Burma: War vs. the People w Behind Detroit’s Labor History #213 • JULY/AUGUST 2021 • $5 Chicago’s Torture Machine and Reparations w AISLINN PULLEY w MARK CLEMENTS w JOEY MOGUL w LINDA LOEW Palestine — Then and Now w MALIK MIAH w MOSHE MACHOVER w DAVID FINKEL w MERRY MAISEL w DON B. GREENSPON A Letter from the Editors: Infrastructure: Who Needs It? “INFRASTRUCTURE” IS ALL the rage, and not only just now. Trump talked about it, president Obama promised it, and so have administrations going back to the 1980s. Amidst the talk, the United States’ roads and bridges are crumbling, water and sanitation systems faltering, public health services left in a condition that’s only been fully exposed in the coronavirus pandemic, and rapid transit and high-speed internet access in much of the country inferior to what’s available in the rural interior of China. A combination of circumstances have changed the discussion. The objective realities include the pandemic; its devastating economic impacts most heavily on Black, brown and women’s employment; the necessity of rapid conversion to renewable energy, now clear even to much of capital — and yes, the pressures of deepening competition and rivalry with China. The obvious immediate political factors are the defeat of Trump and the ascendance of the Democrats to narrow Congressional and Senate majorities. It became clear, however, that there would be no serious results, they might well be electorally dead in 2022 Republican support for anything resembling Biden’s and beyond. That pressure, along with the party’s left wing, infrastructure program — even after he’d stripped several put some backbone into the administration’s posture hundred billion dollars and scrapped raising the corporate although the “progressive” forces certainly don’t control tax rate to pay for it. the agenda. Instead, the Senate has hastily come together around “research and development” legislation explicitly aimed at Size and Scope facing China’s rising capacity. It signals that anything happening Without trying to predict what if any infrastructure in the name of government economic development policy spending might finally survive the filibuster-blockaded will be coming with a stop-China tinge — as was also clear mess known as the United States Senate, it’s worth in Biden’s statements at the G7 summit. looking at what the Biden administration and congressional Democrats hoped to accomplish. These proposals are by no Gridlock means “socialist,” as Republicans absurdly pronounce. We’ll President Biden’s and the Democrats’ “nearly two trillion come back to the issue of what a socialist infrastructure dollar infrastructure package,” as it was called, could only program would look like. be enacted in the Senate with all 48 Democratic and two Importantly, however, the Biden proposals were big independent votes (Bernie Sanders and Angus King), plus — even ground-shifting by the standards of decades of Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaker. That’s in order to neoliberal gutting of social spending by both capitalist pass the bill through the “budget reconciliation” provision parties. It’s worth exploring why. Dollar figures do matter, that bypasses the Senate’s 60 votes required to choke off although they fluctuate with each day’s news reports. (To the buffoonery that passes for “debate” in that spectacularly paraphrase the late Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, “a unrepresentative chamber. trillion dollars here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re As the Republican Party at the congressional level talking real money.” In the long-ago 1960s, Dirksen actually consolidates itself as the party of the Big Lie and the still- said “billion.” How outdated is that?) to-be-indicted Big Liar lurking in his Mar-A-Lago bunker, The biggest attempted innovations, however, are over the long tradition of “bipartisan” negotiation (with all the the Democrats’ “wide range of concerns, including elder cynicism and pork-barrel tradeoffs it entails) has become care, parents and families” and social support, scorned by middle-of-the-road kill. Loyally ensconced for decades in Republicans like John Barrasso of Wyoming “as ‘socialism the old habits, Biden routinely reaches across the aisle camouflaged as infrastructure.’” to Mitch McConnell, who responds by stomping on the “Maintaining their belief that any package should hew president’s face. After several repetitions, most Democrats to what they describe as traditional infrastructure,” the not named Joe Manchin get the point. Senate Republicans’ new plan “proposes more than $500 In essence, the Democrats were left negotiating with billion for roads, $98 billion for public transit, $46 billion their own Senator Manchin and one or two Republicans he for passenger rail and more than $70 billion for water might bring along — maybe Lisa Murkowski, whose main infrastructure” and other items. (“Senate Republicans make purpose in political life is to keep her state of Alaska open new infrastructure offer as House Democrats urge Biden to for ecocidal oil and gas drilling. Under more bipartisan dig in,” Washington Post, May 27, 2021) circumstances, the Democratic leadership would likely be Through budget legerdemain, however, Republicans willing to sacrifice their bill’s more innovative measures — propose paying for some of this through money already “social infrastructure” like expanded child credit and health legislated, but not yet spent, under the previous COVID care access, as well as some first steps toward mitigating relief bill. Under no circumstances, McConnell pledges, climate disaster — to get Republican support, even though will any part of the sacred Trump tax cuts for corporate enraging their progressive-minded base. capital and the rich be touched. In any case the Republican Now, however, the Democrats need that base and its proposition adds up to something less than half of the Biden Congressional voices to once again, as Alexandria Ocasio- administration’s proposal. Cortez put it to journalist Marina Hinojosa about the 2020 Proposing infrastructure spending to meet social needs election, “save the party’s ass.” (https://www.nbcnews.com, is a departure from established practice. That fact shows May 21, 2021) If the Democrats don’t “go big” and deliver continued on the inside back cover Editors Purnima Bose AGAINST THE CURRENT Robert Brenner July / August 2021 — Volume XXXVI, Number 3 Dianne Feeley David Finkel Adam Hefty Ursula McTaggart Alan Wald Susan Weissman Charles Williams Advisory Editors Sara Abraham Gilbert Achcar Delia D. Aguilar Manuel Aguilar-Mora Perry Anderson Rafael Bernabe Melba Joyce Boyd Johanna Brenner Noam Chomsky Mike Davis Peter Drucker Terry Eagleton Sam Farber Ansar Fayyazuddin Ann Ferguson Milton Fisk Cecilia Green 2 Burma: The War vs. the People Adolfo Gilly Palestine — Then and Now interview with Carlos Sandiña Galache Nancy Holmstrom 26 Palestinian Americans Take Lead Kim D. Hunter 4 Afghanistan’s Tragedy Malik Miah Alison Jaggar Valentine M. Moghadam 27 Zionist Colonization & Its Victim James Kavanagh 6 The Detroit Left & Social Unionism Moshé Machover Robin D.G. Kelley Michael Löwy in the 1930s 29 Conceiving Decolonization Steve Babson David Finkel Stephanie Luce Malik Miah 9 Detroit: Austerity and Activism 31 Not a Cause for Palestinians Only Valentine M. Moghadam Peter Blackmer Merry Maisel Bayla Ostrach Chicago’s Torture Machine 32 When Liberals Fail on Palestine Paul Prescod Donald B. Greenspon Nomi Prins 12 Reparations for Police Torture Joanne Rappaport interview with Aislinn Pulley Reviews Allen Ruff 17 A Torture Survivor Speaks Marsha Rummel interview with Mark Clements 36 Immigration: What’s at Stake? Abra Quinn Guy Miller David Roediger 18 Torture, Reparations & Healing interview with Joey Mogul 38 Exploring PTSD Politics Anwar Shaikh Norm Diamond Jane Slaughter 23 The Windy City Torture Underground Tony Smith Linda Loew 40 A Life of Struggle: Grace Carlson Dianne Feeley Tim Schermerhorn Front Cover and above: Chicago demonstration exposing the horrific extent of the police torture machine. Hillel Ticktin Sarah Jane Rhee 42 Living in the Movement Heather Ann Thompson Back Cover: Nakba Rally, Dearborn, Michigan, Martin Oppenheimer Julia Wrigley May 15,2021 Barbara Barefield AGAINST THE CURRENT is published in order to promote dialogue among the activists, organizers and serious scholars of the left. We promote the vision of socialism from below, of a revolutionary, working-class, multinational and multiracial, feminist and antibureaucratic socialist movement. ATC is sponsored by Solidarity, a socialist organization founded in 1986, together with a group of advisory editors who believe that this magazine can contribute to building an effective U.S. socialist left. Copyright © 2021 by Against the Current (ISSN 0739-4853) Published bimonthly by the Center for Changes, 7012 Michigan Avenue, Detroit, MI 48210. Phone (313) 841-0160. Email: [email protected]; web page address: https://againstthecurrent.org. Periodicals postage paid at Detroit, MI. Postmaster: Send address changes to ATC, 7012 Mich i gan Avenue, Detroit, MI 48210. Subscriptions $30 a year; $50 for two years; $35 a year supporting subscription, $35 a year institutional. Against the Current is indexed by the Altern ative Press Index. Manuscripts are welcome; please send articles in text format to our email address. To become a distributor of ATC, tell us how many copies to send you. We give a 40% discount on standing orders of 3 or more copies. m y a n m a r u p r i s i n g Burma: The War vs. the People interview with Carlos Sardiña Galache SUZI WEISSMAN conducted this interview the military elite. ideological. The difference is who should with Carlos Sardiña Galache, the author of For reasons that are not altogether clear, have the power, not what to do with it. The Burmese Labyrinth: A History of the the military decided to put an end to that SW: Is there a difference between calling the Rohingya Tragedy (Verso). He has recent experiment with democracy on February 1 country Myanmar and calling it Burma? articles in Jacobin and the Sidecar blog at this year.