The#224: MAy 2017 •IndypendenT IndypendenT.ORG

OMAR eL AKKAd On FOSSIL FUeLS And AMeRICA’S SeCOnd CIVIL WAR, p10 FIGhTInG CLIMATe ChAnGe In The AGe OF TRUMp, p12 ReCLAIMInG AMeRICA p14 And MORe… AGAInST

COVeRAGedySTOpIA STARTS pAGe 9 DAVID HOLLENBACH 2 MOVEMENT BUILDING

The IndypendenT AFTeR The peOpLe’S THE INDYPENDENT, INC. 388 Atlantic Avenue, 2nd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11217 CLIMATe MARCh 212-904-1282 www.indypendent.org Twitter: @TheIndypendent

facebook.com/TheIndypendent By Nancy Romer ler Scott Stringer, have already divested from coal assets. The ROBERT VAN WAARDEN/SURVIVAL MEDIA AGENCY comptroller is now researching the current status of oil and gas ens of thousands of people will participate in the investments. We are pushing the city to divest its investments in BOARD OF DIRECTORS: April 29 People’s March for Climate, Jobs and Justice Wells Fargo and other fi nancial institutions funding the Dakota Ellen Davidson, Anna Gold, in Washington, D.C., or in one of hundreds of sister Access Pipeline. Alina Mogilyanskaya, marches being held around the country. This will be As part of a Global Divestment Mobilization, there will be a a moment when we loudly and collectively say “No!” Divestment Bill Lobby Day in Albany on May 8, and there will be Ann Schneider, John Tarleton Tto the disastrous policies of a rogue president and the Congress. a series of activities in New York City including Divest NY’s May However, the true measure of the march is what we do next. 9 noon, teach-in and demonstration at Trump Tower, and a dem- EDITOR: Here in New York, we have broad and diverse coalitions that are onstration to Defund the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) on May rolling up their sleeves and getting to work, aware that victories 13 at noon in Union Square. John Tarleton we achieve here in the city will resonate far beyond its borders. Climate battles are being fought across New York State. New Many look toward reforms, some toward a new vision of a society York Renews, a coalition of more than 100 labor, community and ASSOCIATE EDITOR: that cares for its people and planet, but all know the importance environmental groups, is currently pushing Gov. Andrew Cuomo Peter Rugh of building a mass movement to address climate change. Here and state legislators to pass the landmark Climate and Community are some important events to plug into immediately following the Protection Act that would move our state to 100 percent clean, march, empowering the movement in its many forms. renewable energy, protect frontline communities, support workers CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: A NYC Accountability Forum will be held on May 16, organized in a transition to the new energy economy and make polluters pay Ellen Davidson, by the People’s Climate Movement-New York and a variety of cli- their fair share. Text “NYRenews” to 52886 and the governor and Alina Mogilyanskaya, mate, jobs and justice groups. This will be a mass people’s inter- legislators will get a message from you. To join a strategy call with view of our three citywide offi cials — Mayor Bill de Blasio, Public campaign leaders on May 9, see nyrenews.org. Nicholas Powers, Steven Wishnia Advocate Letitia James and Comptroller Scott Stringer — about In addition to passing legislation, we need to stop the building climate action we can take right now here in the city. The event will of more fossil fuel infrastructure in New York and speed up the ILLUSTRATION DIRECTOR: also be an organizing forum where you can get information about, growth of renewable energy sources, especially offshore wind. For Frank Reynoso and join, ongoing campaigns on the issues the event will focus on: the former, visit youareheremap.org to see an online and interac- tive map of fracking infrastructure and connect directly to grass- • Creating good jobs to cut our city’s climate pollution roots communities that are fi ghting these projects. Over on Long DESIGN DIRECTOR: by requiring all buildings to reach modern energy ef- Island, the largest wind farm in the United State will open in 2021. Mikael Tarkela fi ciency standards. On May 24 there will be a rally at the Long Island Power Authority urging support for a second larger offshore wind farm. For more • Divesting our city’s pension funds from fossil fuels and information visit winwindny.org. DESIGNERS: pipelines, and reinvesting into renewable energy (wind The Peoples Climate Movement-NY is meeting on May 23 to Steven Arnerich, Anna Gold and solar), good local jobs, and benefi ts for low- and engage and move forward our vibrant movement. Watch newyork. moderate-income communities of color. peoplesclimate.org for more information. We are building a move- SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER: ment together, with broad politics and many approaches; fi nd a • Transforming the city’s commercial waste industry way to contribute and dig in. Elia Gran in NYC to reduce ineffi ciencies, create good jobs, improve air quality for overburdened communities and Nancy Romer is a member of People’s Climate March-New York. GENERAL INQUIRIES: move closer to zero waste goals by increasing diversion [email protected] from landfi lls.

SUBMISSIONS AND NEWS TIPS: Divestment by pension funds can signifi cantly weaken the power [email protected] and political infl uence of the fossil fuel industry. New York City’s $165 billion pension funds, which are managed by Comptrol- ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION: [email protected]

VOLUNTEER CONTRIBUTORS: Sam Alcoff, Linda Martín Alcoff, Gino Barzizza, Bennett Baumer, SUBSCRIBE José Carmona, Renée Feltz, Bianca Fortis, Lynne Foster, Michael Grant, Priscilla Grim, TODAY! Lauren Kaori Gurley, Michael Hirsch, David Hollenbach, Gena GeT eVeRy ISSUe OF The IndypendenT deLIVeRed STRAIGhT TO yOUR hOMe. Hymowech, Dondi J, Colin 12 ISSUeS / $25 • 24 ISSUeS / $48 Kinniburgh, Rob LaQuinta, Gary pURChASe yOUR SUBSCRIpTIOn OnLIne AT Martin, Erik McGregor, Mike Newton, Anna Polonyi, Astha IndypendenT.ORG/SUBSCRIBe

May 2017 Rajvanshi, Mark Read, Reverend OR, Send A CheCK OR MOney ORdeR TO Billy, Jesse Rubin, Steven Sherman Matt Shuham, Pamela Somers, The IndypendenT Gabriella Szpunt, Leanne Tory- 388 ATLAnTIC AVe., 2nd FL. Murphy, Matthew Wasserman, BROOKLyn, ny 11217

The IndypendenT Beth Whitney, and Amy Wolf. 3 COMMUNITY CALENDAR MAy

THRU SUN MAY 14 The ride starts at intersection of SAT MAY 13 Education Project’s Ecology STEADMAN RALPH 7:30PM • $35–$59 Franklin St & Church St 10PM–4AM • FREE Series. THEATER: UNFRAMED: AN CELEBRATION: X & X DANCE The Brooklyn Commons IMMIGRANT IN PROGRESS TUE MAY 9 PARTY RELAUNCH 388 Atlantic Ave From his idyllic early life in 7:30PM • FREE An LGBT dance party with DJ Antigua to his arrival in America BOOK TALK: LISA KO, AUTHOR Kandylion and DJ Nickysallright TUE MAY 23 THRU SUN JUNE 18 at age 11, his struggles with OF THE LEAVERS at Brooklyn’s nightlife venue 8PM • FREE racism and fi nding his voice for Inspired by real-life stories of that celebrates and supports PERFORMANCE: SHAKESPEARE change, Iyaba Ibo Mandingo undocumented women whose movements for social justice. IN THE PARK: JULIUS CAESAR paints a striking and meaningful U.S.-born children were taken Starr Bar The Public Theater’s Artistic portrait of his search for self in from them and adopted by 214 Starr St Director Oskar Eustis directs this tour-de-force solo show. American families, while the Shakespeare’s play of politics Elektra Theatre women themselves were jailed SUN MAY 14 and power. Rome’s leader, Julius 300 W 43rd St or deported, The Leavers is Lisa 2PM • $15 Caesar, is a force unlike any Ko’s penetrating debut novel and PERFORMANCE: THE ORIGINAL the city has seen. Magnetic, FRI MAY 5 the winner of the PEN/Bellwether BADASS MOTHER’S DAY SHOW populist, irreverent, he seems 8PM • $50–$75 Prize for Fiction. Ko will be joined Reverend Billy and the Mothers bent on absolute power. A PERFORMANCE: THE KENTUCKY in conversation by Hillary Jordan, of the Stop Shopping Choir pay small band of patriots, devoted DERBY IS DECADENT AND author of the novels Mudbound tribute to the mothers of world, to the country’s democratic DEPRAVED and When She Woke. drawing inspiration from Julia traditions, must decide how Director Chloe Webb and the Greenlight Bookstore | Prospect Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day to oppose him. Shakespeare’s legendary artist Ralph Steadman Lefferts Gardens Proclamation: “From the bosom political masterpiece has never bring Hunter S. Thompson’s 632 Flatbush Ave of the devastated earth a voice felt more contemporary. Visit fi rst gonzo journalism piece goes up with our own. It says, publictheater.org for ticketing (and Steadman’s sketches) to WED MAY 10 ‘Disarm, Disarm! The sword information. hallucinatory life. The Kentucky 7PM–9PM • $10 suggested of murder is not the balance of The Delacorte Theater in Central Derby marked the beginning of donation justice.’” Park Thompson and Steadman’s epic BOOK TALK: A LESBIAN FBI Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater partnership, realized in this stage INFORMANT IN THE RED SCARE 425 Lafayette St SUN MAY 28 adaptation with an all-star cast Lisa E. Davis discusses her 12PM–5PM • FREE and a band performing guitar new book, Undercover Girl: THU MAY 18 CULTURE: LOISAIDA FESTIVAL great Bill Frisell’s original score. The Lesbian Informant Who 6PM • FREE Since 1987 the Loisaida Festival This raucous performance makes Helped the FBI Bring Down DRINKS: ACTIVISTA HAPPY has celebrated Manhattan’s its New York City debut on the the Communist Party. Angela HOUR Lower East Side neighborhood. It eve of the Kentucky Derby. Actor Calomiris (1916-95), a Village- A popular monthly meetup where features diverse manifestations Tim Robbins stars. For tickets based photographer was an FBI political activists and organizers of the neighborhood’s Puerto visit ticketmaster.com or call 800- informant who became a Red get to know each other over Rican and Latino cultures 982-2787. Scare celebrity in 1949 when drinks. expressed through music, cuisine The Town Hall she testifi ed in a conspiracy trial Cherry Tree Bar and arts. This year’s theme is 123 W 43rd St against the leadership of the 65 4th Ave immigration. Communist Party. A selection of Avenue C on the Lower East Side SAT MAY 6 vintage photos accompanies this SAT MAY 20 & SUN MAY 21 12PM–6PM • $15 in advance, $20 presentation. 11AM–6PM • $19–$30 FRI JUNE 2 THRU SUN JUNE 4 DECADENT AND

day of LGBT Center EATS: VEGETARIAN FOOD $30–$100 DEPRAVED: Legendary COOL JUSTICE REPORT BLOG FOOD: TASTE OF ROCKAWAY 208 W 13th St Rm 210 FESTIVAL SYMPOSIUM: LEFT FORUM artist Ralph Steadman brings BEACH Vegan and vegetarian food for Panels, workshops, fi lm outlaw journalist Hunter S. Tastings from 31 Rockaway FRI MAY 12 TO SAT MAY 13 sale and sample. Learn from screenings — Left Forum is the Thompson’s original Gonzo beach locations will be on offer, FREE expert plant-based doctors, largest annual gathering of left- masterpiece from the 1970 all within walking distance of DAY SCHOOL: SOCIALISM THEN authors, leaders, chefs and wing troublemakers, thinkers, Kentucky Derby to life in the each other. To purchase tickets AND NOW fi tness pros. Festival also artists, journalists, writers and New York premiere of this online and for more information The Democratic Socialists features a special spot for kids’ publishers in North America. staged production. visit fareharbor.com. This might of America (DSA) will host activities. Tickets and further details at be a prime time to give the new a socialist day school that Metropolitan Pavilion leftforum.org. Rockaway ferry a test ride. It will investigate the infl uence 125 W 18th St John Jay College IMMIGRANT departs from Wall Street multiple historical movements have had 524 W 59th St JOURNEY: Iyaba Ibo times a day starting May 1. on our current political moment SAT MAY 20 Mandingo performs in Rockaway Beach and the lessons they have to offer 6PM • $6–15 sliding scale unFRAMED, a powerful people working for social change BOOK TALK: CHALLENGING solo show about one man’s

SUN MAY 7 today. Speakers include Frances MILITARISM, CLIMATE CHANGE struggle with racism and 2017 May 6:30AM • $100 Fox Piven, Maurice Isserman, & “HUMAN NATURE” finding his voice for change. RIDE: FIVE BORO BIKE TOUR Dan La Botz and Gay Semel. For In Revolutionary Mothering, For one day, the roads are yours, further details and tickets visit an anthology edited by Alexis

the bridges are yours, the city is FB.com/nycdsa. Pauline Gumbs, China Martens, IndypendenT The yours. The Five Boro Bike Tour is St. Francis De Sales School for Mai’a Williams and Loretta J. the largest charitable bike ride in the Deaf Ross, women of color propose the United States with proceeds 260 Eastern Pkwy a very different perspective on funding free bike-education “human nature” and the interface programs. For details and between individuals and registration visit bike.nyc/events. institutions. Part of the Marxist 4 WORKERS’ RIGHTS

TOM CAT WORKeRS hOWL MeeT The BAKeRS On The FROnT LIneS OF TRUMp’S AnTI- IMMIGRAnT pOLICIeS

By Astha Rajvanshi tial offer, the company became less willing negotiate. 100 people, many of them Hispanic

“There was no support or open dialogue,” said Milian. immigrants, and was acquired DEMANDING PETER RUGH orkers at Tom Cat Bakery start knead- At no point had he foreseen or anticipated the fi ring. “We last year by Yamazaki, the largest JUSTICE: Tom Cat ing the day’s fi rst loaves inside a all worked so hard and did nothing wrong.” baked-goods company in Japan. bakers workers rally Queens factory at 6 a.m. Soon after, Tom Cat’s fi red employees joined up with Brandwork- A spokesperson for Tom Cat told outside of Trump Tower. the industrial-scale bakery begins de- ers, a nonprofi t advocacy group for food-manufacturing the New York Times that the com- livering 400 varieties of baked goods to workers. Negotiating on their behalf, Brandworkers won pany fi rst learned about the audit in December and later hotels,W supermarkets, food chains and Starbucks locations an extension on the deadline Tom Cat originally set to offered to assist the 31 workers it fi red with immigration across New York City. provide work papers. Now, they are pressuring the com- counsel. Some workers believe management is being throt- One of the bakers, Sabino Milian, a 40-year-old Gua- pany to increase its severance offer. A support fund for the tled by ICE and DHS while others question if the company temalan native, came to New York 17 years ago looking workers has raised over $28,000 in donations so far. intended to give those workers such short notice all along. for work. Hurricane Mitch struck Milian’s hometown “Some workers have been working there for over two The Tom Cat workers have vowed to continue to pres- in 1998, leaving his parents helpless and vulnerable. He decades and they only had 10 days to show their offi cial sure the company and, as The Indy went to press, planned needed to support them fi nancially. New York presented documentation,” said Brandworkers’ Cynthia Chavez. to join citywide demonstrations for worker and immigrant a land of opportunities, Milian told The Indypendent “Tom Cat did not give their workers respect, after the rights taking place on May 1. through a Spanish interpreter. He began working for Tom workers have given their lives to the company. There is a Under Donald Trump’s administration, Milian said im- Cat in 2006 and never had any problems with his bosses. lot of fear in our communities that there’s a lot of deporta- migrant worker freedoms are under serious threat. “The In March, however, a manager called Milian into his tion everywhere,” she said. “These workers are the fi rst new administration is criminalizing Hispanics. It is asking offi ce and told him the company was subject to an ongoing group of workers who are immigrants and have decided to immigrants to think twice before coming here.” audit by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and fi ght back against the [Trump] administration.” Jonathan Rodriguez, who was also fi red by Tom Cat, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Milian, On April 21, their fi nal day of work, the Tom Cat added: “Before Trump, those who did the right thing and along with 30 other workers, were given 10 days to prove employees and their supporters held a “A Day Without worked hard in their jobs could stay. Now, even that’s they possessed proper documentation to legally work in Bread” rally outside the bakery. Four of the fi red employ- not enough.” the country. If they failed to do so, they would be fi red. ees were arrested for chaining themselves to the company’s What stung most of all, Milian said, was Tom Cat’s delivery trucks. unwillingness support its workers. Each employee was of- Though initially operated out of a garage by its founder, fered one week’s severance pay for every year they worked baker Noel Labat-Comess, Tom Cat has grown well be- at the company. When Milian and others refused the ini- yond its humble beginnings 30 years ago. It employs over SOME PLACES YOU CAN FIND The IndypendenT BELOW LGBT CENTER HARRY BELAFONTE BROOKLYN WYCKOFF STARR COFFEE OUTPOST CAFE QUEENS DIVERSITY 14TH ST 208 W. 13TH ST. 115TH ST. LIBRARY SHOP 1014 FULTON ST. CENTER 203 W. 115TH BROOKLYN BOROUGH 30 WYCKOFF AVE. 76-11 37TH AVE. SUITE SEWARD PARK LIBRARY RED HOOK LIBRARY 206 TO HALL 192 EAST BROADWAY 14TH HARLEM LIBRARY 209 JORALEMON ST. 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WILLIAMSBURG COBRA CLUB THE POINT KEY FOODS 940 GARRISON AVE. COLUMBUS LIBRARY 130 7TH AVE. LIBRARY 6 WYCKOFF THEATER FOR THE NEW 942 TENTH AVE. HAMILTON GRANGE 240 DIVISION AVE. CITY LIBRARY STARR BAR HIGH BRIDGE LIBRARY COMMUNITY BOOK 78 W. 168TH ST. 155 FIRST AVE. MANHATTAN 503 W. 145TH ST. STORE GREENPOINT LIBRARY 214 STARR ST. NEIGHBORHOOD 143 7TH AVE. 107 NORMAN AVE. MCNALLY JACKSON NETWORK HAMILTON’S BAKERY JAMAICA BAY LIBRARY LATINO PASTORAL BOOKS 537 W. 59TH ST. 3570 BROADWAY KAISA’S CAFÉ 9727 SEAVIEW AVE. ACTION CENTER BEACON’S CLOSET 14 W. 170TH ST. 52 PRINCE ST. 92 5TH AVE. 146 BEDFORD AVE. ST. AGNES LIBRARY THE CHIPPED CUP 4TH STREET CO-OP 444 AMSTERDAM AVE. 3610 BROADWAY BEDFORD LIBRARY QUEENS NEW SETTLEMENT PACIFIC STREET LIBRARY COMMUNITY CENTER 58 E. 4TH ST. 25 FOURTH AVE. 496 FRANKLIN AVE. 96TH ST. LIBRARY UPTOWN SISTER’S COURT SQUARE DINER 1501 JEROME AVE. THINK COFFEE 112 E. 96TH ST. BOOKS BROOKLYN WORKS@159 CROWN HEIGHTS 45-30 23RD ST. 248 MERCER ST. 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BROADCAST ON MORE THAN 1,300 PUBLIC TV AND RADIO STATIONS WORLDWIDE 5 IMMIGRATION A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman and Juan González CeLeBRATInG A VICTORy

By Renée Feltz Leaving behind the melting shards, the group RELIEVED: ith matzo crackers in walked to New York Ravi Ragbir DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG hand, Rabbi Joshua Law School. It included (left) at an in- Stanton led people in members of SEIU, con- terfaith seder. Tune In Live Every Weekday 8-9am ET song at an interfaith gregants from Judson

seder on April 11, Memorial Church, law students and RENÉE FELTZ • Audio, Video, Transcripts, Podcasts theW fi rst day of Passover. The tune was friends who had traveled from as far “Go Down Moses,” also known as “Let away as Boston. • Los titulares de Hoy (headlines in Spanish) My People Go,” and the lyrics had been “I feel very strong,” Ragbir told people retouched by Paul Stein to focus on im- as they gathered to hear an update from • Find your local broadcast station and schedule migrant rights. him and sip kosher grape juice. “I am not doing this alone.” • Subscribe to the Daily News Digest See our faces proud and strong. He then shared more good news by Let my people stay! calling up to the front of the room his Follow Us @ DEMOCRACYNOW All faiths and colors, we belong. friend, Ramesh Palaniandi, a New Sanc- Let my people stay! tuary member who met with his deporta- To detention, we say “No.” tion agent on the same day as Ragbir in All detainees, let them go, March, and was detained. He explained Free to be with their family, that Palaniandi had been released and re- Let my people stay! united with his wife just days before. Angela Y.Davis “It is hard to fi ght without sup- The gathering was originally scheduled port,” Palaniandi noted, acknowledg- to show support for Ravi Ragbir, head of ing protests Ragbir helped lead to call the New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC, for his release. who was scheduled to meet that day with Perhaps the most touching moment his deportation offi cer for the second came when Rabbi Stanton urged the Freedom is time in as many months. But the check- room of mixed ages, ethnicities and in was reset for January 2018, when his backgrounds to “pause and imagine current stay of removal expires. what would be enough if we had a righ- “We are very grate- ful to have the extra a Constant time and for Ravi not RAVI RAGBIR to have to live with the fear they could take him in on that day,” his SPARED lawyer, Alina Das, told DEPORTATION Struggle The Indypendent. Ragbir’s previous check-in on March 9 drew hundreds of teous society that loved and respected supporters who had vowed to accompa- immigrants” — the theme of the Pass- Ferguson, Palestine, ny him again. The seder that took place over song, “Dayenu,” which roughly instead was an opportunity to focus on means “it would have been enough.” and the Foundations the liberation marked by Passover. Then he welcomed their responses. First, dozens gathered outside 26 “Families undivided!” said one. Federal Plaza to listen to several speak- “Welcome for the refugees!” said of a Movement ers, including a Mexican immigrant another. “In this latest text of her magisterial corpus, Angela Davis puts named Myrna, who described being “Opened hearts,” said the fi nal per- separated from her U.S. citizen daugh- son. forward her brilliant analyses and resilient witness here and ters until recently. “If only we. . . dared to dream,” con- abroad. In a clear and concise manner, she embodies and enacts “It causes pain,” she said through a cluded Rabbi Stanton. “intersectionality”—a structural intellectual and political translator. “It has an impact on the chil- response to the dynamics of violence, white supremacy, patriarchy, 2017 May dren. It causes trauma.” The New Sanctuary Coalition of She concluded by taking out a hammer NYC offers trainings in accompani- state power, capitalist markets, and imperial policies.” and smashing a block of ice — a refer- ment, sanctuary, asylum and legal ence to Immigration and Customs En- rights for immigrants. See more at —from the foreword by Cornel West IndypendenT The forcement, known as ICE — which she newsanctuarynyc.org had brought with her and incorporated into the informal ceremony. “The law, like a block of ice, at fi rst Out now at seems solid and impenetrable,” noted Rabbi Stanton. 6 STUDENT DEBT

FRee hIGheR ed FOR A FeW CUOMO’S TUITIOn SCheMe BeneFITS BeTTeR-OFF FAMILIeS

By Lauren Gurley Nestoiter would benefi t more from assistance with cally leave the state upon receiving their diplomas.

books and other living expenses. He spends around $700 “We’re fi nally providing relief to New York’s middle- GARY MARTIN n April 12, New York Gov. Andrew on textbooks and subway fare each semester, and will class families who maybe haven’t been helped with fi - Cuomo arrived at La Guardia Commu- work full-time over the summer to save for the school nancial aid as much as lower-income students,” said nity College in Queens to sign into law year rather than pursue internships that could advance Stump. “But this actually does nothing for New York’s his much-touted free college tuition bill. his career. “If [scholarship] money could be spent buy- most at-need students and families.” “No child will be denied college because ing textbooks or covering some living expenses, it would CUNY and SUNY students who do not qualify for theyO can’t afford it,” Cuomo told a crowd of cheering ease the burden of going to college,” he says. the Excelsior Scholarship face annual tuition increases of students and local politicians. The Excelsior Scholarship does not extend to expenses $200 per year over the next fi ve years, which means they If only it were so. beyond tuition — unlike the free tuition programs pro- will be subsidizing their better-off peers’ free tuition. As a watered-down version of Senator Bernie Sanders’ posed by Sanders. According to the College Board, tu- The Excelsior Scholarship could also hurt lower-income free college proposal, Gov. Cuomo’s Excelsior Scholar- ition fees make up well under half of the costs associated students by making the admissions process more com- ship pits the needs of middle-class and low-income stu- with being a college student. petitive as upper-middle and middle-class families turn dents against each other. Stephen Brier, a professor of urban education at the away from private schools, and fl ood the public univer- His Excelsior Scholarship will provide free tuition CUNY Graduate Center, and co-author of Austerity sity system, according to Brier, the CUNY professor of to City University of New York and State University Blues: Fighting for the Soul of Public Higher Educa- urban education. of New York students whose household incomes are tion, says that the Excelsior Scholarship serves both to under $100,000 as of fall 2017 (this cap will increase appease Governor Cuomo’s middle-class constituents to $125,000 in 2019). However, several requirements upstate, and to strengthen his record as a “progressive” CUNY’S MISSION will preclude most CUNY students, who on average if he pursues a presidential bid in 2020. are less well-off than their SUNY counterparts, from “It’s got much less of an impact in New York City, and Founded in 1847 as the Free Academy with a stated participating. much larger an impact outside in different parts of the mission to educate “the children of the whole people,” Recipients of the Excelsior Scholarship must be full- state,” said Brier. “CUNY students are older. Many of CUNY provided free college education to generations time students. They must graduate within four years. them have to work full-time jobs while they go to school. of immigrants striving to rise out of poverty. That And they must remain in New York State after complet- They have their own families to deal with. They’re poor. ended in 1976, when CUNY began charging tuition ing their degree for as many years as they received the We’ve got thousands of undergraduates going to CUNY amid the fi nancial crisis that struck New York City in scholarship — or else it becomes debt that must be re- who are homeless.” the mid-1970s. paid. According to the New York Times, only 3,000 to In the recently enacted 2017 New York state budget, “The loss of free tuition really had an impact on 5,000 of CUNY’s 274,000 students will qualify. funding for CUNY’s 11 senior colleges remained es- poor students,” Brier told The Indypendent. “When it For Tobin Nestoiter, 23, a full-time psychology major sentially fl at while CUNY’s seven community colleges was eliminated, CUNY’s numbers dropped. We didn’t at CUNY’s Brooklyn College, the Excelsior Scholarship received a small boost. For Barbara Bowen, president of come back to 250,000 [students] until very, very late could have a modest impact. Depending on his fi nancial the Professional Staff Congress, which represents 27,000 in the 1990s.” aid package each year, Nestoiter — the fi rst-generation CUNY faculty and professional staff, the promise of Despite its myriad fl aws, the Excelsior Scholarship son of Moldovan immigrants — has had to pay up to free tuition cannot be fully realized if public colleges are does mark something of a milestone in the drive to re- $1,500 in tuition expenses per semester, which would be themselves deprived of much-needed resources. store an earlier consensus that public higher education subsidized under the Excelsior Scholarship. “Without adequate state funding, CUNY cannot should be free after decades of increasing austerity. support the smaller classes, expanded faculty men- “We made a commitment as a nation in the post- torship, improved advisement and increased support World War II period that public education would be free MANY OTHER EXPENSES services that are proven to improve graduation rates,” and available to everyone who was interested in pursu- Bowen said. ing it. And we created institutions like city colleges, ju- But like most low-income students, the majority of But the Excelsior Scholarship marks a substantial vic- nior colleges and state colleges,” Brier said. “It was a dif- Nestoiter’s tuition expenses are usually paid for by Pell tory for middle- and upper-middle-class students, says ferent world. And that is the world, I would argue, that and TAP grants, the federal and state fi nancial aid pro- Kevin Stump, the northeast director of Young Invinci- we should go back to.” grams. “The [Excelsior] scholarship wouldn’t really ap- bles, a millennial advocacy group — despite its negative ply to [my] tuition,” says Nestoiter. impact on the 20 percent of SUNY graduates who typi- MIC CHECK!

May 2017 nOW yOU CAn LISTen TO The IndypendenT WhILe yOU’Re COMMUTInG TO WORK, dOInG The dISheS OR pICKLInG FOOd AheAd OF The TRUMpOCALypSe. SpeAKInG OF TRUMp, OUR neW pOdCAST INDYSTRUCTIBLE, IS ChROnICLInG The ReSISTAnCe. THE INDYPENDENT & INDYSTRUCTIBLE ARe On ITUneS & SOUndCLOUd. JOIn US TheRe! The IndypendenT 7 May 2017 2017 May The Indypenden The T 8 neWS In BRIeF

By Indypendent Staff ter movement, gaining access to intimate communications between core protest organizers. The documents were ob- 100 DAYS & tained in April through a Freedom of In- CONFUSED formation Act lawsuit brought by the law fi rm Stecklow & Thompson on behalf of Drama, drama, drama. The apple-bot- Black Lives Matter activist James Logue. tomed playboy with the bushy blond hair NYPD emails describe offi cers posing as entered the Oval Offi ce promising to activists, monitoring the whereabouts build a big beautiful wall and so much of individual protesters and intercepting more. But he arrived at the 100-day private text messages shared between mark of his presidency on April 29 with organizers of demonstrations that took few achievements to his name. place at Grand Central Terminal in 2014 Some impotent missiles were fi red and 2015. at Syria. Trump’s “armada” went the wrong way, accidently averting a nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula. And de- SPECTRUM-TIME spite controlling the executive and legis- WARNER ‘RIPPING lative branches of government, Republi- OFF’ CUSTOMERS, cans couldn’t agree on how to stop the WORKERS infamous Obamacare death panels, let alone lay a brick on the Mexican border. Time Warner Cable — which recently Just about the only thing the new ad- changed its name to Spectrum follow- ministration did manage to accomplish: ing a merger with Charter Communi- ram a humble, pro-life mountain boy cations last year — orchestrated “a de- onto the Supreme Court. Once on the liberate scheme to defraud and mislead bench, Neil Gorsuch promptly cast a New Yorkers,” according to a complaint deciding vote that allowed Arkansas to fi led with the New York Supreme Court execute eight people in 11 days. by state attorney general Eric Schneider- But, 100 days? “It’s an artifi cial bar- man. “The allegations in [this] lawsuit PLEASE rier,” according to Trump. “Not very confi rm what millions of New Yorkers he JOIN US at t meaningful.” Not a single legislative have long suspected — Spectrum-Time proposal in Trump’s “Contract with Warner Cable has been ripping you off,” PEOPLE’S RCH the American Voter” — a “100-day Schneiderman declared. CLIMATE MA action plan to Make America Great Visit ag.ny.gov/speedtest to check if ngton Again” — has been enacted and nine your internet is as fast as your provider in Washi th pril 29 of the 10 proposals have not even been claims and report your fi ndings to the Saturday, A introduced to Congress. attorney general. “We feel very proud of what we’ve Meanwhile, 1,800 of the company’s TRUMP will make matters much worse! been able to accomplish and fulfi ll the fi eld technicians, members of the In- promises that he made to the American ternational Brotherhood of Electrical Trump’s war and climate agenda is a major threat to the future of people,” said Sean Spicer, White House Workers Local 3, remain on strike after our planet, the safety of our communities and the health of our Press Secretary. walking out in March. Charter wants to people. Here’s why— increase employee health care contribu- Ÿ Climate-Denier Trump will give $54 billion more to the US military, tions by $3,000 per year and to stop its the world's biggest polluter.Those billions will be stolen directly from NEW YORK contributions to workers pensions. money for health care, schools, school lunches, meals-on-wheels, and STATE: WATER housing through vicious and cruel cutbacks in the Trump budget. PROTECTORS WIN Ÿ More wars means more refugees—a cycle that endangers world ONE B&H TO SHUT stability and peace. DOWN UNIONIZED Ÿ Trump will slash funds for the EPA and eliminate climate Regulators with New York’s Department WAREHOUSES of Environmental Conservation (DEC) regulations, giving free reign to oil and gas companies to increase denied a water permit to the Northern Amid ongoing contract negotiations profits while polluting our water and air. Access Project on April 7. Environmen- with warehouse workers, the electronics Ÿ Trump incites hatred and fear against Muslims, Jews, refugees, tal attorney Kimberly Ong noted that the mega-store and national online retailer immigrants, LGBT and people of color..and his program will deny a 24-inch pipeline, slated to carry fracked- B&H Photo-Video announced it is mov- woman’s right to to make decisions on health care. gas from Pennsylvania to Canada, would ing its storages facilities from Brooklyn Peace and Justice groups will be marching as a have passed through “192 streams, 600 to New Jersey. United Steelworkers, contingent part of the climate coalition sponsoring this acres of forests and over 17 acres of wet- which represents B&H’s 335 employees, march on Trump’s 100th day in office. lands in the state,” as well as the Catta- fi led a complaint against the company raugus Creek Basin Aquifer — “the sole with the National Labor Relations Board March with the peace & justice contingent to demand— source of drinking water for 20,000 resi- in January for failing to notify the union STOP THE WARS! — SAVE THE PLANET! dents in Cattaraugus, Erie and Wyoming of the move. Multiple Department of La- counties in New York.” bor investigations have highlighted a pat- • Assemble with the PEACE HUB, a part of the climate coalition. tern of routine discrimination at B&H. • PEACE & JUSTICE GROUPS Rally at 11:00 am, Last year, the department accused B&H

May 2017 at Madison Drive and 3rd St NW, Washington DC MAP: bit.ly/peacehub

th NYPD of refusing to hire Black and Asian work- • Work with us after April 29 to continue working on ers and of forcing Hispanic employees to peace & the planet! Write [email protected] INFILTRATED BLACK LIVES use separate bathrooms. BROOKLYN FOR PEACE MATTER brooklynpeace.org Newly disclosed documents reveal the A Proud Part of the People’s Climate Coalition

The IndypendenT NYPD infi ltrated the Black Lives Mat- 9 WAR & EMPIRE

WheRe dId The peACe MOVeMenT GO? COnFROnTInG U.S. MILITARy MAdneSS

By Ethan Young tendency of imperialists to foster war has dwindled fi ght against the Trump regime.

with the failure of successive attempts to head off A recurring problem has been viewing U.S. military GINO BARZIZZA e now live under a regime that sees U.S. invasions with street action and non-electoral policy from a Cold War perspective. The postwar bal- catastrophic war moves as a handy pressure alone. ance of forces was transformed by the collapse of the distraction from its endless fail- Soviet camp and the economic rise of China. The uni- ures. The boundaries between the polar dominance of the United States is in decline, and executive branch, corporations, CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST with few left anti-imperialist forces to look to, moral Wfi nance and the military are fast losing substance. outrage at U.S. interventions has devolved into ‘anti- We stand by in horror as they play chicken with the Another reason for the movement’s decline involves patriotism.’ Viewing every world development as a re- world, from Syria to Russia to North Korea. A mass the move of the center of international crisis to the fl ection of U.S. imperial ambitions makes little sense peace movement is urgently needed but still a long Mideast. Issues of war and peace having to do with to a public plagued with fi nancial insecurity and xe- way away. Why? Israel, the Arab world and the Gulf region have al- nophobia. Clinton and Obama were partly successful There are a number of “common sense” reasons that ways polarized the peace movement. The inherent in using “humanitarian intervention” to justify war have been fl oating around the left for decades. There tensions have debilitated the movement for decades. moves. Bush I, Bush II and now Trump, preferred the is a long-held belief that ending the draft removed the They offer no simple choice of sides to oppose or sup- “Hulk smash” approach — because they can. life-or-death motivation that revived anti-interven- port, just an increasingly complicated and dangerous tionism beyond all expectations during the Vietnam series of quagmires. war. Continued sympathy for the Democratic Party is The tensions have pulled hard among Jewish Amer- MILITARISM IS THE PROBLEM also blamed for the lack of protest over the war moves icans, and among liberals as a sociopolitical sector. of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Jewish activists have always been at the heart of the So the anti-intervention focus has proven ineffectual. However, what is extraordinary about the U.S. peace movement, and its sympathy base has been dis- The problem is less military intervention as a choice, peace movement is not that it receded, but that it proportionately Jewish. than militarism itself. Non-intervention harks back to emerged at all during the 1960s, affecting the na- By and large, progressive-minded Jews are critical George Washington’s opposition to foreign entangle- tional culture and posing lasting problems for both of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies, and ments, and recurred in pre-World War II isolationism dominant parties. This mini-enlightenment marked are wary of the uses of Islamophobia in social control. and the paleoconservatism fi rst teased, then dropped a shift in national consensus from ardently pro-mil- But the stigma for Jewish Americans of being perceived by Trump. Anti-militarism characterized opposition itary to anti-intervention, with elements of pacifi sm as breaking trust with Israel can’t be overlooked. Sup- to World War I, the nuclear disarmament movement and persistent anti-fascism that were defi ning fea- port for Israel as posed by the pro-Netanyahu right and the anti-draft movement. It speaks from the moral tures of the emerging counterculture. The shift was has been hegemonic in Jewish institutions, due to sev- objection to war, and political opposition to the mili- as much moral as political. This was both a strength eral factors. Beyond religion and culture, Jewish soci- tary-industrial complex. (opening hearts and minds) and a weakness (reliance ety is framed by the memory of fascist extermination Peace Action, the biggest peace group, has tried to on mass action without organizing to directly pres- and discrimination, and fear of movements that target popularize transferring funds from war to human ser- sure electeds on the issue). (or are perceived as targeting) Jews as a people. vices. War Resisters League has helped counsel high The reasons for the decline of the movement are The concern that opposing Israel’s role somehow schoolers on why they shouldn’t enlist. Anti-milita- both complicated and concrete. Running for reelec- gives aid and comfort to anti-Semites has directly un- rism is not an easy sell even if working class people are tion in 1972, President Richard Nixon discovered dercut even the most confi rmed doves. Militarists have open to it. It has to be hammered home with electeds that it was possible to avoid political consequences for cynically promoted Islamophobia to justify the ‘world and promoted through electoral campaigns for explic- ignoring mass protests. While a divided peace move- cop’ stance from Pakistan to Western Sahara. The itly pro-peace candidates. ment was able to nominate antiwar candidate George presumption of a permanent war between Islam and The peace movement is where realism about U.S. McGovern, the result was a record-breaking defeat for Israel is widespread, even though Israel and corrupt military madness lives. The movement is the main the Democrats. McGovern’s 22-point rout was seen fundamentalist monarchies such as Saudi Arabia have challenger to nationalism and xenophobia, and the as proof that elections offered no arena for the peace found common cause against the Arab secular left and main force for internationalism in an interconnected movement. It didn’t help that it drove the Democrats other foes. Thus Islamophobia infl uences liberals who world. It abides in the best political instincts in every to swear off appearing “soft on national security.” identify with Israel, while it is most openly promoted other progressive social movement. Restoring it is a After the Indochina war, protest did not end — but by neoconservatives, fundamentalist “Christian Zion- collective responsibility for the entire range of forces it was not the peace movement that brought down ists” and America Firsters. shocked into motion by the 2016 election.

Nixon, or for that matter George H.W. Bush, whose Here the racist logic of Islamophobia has taken root 2017 May 1991 assault on Iraq was momentarily very popular. in a group that would reject it in other situations. The The movement couldn’t end the proxy wars in Central antiwar stance of liberals is compromised by Islamo- America or effectively respond to the conquest of tiny phobia when they view Islam as the biggest threat to

Grenada. It lacked the political organization to check peace. As the failure to move more decisively in elec- IndypendenT The Washington’s war machine. toral politics led to the decline of the peace movement, Public protest, including mass civil disobedience, Islamophobia has led to its stagnation. is essential but not enough. It can’t turn “Vietnam So where to? Rebuilding the peace movement re- syndrome” (anti-intervention sentiment and suspicion quires a change in focus and working out a strategy of the Beltway/Pentagon elite) into a direct threat to based on appealing to existing mass antiwar senti- elected offi cials’ power. The energy to challenge the ments, and posing peace as a political problem in the 10 11 RADICAL IMAGINATIONS

all of these people that were critical of Trump suddenly get be- Do you think it’s going take a social upheaval — maybe not a hind the bombing. Fareed Zakaria of CNN said it was “the day civil war, but some sort of massive change of trajectory — to get Trump became President.” Your book points out how we go into us off of fossil fuels? war with one attitude but then the consequences catch up. We have very few places in our history as a species of dealing THE NEXT AMERICAN Violence never really lies. There’s a straightforward aspect to it. with problems whose worst effects are going to show up many, I’m constantly amazed by just how many otherwise reasonable, many years from now. Progress takes a really long time but you thoughtful people, immediately fall in line when the specter of can move backwards in a second. violence shows up and set aside all of their intellectual and moral When you look at the amount of progress that we’ve had in the issues. Those missiles caused zero change in the wider Syrian con- last two decades on environmental issues, it was really slow and fl ict. Yet all these people are suddenly standing in line cheering. grueling, but we fi nally got to the place of the Paris Accords. You CIVIL WAR fi nally get to that place and then, in a split second, the adminis- Was Donald Trump on your mind when you wrote the novel? tration changes. Suddenly you have a head of the EPA who hates IN HIS CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED NEW NOVEL, OMAR EL AKKAD the EPA. I worry about that very asymmetrical rate of change. No, I started the novel in the summer of 2014 and I fi nished it a couple of weeks before Donald Trump announced he was run- I’ve read that you don’t consider American War realistic in IMAGINES BATTLELINES DRAWN OVER FOSSIL FUELS ning. If you had told me back then that we would be sitting here terms of its timeline. But we do have this mounting problem of today talking about President Donald Trump… climate change.

If he was a fi ctional character he’d be unbelievable. The world of the novel is based on 60 meters of sea level rise. Of course, nobody knows what will happen between now and then, You could never get away with it, not with a single part of this ad- but for now it’s not realistic. Interview by Peter Rugh climate change-induced sea level rise. You would be comfortable ministration. You would get kicked out of any publisher’s offi ce. I did a lot of reporting on climate change and there were two most days in a t-shirt in Alaska, where refugees arrive continu- Even on the minor stuff. I mean that building that his son-in-law things that scared me. The fi rst was the extent to which peo- ’m not a very photogenic person,” Omar El Akkad warned ously seeking shelter from violent weather and the civil war un- apparently got fi nanced by the Chinese, the address is 666 Fifth ple can’t think beyond their 30-year mortgage. And in terms of “ me after we’d fi nished breakfast. I suspected as much look- derway between the North and South. America’s fi rst civil war Avenue. You could never get away with that in a work of fi ction! space, they think within the boundaries of their own property. ing at the photograph of the journalist-turned-author on was fought over slavery and in this novel it is fought over just as The other thing that scares me is that we have no idea how the jacket of his moving and uncannily relevant fi rst novel, intractable and destructive an economic staple: fossil fuel. El Ak- What do you make of the supposed Red State/Blue State divide much worse climate change could be than what our current mod- American War. kad, might not be photogenic, but he has written a book that cap- in America today? In American War, the North and the South els project. Louisiana loses a football fi eld worth of land every IRightly or wrongly, we tend to want authors to give us some- tures the multiple crises humans today face with crystal clarity. are literally two different countries. hour. That’s probably the biggest climate disaster in the United thing more of themselves, ungraspable in words, in their pho- States today, and we’re not doing a damn thing about it. tographs — eyes and teeth that suggest expansive existential PETER RUGH: Why did you write this story? The novel is a rejection of the Us-versus-Them binary that we’ve realms. But El Akkad perpetually bears the gaze of a person at had to live with for the past 17 years. When you look at a granu- Do you feel like the novel helps to clarify that for people? once wincing down the barrel and peering through distant mist OMAR EL AKKAD: All fi ction, to a certain extent, has to do lar level, confl icts are much more complex. at some tumultuous nexus point of human struggle, violence and with an obsession of sorts, with problems that have no straight- I think that you’re in a very dangerous place anytime you need anguish — the likes of which we can only interpret through his forward resolution. I’d spent years thinking about suffering, re- Race is in the background in American War. That would seem fi ction to make things real for you, anytime novelists are being fi ction. That is to say, photographing him requires talents beyond venge and the ways these things can fundamentally transform a odd in a novel set in the present-day South. asked to provide answers. my skillset. (Hence the illustration accompanying this article.) human being, so I started writing. A few months into that pro- American War is both a story of possible futures and of the cess, I began to see a world take shape, so I inhabited it. Lots of people have said, “I fi nd it unbelievable that race You don’t believe that fi ction can change people’s minds? present. “El Akkad has fashioned a surprisingly powerful novel wouldn’t be a bigger factor in this kind of situation.” They are — one that creates as haunting a post-apocalyptic universe as How did it come about in your mind? absolutely right. The most dangerous people on earth right now — or maybe it’s Cormac McCarthy did in The Road, and as devastating a look Race is there by analogy. It’s there in the way that fuel is repre- always been this way — are people who can’t differentiate be- at the fallout that national events have on an American family as It started with the idea that there is no foreign kind of suffering. sented in the book. I knew that if I were to tackle race as a direct tween truth and what they’d like the truth to be. Someone who Philip Roth did in The Plot Against America,” wrote Michiko The assumption that the way someone in Iraq or Afghanistan topic I would need to devote the entire book to it. Race in Amer- is readily willing to change their mind can be counted on to ac- Kakutani in his review for the New York Times. or anywhere in the world reacts to being on the receiving end ica is not something that you tackle with glancing blows. Race is cept the better argument. That’s not a person you have to worry Yet, there is nothing that occurs in El Akkad’s novel that is of warfare is fundamentally different from how you or I would part of two founding moments that America really needs to come about. That’s a person we should all hope to be. But someone not happening on the globe right now — indiscriminate drone react in this part of the world is plainly false. When I started writ- to terms with; one being a genocidal population displacement, who thinks that changing their mind is a form of weakness is strikes, mass exoduses of climate refugees, perpetual civil war. ing American War, I was interested in recasting all the confl icts the other thing being the enslavement of an entire people based probably going to be unchanged by this book or by anything. We do not need to look 60 years ahead of ourselves to the era in that have defi ned the world in my lifetime as elements of some- on the color of their skin. which American War takes place to witness El Akkad’s vision. thing very close to home. The idea was to explore the notion that, The way I treated race in this story was through the idea of The far fringe of the Republican Party is famous for playing fast Egyptian-born, Qatar-raised, a Canadian-citizen living in the if all these faraway things happened not so far away, the results fuel, which came from the idea that in this country, for a very and loose with the truth. United States — El Akkad’s is a background that spells outsider, might not be so different. long time, that’s what minorities were treated as — they were compounded by his years working as a globe-trotting reporter treated as fuel. There are some who say, “They were treated You have an entire party that is more concerned with being on for the Toronto Globe and Mail. He takes the scenes he saw and It seemed that you were thinking about this idea of family in as property.” No, people like their property, people treat their the right side of power than the right side of the issues. That’s a the people he met covering the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Guan- American War, where we draw the line of who’s on our side and property pretty well. They were used as fuel for a giant com- very dangerous thing to have in a ruling party. Certainly, the part tanamo Bay, poverty in Las Vegas and global climate change — who’s not. mercial machine that created more wealth than any commercial of the world where I grew up provides plenty of evidence of what phenomena Americans either tend to overlook or think of as far machine in human history. that looks like. away and abstract — and places them in a future context cen- When you fi rst meet Sarat at the beginning of the book, her circle Now, I’m working on another story, which is plainly con- tered on North America. of trust is the entire world because all she knows of the world is cerned with the way the color of your skin or the accent with Why is dystopia so prevalent in the popular culture these days? American readers will likely fi nish the novel with a Lacanian that house by the Mississippi Sea, her family and a neighbor or which you speak or your ethnicity defi nes you. That’s the entirety sense of the real as Slavoj Žižek has described it: the inescapable two. She trusts the entirety of the world as family. As you prog- of the book. I think it has to do with anxiety. When things are going well reality beneath our country’s exceptionalist subterfuge. A broad- ress through the book that circle closes and closes, until the only — when peace prevails and the economy is humming and the er reading sees American War as an international story of how thing she really trusts is her sense of revenge. Nothing else. It I really appreciated the analogy between fossil fuels and slavery political landscape is stable — there’s a natural complacency that anyone of us, subjected to enough injustice, can be transformed doesn’t close because of her own volition, it closes because of the in American War. sets in, a tendency to assume nothing will change. But in the op- into one of the terrorists we see on the news. Unlike George things that are done to her that force her inward, that force her to posite climate, change is all anyone can think about. That makes Orwell’s 1984 — in which the concerted power of a totalitar- trust fewer and fewer people. I knew I wouldn’t fi nd anything that met the level of basic human times of great negative upheaval a fertile ground for dystopians, ian state triumphs over love, the strongest and most revered of cruelty that the fi rst Civil War was caused by. But many decades because dystopians are concerned chiefl y with the grotesque ex-

‘FOR A VERY 2017 May human emotions — arbitrary violence manifested through war People often say, “power corrupts.” But we don’t often talk from now, when we’ve moved on to more effi cient sources of fuel, trapolation of all that is wrong with the present. eviscerates innocence in American War, a drama we see play out about happens when we lack power. it’s going to be very easy for somebody to stand up and say, “I within the novel’s heroine, Sarat Chestnut. LONG TIME, can’t believe they didn’t understand how bad it was. If it was me Can we turn back from dystopia, or is it our inevitable fate? “Almost, everything in the book exists as a form of anal- It’s about agency to me, it’s a sense about a basic human need back then, I would have stood up and said something.”

May 2017 LYNN FOSTER THE INDYPENDENT THE ogy,” Omar told me, in between bites of home fries at the to have some say over the things we do and the things that are In fact, that’s probably not the case. We’re not just talking There’s more good people in this world than bad, more kindness exceedingly pretentious Midtown French restaurant where we done to us. Sarat slowly loses agency and has to fi nd it by some MINORITIES about a moral failing of a small group. We’re talking about the than cruelty. I don’t think the chief purpose of dystopic books met at his publicist’s suggestion. other means. Inevitably, that turns into violence, the most im- fuel that powers one of the biggest commercial empires in the is to describe the inevitable. The beating heart of any book isn’t We could not have had such a leisurely conversation in Ameri- mediate form of agency, the most direct way to fi nd out that WERE TREATED world. And if you aren’t affected directly by it — it is very easy concerned with prophecy, it’s concerned with empathy. can War’s setting. Vast-expanses and whole populations of the you’ve done something. for you to just turn your head and benefi t from the fruits of this United States have succumbed to poisonous chemical weapon thing. That seemed like a workable analogy.

THE INDYPENDENT attacks. Larger regions still are submerged underwater due to It was kind of amazing when Trump bombed Syria, watching AS FUEL’ 12 WHERE WE STAND

FIGhTInG CLIMATe ChAnGe In The AGe OF TRUMp

By Brian Tokar outcome with an impressive showing of skepticism and quences of an increasingly unstable climate wreak havoc foresight. Thousands of people fi lled the streets of Paris on communities around the world. Scientists now agree the

ust over a year ago, diplomats from around the itself, declaring that the U.N. conference had fallen far atmosphere has a fi nite and ever-shrinking “carbon bud- GABRIELLA SZPUNT world were celebrating the fi nal ratifi cation of the short of what is needed, and parallel demonstrations get.” If we exceed this maximum in accumulated carbon December 2016 Paris Agreement, proclaimed to be voiced similar messages around the world. Last spring, a emissions since the dawn of the fossil fuel age, it could be- the fi rst globally inclusive step toward a meaning- series of worldwide “Break Free from Fossil Fuels” events come physically impossible to restabilize the climate before Jful climate solution. The agreement was praised temporarily shut down major sites of fossil fuel extraction many thousands of years have passed. Long before then, as one of President Obama’s signature accomplishments and transport on every continent, including major actions the atmospheric conditions necessary to sustain complex and as a triumph of his “soft power” approach to world against oil transport by rail in the northeastern and north- life on earth, much less a moderately stable human civiliza- affairs. But even then, long before Donald Trump and western United States, a massive convergence to shut down tion, could be lost forever. We need to dismantle the fossil his coterie of plutocrats and neofascists rose to power Germany’s most polluting coal mine and a boat blockade fuel economy in just a few short years, reducing consump- pledging to withdraw from the agreement, there were of Australia’s biggest coal port. Last fall and winter, the tion every year for the foreseeable future. Thus the Trump far more questions than answers. encampment at Standing Rock in North Dakota brought agenda is not just a temporary setback, but an existential First, recall that the Paris Agreement was based entirely together the most inspiring alliance of indigenous com- threat to our survival. The New York Times opinion page on countries voluntarily submitting plans outlining their munities and allies we have seen yet and encampments in- editors were not exaggerating when they headlined a re- proposed “contributions” to a climate solution. This was spired by Standing Rock have since emerged at the sites of a cent series of environmental case studies from around the the outcome of Obama and Hillary Clinton’s interventions handful of major pipeline projects across the United States. world, “The Planet Can’t Stand This Presidency.” at the ill-fated 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, where Midwestern activists are responding with renewed deter- We also know that past administrations, and govern- the U.S. delegation made it clear that it would never agree mination to challenge the Trump administration’s move to ments around the world, have thoroughly failed to imple- to mandatory, legally binding limits on global warming resurrect the dreaded Keystone XL pipeline, which would ment a proactive climate agenda. Obama’s “all of the pollution. While most global South representatives at suc- transport toxic, high-carbon tar sands oil from Canada to above” energy policy, embracing renewables and energy cessive U.N. summits sought to preserve that central aspect the Gulf of Mexico. effi ciency while simultaneously expanding fracking and of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, rich countries united during It remains to be seen how much the current administra- offshore oil drilling, was a disaster for the planet as well. the years between Copenhagen and Paris behind the no- tion’s excesses will curtail longer-range climate progress. A capitalist system that demands unlimited growth — and tion that climate measures should be strictly voluntary. Obama’s Clean Power Plan is Secondly, the Paris Agreement contained no means of clearly on the chopping block, enforcement whatsoever. While the text was abundant but independent estimates have NOT JUST A TEMPORARY with words like “clarity,” “transparency,” “integrity,” suggested for some time that this “consistency,” and “ambition,” there’s literally nothing represented (at best) only an in- to assure that such aspirations can be realized. The only cremental step beyond business SETBACK, BUT AN offi cial body focused on implementation and compliance as usual. The more internation- is mandated to be “transparent, non-adversarial and non- alist voices in the Trump admin- EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO punitive.” Countries are urged to renew their proposals istration want the United States every few years, with a stated hope that the various “Na- to remain a party to the Paris tionally-Determined Contributions” to climate mitigation Agreement, hoping that it can be OUR SURVIVAL. will become stronger over time. But if a President Trump weakened even further to benefi t or a potential President Le Pen chooses to do the opposite, global fossil fuel interests. constantly holds our jobs and economic well-being hos- there’s nothing but vague diplomatic peer pressure stand- Meanwhile, techno-optimists like Bill Gates and Mi- tage to that overarching goal — would likely respond to ing in the way. chael Bloomberg argue that the economic benefi ts of decreasing consumption of resources with all the fury of an Third, the various plans submitted prior to Paris fell far continued renewable energy development are compelling economic depression, shifting the worst impacts onto the short of what is needed to prevent catastrophic destabiliza- enough to keep their expansion on track for the next sev- most vulnerable people while bailing out the wealthy and tion of the earth’s climate systems. Numerous assessments eral years. In many locations, renewable installations are powerful. This only reinforces what climate justice activ- of the plans that countries brought to Paris suggested an already far more cost effective than fossil fuel plants, and a ists have been saying for some time now: that campaigns outcome approaching 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3°F) of warm- new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists reveals for climate action can only succeed as part of a holistic ing above pre-industrial levels by 2100, far short of the that fi ve U.S. states now rely on renewable resources (in- and fully intersectional liberation movement. We need to stated goal of a maximum of 2 degrees, much less the as- cluding big hydroelectric dams) for more than 65 percent challenge all the institutions that blame our problems on pirational goal of only 1.5 degrees that was demanded by of their in-state energy production. Employment in solar immigrants and poor people while simultaneously threat- delegates from Africa and small island nations. We know, and wind energy is fast approaching 10 times the num- ening planetary survival. We need to challenge all forms of however, that at the current level of just over 1 degree Cel- ber of coal jobs in the United States, and nearly 2 million oppression, create genuinely sustainable and regenerative sius (1.8°F) in average temperature rise, we are experienc- people are reportedly employed in energy conservation and alternatives, and act boldly upon our understanding that ing uniquely unstable weather, Arctic ice is disappearing effi ciency. Low oil prices have driven a rapid decline in the the planet can no longer stand this economic system. May 2017

and catastrophic storms, wildfi res, droughts and fl oods are most extreme forms of fossil fuel extraction, though in- disproportionately impacting the world’s most vulnerable creased automation in conventional oil and gas drilling has Briant Tokar is the author of Toward Climate Justice: Per- people. Two degrees is very far from a “safe” level of aver- greatly enhanced the profi tability of many such operations. spectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change (New age warming; it is far more likely to be the 50-50 point Meanwhile, numerous state and local climate initiatives Compass Press, 2014). Links to his other writings can be at which the climate may or may not rapidly shift into a are continuing to partly offset the long legacy of climate found online at social-ecology.org. thoroughly chaotic and unpredictable state. inaction — and now overt sabotage — at the federal level.

The IndypendenT The global climate movement responded to the Paris But small measures are no longer enough, as the conse- 13 UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

SCIenCe On The MARCh

Interviews & Photos by Peter Rugh girls and hoping that the funding will stay with us. n his budget blueprint, released My message to Trump is stick with the in March, Donald Trump called facts. We’re looking out for our commu- for drastic cuts to scientifi c re- nity. Climate change is something that search. Federal funds for health, affects everybody everywhere, especially environmental and technologi- here in the Lower East Side. Ical research would have been drasti- cally slashed. One example: An Energy MS. GORDON — Lab Technician Department program that has provided We have to make science intersectional. $1.5 billion in grants for renewable en- Trump has placed travel bans on countries ergy development since 2009 would get where a lot of scientists and doctors are the ax if the president had his way, along coming from. You can’t ignore that kind with a $900 million slice of the depart- of discrimination, that kind of racism. I ment’s Offi ce of Science. think that you have to pay attention to the Many of the most arbitrary cuts have sources of funding, and where that fund- proven to be deeply unpopular (Republi- ing is going. cans get cancer too) and may not survive If we had more respect for the truth congressional budget negotiations that in this current administration, the pol- will take place later this year. Yet Trump’s icy making we would be a lot better off. budget blueprint was a loud declaration Trump has no concern, no regard for the of the president’s priorities, which clearly truth. He is not interested in it. He needs privilege militarism over knowledge. to make sure he’s paying attention to all In response, hundreds of thousands the movements under way right now, to the of people took to the streets around the fact that there are so many people rising up world for the global March for Science against him. That means something. on Earth Day, April 22. The Indy spoke with some of the scientists who partici- JESUS TORRES VAZQUEZ — pated in New York. Here is a sample of Associate Professor, Department of what they had to say. Cell Biology, NYU Skirball Institute I study blood vessel development in ze- CATHY MARION AND MELISSA brafi sh. My research and the research of FOSTER — Environmental many people who are marching now is Contamination Experts done to understand how nature works. We want to send a message to the admin- That knowledge has lots of applications. I design the Indy. istration that we don’t like what they’re It’s very important to fund science be- I design for change. doing in terms of budget cuts and cutting cause science gives us knowledge that al- I can design for you. funding for science research. It is impor- lows us to lead better lives. If we don’t tant to keep science progressing. Science monitor our environment, we cannot brings us everything from clean drinking know what is harming it. I encourage water to safe environments to vaccines the President and his cabinet to listen to and healthy animal populations. Science scientists and make decisions based on is what keeps us safe and healthy. evidence. We are defi nitely worried about climate As scientists, we have to get more in- change. It’s one of the biggest issues facing volved in understanding how decisions are the earth as a whole right now. made in the government and what is being All we can do is keep making our voices taught at our schools. Everybody should heard, come out en masse, march and con- learn how to think for himself or herself tact our representatives to let them know and make decisions based on evidence. we don’t like the direction the Trump ad- I would like to encourage more scien- ministration is taking. tists to go to schools and talk about what There is a movement for scientists to be- they do and the challenges they face; ex- come more involved politically. We have plain why their research is useful. If more certain restrictions on political activity, people know how fascinating science is, but we have no restrictions on what we do people would value it more. in our personal time. A very high percent- age of the people that we work with are becoming politically engaged.

ERICA JAMES — Lower East Side 2017 May Girls Club The Lower East Side Girls Club has a huge science and STEM (science, tech- nology, engineering and math) program. IndypendenT The We’re teaching our girls about careers in science and technology, giving them the

skills to change the world. We’re worried ALL PHOTOS PETER RUGH that cuts to science will jeopardize those careers. That’s why we’re out here march-

ing. We’re celebrating science, celebrating M T   .@ . . /  .   .  . / 14 MOVEMENT STRATEGY

ThIS COUnTRy IS Up FOR GRABS TIMe FOR The LeFT TO eMBRACe A OnCe-In-A-LIFeTIMe OppORTUnITy

By Yotam Marom levers of power. It is our chance to reject both Trump’s white economic nationalism and the corporate Democrats’ multi- cultural neoliberalism, to bring to life a new kind of politic CHALLENGE that combines racial, gender and economic justice to unite the majority of the population against the elites. It is an opportu- It’s the morning of Feb 3, 2017. I’m at my desk at home, in nity to fi nally translate our proven ability to shift the national Brooklyn, sunlight creeping through the blinds on the win- discourse into real power. dow to my left. I’m hovering between work emails and Face- This crisis is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the left to book, following the rabbit hole of the Bodega Strike, in which lead. The big question is whether we will be willing to do so. thousands of bodega owners and workers from across New York City — most of them Yemeni and Muslim — have gone on strike and gathered at Brooklyn’s Borough Hall to pro- AMBIVALENCE test President Trump’s Muslim ban. The images show a sea of brown people waving American fl ags. I watch the videos, All of these possibilities fl y through my mind as I think about and the deafening chants of “USA! USA!” vibrate through the bodega strikers. I take a deep breath, open my laptop my speakers. again and stare my ambivalence straight in the face. The fl ags blind me, transport me back to 2004, when I was In order to do what this moment calls on us to do, we will a senior in high school. The United States had recently paid have to identify with this place and its mythology. We have to for a coup to overthrow a democratically elected government say that this place belongs to us instead of them. in Haiti. Before that, Afghanistan and Iraq, the Patriot Act But everything I know here stands on land stolen from and extraordinary rendition. And the fl ags. I remember the people who were murdered for its theft, was built with la- fl ags, laying claim to every crack and crevice of public life bor extracted from people brought there in chains, was taken — hanging from cranes, billowing from lampposts, draped from around the world at gunpoint. It is a huge risk to be over doorways, fl ashing across my television screen. I decided popular, to enter into struggle over the whole of this country, then, in the face of all those fl ags and the immense loss of life knowing that so many populist movements before ours ended they seemed to accompany, that I didn’t want to be a part of up watering down their politics to accommodate the ruling this thing they called America. If America was genocide and class, selling out their grand visions of tomorrow for partial slavery and empire, then it was never ours to begin with. gains of the day or abandoning those most oppressed at the I stopped paying attention to electoral politics, stopped fi nish line. It feels dangerous to grow — to welcome into our thinking of the state as an avenue for change. I stopped think- movements the many people who are becoming politicized in ing about scale as a factor in political organizing, stopped these times — knowing that the greater pains and burdens talking politics with people who aren’t in the movement, of entering into the delicate and never-ending experiment of stopped reading the news. I joined a left that every day drifted solidarity will fall on those already most impacted by the sys- further and further away from building political power, from tem. It’s frightening to have the kind of hope a struggle like attempting to win over the public, from working-class peo- this demands. Where there is hope, there is often heartbreak. ple, and deeper into a bubble of its own. Instead, we built our But we can embrace the malleability of America and con- own organizations, our own publications, our own spaces. test our enemy’s hegemony over the story of this place while We had big dreams but those dreams remained our little telling the truth about its brutal history and present. We can

secret, tucked safely out of sight from the rest of the world. care about this country and this land and its peoples, while SCOTT LYNCH The rest of the world was out of our sights too. honoring those who lived here before us. We can see nation- FEM-POPULISM: Now, as I scroll through the images at Borough Hall, I hood not as a barrier to internationalism, but a stepping- Millions of Americans wonder how these people, of all people, can fi nd ownership, stone towards it. We can join with the growing majority of marched for women’s rights belonging and even love in a place like this. Perhaps this is people standing in opposition to Trump. We can do it while the day after Donald Trump what they think they have to do survive. Or maybe they really still going on the offensive against all of his enablers — the was sworn into offi ce. do love this place, despite the contempt its leaders have shown Republican Party he represents, the huge corporate interests them. Or perhaps they want to love it, and their fl ag-waving he has installed in government and the Democratic Party es- is not a celebration of the vision of the founding fathers but a tablishment whose marriage to Wall Street helped create the WE BELONG: Members calling into existence of a dream not yet born. Maybe it is just conditions for this in the fi rst place. of New York’s Yemeni better here than the place they left behind. We can be popular and speak in a language that the public community rally outside Maybe they can see that this country is up for grabs. understands, while bringing a critique of capitalism, white su- Brooklyn’s Borough Hall on premacy and patriarchy into the mainstream, while holding Feb. 2 to protest the Trump up a vision for the world we can have if we fi ght for it, while administration’s Muslim POSSIBILITY saying words like single-payer health care and universal ba- travel ban. sic income, even reparations and socialism. We can grow our The system is unstable and that instability will likely increase. movements dramatically, invest deeply in the transformation For Trump, a deepening crisis is an opportunity to barrel of the millions of people looking for a political home in this forward as planned; after all, crisis has always been part of moment, and build deeply across race, class, gender and sexu- his narrative. He will blame it on his political enemies and ality, while still demanding more from each other — while communities already under attack and use it to expand his practicing solidarity and accountability with the wisdom to agenda. The rest of the Republican Party, the defense indus- know that we will fail and try again and fail better if we keep try and much of the business class will likely go along, until trying. We can enter powerfully into electoral politics, build they think the ship is actually sinking. White nationalists and grassroots political power, take over every potential vehicle other far-right wingers will use it as an opportunity to keep for change available to us, while still insisting that movements pulling the whole political map in their direction; they now are what really drive social change, that nothing can replace have Bannon in the White House to help them do it. For es- the hard organizing it takes to bring people together to liber- May 2017

tablishment Democrats — as well as the Republicans who de- ate themselves, that meaningful change demands powerful fect — the crisis will provide the opportunity to name Trump and uncompromising civil disobedience that removes our as the problem, while preserving business as usual. consent from the institutions that cause harm. We can have But this crisis is an opportunity for the left too. It’s an op- hope, while still leaving room for the inevitable heartbreaks portunity to grow, become popular, build visionary organi- we will experience on the way. zations and multi-issue movements that go on the offensive. Arundhati Roy writes: “To call someone anti-American,

The IndypendenT It is an opportunity to take the streets, and to take over real indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it’s a failure of 15

the imagination.” In 2004, when this country suffocated us with its fl ags, they called us anti- American. In our defi ance, we agreed. They can have their fucking America, we told ourselves. As I think back now on my past retreat from this coun-

try and its dreams, I know that it was built, in part, on righteous anger, CODY WILLIAMS principled rejection and a grounded read of history. But I know, too, that beneath those things was also a secret helplessness, an arrogance covering up shame, an unwillingness to step outside the comfort of my leftist bubble, a paralyzing fear of my smallness in the shadow of a towering enemy. Now, years later, I know to call this tendency the politics of powerlessness, and it suddenly hits me that, so often, instead of fi ghting over this place and its future, we let our enemy have it. In the end, only a genuinely liberatory popular movement can defeat Trump and the right-wing populist tidal wave he rode in on. Only a truly left populist movement can ensure that this regime not only falls, but also takes the entire Republican Party and the establishment Democrats along with it, while opening up space for the world we all deserve. In order for the left to provide the leadership that is required, we will have to learn to say this coun- bluestockings try’s name out loud. We will have to open ourselves up to the vast potential radical bookstore | activist center | fair trade cafe 172 ALLEN ST • 212-777-6028 stored in this place and its people, to take responsibility for it. Ultimately, we bluestockings.com will have to do a better job imagining, and tell a story about America that gives meaning and a sense of belonging to the millions of people who are ready to fi ght for the bigger, better, bolder dreams that are at the tips of our fi ngers. We will have to say this place belongs to us as much as anyone else.

REIMAGINING

America — both its past and its future — is a story that can be written a thousand different ways, and our opponents know this. That is why fascists and would-be dictators, wealthy oligarchs and Wall Street politicians alike, MON MAY 8 • 7–9:30PM always claim to speak for the whole — for that great, big America. They READING: In her new book, American wrap themselves in the fl ag, project a vision for the future of this entire Law and the Risks to Children’s Health, country and call up people’s greatest fears and deepest dreams. The country Linda C. Fentiman reveals how criticism they describe is not for most of us. But they say they will make it great, great is disproportionately assigned to pregnant again, and that promise fl oats up into the air and captures imaginations, en- women and mothers when something capsulates real pain and longing, speaks into existence that grand possibility bad happens to their children. for which people are willing to do the most beautiful and heinous things. To cede the simple truth of this nation’s possibility to our enemy is a mas- MON MAY 15 • 7–9:30PM sive shirking of responsibility. It relegates us to the margins of political life, AUTHOR TALK: Andrew Fisher takes a which, in turn, dooms the people we love, the planet we live on and the val- critical look at the business of hunger ues we cherish. Just because we fail to show up to the battlefi eld that doesn’t and offers a new vision for the anti- mean the war is not going to take place, only that we’ve surrendered before hunger movement with his new book, Big it has even begun. Hunger. America is the Trail of Tears and chattel slavery, the Ludlow Massacre THU MAY 25 • 7–9:30PM and Jim Crow, Hiroshima and bloody interventions around the world. But OPEN MIC: A women’s and transfolks’ it is also slave rebellions and the women’s suffrage movement, the Flint sit- poetry jam and open mic hosted by down strike and the occupation at Wounded Knee, the Stonewall Riot and Vittoria Repetto — the hardest working the uprising at Attica. It is Occupy Wall Street and the Movement for Black guinea butch dyke poet on the Lower Lives, the immigrant justice movement and the uprising at Standing Rock, Co-founded by Michael Ratner East Side. Come out and deliver your 2017 May the Bernie wave and the climate movement. America is working-class, indig- (1943-2016) President, Center for poetry, prose, songs and spoken word. enous, Muslim and queer. It is undocumented, Black, Sikh and trans. It is Constitutional Rights; and hosted by the 99 percent, women and immigrants. It is all of us. movement lawyers Heidi Boghosian, Perhaps we are not the America they planned for, but we are, as much as Executive Director, A. J. Muste IndypendenT The anything else, the America that could be. Memorial Institute; and Michael Steven Smith, New York City A longer version of this article originally appeared at medium.com. attorney and author. 16 BOOKS MUSIC

FIndInG SeedS OF The FUTURe In A hIp-hOp OpeRA The pReSenT FROM A SCIOn tries; although it costs little Four Futures: Life After Capitalism or nothing to make each in- By Peter Frase dividual unit, profi t-maxi- OF BLACK LIVeS Verso 2016 mizing companies jealously guard their “intellectual property.” (Economists use MATTeR caution: “It was always me

By Matt Wasserman the term “rent” to describe versus the world / Until I CHARLYNE ALEXIS the money that accrues to DAMN. found it’s me versus me.” t’s hard to focus on the far-off people just for owning inherently fi - By Kendrick Lamar Maybe to change the world future when the present looks nite resources, such as land or oil, as Top Dawg/Aftermath/Interscope, 2017 around you, you need to like the second term of the old opposed to the money that is made start with yourself. slogan “socialism or barba- through labor — yours or some- It is Lamar’s mix of intro- rism” has come true. But no one else’s.) The rise in importance By Brady O’Callahan spection with political con- matterI who was elected in Novem- of non-material forms of economic sciousness that has led many ber, the underlying structural issues production could mean the promise he world’s a mess and fans to consider him a voice for would largely remain the same: the of great abundance for all, in one we’re all looking for an- real people. Throughout DAMN., seas are rising, the other animals are possible future, but present legal and swers. We’re all looking he relates how some consider him dying and the robots are coming for political systems make it instead the for someone to inspire “anointed” and plead for him to our jobs. source of great profi ts, accumulating us, someone to blame. guide and pray for them. In the video Although a slight book, Peter mostly to the benefi t of holders of TWhere does change start? Where for “HUMBLE.,” he appears embla- Frase’s Four Futures is an ambitious copyrights and patents. Ask Google did it all go wrong? Most of us look zoned with a tongue of fi re, a Bibli- attempt to grapple with what cli- — or Aaron Swartz — if information to the political landscape, religion, cal image which signifi es the guiding mate change and automation mean wants to be free. the media. Kendrick Lamar looks presence of the Holy Spirit, granting for left politics. Its foundational Four Futures is not intended to be within. He’s been a protégé of Dr. the apostles the ability to speak in premise is that what the Frankfurt an exercise in crystal ball gazing or Dre, Compton’s torch-bearer, and languages previously unknown in School optimistically calls “late determinism. Instead, Frase places put out rallying cries for the Black order to spread the good word to all capitalism” is not going to survive contingency and politics at the heart Lives Matter movement. Now, with peoples. He embraces this role and forever and we can’t return to the of his vision. He is resolute that what DAMN., he struggles with the re- intends to reach those who might not social democracy of the 20th cen- the future looks like and how we get sponsibility of being the savior, the want to hear him. tury. We can only go forward — or there is a question to be decided by anointed one, the answer. Of course, such responsibility can backwards — into the unknown. our collective action(s). But orienting The album begins with a man out also be thankless, opening you up The title refers to his attempt ourselves against the horizon can be to lend a helping hand who is killed to personal attacks, pain and frus- to schematize four possible fu- a way of fi guring out which direction for his selfl essness. If that sounds tration. Lamar has gotten a lot of ture worlds, plotted on the axes of we want to walk. Speculating about intense, good. Lamar has a fl air for heat for his portrayal of police bru- abundance vs. scarcity and equal- potential futures allows us to see the fervor, and it’s on full display here. tality in his music, videos and per- ity vs. inequality: possibilities of the present and ar- Where To Pimp a Butterfl y posi- formances, mostly from tone-deaf tioned him as a voice among voices, talking heads like Fox News’ Ger- Abundance Scarcity navigating through a jazzy expanse, aldo Rivera (whose condemnation Equality Communism Socialism DAMN. places his voice at the fore- of Lamar’s lyrics is sampled directly front over clean, simpler beats that on “DNA.”). We ask a lot of him, Hierarchy Rentism Exterminism set the tone but don’t steal the show. but he admits, “Ain’t nobody pray- Over the course of its 14 tracks, he’s in’ for me.” To attempt to fi gure out what each ticulate goals beyond just reacting funny, angry, fl awed, bold, but al- DAMN. is a monument, a chron- would look like he draws on sci- to the daily deluge of new outrages ways unabashedly himself. The al- icle of the role of the artist and the ence fi ction as much as social theo- under Trump. bum artwork is stark, focusing on self in a world standing on the edge ry. Move over, Marx, Foucault and Although it occasionally reads Lamar, head slightly bowed, stand- of collapse. Kendrick Lamar is at his Spivak; Frase is more interested in a bit like a left-wing book report, ing in front of a brick wall in a plain absolute best here. discussing “Star Trek,” the graphic Four Futures is a surprisingly enter- white T-shirt. He seems weathered, novel Transmetropolitan or the nov- taining counterweight to the dysto- exhausted, but defi ant and, more im- els of Kim Stanley Robinson. pian reality of our present. Marx portant, still standing. Crucial to Frase’s project is that famously fulminated against trying Lamar has seen his fair share of elements of each potential future to sketch out visions of future uto- battles, too. “FEAR.” hurls warn- are already present, just unequally pias, but Frase convinced me that he ing upon warning from the perspec- distributed. His simplifi ed “ideal- needed to lighten up and read some tive of his mother (“I beat yo’ ass, types” are meant to depict the pos- speculative fi ction. keep talkin’ back”) as she tries to May 2017

sibilities immanent in the present, instill in her son the skills he’ll need amplifi ed and played out to their to survive as a young black man in logical conclusion. America (“I’ll prolly die anonymous We see elements of “rentism,” for / I’ll prolly die with promises.”) On example, in the legal sparring over “DUCKWORTH.,” however, he ac- the generic production of life-saving knowledges that it’s not just these

The IndypendenT anti-retroviral drugs by poor coun- outside forces he must handle with 17 FILM

The WOMAn WhO SAVed neW yORK

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City Directed by Matt Tyrnauer lays out the opposing ide- Moses’ concepts. She started with very scale ideal are afford-

Sundance Selects, 2017 ologies and personalities simple questions: How do people use able only to the rich? CIVIC LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 92 min, NR that came into confl ict the city? What makes a neighborhood Will the problems of in- WARRIOR: during this period, using safe? Who should get to decide how equality and bad urban Jane Jacobs, clear and concrete stories cities are planned? Her answers turned planning be solved by a author of The Death By Mark Read to trace the history and the prevailing norms on their head, and more enlightened mana- and Life of Great development of abstract directly challenged the power of elites gerial class, a benevo- American Cities. o, a fi lm producer walks and complicated ideas. He brilliantly with the very radical and simple propo- lent cabal of well-heeled into a theater and asks the uses one simple anecdote to sum up the sition that we ought to expect and de- architects that merely offers better de- audience if they have any modernist school’s vision of a city fi lled mand democratic rule. sign? More community input? questions. The only prob- with massive blocks and towers of steel The fi lm, however, doesn’t even City residents trying to sustain their lem is that the movie hasn’t and glass: Le Corbusier, the French ar- raise the subject of how democracy is communities face problems of power Sstarted yet. chitect who was its most infl uential fi g- circumscribed by the concentration and resources, not merely design. As This isn’t a joke. Robert Hammond, ure, had an epiphany as he was fl ying of wealth and power in the hands of cities embrace public-private partner- the producer of Jane Jacobs: Battle for above Paris. From that height, he could the few. It presents the tragedy of the ships to fund the basic upkeep of parks the City and a founder of the High see all the apparent chaos and disor- Cross-Bronx Expressway and the vic- — what should be the very defi nition Line elevated park in Chelsea, said he’d der of the city streets and envisioned a tory against the Lower Manhattan Ex- of the commons — we cede control to gotten confused about the time of the symmetrical, sensible ordering of them, pressway as simple David vs. Goliath elites. Design won’t fi x this. The High fi lm’s screening. He didn’t stick around like a painter imagining beautiful de- stories, bemoaning that Goliath won Line is beautifully designed, but who to answer questions later. signs to inscribe upon a canvas. the fi rst and celebrating that David truly owns it if it’s 95 percent funded There is still much to learn from the Robert Moses, who ruled virtually won the second. East Tremont was a by private individuals? One reason it pioneering and visionary work of Jane all public-works projects and major working-class neighborhood, heavily was built, after all, was to stimulate Jacobs. Her seminal book, The Death private developments in New York City Jewish with a small but growing black luxury housing on the far West Side. and Life of Great American Cities, from the 1930s to the 1960s, followed and Latino population. Its denizens Developments like Atlantic Yards are published in 1961, almost singlehand- this philosophy. The fi lm shows archi- didn’t have the social capital and po- imposed from above as though Jane edly undermined the modernist, one- val footage of him and size-fi ts-all, top-down philosophy of urban planners stand- urban planning that dominated the ing around a room- IT’S JANE JACOBS VS. ROBERT world after World War II. Instead, sized model of the city, she celebrated human-scale neighbor- moving pieces here and hoods, where people could make the there as though playing MOSES, AGAIN connections that weave together a a game of chess or Mo- community. She insisted on fundamen- nopoly. This illustrates the fundamen- litical connections to fi ght off the most Jacobs never existed. Such injustices tal values like democracy and broad tal problem of the modernist dogma powerful man in the city. In The Power will continue as long as power remains participation in the city planning pro- of urban design: perspective. If one is Broker, his epic biography of Moses, concentrated in the hands of the few — cesses. She stood up and helped lead planning from 1,000 feet up, what is author Robert A. Caro speculates that the very problem that Jacobs addresses the successful resistance to New York left out of your view? People. When a if the community hadn’t been decimat- in her work. I wish that the fi lmmakers City development czar Robert Mo- city is an abstract arrangement of ob- ed for the expressway, it might have had chosen to examine this most fun- ses’ 1950s scheme to build a ten-lane jects and corridors, rather than a place become a model for peaceful racial damental and profound implication of “Lower Manhattan Expressway” from where people live and work, commu- integration. In the struggle against the Jacobs’ writing and activism. the Williamsburg Bridge to the Hol- nities and neighborhoods are shred- Lower Manhattan Expressway, Green- I also wish that the producer had land Tunnel, and bulldoze Washington ded. One such neighborhood was East wich Village’s upper-middle-class resi- stuck around, because there is one Square Park for an onramp connected Tremont in the Bronx, where more dents did have the social capital and question that I would have liked to ask to Fifth Avenue. than 1,500 households were evicted political connections. They joined up him: “What do you think Jane Jacobs “Jacobs saw the value of unity in 1954 to clear the way for the Cross- with the working-class people of the would have thought about public- against those who had grand plans Bronx Expressway. Lower East Side, perhaps the most private parks such as the High Line, a

that were divorced from the reality of That is the legacy of Robert Moses, fi ercely organized and radical neigh- park that you helped to found?” 2017 May tenants in small apartments, parents by and large, and the fi lm minces no borhood in the city. wanting walkable streets for kids, and words about it. To tell this story and not bother Citizen Jane: Battle for the City is play- corner grocers who really knew their Jane Jacobs wrote her observations to make this very basic observation ing at the IFC Center at 323 6th Ave. customers,” Jeff Gold wrote in Tenant/ on the effects of centralized urban about power is not merely an over- IndypendenT The Inquilino, the Metropolitan Council planning at the height of Moses’ pow- sight. It erases the more radical impli- on Housing’s newspaper, after Jacobs er. These observations, and her propo- cations of Jane Jacobs’ insistence on died in 2006. “She knew the value of sitions on how to plan differently, acted democratic rule. rental housing and of the safety that like a kind of radical virus, wending its What do such omissions leave us? comes from eyes on the streets.” way into the body politic of New York What happens when the neighbor- Director Matt Tyrnauer engagingly City, ultimately turning the city against hoods closest to Jane Jacobs’ human- 18 REVEREND BILLY’S CONSPIRE • CREATE • CELEBRATE REVELATIONS STARR BAR 214 Starr St L to the Jefferson Stop

MON MAY 1ST May Day Post Protest Party! All day happy hour

FRI MAY 5TH La Rabia Dance Party Global bass, reggaeton

SAT MAY 13TH X and X Queer Party

SUN MAY 14 TH - 7PM Dear Rev, • • • I’m a member of the social justice work- Colombian Jazz with Alea ing group at my local Presbyterian Dear Reverend Billy, church and a couple of months ago we I’ve always considered myself a pacifi st THURS MAY 18TH pooled our money together and pur- on both moral and tactical grounds. But Trust the Vibe Live Hip Hop chased a rainbow-colored bench for the I love watching those black bloc protest- church’s garden. It was intended to cel- ers confront Donald Trump’s fanatics. SAT MAY 27TH (AND EVERY LAST SAT) ebrate the spirit of inclusivity we want Maybe it’s a good thing that they are our church to represent. We presented it giving those dipshits no quarter. What WildCat as surprise gift to the congregation be- do you think?

Cumbia Tropical Dance Pary cause we knew the church’s central com- QUILTY JOHN mittee would otherwise not approve of — Meredith in Kensington, Brooklyn it. It’s not that they are bigots, per se, it’s For more events, follow us on fb.com/starrbarbk just that they want to stay out of poli- Meredith, why don’t you lie down until To book your own event, visit www.starrbar.com tics. Making it a gift forced them to ac- the feeling passes. cept it. But it left members of the central The great project is peace. Find a way We celebrate movements for social justice committee bitter. to enjoy peace more than war and you and 10% of profits goes to Mayday Space. Now, there’s talk of disbanding our have begun to put 45 back in his cage at social justice group. I love working for the top of Trump Tower. starrbarBK change with my fellow parishioners. We There is a certain kind of pleasure in have been a big part of the drive for the directly confronting the enemy. We are in national Presbyterian Church to divest such an indirect age, so much informa- 35 years of celebrating music from fossil fuels and we succeeded in tion fl ying about at high speeds. Environ- getting the church to join the boycott, mentalists, anti-gentrifi cation activists, of peace and resistance! divestment and sanctions movement people fi ghting against racism and xeno- against illegal Israeli settlements. But phobia — it seems every kind of activist squabbles like this over a bench make in 2017 is facing the riddle of the vanish- me want to throw in the towel. ing villain. It was such a relief when, this What do you think Billy, should I stick month, Citibank executives holding their to it or take my activism elsewhere? shareholders’ convention found the stage taken over by Lakota Sioux activists. The — Thomas from Upstate victims of the Dakota Access pipeline were there in person, swooping over the Dear Thomas, bankers with feathered capes, demand- Let us use George Segal’s bench in ing their right to clean water, their right May 6 Christopher Square as our touch point. to exist. Thelma Thomas The life-size lovers he sculpted there in Direct action is a hard thing to pull off The Bread is Rising Poetry Collective the park are a marker of the sexual free- in the information age. It is easy to live in dom that fl ourished in the West Village the virtual world. and to the revolution that was released And then suddenly it happens — Oc- May 13 at Stonewall Inn a few hundred feet up cupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Christopher Street. Standing Rock. In an instant, the in- Skinner & T’witch Your bench is resting in a setting of formation age is working for activists. Vincent Cross Calvinistic sexual fear — the tradition Those movements were like stages with of your church. Don’t just paint it with the world in the audience. Why are these a rainbow. Perform the rituals of love movements the showdowns that we May 20 there. Produce morality plays with gay needed? That is basically a mystery. But, sweet resistance: a call to carry on the music and lesbian actors, costumes and music. Meredith, it wasn’t violence that made Show your church elders some Radical it happen. All three were magnifi cent causes of jean ritchie Faerie Christianity and get down with works of peace. Magpie, Ivice Rose & Miranda Haydn, and Jon Pickow some really fabulous worship. Let the central committee have their REVEREND BILLY IS AN ACTIVIST “bitter feelings.” I can hear them now: AND POLITICAL SHOUTER, A POST- Look at that bench! Oh no! Here comes RELIGIOUS PREACHER OF THE STREETS Saturdays at 8 p.m. the sacred feminine! What next? Will AND BANK LOBBIES. HE’S BEEN IN NEW Community Church of New York Unitarian-Universalist Jesus of Nazareth introduce us to Mary YORK FOREVER WITH THE ACTIVIST 40 E. 35th St. (Madison/Park) of Magdala, his friend-with-benefi ts? PERFORMANCE GROUP THE CHURCH New York, NY 10016 Will Jesus wink suggestively at John, OF STOP SHOPPING. GOT A QUESTION the Apostle “whom he loved,” as the FOR REVEREND BILLY? JUST EMAIL May 2017 doors open 7:30; wheelchair accessible gospels say. [email protected] AND 212-787-3903 The life and times of free love in a UNBURDEN YOUR SOUL. www.peoplesvoicecafe.org church park — that’s something we all need to see. Take your gestures and gig- Suggested Donation: $18, $10 PVC subscribers gles and music out into the open air. Be More if you choose; less if you can’t; no one turned away gay and proud in your worship — make

The IndypendenT that bench your new altar! 19

6 MAY 5-25, 2017 F R I DA Y , MAY 5 MONDAY, MAY 8 Opening night With NYLHA PARE LORENTZ SALUTE, COAL WARS,GENE V DEBS! IN DUBIOUS BATTLE - CINEMA VILLAGE WITH JAMES FRANCO TUE S DAY , MAY9/ CARE, Cinema Village DETROIT DOG RESCUE, SATUR DAY, MAY 6 OILTOWNS,COAL MINORITY THIRSTYWHERE DO DRAG QUEENS COME FROM? A MUSICAL! W E D N E S DAY, MAY 10 Mike Morningstar: No Ban! Immigrants are America Here's To The Working I Am! Stones in the Sun, Migrant Dreams, Man Amazing Bluegrass Long Ride, Nobody Dies Here, They Will Have TO Kill Solidarity! CINEMA VILLAGE Us First - Music Survives ISIs THURSDAY, MAY 11 SU N DAY, MAY 7 Foodbank, City of Joy, Gaining Ground, FirstWoman Trans Woman on Fire in the FDNY World Premier August Lucey, Sunflowers of Nicaragua, Northern Girl Denial-Climate change & Trans Rights FRIDAY, MAY 12 NYC PREMIERES NYC PREMIERE BIOGRAPHY OF STRUGGLE, WORKING -with NewFest POOR, LOVE & SOLIDARITY, FARE Free CeCe & Out Run SHARE, EMPIRE STATE COLLEGE CINEMA VILLAGE - with NewFest Manhattan EMPIRE STATE COLLEGE 325 HUDSON ST 2017 May CINEMA VILLAGE 22 East 12th St @ University Place, Manhattan

Advance Tickets Available at EventBrite.com or the Festival Website: Indypenden The workersunitefilmfestival.org T

VILLAGE VOICE 1/8 Pg (3.1” x 4.1”) 4C WED 5/4 v2