepresent- Corrections (DOC) conceded and Mumia tence. Then, elected as a Justice of the ed Castille’s involvement in other was informed that they would begin treat- Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1994, cases. A motion for Discovery was ing him with the Hepatitis C cure. Now, Ronald D. Castille denied every one of made for the DA to turn over its files other prisoners are filing lawsuits against Mumia’s appeals of his post-convic- on Mumia’s appeals to determine what the DOC for Hepatitis C treatment based tion challenges from 1995-2008. particular action and decision Castille on the precedent set in Mumia’s case. A court hearing on the new legal took in Mumia’s case. First legal step won in Mumia’s action was held on April 24, 2017, District Attorney Eisenberg object- Mumia’s 63rd birthday, before Judge ed with a dissertation on the new challenge to his conviction! Leon W. Tucker, the supervisory judge Pennsylvania Legislature’s passage of On August 7, 2016 a new legal of the Philadelphia Court of Common the Post Conviction Relief Act in 1996 action was filed on behalf of innocent Pleas. The courtroom was filled with that established the “timeliness” prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, in the Mumia’s supporters and demonstra- requirements and that access to the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas tors rallied outside and all day and into appellate courts had to be limited, stat- by attorneys Judith Ritter and Christina the evening demanding Mumia’s free- ing, “At some point you just have to Swarns of the NAACP Legal Defense dom. Ronald Eisenberg, Deputy draw the line.” Attorney Swarns Fund. This action is a path to overturn District Attorney, appointed by District responded that the standard for due Mumia’s conviction and win his free- Attorney Castille in 1986 to oversee all process violations is that they have ret- dom. Last June the U.S. Supreme Court criminal appeals, represented the roactive application. And that Mumia issued a precedent-setting decision, District Attorney. Since then, he has is entitled to the full protections and Williams v. Pennsylvania, 136 S.Ct. overseen all district attorney legal relief provided under due process. She 1989 (2016), holding that it is a viola- actions opposing Mumia’s appeals. invoked Supreme Court Justice tion of the due process right to an Brennan’s dissent when the death pen- impartial tribunal free of judicial bias if Eisenberg argued Mumia’s petition should be dismissed by the judge on alty was upheld in the McClesky case a judge participating in a criminal (where it was proven that the death appeal had “a significant personal the grounds the Williams case is not retroactive (not applicable to cases like penalty was imposed against African involvement as a prosecutor in a criti- Americans four times more than cal decision” in a defendant’s case. The Mumia’s that were decided before the Williams case) and that the one year against whites,) saying this was “fear of remedy: a new appeal without the par- too much justice for Mumia Abu- ticipation of the judge, who should time period for Mumia to file new appeals passed decades ago. The DA Jamal.) She concluded her argument have recused (removed) himself from with the demand for discovery of the the appeal process. also argued that even if Judge Tucker decided Mumia’s appeal is timely; prosecution’s files stating, “If the The Pennsylvania Supreme Court there is no evidence that Pennsylvania review shows that Castille wasn’t Justice with a dual role as prosecutor Supreme Court Justice Ronald Castille involved, then we won’t need to be and then judge in the Williams’ case is had been involved in Mumia’s case concerned about how much justice Ronald D. Castille. The Williams case while he was the District Attorney Mumia Abu-Jamal receives.” precedent applies fully and directly to from 1986-1991 or as a senior district Just four days later, on April 28th, Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case, as well as attorney during Mumia’s 1982 trial. Judge Tucker issued a ruling. It did not others in Pennsylvania and nationally. Mumia’s attorney, Christina Swarns accept the prosecution’s argument to Castille was the elected Philadelphia (LDF) acknowledged several times that dismiss Mumia’s petition. He granted District Attorney during Mumia’s there was no direct evidence of Castille’s this discovery and ordered the DA’s

56 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 office to produce and turn over all Moreover, Mumia’s appeals were 1997. During the time that Ronald records and memos regarding Castille’s based on new law decided by the U.S. Castille was preparing the District involvement in Mumia’s case; pre-trial, Supreme Court since his 1982 trial on Attorney’s legal briefs to uphold trial, post-trial and direct appeal pro- the right to a jury in which African- Mumia’s conviction and death sen- ceedings; communications between Americans were not excluded because tence and while Castille sat as Justice Castille and his staff and any public of their race (Batson v. Kentucky, 476 on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court statements Castille made about Mumia’s U.S. 79 (1986)) and that a prosecutor hearing arguments against the uncon- case during or after his tenure as District cannot undermine the jury’s funda- stitutional exclusion of African- Attorney of Philadelphia. These records mental responsibility as decider for a Americans from Mumia’s jury, are to be turned over to Mumia’s attor- defendant’s death sentence. (Caldwell Castille’s direct personal responsibility neys by May 30, 2017, and Mumia has v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320 (1985), fol- for the DATV Jury Training Videotape fifteen days to file amendments to his lowed by Commonwealth v. Baker, 511 confirming and continuing the policy post-conviction petition. Pennsylvania. 1, 511 A.2d 777 (1986).) of exclusion of jurors on the basis of race was denied and suppressed. Finally a win Mumia’s main legal arguments on Mumia brought legal action for This is an unquestionable win for his 1988 appeal included that the pros- Castille to recuse himself from partici- Mumia in the Pennsylvania courts. It is ecutor excluded African-American pating as a judge in appeals to the the first ever order to the Philly DA’s jurors; put Mumia’s Black Panther Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1996 office to open prosecution files on Party membership and statements as a and again in 2002 because Castille was Mumia’s case to him. The DA’s office teenager to the jury, arguing this was biased, pro-death penalty, pro-prose- will likely stall and appeal and we evidence he had always intended to kill cution and supported by the FOP. should be prepared for protestations a police office. In summation the pros- Castille denied Mumia’s motions, stat- that the records do not exist. But we ecution argued to the jury that it could ing he had no conflict of interest and know the following: sentence Mumia to death even if jurors were not convinced, because Mumia no direct knowledge of Mumia’s case. We know that Castille was elected DA would have “appeal after appeal after An examination of the prosecution in 1986 with the support of the Fraternal appeal” and that Pennsylvania hadn’t files on Mumia’s case will show that Order of Police (FOP). Lodge No. 5 executed anyone in twenty years. Castille was personally involved in named Castille its “Man of the Year” and Castille was responsible as District securing the 1998 Pennsylvania gave financial and public support to him Attorney to construct and present legal Supreme Court decision affirming in 1989 for his re-election. In 1993 arguments to the Pennsylvania Supreme Mumia’s conviction and death sen- Ronald Castille won a seat on the Court that those U.S. and Pennsylvania tence. Castille did not disclose his Pennsylvania Supreme court as the “law Supreme Court precedents were not involvement with the DATV training and order” candidate, endorsed by the relevant in Mumia’s case. tape on how to keep African Americans FOP with 36,000 police officers. Castille off the jury when the motions for his bragged that his office had secured 45 One of Castille’s “accomplish- recusal were made in 1996 and 2002. death sentences—one of those death ments” as District Attorney was the sentences was to Mumia Abu-Jamal— 1986 video training tape for prosecu- Under Williams, all of Mumia’s and that he prosecuted some of the city’s tors made in response to the new appeals to the Pennsylvania Supreme most “notorious criminals.” Batson decision. It taught prosecutors Court from 1995-2012 should be dis- Castille was also a vociferous how to exclude African-Americans missed and a new appeal made to the defender of a pattern of prosecutorial from juries and how to conceal that Supreme Court without Ronald misconduct that was so prevalent in his exclusion from defense attorneys and Castille’s participation. In other words, office that it was criticized in the the court record. The first frame of the Mumia would be able to re-appeal the Pennsylvania appeals court, blaming video bears the seal of the City of entirety of his conviction before the alleged misconduct on the “pushy, Philadelphia, name and title of Ronald Pennsylvania Supreme Court begin- obnoxious” defense lawyers. Two of D. Castille, District Attorney and the ning with the fact that his pro-cop, the Philadelphia prosecutors found to logo of DATV Production identifying pro-death penalty trial judge Albert commit misconduct by the appeals the videotape as produced by the Sabo was racially biased. Sabo declared court in cases unrelated to Mumia’s District Attorney’s television produc- before trial, “I’m going to help them were the Assistant District Attorneys in tion department. fry the nigger.” Mumia’s trial (Joseph McGill) and The existence of this training tape Mumia could also re-appeal the 1995 hearing (Charles Grant). did not become publicly known until prosecution’s intentional exclusion of

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 57 African-Americans from his jury; the Emerging Fear-States Prosecution’s summation argument that Mumia would have “appeal after Speech to the 22nd Rosa Luxemburg Conference—Berlin 2017 appeal” depriving him of the constitu- By MumiaAbu-Jamal tional standard of guilt beyond a rea- sonable doubt and the importance of Meinen Freunden: Bewegung! [My among workers, as jobs, especially the jury decision in determining guilt Friends: Ona Move!] manufacturing jobs, are taken abroad and a death sentence; denying Mumia What is happening in America and for sites with lower labor costs. the right to self-representation and to Europe bears study and reflection. That desperation, born of NAFTA be in the courtroom during his trial; (North America Free Trade Agreement) ineffective assistance of trial counsel; On the surface, we see a rightist led many to flee to those who promised Police and prosecutorial fabrication of drift, as fearful, resentful politicians more and better jobs—like Trump, for evidence of guilt—false hospital con- empower forms of politics that prom- example. Thus, those who benefited fession, phony ballistics evidence, lying ise safety, especially regarding terror from the jobs being moved in the first witnesses Cynthia White, Priscilla attacks that have blown up and blood- place (capitalists) are now expected to Durham, Robert Chobert—and sup- ied world capitals recently. replace them—with better pay to boot! pression of evidence of Mumia’s inno- If we look closer, however, we see cence—Veronica Jones, Dessie how economic insecurity driven by the Does that make sense? Hightower, William Singletary, Ken investor class has waged an austerity Workers, who expect the same Freeman, Arnold Howard, and the war against the working-class and poor political forces that have impoverished confession of Arnold Beverly. people. For economic insecurity begets them to suddenly enrich them, are The prosecutorial and judicial mis- political insecurity. playing in the dark. conduct that underlies Mumia’s case If we couple this with the phenom- They hope for that which will never will be exposed. This new legal proceed- enon of rich people taking office, we see come. ing is a path towards Mumia’s freedom; how the superrich are no longer con- Betrayed by their erstwhile neolib- we can win Mumia’s freedom with mass tent with renting or buying politicians. eral “allies,” they turn, in desperation, international protest and publicity They cut out the middleman—and to rightist demagogues, who promise We cannot rely on the purported wage class war themselves. Thus we jobs, bread and glory. justice of the courts, or promises of a have Berlusconi, the media magnate, in One would think they learned from new DA who says he will investigate Italy and Trump, a real estate develop- Germany’s example; or Italy’s example cases of “wrongful conviction” or that er in the U.S. They run to enrich them- of several generations ago. of politicians and others who say that selves—and their class, in naked Mumia deserves a “fair trial.” Mumia expressions of crony capitalism. Hitler’s National Socialist Workers Party—known as “Nazi” for short, should never been arrested and con- Why are we seeing this now? Because victed. It was a politically motivated and promised glory—and stained the neoliberal capitalist parties like the nation with infamy. Similarly, racially biased trial of an innocent man. Social Democrats and the Democrats It will take international mass protest, Mussolini’s Fascist Party brought Italy in the U.S., have advanced austerity degradation and destruction. including labor organizations world- plans, and supported globalist policies wide, to take up the fight for Mumia’s that have advantaged investors over People turn to these types of figures freedom as part of the struggle against workers. They do this because they in times of economic despair, when Black oppression, political repression, receive vast sums of money from “normal” governments seem incompe- class bias and U.S. imperialist interven- investment donors—and these donors tent, unable to cope with the challenges tions. As part of this international strug- are repaid with business policies, which facing them; when living conditions gle, we can win Mumia’s freedom. advance their bottom lines. fall to dangerous and desperate levels, —May 2, 2017 and when tomorrows seem more fear- By doing so, they may’ve enriched ful than hopeful. party coffers. But they’ve weakened the social positions of their voters, who We see this in the vast anti-austerity must contend with lower wages and movements in Europe like the recent higher prices. This has led to working- “Brexit” vote in Britain. class estrangement and growing disen- Neoliberalism and its anti-worker chantment and even desperation globalization project set the stage; and

58 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 nationalist supporters are eating the poor, the impoverished, the oppressed. movement, while leftist in speech. meal. They serve as elegant, highly intelli- It supports racist mass incarceration Socialists and real leftists have been gent, persuasive servants of capital, in America and war in Iraq and sidelined and undermined by not serv- who build massive prisons, neglect Afghanistan. It supported the destruc- ing the interests of workers, or not schools, arm cops with more weapons tion of Libya, while sending more opposing the capitalist globalists with of war, sell healthcare to the highest weapons to Israel. sufficient vigor. Here I refer not to rev- bidders, and the like, while posing as representatives of the people. It is, in essence, a kinder, gentler olutionary or even radical political for- conservatism, which opened the door mations, for they rarely hold political Neoliberalism as typified by the to the coming of Donald Trump. offices in governments. When they do, likes of London’s Tony Blair, or they yield to the politics of pragmatism. Washington’s Bill Clinton, Hillary Here, the politics of Illusion have given rise to the politics of fear and I mean the parties in power in the Clinton and Barack Obama—really, emerging fascism. capitalist West like the Labor Party in conservative politicians of service to the UK, like the Democrats in the U.S., the market, military and police repres- It is time for a real left to organize: like the Social Democrats in the sion, and the subjugation of labor— and rise! European States, all of whom embrace but done with class, with a smile, with —Prison Radio, January 9, 2017 neoliberalism, or the politics of prag- soft words, and politeness. Write to: matism that serves the market—or, For years, political writers have Mumia Abu-Jamal AM-8335 more accurately, the investor class. called this The Third Way, a kind of SCI-Mahanoy And because they serve that class, centering between right and left. That’s 301 Morea Road they must betray the working-class, the nonsense. For, it is really rightist in Frackville, PA 17932

On Death Row—With No Death Sentence! By Mumia Abu-Jamal

These men, held at the state’s death liberty interest under the Fourteenth rows in Greene County and Graterford, Amendment” of the Constitution. were people who had their death sen- Williams spent six years on death tences overturned by state or federal row without a death sentence; Walker courts, but they remained held in soli- spent eight years on death row without tary confinement for months and years. a death sentence! Until two men filed suits against In Williams v. Secretary, DOC, the this longstanding Department Of 3rd Circuit found this confinement Corrections practice, that is. unconstitutional, but also granted the Craig Williams of Greene and DOC the defense that, until now, this Shawn T. Walker of Graterford filed right wasn’t “clearly established.” separate civil actions in federal court The Williams decision, being the challenging this procedure, but both first of its kind, put the DOC on notice men lost. that such a practice was per se uncon- Both men filed their suits pro se stitutional, and a violation of a prison- (without a lawyer), and both filed er’s state-created liberty interest. Mumia Abu-Jamal appeals before the 3rd Circuit Court of Williams was a talented jailhouse Appeals, where both men won! lawyer when he was on Death Row. For several years now, well over a The federal appeals court ruled in a He’s been off death row since 2012, and decade, the Pennsylvania Department February 9th opinion that the continued he’s still one helluva jailhouse lawyer. of Corrections kept dozens of men on detention of men in solitary confine- Death Row, even though they didn’t ment, who had no pending death sen- have a pending death sentence. tences, was a violation of “a state-created —Prison Radio, February 24, 2017

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 59 Numbers Don’t Lie Stop wrongful convictions now By Lorenzo Johnson

For the third straight year, a new four others have had only one— Update: Five years after his exonera- record has been set for the number of including several units that have tion and re-incarceration, Lorenzo will exonerations of innocent prisoners. existed for several years. present evidence of his innocence at an We officially had 166 exonerations in • Several CIUs have no contact upcoming hearing at Dauphin County 2016. Over seventy of them were the information publicly available Courthouse on July 10th, 2017 in result of official misconduct. on the web or by telephone, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. What is even more shocking, in including some that have been in —Huffington Post, April 20, 2017 the 2016 National Registry of operation for years. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ Exonerations Report, is that seventy- San Diego, California was the loca- entry/58f90a83e4b0de26cfeae1d6 four innocent people who were exon- tion of the 2017 Innocence Network Write to: erated last year had originally Annual Conference. Hundreds of peo- Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 pled guilty. This is how bad things are ple came together as one in the fight to SCI Mahanoy for us innocent prisoners. A lot of us end wrongful convictions. Innocence 301 Morea Road are forced or pressured to plead guilty Projects, exonerees, the media, Frackville, PA 17932 for a variety of reasons. Even when we and many others shared their stories [email protected] have good legal standing on our appeals and gave their insight to help stop www.FreeLorenzoJohnson.org and are granted new trials, we are still wrongful convictions. As an innocent Sign his petition and learn more at: pressured to plead guilty to crimes our prisoner, I commend all who attended http://www.freelorenzojohnson.org/sign-the- prosecutors know we didn’t commit. and encouraged society to get involved petition.html Over the last three years, Conviction in the fight to help free all innocent www.twitter.com/FreeRenz Integrity Units (CIUs) have begun prisoners. Contribute to Lorenzo Johnson’s campaign helping exonerate innocent prisoners. for freedom through JPAY.com code: Lorenzo The million-dollar question con- Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC They were involved in seventy of the stantly being asked is: what is being record 166 exonerations in 2016. Since done in regard to our flawed criminal 2003, CIUs have helped secured 225 justice system? With exoneration exonerations. More than 80 percent records being broken the last three Every week, three have taken place since 2014. Still, CIUs years consecutively, you would think can be of more assistance to us inno- that the cancer that is deeply rooted in innocent prisoners cent prisoners then they are now. As of our system is finally being treated. But 2016, there were twenty-nine CIUs in this is not the case at all. Every week, are exonerated. the U.S., doubling the count from 2013, three innocent prisoners are exonerat- and five-times as many as existed in ed. But did I mention that the average But did I mention 2011. We need to continue this growth. time they spent in prison was between The National Registry of thirteen-and-a-half and fifteen years? that the average Exonerations reports on the limita- Lorenzo Johnson served 16-and-a- tions of CIUs as they currently exist: half years of a life-without-parole sen- time they spent in The performance of these CIUs tence until 2012, when the Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals ruled there was prison was has been highly variable. legally insufficient evidence for his con- • More than half of all CIU exonera- viction. He remained free for four between thirteen- tions since 2003 come from one unit months, after which the U.S. Supreme (Harris County, Texas) (128/225), Court unanimously reinstated the con- and-a-half and and almost a third (69/225) occurred viction and ordered him back to prison in three other counties. to resume the sentence. With the support fifteen years? • Half of all CIUs have never been of The Pennsylvania Innocence Project, involved in an exoneration—and he is continuing to fight for his freedom.

60 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Major Tillery, The Man Interview by Shakaboona Marshall

Shakaboona, the editor of The What are your thoughts about that? Major Tillery: Well, the PDOC is Movement, the quarterly publication of And take us through what happened angry at me because I foiled the con- the Human Rights Coalition (HRC) with Mumia Abu-Jamal at SCI- spiracy to murder Mumia by way of conducted this interview with innocent Mahanoy? intentionally denying him medical Pennsylvania lifer Major Tillery over the Major Tillery: Wa-Alaikum- treatment. The PDOC retaliated against fall of 2016. Since then, Stephen Patrizio, Salaam. In The Name of Allah, The me because I exposed the plot to kill a well-established criminal defense law- Beneficent, The Merciful. Thank you Mumia through their medical depart- yer in Philadelphia has taken up Major’s for interviewing me Brother ment to the world. That day, my case pro bono, but still requires funds Shakaboona. The only thoughts I have assigned cell was searched and ran- for the costs of legal filings and continued about saving Mumia is that I’ve been in sacked by guards. I was removed from investigation. (See below.) Major’s post- prison for 33 years and have watched my prison job as a Peer Educator conviction petition challenging his con- men, known and unknown, die from Specialist. The next week my cell was viction on grounds of actual innocence the lack of human concern for prison- searched and ransacked twice more by and gross prosecutorial and police mis- ers by prison staff. Prisoners used to the Security Officers. The week after conduct was filed on June 15, 2016 and care for each other and force the prison that, prison staff packed my property dismissed by the judge without even staff to seek medical help for each up, placed me in a transport van, and holding a hearing on September 26, other. Now, due to the lack of concern emergency transferred me to SCI- 2016. Major’s appeal to the Pennsylvania and the fear many of these new prison- Frackville where I was immediately Superior Court will be filed by April 12, ers have for the Hole (Solitary placed in the Hole for allegedly receiv- 2107. For more information, go to: www. Confinement), they will step over each ing a letter with drugs [on] it. I have a JusticeForMajorTillery.org. other and let you die. I saw brother civil lawsuit in about the PDOC’s retali- Shakaboona Marshall: Major Tillery Mumia wasting away and explained to ation and phony drug accusation against is a well-known, highly respected man, him he needed to go to the hospital. I me, along with a sworn affidavit from revolutionary, prisoners’ rights activist, really didn’t know how disoriented and the man the letter allegedly came from. religious leader, and human rights sick he was until I saw him in the law The PDOC never even contacted the advocate. I have had the honor of inter- library. I then saw Superintendent man to investigate the matter, because it viewing Major Tillery from September— John Kerestes on the block and was a false accusation to begin with fab- October 2016, sometime after he was explained to him that Mumia was in ricated to justify the emergency transfer retaliated against by the Pennsylvania his 60s and needed emergency medical of me and my placement in long-term Department of Corrections (PDOC) for attention. He was deliberately indiffer- solitary confinement. exposing the death plot on political ent to Mumia’s medical situation and Shakaboona Marshall: What is prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal’s life at explained to me how I should worry your situation like now? And what can State Correctional Institution-Mahanoy about myself. I told him that Mumia the political activist community do to and after newly-discovered evidence was my business and that I was going further support you. was presented that undoubtedly prove to see to it that he gets the medical Major Tillery’s innocence of murder. attention he needed. I then took action. Major Tillery: My legal investigator The below question and answer will I would have done the same for any Rachel H. Wolkenstein sent you the give people a better understanding of prisoner that was in the predicament new evidence of my criminal case that who Major Tillery is as a person, and that Mumia was in. proves my innocence. People can help that he is more than the man who saved Shakaboona Marshall: I was me retain an attorney to represent me Mumia Abu- Jamal’s life. Meet the Man, informed that there was a huge backlash in the post-conviction appeal process Major Tillery. of retaliation against you by the PDOC to help me get free and can pressure Shakaboona Marshall: As-Salaam for making the public aware of Mumia the PDOC to have me transferred from Alaikum my brother. I salute you with Abu-Jamal’s dire medical condition. SCI-Frackville, which is a punitive a raised clenched fist. It’s an honor to Why was the PDOC so angry and hos- prison. You know about the racism finally interview you. In political activ- tile towards you over Mumia? And in and oppressive purpose of this prison. ist circles they are calling you “the man what ways did the PDOC retaliate Shakaboona Marshall: Yes. I’m who saved Mumia Abu-Jamal’s life.” against you for coming to Mumia’s aid? very aware of the culture of white

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 61 supremacy and wickedness of SCI- Barbara Christie and Roger King and tion who lived next door to me and Frackville’s officials against Black and Detective Lawrence Gerrard played were best friends. He went and joined Latino prisoners and I hope people their part by setting up a lot of brothers with MOVE and I joined The Nation help pressure the PDOC to transfer and sisters in the early 1970s. Of Islam. I have been sent to prisons all you from that place. I have read the I know you haven’t seen the video of over the United States due to my polit- newly discovered evidence in your this lying witness Emanuel Claitt on ical activism. The PDOC would trade post-conviction appeal case showing YouTube, but you have this and Robert me for other prisoners, the way they and proving your actual innocence, Mickens’ recanting sworn statements traded slaves. The reasons they gave for and with the right attorney you can showing how the D.A. and Detectives the transfers were that I had influence definitely regain your freedom. Can coerced and bribed the jailhouse infor- over other prisoners and was a threat you give a brief overview of the police mants with sex with their girlfriends to the Department of Corrections and District Attorney’s (D.A.) frame- while in police custody and with because of this. Because I fight for pris- up of you and the corruption they reduced sentences in their criminal oners’ human rights, am influential engaged in with your case? cases, just to have them say what the with prisoners, am a jailhouse lawyer, Major Tillery: As you know I was a D.A. wanted them to say for my con- and am a man that demands respect member of The Nation Of Islam (NOI, viction. Jailhouse informants Claitt and humane treatment in prisons, the The Nation) since 1968. In the late and Mickens, along with a lot of other PDOC have kept me in the Control 1970s under the leadership of Imama informant witnesses, were recruited to Units in every state prison I’ve been to Warith Deen Muhammad—son of The be professional witnesses for the Philly for over 20 years! I’ve had 12 miscon- Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad— police department and D.A.’s office. duct reports against me in 33 years of we turned over from what we called The evidence shows this. imprisonment, yet I’ve been sent to The First Resurrection in the NOI to out-of-state prisons more than any Shakaboona Marshall: Although following Sunni Islam. I was never in other Pennsylvania state prisoner. the public is just coming to know you the so-called Black Mafia, which the as “the man who saved Mumia Abu- Shakaboona Marshall: In 2015, white press invented along with the Jamal’s life,” you are a highly respected Mumia filed a civil lawsuit in Federal term Black Muslim. I have never want- and well-known—some say legend- Court concerning the PDOC’s denial ed nor have been inspired to be or copy ary—prisoner activist, jailhouse law- of curative Hepatitis C medical treat- off of White Gangsters or any gangster. yer, religious leader, and human rights ment in the case Mumia Abu-Jamal v. I grew up on The Brotherhood of our advocate in your own right. Even Kerestes. Recently, the court denied religion Islam. Yeah, I engaged in gang Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote admiringly of Mumia’s motion for preliminary war when I was a young boy from the your brilliant legal acumen and activ- injunction for allegedly suing the 49th and Woodland Avenue gang. But ism in his book, Jailhouse Lawyers, wrong officials, though that wasn’t in my teens, in the 1960s, I became when describing your historical victory true. Have you read the court’s opin- aware of America and Black people’s in the precedent-setting class action ion yet? If so, what are your thoughts deplorable position here and wanted to lawsuit of Tillery v. Owens. There aren’t about the court’s decision? do something positive about it. I men- many prisoners who don’t know the tion that to say this, the State’s jail- Major Tillery: I felt the exact same house informant witness Emanuel name Major Tillery and of your contri- thing you did about the court’s opin- Claitt explained—which I sent you the butions to the human rights prisoner ion. But I think the court is giving the affidavit statement he made and that’s movement in Pennsylvania. For the PDOC time to change their policy also on YouTube—how the D.A.s office general public’s sake, can you tell before our Brother Mumia amends his and detectives hated me for my partici- everyone about yourself? lawsuit. pation in The Nation Of Islam and Major Tillery: I’ve been in prison Shakaboona Marshall: You’re right falsely accused me of being a member for 33 years now. I was sent to the about that! Men and women are dying of The Black Mafia in order to convict Marion Illinois Federal Prison by the weekly in the prisons’ infirmary me of a crime I didn’t commit. You PDOC in retaliation for filing the class because these pigs don’t want to pay have to remember that the govern- action suit Tillery v. Owens to help the cost to medically treat prisoners. In ment’s COINTELPRO (the FBIs mentally ill prisoners and more. The addition to that, the government uses Counter Intelligence Program) opera- PDOC never had a Special Needs Unit the health crisis in prisons to extra- tion was going on at the time to destroy (SNU) for the mentally ill until we won judicially murder well-known political radical Black organizations, and The the Tillery v. Owens lawsuit. I grew up prisoners from the 1960s—’80s under Nation Of Islam and its leaders were in the 1960s with Edward Africa the guise of medical neglect. For exam- on that list to be neutralized. D.A. (Goodman) of the MOVE organiza- ple, look at the intentional medical

62 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 neglect deaths of political prisoners gradual dissolution of the PDOC’s use law to provide parole eligibility to pris- Marilyn Buck, Mondo we Langa, Merle of indefinite solitary confinement as a oners serving Life-Without-Parole Africa, Phil Africa, and the brother weapon against mostly conscious pris- (LWOP)/Death-By-Incarceration from The Angola 3 (Herman Wallace.) oner activists and political prisoners. Is (DBI) prison terms. How can prisoners Not to mention the near-death medical it now possible that, with legal represen- assist in this endeavor? neglect of political prisoners Lynne tation and outside support, political Major Tillery: I’ve been reading the Stewart, Russell “Maroon” Shoatz, prisoners like Joseph “Joe-Joe” Bowens instructions you and Brother Omar Leonard Peltier, Imam Jalil (formerly and Arthur “Cetewayo” Johnson can Sistrunk have been giving about this H. Rap Brown), Mumia Abu-Jamal, now finally get released from indefinite issue, and I would only repeat what y’all and recently Brother Lumumba (co- solitary confinement as well? said. We need the public support. We defendant of Maroon.) What do you Major Tillery: Yes. As of this need to organize prisoners, our families think about this? moment, the Federal District Court and friends, our neighborhood church- Major Tillery: What I’ve learned is recently has ordered Cetewayo’s release es and mosques, our community orga- that the America system—even in the from permanent solitary confinement nizations, and our grassroots activists times of the ’60s—leaders had great after serving almost 40 years in the and student activist to strategically con- patience and would act like we’re win- Hole, at last! So many prisoners in like front the Pennsylvania political estab- ning and are making great progress. situations can now get out the Hole. lishment through voting, protests, boy- But they knew, through the history of cotts, occupations and more. slavery, we were taught to have short Until the day I walk Shakaboona Marshall: The attention spans. So the oppressors wait Pennsylvania Commutation Board is for the political-minded brothers and free or get carried being challenged now too. A campaign sisters to get old, knowing the young out this joint, I will to get commutation for prisoners serv- generations would forget. They know ing LWOP/DBI sentences is in effect. time and just the “everyday struggle” fight for the rights Have you any suggestions about this will weed the potential leaders among of prisoners, our matter? us out. So the stand-up ones who are left are discredited, caged, or killed by youth, and people Major Tillery: I’ve been giving this the enemy of our people. They place who identify with a lot of thought. But Pennsylvania is so out of touch from what’s going on in the real brothers who understand the our people’s struggle fight in prisons and then in the Holes other states. I would suggest that all of prisons, which are really mental asy- for truth, freedom, prisoners and their families join the lum dungeons. And there, the oppres- justice, equality, commutation campaign. Find out the sors—using their Department of organization(s) that’s spearheading the Corrections—hope that this environ- and peace. commutation campaign, join it, and ment will break you down to a mental become active in it. basket case, a feces thrower, or one Shakaboona Marshall: What’s the who grinds-up other prisoners on Shakaboona Marshall: In regards current state of the Human Rights behalf of the enemy to the point that to indefinite solitary confinement, Prisoners’ Movement in relation to those prisoners break as well. So when courts across the country are pro- human rights issues of mass incarcera- the pigs take brothers and sisters that nouncing rulings against its use, like in tion, abuse and torture, solitary con- their “Hole” can’t break, they try to the case of Incumaa v. Sterling, 791 finement, LWOP/DBI sentences, snuff out their lives in other ways, like F.3d 517 (4th. Cir. 2015). Are Prison Abolition, and Black Lives intentionally denying them medical Pennsylvania courts headed in the Matter? same direction? treatment for cancer, diabetes, and Major Tillery: I’m very happy to see Hep-C until they die. Because they Major Tillery: Yes. Kicking and so many young people coming to the don’t want such influential prisoners screaming all the way. And still trying realization that it’s up to them to take to teach other prisoners how to raise to find ways to keep you locked-down the forefront of the fight. And as our their consciousness, how to survive in the Hole. history and the present show, it’s the together, and how to resist. Shakaboona Marshall: You’re right Black women who are out-front in the Shakaboona Marshall: In light of the about that! Now in Pennsylvania struggle for justice and freedom, argu- out-of-court settlement victory in Shoatz there’s also a growing movement to ing and fighting for the police to stop v. Wetzel in 2015, we are now seeing the pressure the state’s legislature to pass a shooting down unarmed Black women,

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 63 men, and children. That’s why any The worse thing in life is an old fool you but a lot of Philly lawyers will not young brothers that come my way, I’m who waits until he’s 50 years old to be touch this kind of corruption case, at them about two words they like to a gang leader. Man up! Until the day I ’cause they’re too scared to be labeled use, “bitches” and “niggers.” Because walk free or get carried out this joint, I as “persona non grata” in their circle of they’re offensive and degrading terms will fight for the rights of prisoners, judicial peers. So I need the support of towards our women and men, and our youth, and people who identify the people, first and foremost, and of what you think and call yourself mat- with our people’s struggle for truth, judicial activists. And together WE ters. It’s the sisters (Black women) out freedom, justice, equality, and peace. WILL WIN! there fighting for our asses—not Shakaboona Marshall: Well my Stay strong Shakaboona. It was “bitches!” Ya dig. Remember that. And Brother, it’s time to bring this histori- good speaking with you. As-Salaam it tells a lot about a “people” by the cal interview to an end. Are there any Alaikum. names they “accept” to be called. final thoughts? Shakaboona Marshall: It was an Shakaboona Marshall: Brother, honor to speak with you once again statistics show that we are suffering Major. Likewise, stay strong, healthy, today the same or greater economic And as our history patient, wise, and unbroken. My raised hardships, social injustice, racism, and and the present clenched-fist salute to you Major oppression in America despite some Tillery! modest gains than our generation show, it’s the Black Walaikum As-Salaam. before us have had. Do you think the women who are out- Black Lives Matter movement activists front in the struggle For more information and to make a financial are showing us and other oppressed contribution via PayPal: www. peoples a radical way forward in deal- for justice and free- JusticeForMajorTillery.org or Mail checks to: ing with our condition as a people? dom, arguing and Major Tillery. PO Box 13205, 2347 N. 7th Street, And is it enough? fighting for the Harrisburg, PA 17110. Major Tillery: No one group can Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall is Co-Founder police to stop shoot- and Editor of The Movement magazine, Prison carry 400-plus years of oppression. But Radio Correspondent, founding member of the the young people out there are starting ing down unarmed Human Rights Coalition (HRC) and a Child to move forward. What we have to show Black women, men, Life-sentenced prisoner. them is how we made our mistakes in Write to: the 1960s and ’70s by thinking we won and children. Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall #BE7826 and allowing ourselves to be sucked into SCI Graterford a society and culture that put us back to Major Tillery: Brother Shakaboona, P.O. Box 244 sleep in mental death and modern slav- first I want to thank you and commend Graterford, PA 19426-0246 ery. At 66-years-old, it seems to me like you on the work that your do. Secondly, the movie “Groundhog Day,” where we I wish to express my deepest apprecia- Write to: as a people keep falling for the banana in tion for the help I received from Rachel Major Tillery AM9786 the tailpipe of the car trick by the enemy, H. Wolkenstein, Esq. and Nancy SCI Frackville generation after generations. Lockhart who has investigated my case 1111 Altamont Blvd. I hear the brothers my age always on mostly her own dime, and for their Frackville, PA 17931 complaining about the young brothers undying support. Rachel and Nancy not being shit. And my response to believe in my innocence and were those old guys is the same, if young among the first to reach out to help people ain’t shit, then what does that prove my innocence and regain my make us? Because these are our chil- freedom. I thank them both. FREE dren and grandchildren, so how can we I have a real chance to be free once separate ourselves from them. We’re more, but I need the people’s help. I the ones that miss-taught the young need a lawyer to help me with my KERRY brothers and sisters out there in soci- appeal. My case is one of the largest ety, so that means we must not be shit police and D.A. corruption cases in “SHAKABOONA” either. They learned from us, ya dig. decades that need to be exposed to the And that’s a fact we have to correct. public and courts. I don’t have to tell MARSHALL

64 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Julian Assange Political Prisoner By Mark Weisbrot

to Sweden, where he is wanted for ture by Iraqi forces. The files indicate questioning in a criminal case in which that the U.S. may have known about no charges have been brought. But the this torture when it was turning over real threat is that Sweden would extra- thousands of prisoners to Iraqi custody. dite him to the United States, where a The thousands of diplomatic grand jury would likely indict him (if cables published by WikiLeaks in they have not already prepared a sealed November 2010—in collaboration with indictment, which is considered like- major news outlets including the New ly.) He would be imprisoned pending York Times and the Guardian—also trial and could face life in prison or revealed human rights abuses, corrup- even the death penalty. The Swedish tion, and other crimes by various gov- government, in particular, has shown ernments. WikiLeaks also developed a no interest in resolving the case for methodology for protecting whistle- which they had wanted to question blowers who expose abuses and crimes. Assange—it took them more than four Human rights advocates throughout years to finally decide to question him the world have used WikiLeaks docu- in London—but rather have chosen to ments to challenge governments and keep him imprisoned. defend their citizens in court and in the

JUlian Assange What has been Julian Assange’s real realm of public opinion. crime, that these three governments It is not surprising that the most Julian Assange is a political prison- (U.S., UK, and Sweden) have collabo- er. He has never been charged with a powerful people in the world, especially rated to keep him from seeing the out- in the United States, would want to crime. Everyone who recognizes his side world? His crime, and that of name should know this, and if they silence and punish someone who expos- WikiLeaks, has been the practice of es their crimes and atrocities. What is don’t it is only because the largest journalism, and particularly in defense media outlets have misreported or not surprising, or should be, is that they of human rights and civil liberties. could get so much help in doing so. reported the basic facts of his deten- That is why he has received so many tion. This in itself is a searing indict- journalism awards, including The Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the ment of the media that Assange Economist New Media Award (2008), Center for Economic and Policy Research and WikiLeaks have struggled to the 2009 Amnesty International UK in Washington, D.C. reform. It also puts to shame all of the Media Award, the 2011 Martha —Huffington Post, April 10, 2017 Western governments, political lead- Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (UK), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ ers, and journalists who claim to care and many others. entry/julian-assange-is-a-political-pris- about human rights and civil liberties oner-who-has-exposed_ but remain silent—or worse—about Assange and WikiLeaks’ real offense us_58eb8f2fe4b00dd8e016edf4 one of the world’s most famous pris- was to expose the crimes of the most oners of conscience. powerful people in the world. Thanks to WikiLeaks, millions saw the classified In 2015 the United Nations Working video of the U.S. military gunning Group on arbitrary deten- down eighteen people in Iraq, includ- WHISTLE tion found that the governments of the ing two Reuters employees, in July of UK and Sweden have arbitrarily 2007. In July 2010, WikiLeaks published detained Assange. They ordered his the Afghan War Diary, which included BLOWING release and compensation. more than 75,000 previously secret He is imprisoned in the Ecuadorian reports from the U.S. military in embassy in London, where the govern- Afghanistan. The Iraq War Logs, which IS NOT A ment of Ecuador has granted him recorded over 66,000 civilian deaths in political asylum. He cannot leave Iraq, were also released by WikiLeaks, CRIME because if he does, he will be extradited and exposed the widespread use of tor-

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 65 Exposing Torture Texas prisoner, Rashid Johnson, framed and punished for exposing torture By Carole Seligman

Note: The information in this article authorities, to public media outlets in ing court files; legal documents; wit- is from an article entitled “Planted Texas and nationally, and those he has ness statements and affidavits; discov- Weapons and Stolen Property: Mounting accused announced they would seek ery materials; medical files related to Retribution for Continued Exposures of revenge, and they have—this time with medical claims and injuries sustained; Abuses in Texas Prisons (2017)” by the serious charge of secreting a dan- and much more, all related to active, Kevin Rashid Johnson.1 gerous weapon in his cell. Prisoner wit- pending, and anticipated litigation— Kevin Rashid Johnson, a Texas pris- nesses to the frame up have written especially concerning illegal abuses— oner, author, and artist whose work we statements backing up what Rashid has and disciplinary files, and all his mail. have been regularly publishing written about this frame up. His art supplies and typewriter have in Socialist Viewpoint has been framed The prison authorities have also been taken. on a weapons charge at the Clement unleashed a series of punishments Rashid has been writing and pro- Unit prison where he has been serving involving the taking of nearly all of ducing art for many years at all the a lengthy sentence originating in Rashid’s property, including his legal different prisons where he was caged. Virginia. The title of his most recent materials. These included his Prisoners His transfers from Virginia, to Oregon, article, “Planted Weapons and Stolen Self Help Litigation Manual, rules and then to Texas were all related to his Property: Mounting Retribution for statutes from Virginia and Oregon writings and art that exposed viola- Continued Exposures of Abuses in (where he was previously incarcerat- tions of basic human rights and pro- Texas Prisons (2017),” is a succinct ed); correspondence with attorneys voked storms of protest from human summary of what happened and why. involving pending cases of theirs in rights supporters who learned about Rashid has been exposing the tor- which Rashid is a witness; addresses, these abuses from his work. ture and murder of Texas prisoners by emails, and phone numbers of sup- The recent chronology includes: the the sadistic guards and racist prison porters, editors and publishers; pend- murder of Alton Rodgers and the lies told to explain Mr. Rodgers death by ranking Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials. (See “Another Texas Prisoner Dead,” By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson in the, September/October issue of Socialist Viewpoint, Volume 16, Number 5.) In writing about how the prison guards only talked to media about Mr. Rodgers’ murder when guaranteed anonymity, Rashid explained: “This is how real official corruption and abuse is in U.S. prisons. And if employees fear retribution for exposing what really goes on in these places, you can just imagine what sorts of mistreatments face prisoners who dare to speak out.” What has happened to Rashid shows this mistreatment in a stark way. Threats carried out In early December 2016, Rashid was threatened by ranking officials to have his property taken in revenge for exposing the abuses and killings of prisoners

66 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 by Texas officials. Then, on December and the conviction records erased. But plies, were manuscripts of several 21, 2016, the same officials took a large when Rashid persisted in writing about books Rashid is currently working on amount of his property and sprayed abuses, four of the most disparaging including an autobiography, articles, him with gas while he stood handcuffed cases were refiled and he was re-con- and a newsletter called Main Line. from behind and locked inside a cell. victed, again denied the right to be On April 7th, Rashid attended the He was left for several days with gas- present at the hearings and was not disciplinary hearing on the weapon contaminated laundry, bedding, and even notified that he faced charges and charge illegally presided over by cell surfaces in violation of law and that hearings were being held. Captain Patricia Flowers, but was policy. (See “Bound and Gassed,” Following these events Rashid wrote, kicked out of the hearing when he pro- Socialist Viewpoint January/February “The Abuse Goes On,” about the cor- tested the hearing officer’s refusal to 2017, Volume 17, Number 1.) rupting influences of the prison envi- allow him to call witnesses. Captain These abuses were carried out by ronment on employees, citing the con- Flowers is the same person who taunt- captain Patricia Flowers, lieutenant duct of several ranking Clements Unit ed Rashid while he was in the holding Crystal Turner, guard Andrew Leonard, guards as examples, including the ones cell. She is the same person who threat- and sergeant Arleen Waak. All of these responsible for the gassing and confis- ened to take Rashid’s property in officials were later involved in subse- cation of his property in December. December, and then took them and set quent acts of revenge after Rashid (See “The Abuse Goes On: The him up to be gassed. Following the reported on these abuses. Protests by Corrupting Dynamics of Power in A hearing Rashid was placed in a small Rashid’s supporters led to the return of Texas Prison,” (2017) available at www. holding cell for over three hours and his property on January 25, 2017, but he rashidmod.com.) In response, the wheels more property was taken from his cell, also received a retaliatory discipline of retribution were set in motion. including his typewriter, all books infraction for having written about the (including law books), eating utensils, December 21st abuses, and its posting On March 25, 2017, officials threat- legal supplies like carbon paper, ink online by supporters. The day after his ened that Rashid would be targeted pens, and more, and he was returned property was returned he was com- again. And, after denying him outside to an essentially bare cell. pelled to dispose of much of it as a con- exercise for three months, on March 26th the guards took him outside. While in the holding cell, he was sub- dition for retaining some of it. His lines jected to taunting by a guard: “Are you of communication with publishers, While he was outside, the sergeant and guard who participated in taking his still in there? I told you I’d get you. I’ve media correspondents, and editors were got all your shit now! You won’t be doing property on December 21st, staged a illegally severed to obstruct his writings. much writing and suing for awhile!” cell search as other officials and guards A PBS journalist, Kamala Kelkar, stood outside watching and blocking Through all of this, Rashid has stood questioned Texas prison administra- the view of a surveillance camera posi- firm on his commitment to continue tors about the disciplinary measures tioned in front of the cell. shining a light into the dark corridors against Rashid and other TDCJ prison- of these corrupt and oppressive institu- When Rashid returned, he was told ers for exposing abuses. They denied tions where multitudes suffer as bad that a shank was found in his cell. He having charged Rashid with infrac- and even worse than he. These prison- responded that it was obviously plant- tions, but changed their story when she ers need help and a voice to the out- ed by them. presented a copy of the infraction, but side. Rashid’s expressed hope is to they continued to lie, claiming it had After that, Rashid learned from “render them a service that will ulti- been overturned and declined any fur- other prisoners that a weapon had mately see an end to this vengeful ther comment. (See Kamala Kelkar, been recovered from another prisoner, criminal injustice.” “Resistance Builds Against Social but not reported. This happened before Writings and art by Rashid can be seen at www. Media Ban in Texas Prisons,” PBS a weapon was “found” in Rashid’s cell. rashidmod.com News Hour, January 29, 2017) How convenient! Several guards admit- To write to Rashid: He received five more degrading ted knowing that the “found” weapon Kevin Johnson #1859887 infractions, but was not allowed to was the same one that had been taken Clements Unit attend the hearings, which resulted in from another prisoner. 9601 Spur 591 automatic guilty convictions. On that same day guards took Amarillo, TX 79107 After Ms. Kelkar’s article was pub- Rashid to a holding cell and confiscat- lished and there was much public pro- ed nearly all of his property—most of it test, all six infractions were overturned was legal materials. Besides the art sup- 1 www.rashidmod.com

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 67 The Abuse Goes On The corrupting dynamics of power in a Texas prison By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

Character split majority had indeed become ‘prison- express a lack of outside support It’s a truism that power corrupts; ers’ or ‘guards,’ no longer able to against abuses, because those they and absolute power corrupts absolute- clearly differentiate between role- report abuses to (and most often it’s playing and self. There were dramatic ly. But that’s not the end of the story. their own loved ones,) simply don’t changes in virtually every aspect of believe them. Either they outright In Amerika, prisons constitute the their behavior, thinking and feeling. refuse to accept that officials do what most absolute exercise of state power. In less than a week, the experience of they complained of, or they defer to the Within their confines, officials control imprisonment undid (temporarily) a lying denials or promises to investigate the lives, means of survival, and quality lifetime of learning; human values and resolve the reported situation of life of their captives, and use that were suspended, self-concepts were made by some official the outside per- power to control, manipulate, and challenged, and the ugliest most base, son has contacted in following up on compel submission of the prisoners to pathological side of human nature surfaced. We were horrified, because the prisoner’s complaint. various ends. we saw boys (‘guards’) treat other Essentially, outside folks tend to In my 27 years of imprisonment I boys as if they were despicable ani- blindly trust and defer to “authority” have witnessed that some people are mals, taking pleasure in cruelty, while figures, believing that those entrusted more susceptible to the corrupting other boys (‘prisoners’) became ser- with government power exercise it influences of such power than others, vile, dehumanized robots, who responsibly and in good faith. As the but none are immune. thought only of escape, of their own survival, and of their own mounting Stanford prison experiment demon- I have found too that many people in hatred of the guards.”1 strated, the reality is just the opposite. society disbelieve how completely these In a similar context, U.S. courts I also want to show how easily environments transform and deform the have also recognized that, “prison everyday people can become violent characters of “normal” people when guards may be more vulnerable to the abusers in service to oppressive power, they pass through the prison gates as corrupting influence of unchecked just as common Germans did during employees. Most seem to believe they authority than most people.”2 I would the Nazi era. bring with them the same morals, sense add that cops are no less “vulnerable,” of social responsibility and consideration But let’s start with some specific and the routine brutality and killings toward their fellow persons that they examples. that the poor and people of color suffer observe in society. While initially some at their hands is the product of this. Persistent abuse do or may try, their “normal” character And as the late attorney Johnnie quickly breaks down and a different per- On December 21, 2016, on top of Cochran once noted, the courts have sonality emerges. A well-known experi- having a substantial amount of my long been complicit in, condoned, and ment by psychiatrist Philip Zimbardo, property taken, I was assaulted by protected cops against liability for, guards who gassed me while I was conducted at Stanford University in these behaviors.3 But in the prison 1973 gave powerful proof of this. In his handcuffed from behind and locked context I want to examine these cor- inside a cell; whereupon they refused experiment Zimbardo selected 21 nor- rupting tendencies, some environmen- mal, intelligent, and stable students to to have me, the cell, and my in-cell tal factors that encourage them, and linen decontaminated. Several abuse create a simulated prison in the univer- base this on some specific examples (of sity’s basement. Based on coin flips, half reports I wrote following this included which my own setting affords many.) some mention of misuse of gas at the were given roles of prison guards and the 4 other half, of prisoners. Zimbardo I want to do this because I’ve found prison. By referring to those articles, described the frightening results: that most outside people are reluctant the reader can get a sense of the preva- to challenge prison abuses, including lent abuse of gas which has been “At the end of only six days we prisoners’ own loved ones. Which acknowledged and strongly con- had to close down our mock prison often results from their disbelief that demned in court proceedings and the because what we saw was frightening. officials actually behave as they do. It was no longer apparent to us, or media, without me restating it here. most of the subjects, where they I’ve witnessed and heard more times But despite those exposures and ended and their roles began. The than I care to remember; my peers their generating a bit of public stir and

68 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 preparations for future possible litiga- seen on the audio-video camera that ten inch square, and it was deeply dis- tions, the mistreatments continue, and was present and recording the inci- colored with the dye that is added to by many of the same officials. As testa- dent. The leg shackles were removed. the OC spray. This prisoner too had no ment to the frequency of such ongoing He was left in the handcuffs and the access to decontaminated clothing....” abuses, note the close timeframe in guards began backing out of the cell as But to return to the February 21st which the three incidents described he lay on the floor. incident, Louis was at his cell front below occurred (namely February 19, As the last guard backed out a ser- talking to Turner through the open 21, and 23, 2017;) and in each case the geant Samuel Barrientos suddenly handcuff slot on his cell door, attempt- abused prisoner is documented as sprayed gas into the cell like a signal, ing to have guards deliver his commis- mentally ill. All incidents described and the group of guards ran back in sary order to him or return his ID card, herein occurred at the Clements Unit yelling repeatedly, “Stop resisting,” which he’d given them to place a com- prison in Amarillo, Texas. while sounds of punches landing and missary order. They were refusing to The February 19th incident was insti- slams could be heard. do both. gated by lieutenant Chad Perry, the very The guards then backed out the cell, Turner and a sergeant Joe Preciado, same guard who tried to murder anoth- closed the door, removed the cuffs, and (along with a nurse Tammy Williams,) er prisoner on July 2, 2016 by gassing left Neighbors naked in the empty gas- had apparently conspired to gas Louis, him, despite the fact that he was under contaminated cell. with Turner talking to him on the right medical “do not gas” orders, because he Approximately five hours later side of the slot to distract him while 5 suffers from a respiratory disease. Neighbors was met by the team again Preciado crept up on the left side with On February 19th, Perry, along with and sprayed in the face with gas, a can of gas on the right side of his hip several other guards dressed out in because be understandably didn’t want hidden out of Louis’s view. body armor, went to cell E-116, which to submit to an order to he handcuffed As Louis trained his attention on housed a prisoner named Neighbors, to (and possibly beaten) again. He then Turner, Preciado ran up to the slot and take all his property, because Perry allowed himself to be cuffed and was suddenly sprayed Louis flush in the alleged he was masturbating [!?]. Not placed naked on a gurney and wheeled face. Turner then closed the slot. only is taking a prisoner’s property for out of the pod. Williams, who was standing out of this reason absurd and illegal, but other A white guard was later heard brag- view as this occurred, then came to the prisoners witnessed that Neighbors was ging to a white prisoner that Perry cell, looked at Louis’s face and they left. actually only shaking a bottle. I’ve per- “took care of business,” because The entire outside of the slot and door sonally witnessed Perry take prisoners’ “Neighbors’s Black ass was talkin’ shit.” was covered with gas, as was the inside property for no reason other than their The February 21st incident was led of the cell and Louis’s blanket and saying something cross to him, usually by lieutenant Crystal Turner; the same jumper. They refused his request for in response to his own unprovoked guard who was involved in my own decontamination and decontaminated verbal abuse. In turn he’d lie saying the incident of December 21st. The victim linen. Instead they blushed as several prisoner had some item covering his was the same Louis Johnson who was prisoners in the pod applauded and cell door, then organize a team of gassed on January 13, 2017, and left in cheered, begging for an encore. guards dressed out in body armor with a gas saturated jumper which he gave Finally, the February 23rd incident gas, and if the unsuspecting (and me a piece of to share with others on was at the instigation of Captain Patricia understandably outraged) prisoner the outside as evidence of his abuse. In Flowers, the same guard who instigated hesitated to cooperate in having his fact I showed the completely saturated the December 21st incident with me. things taken for no reason, Perry would piece of cloth to attorneys who visited On February 23rd while making rounds promptly gas and send the team in to me on January 25, 2017. I described in E-pod, she proceeded to beat and assault the prisoner and remove him Louis’s incident in a separate article.6 kick on prisoner Michael Ryan’s cell and his property from the cell by force. One of the attorneys, Benjamin door. In turn Ryan gave her the finger, In this case, however, Neighbors Haile, described the occasion in a letter to which she replied, “I got you.” submitted to being handcuffed and to another attorney with the Texas Flowers then had Sergeant Preciado was brought out, leg shackled, and Civil Rights Project thusly, “When I and a team of body-armored guards moved to another cell two cells down. visited [Rashid], he showed me a piece confronted Ryan with a threat of force Perry then had the team of armored of clothing from another prisoner he to take all his property. She lied, claim- guards lay Neighbors on the floor in had wrapped in plastic and saved. It ing he had his cell light covered. When back of the cell where he could not be was shocking. It was about a seven-by- Ryan was brought out of the cell in

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 69 cuffs he stated he had a razor blade kept locked inside secure cells and only airs outright comical. He being the last hidden in the cell and would kill him- brought out in restraints. Thus guards person who’d look for a fight in any self if put back in the cell. The cell was are particularly safe from potential environment where he had to face his not searched and he was put back in physical harm at the hands of those opponent on equal terms. with nothing but his boxer shorts. they abuse. A short pudgy fella, he’s clearly in Once the cell door was closed and In this situation these guards feel no condition to do any direct fighting. the audio-video camera that was pres- protected from any potential conse- In fact he’s been a laughing stock of the ent to record the situation was turned quences for their abuses, and feel prison since one of his lower ranking off, Preciado told Ryan, “Kill yourself,” empowered by having use of teams of colleagues blackened his eye a couple then left. Another guard then brought body armored guards with gas and years back, when he attempted to use him a sheet to facilitate the threatened shields to enforce their ill will against his rank to compel the guy to end a act. Ryan used the sheet to cover his isolated prisoners. Essentially, it’s a relationship with his estranged wife cell door window and proceeded to cut coward’s paradise. who also works at the prison. himself up. Which brings me to these sorts of As eager as he is to provoke alterca- His window was still covered over guards who prove most readily cor- tions where he can speciously justify a an hour later when the next shift came ruptible by the environment and simi- gas assault on a prisoner or use an on, despite guards supposedly making lar “gunslinger” occupations. A com- extraction team to attack a man five- rounds every 30 minutes to ensure the mon trait I’ve noticed in the most per- against-one, I’ve witnessed him several safety of each prisoner. The relieving sistently abusive guards who like to times take off running when he’s found guards, Jerry Strickert and another, wear their petty authority on their himself confronted by a situation discovered Ryan in his mutilated state, sleeves, is they’re obvious social mis- where a prisoner he’s provoked has and eventually he was taken to another fits, and many are highly sensitive to pushed his way out of his cell past an building and placed on suicide watch. insult and criticism. They appear extraction team of invading guards or Witnessing prisoners report there was socially awkward, the types who’ve tried to hit him upside the head with blood all over the cell walls. never had power in their personal lives an object or liquid thrown from an or over others beyond children per- Several prisoners requested witness open cuff slot. haps. Many are small, diminutive, and forms of the relieving sergeant King, so Guards like Preciado are famous for not particularly attractive by conven- they could submit statements about hiding behind a team and gas, and tional standards. Ryan’s treatment. King refused them using the inherent safety of the envi- stating there was no use of force on Joe Preciado offers such an exam- ronment to insult and abuse prisoners Ryan, and threatened if anyone wrote ple, as does Flowers and Turner. while largely avoiding any consequenc- grievances about what Preciado said to Preciado once boasted to me, that of es. In fact, Flowers, Turner and Perry Ryan, they’d receive a disciplinary case all the Sergeants at the prison he has all have this in common, and one can for lying. had more “uses of force and property see in them an extreme sensitivity to It is noteworthy that nurse Tammy confiscations than any other,” as insult or a prisoner’s refusal to defer Williams is frequently present but out though this were a measure of his and submit totally to them. In fact this of view, when foul acts by guards are worth. And by uses of force he meant tendency is often what prompts them plotted, as she was when I was assault- not uses of force himself against any- to create a pretext to abuse force on ed on December 21st. (She is also a one, nor on equal terms, but rather his them and/or take their property. defendant in several pending lawsuits involvement in (often creating) situa- Both Flowers and Turner are dimin- concerning prisoners killed at this tions where he deployed gas against a utive and “unattractive” women. And Clements Unit prison as a result of staff defenseless prisoner or had an extrac- clearly find in their prison jobs, roles abuses and medical neglect.) She is tion team of five or more guards in they could never assume in their per- married to a guard at the prison. body armor invade a prisoner’s cell sonal lives, where they are able to insult after gassing him. In his mind and that and call down violence against, and From mice to sewer rats of others like him, these are perceived induce the submission of any number As I’ve pointed out, I’ve yet to find a as heroic deeds and form the basis of of men who are themselves condi- guard who’s proven immune to the their “manly” posturing. tioned to surviving in physically aggres- corrupting influences of the prison If Preciado weren’t so primed to sive environments. They clearly would environment. Especially those working instigate such abuses, one would find not, could not, behave as they do if in segregation, where prisoners are his provocative and confrontational they did not have the safety of the envi-

70 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 ronment and an armed support staff to and Captains. And in each of the men- fronted with what sort of situation, back them up. tioned cases they proved to be the most [but] we should not overestimate the significance of personal difference. Chad Perry is no different. A slim deplorable, because they targeted the most vulnerable of people—the men- As the Holocaust and the Nazi war of white guy with little to no muscle tone, annihilation show, the vast majority he’s quick to antagonize and set pris- tally ill. Which to my thinking is like doing the same to a child. of civilians, as well as soldiers, SS oners up for abuse and the taking of men, and police officers, behaved in their property. But in a direct confron- Obviously, each of these individuals discriminatory, violent, and inhu- tation with those he targets he’d fail enters the prison environment with a mane fashion if the situation at hand miserably. In fact this was proven back particular set of deranged insecurities seemed to encourage and promote in 2011, when he unexpectedly was and a sense of meaninglessness, power- such behavior. Only a tiny minority met by one of those he’d been abusing lessness, and having something to proved capable of humane resis- face-to-face. prove from unfulfilling personal lives, tance. According to the standards of the time, humane behavior was devi- Perry, then a low ranking guard, which they look to compensate for in the absolute power they are able to ant, and brutality was conformist. along with a number of his peers who For that reason, the entire collection wield against us when they pass through enjoyed targeting prisoners, Blacks in of events known as the ‘Third Reich’ particular, had subjected one prisoner, the prison gates. An environment in and the violence it produced can be Dylan Carter, to repeated abuses, which they, schizophrenic like, trans- seen as a gigantic experiment, show- denied meals, taking of his property, form into wholly different people. ing what sane people who see them- and so on. They tried repeatedly to But, they are not alone in the inclina- selves as good are capable of if they provoke him to allow them to confront tion to morph into different people when consider something to be appropri- him with an extraction team, so they they enter the prisons. In fact their peers ate, sensible, or correct. The propor- could assault him under the guise of all participate in such abuses, tacitly tion of people who were psychologi- cally inclined toward violence, dis- conducting a valid cell extraction on enabling them by going along with, and crimination, and excess totaled, as it him, which they commonly do to oth- remaining silent about, them, and con- does in all other social contexts as ers. But Carter wouldn’t bite. firming reports to cover them up in the well, five to ten percent. official records when and as instructed. On August 5, 2011 the tables turned. “In psychological terms, the In a security glitch, (some believe Perry’s I’ve known a tiny handful of guards inhabitants of the Third Reich were peers deliberately set him up,) Carter’s who’ve expressed the desire to speak as normal as people in all other soci- cell door opened just as Perry walked out against the abuses that pervade all eties at all other times. The spectrum unawares into the cellblock right beside prisons, but they have no one to go to of perpetrators was a cross section of the open cell. Carter admits he then and if they did, they’d almost certainly normal society. No specific group of stepped out of the cell in front of Perry, face retaliation. So, they too conform people proved immune to tempta- and slugged Perry in the face sending and go along. In all respects, there’s a tion, in Gunther Anders’s phrase, of Perry sliding across the pod floor on his powerful drive to conform, especially ‘inhumanity with impunity.’ The real-life experiment that was the back, with blood streaming from his when ranking officials are leading the Third Reich did not reduce the vari- nose. Contrary to his typical arrogance charge and setting the terms for sys- ables of personality to absolute zero. and provocative posture under circum- temic abuse. But it showed them to be of com- stances where he’d felt protected by his But as studies of the German Nazi paratively slight, indeed often negli- peers and the “security” of solitary con- experience have shown, while some gible, importance.”7 finement, when confronted face-to-face people are predetermined to extreme The behavior of Germans during by Carter, Perry, like most abusive violence and to abuse of power, every- the Nazi heyday did not deviate in any guards, put up no resistance. Instead he day, “stable” people will also adopt the substantial degree from that of fled to get medical help and file a disci- same behaviors when the environment Amerikans, who practiced genocide, plinary infraction against Carter for is conducive to such behaviors. racism, and all manner of violent “assault.” But somehow he forgot to Especially in absolute environments, extremes, which the Nazis actually only mention all the illegal abuses he’d sub- like U.S. prisons, where, as the Stanford imitated, against Natives and people of jected Carter to before that. experiment and the courts recognize, Afrikan descent. So it is no wonder that None are immune systemic abuse is the norm. As the such abuses are still practiced within An important detail to note is that Nazi experience demonstrated: and by its absolute institutions, and each of these chronic abusers are rank- “It makes a big difference what especially against disadvantaged people ing guards—Sergeants, Lieutenants, sort of personality structure is con- and people of color.

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 71 But there are likely those who’d ferent from that of the common citi- of whether you might conform is doubt that everyday Amerikans today zenry. This generates a sort of closed whether, as those Germans who could behave as the Nazis did, despite society and a shared perception within claimed not to have known of the what the Stanford experiment showed it that defies the morals of everyday crimes carried out in their backyards and the courts have recognized. One people. And, like with other relation- proclaimed, if they’d have only known further experiment demonstrated ships, they assume a very different role they would have risen up in resistance. clearly that they could and would, and within the prison than they would in Well, now you know about the as my writings demonstrate, they very other settings. That role being consis- abuses that pervade these prisons, so, well do—every day. The experiment in tent with that which they are condi- what are you going to do about it? question was conducted by psychology tioned to believe is appropriate to the Silence is acquiescence. professor Stanley Milgrim, who want- environment. Just as people behave very ed to understand how common, every- differently in relationships with their Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win! day Germans could commit the atroci- boss than they might their spouse and All Power to the People! ties they did in the concentration their children than with a customer at camps and mass exterminate others work. These relationships are compart- without hesitation. He intended to first mentalized and call for a different char- 1 See, Philip Zimbardo, “On the Ethics of test his experiment in Amerika, then to acter in each. And in that one recog- Intervention in Human Psychological Research: take it to Germany, where he felt the nizes that behaviors engaged in in one With Special Reference to the Stanford Prison population was conditioned to the sort relationship may seem inappropriate to Experiment,” Cognition 2, No. 2 (1973), 243- of obedience that his theories required 44; Philip G. Zimbardo, et al., “A Pirandellian others, they are inclined to keep those Prison: The Mind is A Formidable Jailer,” New for a scientific analysis. The first exper- behaviors concealed within the circle of York Times Magazine, April 8, 1973, 38, 60. iment conducted in New Haven, partners in that particular relationship. 2 Landman v. Peyton, 370 F.2d 135, 140 (4th Connecticut, however, showed he In this regard, I have always recog- Cir. 1966) didn’t need to go to the expense of nized that guards, like soldiers, cer- 3 Johnnie Cochran, A Lawyer’s Life, pp. 14-17 traveling abroad. “I found so much tainly don’t share much of what they 4 See, e.g., Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Bound obedience,” he said, “I hardly saw need and Gassed: My Reward for Exposing Abuses actually do to other people in their of taking the experiment to Germany.” and Killings of Texas Prisoners” (2017); “Texas workplace, with others in society, since Officials Try to Gas Another Asthmatic Prisoner The experiment put random every- they would certainly have been judged to Death” (2017); “Life’s A Gas in Texas Pris- day people to the test of seeing how harshly and even as pathological by ons: The Frequent Abuse of Chemical Weap- many would, under directions of an their social peers. So their behaviors ons” (2017), etc. All available at rashidmod.com. apparent authority figure, deliver a remain confined to the circle of those 5 Ibid, see, “Texas Officials Try to Gas lethal shock to another person, as they who share their occupation, since only Another Asthmatic Prisoner to Death” (2017) screamed in agony. All concerned they could “understand” why they 6 Op cite, note 4, “Life’s a Gas in Texas Prisons.” were, themselves, shocked to find that behave as they do based upon the con- 7 Sonke Neitzel and Harald Welzer, Soldiers: over 60 percent of the test subjects German POWs on Fighting, Killing and Dying trived culture and the sense that they (N.Y: Vintage Books, 2013), pp. 24-25. went along as instructed. Milgrim’s are dealing with people they’ve been findings from all his accumulated data 8 All variations of this experiment and sev- conditioned to see as less than human eral others can be read about in Mil- proved conclusively, in everyday peo- and as enemies, namely prisoners. grim’s book, Obedience to Authority (N.Y.: ple, “the extreme willingness of adults Harper & Rowe, 1974). to go to almost any lengths on the Conclusion 8 command of an authority....” This Readers would likely doubt that accounts for a powerful drive in these they would themselves behave as the prison settings for those who might not guards described herein do, or that readily commit abuses to do so under they would go along with and conform the direction of ranking guards like DARE to an environment where such abuses Flowers, Turner, Perry, and Preciado. are the common practice. I would beg TO STRUGGLE Also, the culture of prison guards is to differ, given the nature of the society much like that of cops and soldiers, in which these prisons lie, and its treat- which induces loyalty and camaraderie ment of the mentally and socially ill as that serves to unite them in a culture of enemies and not people to be treated DARE abuse and a way of seeing their environ- with compassion and in need of heal- ment and those in it in a light very dif- ing. But, moreover, a telling indication TO WIN!

72 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Jeffrey Sandusky: Like Father, Like Son By Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall

The Sandusky name is back in the Did I mention that Jeffrey Sandusky I had my personal experience with news again for allegedly corrupting the is a prison guard at the State Correctional Jeffrey Sandusky at SCI-Rockview, too. morals of minors. Except this time the Institution-Rockview in State College, I asked Jeffrey Sandusky if he was of news is not the sins of the father, for- home of Penn State University? Yes, he any relation to Jerry Sandusky and he mer Penn State Assistant football is. And due to the serious nature of the answered that he was not. However, Coach Jerry Sandusky, who was con- accusations, Jeffrey Sandusky has been my suspicions proved true. Lo and victed of multiple crimes against chil- suspended by the Pennsylvania behold, Jeffrey Sandusky is the son of dren in 2013, but it is the sins of the Department of Corrections. convicted child rapist Jerry Sandusky. son, Jeffrey Sandusky. Jeffrey Sandusky’s charges come as Sad to say, but like father, like son. Monday, Pennsylvania police no surprise to prisoners at SCI- —Prison Radio, February 16, 2017 announced Jerry Sandusky’s son, Rockview. Some prisoners report that Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall is Co-Founder Jeffrey, had been accused of child abuse Jeffrey Sandusky was a bit off-kilter, and Editor of The Movement magazine, Prison hauntingly similar to that by his father. while others state how he was a misera- Radio Correspondent, founding member of the ble hard-ass who gave them disciplinary Human Rights Coalition (HRC) and a Child Court records show that Jeffrey Life-sentenced prisoner. reports for receiving an extra slice of Sandusky is charged with 14 counts, Write to: bread or cup of milk on their meal trays. including criminal solicitation and cor- Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall #BE7826 ruption of minors. The record stated Jeffrey Sandusky’s fellow guards SCI Graterford that the two victims were minors with state how weird he was and have dis- P.O. Box 244 whom Sandusky had daily contact and tanced themselves from knowing him Graterford, PA 19426-0246 that he is accused of asking one girl to by placing his arresting mug shot on send him nude photos via text message their “Wall of Shame” for prison guards and another to perform oral sex on him. who have committed criminal acts. Introspection of Capitalism By Kelvin “Khaysi” Canada

The parasitic and predatory system us from poverty, class oppression, and society produces. This leads me to my of capitalism has been debated and environmental destruction. Capitalism next point, that if only one percent of argued over by plutocrats and other is responsible for all these problems. the world’s population are benefiting elitist bourgeois advocates of exploita- People have to get over their denial and from a system that purports to offer tion since modern capitalism was snap out of their hypnotized trance. equal opportunity to everyone, don’t birthed into existence from the demise The “rags to riches” dream they sell on we have to call this a failed system? of the mercantilist system in the TV and in the movies and magazines is In order for capitalism to even exist, it 18th century. They claim that capital- intended to keep us working hard and has to suck and exploit the blood, sweat ism is a democratic system that pro- making the rich richer. Dreamers spend and labor out of somebody, and that vides liberty and economic opportuni- their whole lives chasing this chimera somebody is always the working class, ties to all people equally, regardless of with the hope of being the next Tyler who can only survive by selling their labor race, class, nationality or gender, Perry success story. power to a capitalist (for less than it is and communism is an authoritari- Because they are transfixed on worth.) The labor of the proletarians an system that suppresses liberty and “making it” via capitalism, they are makes commodities (i.e., cars, clothes, these economic opportunities and the oblivious to the reality that less than TV’s, toothpaste and so on) that the social progress of all peoples. What one percent of the poor and oppressed capitalist sells on the (so-called) “Free makes this contention so comical (and will ever experience this “rags-to- Market,” for a profit. Those who pro- sad) is that so many of the oppressed riches” transformation because the one duce the wealth, the workers, get mere people actually believe it is true. percent of rich people already own all crumbs, just enough to keep them work- But capitalism is no “white knight in the wealth, and the super-rich .001 ing, while the capitalist pockets (priva- shining armor” that is going to rescue percent suck up most of the wealth tizes) immense wealth for him/herself.

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 73 Let’s say a capitalist owns a com- It is irrefutable that capitalism is to Preaching capitalism puter company in which he pays the blame for slavery, ecological destruc- Today’s phony “Make America workers $10.00 an hour for eight hours tion, genocidal wars, mass poverty, Great Again!” rhetoric is not only being a day, five days a week. Collectively, the racism, sexism, hunger and mass star- propagated by the “Fat Cat” industrial, workers produce an average of $2,400 a vation, fratricidal gang wars, mass agricultural, political and entertain- day each in value, but they only get incarceration, homelessness. So it takes ment capitalists but by religious capi- paid $80.00 a day in wages. After pay- pro-capitalist puppets like Barack talists as well. You have religious evan- ing off the operating expenses, like Obama who said, “I’m on a mission to gelists like, T.D. Jake, Jake Van Impe, rent, materials, machinery and ship- save capitalism,” to try to “white wash” John Hagee and Pat Robertson, etc., on ping, the rest of the profit belongs to this system that has been responsible TV, radio and from the pulpits. They the capitalist. He/she can put it in the for so much social injustice. are preaching capitalism to their fol- bank to earn interest or invest it some- The oppressed masses will not be lowers and congregations, which total- where else to make more profit. The able to transcend these social ills with- ly contradicts the teachings of workers have to spend their wages on out overcoming capitalism. Robert Christianity. There was nothing about food, rent and utility bills and live pay- Carson of C.O.R.E. (Congress of Racial the life of Jesus Christ, which check to paycheck. Equality) was correct when he said: Christianity is supposed to be based So you can see why Brother Malcolm “There cannot be any negotiation with on, that justifies lynching, raping, mur- X said: “Show me a capitalist and I’ll industry and capital. Since capitalism is dering, plundering, letting poor people show you a bloodsucker!” the reason U.S. Black people are in our die of hunger and preventable and cur- current predicament, we feel capital- able diseases, causing people to become Parasitic and predatory ism should be destroyed.” (Cited homeless, instigating wars to plunder Capitalism is historically proven to in Black Awakening in Capitalist natural resources and all of the many be parasitic and predatory. All around America, by Robert Allen). What crimes of capitalist exploitation. the world it has killed, tortured, robbed Robert Carson is emphasizing is that The Bible says: “One thing thou and enslaved masses of people in its given that capitalism is the creator of lackest, go thou way, sell whatsoever pitiless pursuit of profits. The founding slavery, racism, sexism, poverty, thou hast and give to the poor, and of Amerikkka was the blood-soaked oppression and class inequality, why thou shalt have treasury in heaven, and birth of capitalism. For the indigenous should the oppressed be expected to come, take up the cross and follow people of this continent and the Afrikan adhere to the principles of capitalism me….” (Mark, chapt. 10, verse 21). masses kidnapped, enslaved and trans- when struggling against the ills which This clearly implies that God as well as ported here against their will, the whole capitalism has caused and is still perpe- Christianity was intended to inspire history of this country is abominable. trating upon us? helping the poor. Jesus was supposed The “Founding Fathers” were oppres- to be so sympathetic to the poor that sors, rapists and murderers. More and more capitalism is relying on its “bought and paid for” mouth- he fed 5,000 from just two fishes and So, when you hear elected puppets pieces to promote a reactionary world five loaves of bread. like Obama make statements like: “I’m view because the number of people— So too have evangelists on TV and on a mission to save capitalism,” you including white middle class people— on the pulpits glorified a system that know who is pulling his strings. who still believe in capitalism’s contradicts the principles Christianity Many people falsely believe that “American Dream” has greatly dissi- was founded on. Jesus didn’t starve the slavery derived from racism, but it did pated. This is what ignited the Occupy poor he fed them. II Corinthians, not. It derived from capitalism, and Wall Street protests of the 99 percent in Chapter 8, Verse 9 says: “You know racism was used as justification and to which both middle class and working that our Lord Jesus Christ was kind keep the oppressed from uniting, and it class people—and particularly youth— enough to give up his riches and is still used for that by capitalism today. jointly directed their anger at the grow- become poor, so you could become Capitalism initiated genocide against ing disparity in wealth, corruption and rich.” He did this to show his rich the indigenous peoples and slavery and high-handed dictatorship of the bil- Christian adherents how to use their racism. And it perpetuates racism and lionaire bankers. Even though Occupy wealth by example, as an instrument to class oppression to this day. Likewise, it Wall Street grew into a global move- help the poor even if it makes you poor is destroying our eco-system in its ment, it didn’t evolve into a global too. Which is why he said: “Those who greed and irresponsibility to make revolutionary movement to address gathered too much had nothing left. quick profits. and redress the problems it pointed to. Those who gathered only a little had all

74 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 they needed….” (II Corinthians, tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks Putting the interests of the people Chapter 8, Verse 15). the ideas of Christianity…in fact our ahead of profits and socializing rather Jesus emphatically made it clear movement is Christian.” than privatizing socially produced throughout that rich people will not He called his party the National wealth to eliminate poverty, hunger enter into God’s Kingdom and being Socialist Workers’ Party to appeal to and homelessness, to properly care for rich is not within the laws of “blue collar” voters and hide his con- the sick and the elderly, to give every- Christianity. Read James, Chapter 1, nections to the big bankers and indus- one free access to higher education Verse 9 through 11: “Any of God’s trialists. Like many of today’s and everything socialist revolution is people who are poor should be glad Republican Party presidential hope- about is just common sense from the that he thinks so highly of them. But fuls, he claimed to be “chosen by prov- perspective of the common people. anyone who are rich should be glad idence” to “make Germany great But the capitalist mouthpieces like when God makes them humble. Rich again.” Elected Chancellor in 1933, he Senator Joe McCarthy, who terrorized people will disappear like wild flowers became president a year later when Amerika in the 1950s by labeling his scorched by the burning heat of the Hindenburg died. Once his power was political opponents as “socialists” or “communists,” still have some people Sun, and their beauty is destroyed. secure, he showed his true motivations intimidated. That’s how the rich will be destroyed as by rounding up millions of Jews, com- they go about their business…” Now munists, socialists, Roma, gays, atheists Back in the ’50s and ’60s, during the of course you have many rich Christians and others into concentration camps “Cold War,” the ruling capitalist class who try to justify ignoring this by say- and ultimately mass executions. He went all out to propagandize the ing there is nothing in the Ten rebuilt the German military-industrial Amerikan people not only portraying Commandments that says it is a sin to complex and aggressively promoted socialism and communism as slavery be rich. But it doesn’t say it’s a sin to imperialist ambitions. Every German for the masses of people but also to sell drugs either. soldier had “Got Mit Uns” (God With convince them that their lives would keep getting better and better under In Mark, Chapter 10, Verse 25 it Us) on his uniform belt buckle and the capitalism—the “American says: “It is easier for a camel to go churches all displayed Nazi flags. Dream.” Real concessions were made through an eye of a needle, thencefore Socialism and communism to raise wages and benefits for the a rich-man to enter into the Kingdom Socialism is a political-economic sys- workers, and the GI Bill enabled WWII of God.” You can’t call yourself a tem where the resources and productive vets to go to college tuition free and Christian and practice capitalism. Jesus capabilities of a society are socially buy new homes with low-interest did not preach one thing and practice owned (as opposed to private capitalist loans, while factories ran three shifts something else. ownership,) where the people and the around the clock. “Cold War Capitalism is strictly about making state consciously plan and coordinate Liberalism” combined with rabid anti- profit, especially from the poor, so to production to meet the people’s needs communist propaganda and fear mon- have these Christian evangelists trying to and overcome the inequalities of capi- gering shaped public opinion among convince the oppressed Christian mass- talist society. The goal of socialism is to masses of people in Amerika. es that capitalism is good and socialism revolutionize every aspect of society so The Communist Party in this coun- and communism are bad is ludicrous. that society can evolve into commu- try had sold out back in the “New These liars even make statements nism, or stateless, classless, egalitarian Deal” era, and during the “Cold War” such as: “What Hitler did to the Jews global society. Communism is the cul- period they were hard to find, so the during the Holocaust was based on a mination of socialist reconstruction on McCarthyites had to ferret them out communistic and/or socialistic ideolo- a global scale. for blacklisting and persecution. In gy.” Hitler was not a communist or Communism is people working Hollywood and the unions, anyone socialist but a capitalist serving the inter- and struggling together for the com- who ever publically supported any- ests of the big monopoly capitalists. He mon good of all of society, where thing progressive, including civil rights hated Communists as much as he did everyone contributes what they can to for Black people, was branded a “com- Jews. In a 1922 speech he said, “My feel- society and gets back what they need munist” or “socialist fellow traveler.” ings as a Christian points me to my Lord to live worthwhile lives, where there The irony was the “communists” were and Savior as a fighter […] who […] are no upper or lower classes. So you mostly just liberal Democrats and the recognized these Jews for what they were can see why the upper classes go to “anti-communists” were the fanatics and summoned men to fight against extremes to vilify communism and and authoritarian bullies they accused them…” In a 1928 speech, he said: “We demonize communists. the communists and socialists of being.

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 75 Still this is the image that was fixat- ist-imperialism. Phony socialism or revi- “All the way revolutionaries” ed in public opinion for many years. As sionism is a trick. It is a “bait and switch.” Only in the higher stages of social- late as the 2008 presidential race, “red Because capitalism irrefutably does not ism, when capitalist-imperialism has baiting” was a factor as the Republican meet the basic needs of the masses of been overthrown as a global system, vice-presidential candidate, Sarah people. In the early stages of socialism, can society advance to eliminate all the Palin, labeled Senator Barack Obama, there are a lot of carryovers from capital- vestiges of class exploitation and create the Democratic Party’s candidate for ism that can’t be just abolished overnight. a truly classless society, where the state President, a “socialist,” a charge her There will still be classes, and class privi- will wither away and the advance to “Tea Party” supporters have continued leges, wage inequalities, advantages for communism will be possible. Aiming to make throughout his presidency, as those who do intellectual work or skilled for this and staying focused on it is well as “Communist” and “Muslim.” labor over manual labor, and there will be what makes true communists what we Since most Americans haven’t a clue sharp struggle over every attempt to call “all-the-way revolutionaries.” The what these terms mean, it not surpris- restrict these privileges and expand the United Panther Movement (UPM) is ing we had a candidate running for power of the people. Phony socialism will all about training comrades to be “all- President calling himself a “Socialist.” try to hold back these changes and accuse the-way revolutionaries.” This means What is comical (and sad) about the real socialists and communists of combating nationalism, racism, sexism Sarah Palin and her crowd calling “going too far” and trying to change and petty-bourgeois prejudices and Obama a “Socialist” is that during the things too fast, and given the opportuni- opportunism within our own ranks as Housing Mortgage Crisis of 2008-2009, ty, the revisionists will try to rig up a well as society at large. return to capitalism and make themselves when hundreds-of-thousands of poor Our concept of “Democracy” must a new bourgeois ruling class. and middle class homeowners were go deeper than voting every four years losing their homes and being made or having the freedom to falsely accuse homeless, the so-called “Socialist” Democracy has a Obama of being a “socialist.” Obama took billions of the people’s tax Democracy has a class context, and for dollars to bail out the crooked banks class context, and the exploited masses it means having and lending companies who caused the for the exploited the power to end our own oppression. crisis and did nothing for the poor vic- We can’t sit back and hope our class tims. How socialist is that? Obama has masses it means oppressors are going to become sym- even outdone his predecessor, George having the power to pathetic to our oppression. We must Bush, Jr., in proving himself a faithful end our own elect or appoint leaders who truly rep- servant of the Wall Street elite. resent us and will faithfully serve our oppression. Clearing up the confusion interests, but we must have direct participation as well. This is what Maurice Joe McCarthy and Sarah Palin going Bishop, the leader of the revolution in around mis-explaining what socialism We have seen this happen in the Grenada had to say before he was and communism are about are part of former Soviet Union and in People’s assassinated by the CIA: the legacy of ignorance and confusion China and elsewhere. Likewise, the we must clear up. It is basically a ques- “Our new constitution is cer- struggle to end inequalities between tainly going to institutionalize and tion of who owns and controls the basic ethnic groups and national minorities means of production. Either they are entrench the system of popular can also be set back along with inequal- democracy which we have been privately or publically owned. Any fool ities between men and women, and building over these past four years in can see that public ownership is far between city dwellers and rural com- our country. Apart from the usual more democratic. I am not claiming munities and so on. In the past, the national elections, which will of that all the social ills of capitalism will “Socialist Bloc” was surrounded by the course be there too, we are going to instantly disappear once socialism is more powerful imperialist powers who ensure that these embryonic organs initiated. What I am proclaiming is that waged the “Cold War” to force them to of popular democracy continue to true socialism and communism are the divert a huge percentage of their have a place….Because to us, basis for creating a society based upon resources to national defense and democracy is much more than just an election. To us, democracy is a equality and social justice for all. maintenance of a military-industrial great deal more than just the right to Along the way we must struggle against complex of their own, as well as a pow- put an ‘X’ next to Tweedledum or and defeat phony “socialism” which rep- erful state apparatus with police, pris- Tweedledee every five years….The resents the last line of defense for capital- ons and all that entails. second principle of democracy for

76 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 us is responsibilities. So the elected world, and we won’t take anything The only social system that is remotely officials must at all times ensure that when we leave. So we should be satis- similar to what Christian ethics upholds the mandate they are carrying out, if fied just to have food and clothes. is communism. Isn’t it the sincere appli- mandate it is, is the mandate the People who want to be rich fall into all cation of Christian values in action that people want, and part of that respon- sorts of temptations and traps. They is the determining factor in being a sibility means that the right to recall are caught by foolish and harmful Christian or not? those we elect must be entrenched…” desires that drag them down and No matter what spin these pro- Comrade Bishop further stated: destroy them. The love of money causes all kinds of trouble. Some peo- capitalist evangelists try to put on it, “But if it is government of, for, and by ple want money so much that they capitalism is the root to the inhumane the people, then it cannot be just gov- have given up their faith and caused living conditions fostered on the poor ernment of the people you elect….It themselves a lot of pain.”(Timothy, and the root of all the evils capitalist- also has to be for the people and it has Chapter 6, Verses 5 through 10) imperialism fosters on the world. I to be by them. They have to have a way Some Christians might argue that invite anyone to refute this if they can. of participating—that is what the word they will be forgiven for transgressing ‘by’ means, and if that is absent, you —rashidmod.com, March 8, 2017 this one law and God will let them in the don’t really have a democracy…” Kingdom anyway, but James, Chapter http://rashidmod.com/?p=2080 (Maurice Bishop Speaks, page 302). 2, Verse 10 states: “If you obey every law Write to: Reforming capitalism is not, and except one, you are still guilty of break- Kelvin “Khaysi” Canada #154766 cannot be, an option because no mat- ing them all.” So supporting capitalism High Security P.O. Box 8200 ter how you try to put a human face on is a sin in every form of Christianity. Cranston, RI 02920 it (of whatever ethnicity,) capitalism will always work to make a rich exploiting class richer at the expense of the great majority, who are kept poor and exploited. It will always be anti-democratic and oppressive, so capitalism must be completely abolished. John Hagee, who is a well-known Christian evangelist, has written a book entitled The Death of the Dollar. In this book he is speaking about how the Amerikkkan dollar has and is being depreciated. One might ask why would an evangelist of Christianity write a book about the depreciating value of money. Well, the answer is that Christians are now using their voices as a rostrum to get rich off of propagating Christianity. So their God becomes money. This is very sacrilegious, because Christianity teaches that you can’t worship two gods: “You cannot be the slave of two masters. You will like one more than the other or be more loyal to one than the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (Luke, Chapter 16, Verse 13) “These people think religion is supposed to make you rich. And religion does make your life rich, by making you content with what you have. We didn’t bring anything into this

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 77 Chelsea Manning Free May 17! By Courage to Resist

May 9, 2017—Next week, Chelsea his final acts in office in January after year court-martial sentence to time Manning will be released from U.S. an outpouring of support for Manning served and “a first chance to live a real, military prison after serving a seven- from the public over her mistreatment meaningful life.” year sentence for disclosing classified in prison. The ACLU filed friend-of-court information that raised public aware- The commutation followed briefs in support of the appeal of ness regarding the impact of war on a November 2016 request from Chelsea Manning’s conviction and represents innocent civilians. Manning’s appellate legal team, Nancy Manning in a lawsuit against the Manning, a transgender woman, Hollander and Vincent Ward of Department of Defense that was first was serving an unprecedented 35-year Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg filed in 2014 over the department’s sentence for whistleblowing and was Urias and Ward, PA, to the U.S. Army, refusal to treat Manning’s well-docu- forced to serve her sentence in an all- the Office of the Pardon Attorney, and mented gender dysphoria. male prison. She received a commuta- the President’s Counsel, requesting the In December of 2016, the American tion from President Obama in one of commutation of Ms. Manning’s 35 Civil Liberties Union and over a dozen LGBT groups sent a letter to President Barack Obama urging the commutation of Chelsea Manning’s sentence. More than 115,000 people signed a petition on the White House’s “We the People” platform, asking President Obama to commute Chelsea Manning’s sentence to time served. Chelsea Manning released the following statement: “For the first time, I can see a future for myself as Chelsea. I can imagine surviving and living as the person who I am and can finally be in the outside world. Freedom used to be something that I dreamed of but never allowed myself to fully imagine. Now, freedom is something that I will again experience with friends and loved ones after nearly seven years of bars and cement, of periods of solitary confinement, and of my healthcare and autonomy restricted, including through rou- tinely forced haircuts. I am forever grateful to the people who kept me alive, President Obama, my legal team and countless supporters. “I watched the world change from inside prison walls and through the letters that I have received from veterans, trans young people, parents, politicians and artists. My spir- its were lifted in dark times, reading of their support, sharing in their

78 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3

Letter to the Editors triumphs, and helping them through incarceration. Finally, she will be that she needed, and to gain her free- challenges of their own. I hope to leaving prison and building a life dom have transformed law and society take the lessons that I have learned, beyond the physical walls of the for the better. The urgency of those the love that I have been given, and many sites of her detention. It is a fights for so many in our communities the hope that I have to work toward remarkable gift to the world that will continue, and Chelsea’s past and making life better for others.” Chelsea will be able to grow and future work will no doubt be a critical fight alongside us for justice. force in moving towards a more just Nancy Hollander and Vincent “The transition out of these horrific society for everyone.” Ward, Manning’s clemency and institutions will not be easy, and part of —Courage to Resist, May 9, 2017 appellate lawyers, said in a joint what we hope is that Chelsea will find statement: the space, love, and support to heal and https://couragetoresist.org/chelsea- “Chelsea has already served the build a life of her choosing. Her fight to manning-upcoming-release-military- longest sentence of any whistleblow- be herself, to access the medical care prison/ er in the history of this country. It has been far too long, too severe, too draconian. President Obama’s act of commutation was the first time the LETTER TO THE EDITORS military took care of this soldier who risked so much to disclose information that served the public interest. Forced Sterilization We are delighted that Chelsea can By Delano Cleveland finally begin to enjoy the freedom she deserves. And we thank the many, many people and organiza- On January 27, 2017 the California If you refuse to be x-rayed, you are tions who have supported her and Department of Corrections and so- then taken to a cell by force where you continue to support her as we fight called Rehabilitation has allowed the are placed on a gurney, hands and feet in her appeal to clear her name.” GlobalTelLink and its corporate part- strapped to a bed. You are placed in a ners to influence its decision to place a diaper and you have to defecate a Said Chase Strangio, the full body scanning x-ray machine to use minimum of two times. Imagine the American Civil Liberties Union: at will on its inmate population without disrespect and embarrassment it is to “Like far too many people in proper suspicion of any wrongdoing. be subjected to when you have not prison, particularly transgender This is nothing more than the prison been found guilty of anything. It’s like women, Chelsea Manning has had your wife is driving to work and the to survive unthinkable violence industrial complex and its corporations police pull her over and tell her she’s throughout the seven years of her (GlobalTelLink) and others protecting their principal interests at all costs. being searched because he wants to. How would you feel? The prison industrial complex “For the first wants for the public to believe that Just because we’re in prison for a time, I can see a there’s been an explosion of criminal crime doesn’t mean we should be tor- activity, which is a never-ending per- tured with radiation. future for petuating deception the prison indus- The prison industrial complex and myself as trial complex and the corporate con- its corporate cronies have continued to tracts that are being protected, with no conspire to find ways to keep the flow Chelsea. I can evidence of criminal convictions to of kickbacks/bribes to the Department justify its forced sterilization of its of Prisons by protecting their $500- imagine surviv- prison population. plus million a year in revenue from ing and living as This full body x-ray machine is not prisoners’ loved ones they are subject- the person who safe as alleged by the company—Compass. ing this radiation to. It is a fact that x-ray machines can raise Write to: I am and can the cancer rate by 40 percent; tumors by Dellano Cleveland finally be in the 50 percent; leukemia by 70 percent. They #H20500 4-EB-78 can create problems such as with the thy- San Quentin State Prison outside world.” roid gland. Multiple x-rays have been San Quentin, CA 94974 linked to bone-marrow cancer.

Vol. 17, No. 3 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 79 S o c i a l i s t V i e w p o i n t Where to find us: www.socialistviewpoint.org [email protected] (415) 824-8730

EDITORS Carole Seligman, Bonnie Weinstein

GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGN BUSINESS MANAGER Mykael Carole Seligman

The Socialist Viewpoint Publishing Association publish- Note to Readers: es Socialist Viewpoint in the interests of the working class. Socialist Viewpoint magazine has been edited and distrib- The editors take positions consistent with revolutionary uted by revolutionaries who share a common political out- Marxism. Within this context the editors will consider for publication articles, reviews or comments. The editors may look stemming from the old Socialist Workers Party of James publish comments to accompany these articles. Photographs P. Cannon, and Socialist Action from 1984 through 1999. and cartoons will be appreciated. After being expelled from Socialist Action in 1999, we Socialist Viewpoint reprints articles circulated on the formed Socialist Workers Organization in an attempt to Internet when we deem them of interest to our readers. carry on the project of building a nucleus of a revolutionary No limitation will be placed on the author(s) use of their party true to the historic teachings and program of Marx, material in their subsequent work provided acknowledg- Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. ment is made of its publication in Socialist Viewpoint. The What we have found is that our numbers are insuffi- Socialist Viewpoint Publishing Association retains for itself rights to reprint articles as collections, educational bulletins, cient for this crucial project of party building. This prob- and similar uses. With the inclusion of an acknowledgment lem is not ours alone; it is a problem flowing from the and a notice of the copyright ownership, permission is division and fragmentation that has plagued the revolu- hereby given educators to duplicate essays for distribution tionary movement in capitalist America and the world gratis or for use in the classroom at cost. The author(s) since the 1980s. retain all other rights. What we intend to do is to continue to promote the idea Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of of building a revolutionary Marxist working class political Socialist Viewpoint. These views are expressed in editorials. party through the pages of Socialist Viewpoint magazine. We Socialist Viewpoint is printed by members of Local 583, continue to have an optimistic outlook about the revolu- Allied Printing Trades Council, San Francisco, California. tionary potential of the world working class to rule society in its own name—socialism. We are optimistic that the working class, united across borders, and acting in its own Special Introductory Subscription Offer! class interests can solve the devastating crises of war, pov- One year of Socialist Viewpoint for $20.00, erty, oppression, and environmental destruction that capi- Bargain rate: $35.00 for two years; talism is responsible for. (Regular rate: $30.00/International Rate: $50.00) We expect that revolutionaries from many different Make your check payable to: Socialist Viewpoint, & mail to: organizations, traditions, and backgrounds will respond to S o c i a l i s t V i e w p o i n t the opportunities that will arise, as workers resist the attacks 60 29th Street, #429 of the capitalist system and government, to build a new San Francisco, CA 94110 revolutionary political party. Just as we join with others to Please include your name, address, city and zip code. build every response to war and oppression, we look for- To help us know who our subscribers are, please tell us your occupation, union, school, ward to joining with others in the most important work of or organization. building a new mass revolutionary socialist workers’ party as it becomes possible to do so.

80 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 17, No. 3 Lynne Stewart: People’s Lawyer, Freedom Fighter Presentè! By Mumia Abu-Jamal

Lynne Stewart, after 78 winters in tried and convicted for putting out a once opined that defense lawyers America, has died, after battling for press release for her client, the blind should be officers of their clients, years against breast cancer. Egyptian sheikh, Omar Abdul Rahman, instead of officers of the court. But that was just some of her battles, Ralph stood in the hot Washington, DC Lynne Stewart was an officer of her and like most of us, she won some, and sun, with a sign in front of the White clients; a People’s Lawyer, beloved and lost some. But she never stopped fighting! House, demanding his wife’s release. respected. Her defense of her client was in the For decades, she and her husband, May she ever be so. best tradition of criminal defense law- Ralph, fought for New York, as politi- yers, and she received —Prison Radio, March 8, 2017 cal activists and revolutionaries, like significant support Black Panthers and Young Lords—a from a broad swath of Puerto Rican socialist collective. But the Bar—from law- mostly, they fought for the freedom of yers, yes; judges, no. the poor and dispossessed of New York’s Black and Brown ghettoes. Initially sentenced to 28 months, the 2d She—they—fought often and Circuit sent it back fought well in the city’s courts. for resentencing— Her husband, Ralph, was a stalwart and she got ten years! of the Black Panther Party, and her Her support only most committed defender. grew. When Lynne was targeted by the The late activist U.S. Justice department, and she was lawyer, Bill Kunstler,

Truth and Injustice By Dellano Cleveland

On April 20, 2017, the State of Revenge is what any person would vicious, inhumane beast that will lie to Arkansas began a murder spree of eight want if asked. But you have a very vio- the very people they pretend to help, men, in a nefarious and desperate lent and selfish justice system that costs while prisons like Texas are attempting attempt not to seek justice, but because taxpayers over $180 billion a year. It’s a to smuggle sodium Thiopental from a the drug, midazolam, the first drug system that is known for its racism and foreign vendor since July 2015. These that is used to murder a human being, unequal treatment of poor people who are the unscrupulous choices that this is to expire. can’t afford to pay an attorney. I so-called justice system has resorted to These so-called guardians of justice couldn’t pay for an attorney. And 15 by secretly smuggling drugs, according want society to believe they care for the years after being on California’s death to the Dallas Morning News. victims when, in fact, it’s the further- row, I find out my appointed lawyer This justice system will remain ance of a political career that is impor- was paid only $961.00 to defend me unjust until society demands an tant. It’s on the backs of the victims against the death penalty. Twenty-six unequivocal justice system that is not how they get there. years later I’m still on California’s death corrupted in racism and unjust treat- Justice should never be based solely row, fighting a system that prides itself ment of its citizenry. on true justice and its American way… upon revenge, or because you have Write to: until it comes to people like Ledell Lee, more wealth to avoid punishment. Dellano Cleveland #H20500 4-EB-78 or Stanley “Tookie” Williams. Justice is about fairness and righteous- San Quentin State Prison ness for every person, not because you This is a system that rears its ugly San Quentin, CA 94974 can afford a dream-team of lawyers. horns and reveals its true identity as a

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H The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. —Karl Marx H MAY/JUNE 2017 VOL. 17 NO. 3