The IndypendenT #241: nOVeMBeR 2018 • IndypendenT.ORG

AMAZOn’S nyC pOWeR pLAy p5 The MeXICAn BeRnIe SAndeRS p14 FILM: GAy SOCCeR heROeS p19 The BeGInnInG OF The end hOW MUCh LOnGeR CAn TRUMpUBLICAnS hOLd BACK The FUTURe? By nIChOLAS pOWeRS DAVID HOLLENBACH

Reverend Billy The StopShopping Choir LOVE NO BORDER Sundays at 2pm $15 nov 25 dec 2, 9, 16, 23 Joe's Pub at The Public 2 COMMUNITY CALENDAR The IndypendenT

THE INDYPENDENT, INC. 388 Atlantic Avenue, 2nd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11217 212-904-1282 www.indypendent.org Twitter: @TheIndypendent facebook.com/TheIndypendent

BOARD OF DIRECTORS: THRU NOV 24 SCREENING: AT HOME IN THE PEOPLE’S FORUM GIVING: VEGAN THANKS- Six short films by black Ellen Davidson, Anna Gold, WED–SUN 1PM–6PM • UTOPIA 320 W. 37th St., Mnhtn GIVING BONANZA creators, each demon- Alina Mogilyanskaya, Ann FREE In the 1920s, thousands of Help share vegetarian gro- strating different nar- Schneider, John Tarleton ART: A CONFLICT OF immigrant Jewish factory NOV 16–JAN 31 ceries and gourmet vegan ratives of black culture. INTEREST workers escaped New TUE–FRI, 11AM–6PM, meals with thousands Talk to the directors after EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Featuring six artists York’s slums into the com- SAT by appointment • in need at the world’s the screening. John Tarleton whose interpretations munity of their dreams; FREE largest vegan Thanksgiv- STARR BAR ASSOCIATE EDITOR: of the phrase “confl ict four apartment houses PHOTOGRAPHY: AUNTY!: ing. In addition to giving 214 Starr St., Bklyn Peter Rugh of interest” range from they built in the Bronx AFRICAN WOMEN IN out 100,000 pounds of political to surreal. Not to that they owned and ran THE FRAME, 1890 TO THE groceries, clothing and TUE NOV 20 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: be missed: Stephen Hall’s cooperatively. At Home PRESENT books, the folks with 7PM–9PM • FREE Ellen Davidson, Alina urgent animal portraits in Utopia focuses on the Featuring a trove of Community Solidarity will MEMORIAL: TRANSGEN- Mogilyanskaya, Nicholas and the work of Robert United Workers Coopera- original, archival, vintage also be dishing up a vegan DER DAY OF REMEM- Powers, Steven Wishnia Ross — a builder, writer, tive Colony, also known and contemporary im- feast made up of dozens BRANCE actor, fi lmmaker, bon to local police as Little ages spanning the African of delicious appetizers, Come refl ect on and ILLUSTRATION DIRECTOR: vivant, raconteur and man Moscow because it was continent, this exhibition entrees, desserts and honor the lives of trans and Frank Reynoso about town who is exhibit- dominated by Communists. centers images of African beverages. To get involved gender-nonconforming ing his disturbing dioramas LMHQ women and engages write to volunteers@com- community members lost DESIGN DIRECTOR: to oppression, stigma and Mikael Tarkela for the fi rst time. 150 Broadway, Fl 20, Mnhtn with the nuances of the munitysolidarity.org or call WESTBETH GALLERY “Aunty” as both a colonial 631-223-4370. violence. Dinner will be DESIGNERS: 55 Bethune St., Mnhtn WED NOV 14 construction and honorifi c COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY served and mental health Leia Doran, Anna Gold 6:30PM–8:30PM • of African womanhood. 99 W. Columbia St., Hemp- clinicians will be on site for THRU DEC 22 $30–$40 Opening reception on stead, NY emotional support. There DIGITAL MEDIA DIRECTOR: SAT, 4PM–5:15PM • $5 FOOD: COOKING AS Thursday, Nov. 15 from 6 will also be a separate Elia Gran suggested donation INHERITANCE: BEYOND to 9pm. SUN NOV 18 quiet room for refl ection. WELLNESS: RAGE YOGA SOUL FOOD IN THE AFRI- UNITED PHOTO INDUS- 4PM–6PM • FREE THE LESBIAN, GAY, BI- INTERN Stretch, move and rage CAN DIASPORA TRIES MUSIC: SIXTH ANNUAL SEXUAL & TRANSGENDER Chelsey Sanchez while listening to punk, Join chefs Carla Hall 16 Main St., #B, Bklyn WOODY GUTHRIE BROOK- COMMUNITY CENTER hip-hop, metal, hardcore and Pierre Thiam as they LYN HOOT 208 W 13 St., Mnhtn GENERAL INQUIRIES: discuss intersections of SUN NOV 18 A round-robin songfest [email protected] and industrial music. THE DREAMHOUSE food, diaspora, memory 2PM–7PM • FREE featuring six folk art- NOV 25–DEC 23 SUBMISSIONS & NEWS TIPS: 10-22 Wyckoff Ave., Bklyn and cultural inheritance MARKET: SOCIAL JUS- ists performing songs SUN 2PM • $20 [email protected] from Tennessee to Sen- TICE HOLIDAY MARKET that the great American PERFORMANCE: REVER- TUE NOV 13 egal. Compare okra stews BY GREEN WORKER troubadour and Brooklyn END BILLY & THE STOP ADVERTISING & PROMOTION: 6:30PM–8PM • FREE provided by each chef COOPERATIVES resident Woody Guthrie SHOPPING CHOIR: AND [email protected] PANEL: BUILDING FROM and taste the lineage for Green Worker Coopera- sang. Come prepared to THEN THEY CAME FOR ALL THE LEFT: STRATEGIES yourself. tives is based in the South sing along. OF US VOLUNTEER CONTRIBUTORS: TO DISRUPT THE RIGHT MUSEUM OF FOOD & Bronx and serves immi- OLD STONE HOUSE OF The title of Reverend Linda Martín Alcoff, Sam How can the left develop DRINK grants and communities of BROOKLYN Billy and The Church of Alcoff, Charlyne Alexis, Gino more robust strategies 62 Bayard St., Bklyn color. It builds, grows and 336 3rd St., Bklyn Stop Shopping Choir’s Barzizza, Bennett Baumer, to undermine and disrupt sustains worker-owned new performance piece Yousef Oussama Bounab, THU NOV 15 NOV 18–20 refers both to the familiar Pooja Chopra, Valerio Ciriaci, the powerful ascendance green businesses to cre- Rico Cleffi , Anne Derenne, of the U.S. right? In the 7PM–9PM • FREE ate a local and democratic 7PM, SUN–TUE • $65 poem by Martin Niemöller Federico di Pasqua, Renée aftermath of the midterm ART: AN EVENING WITH economy rooted in racial MUSIC: THE PIXIES and to the detainment Feltz, Lynne Foster, Esteban elections, Barnard College POLITICAL CARTOONIST and gender equality. Sup- The post-punk infl uenc- of choir member Ravi Guerra, Lauren Kaori Activists-in-Residence MOHAMMAD SABAANEH port this and other coops ers are going back to Ragbir, director of the Gurley, David Hollenbach, Cara Page and Tarso Luís The renowned Palestin- and small businesses from their roots, celebrating New Sanctuary Coalition Gena Hymowech, Manvi Ramos and Director of the ian political cartoonist around the city at this their fi rst releases three and a target of Trump-era Jalan, Gary Martin, Lydia National Lawyers Guild discusses his life as an holiday market. decades ago, Come Pilgrim fear-mongering. McMullen-Laird, Charina Pooja Gehi, discuss. artist, current projects SWEET WATER DANCE & and Surfer Rosa. JOES PUB Nadura, Farid Nassif, DIANA CENTER, BARNARD and his work an educa- YOGA BROOKLYN STEEL 425 Lafayette St., Mnhtn Alex O’Brien Nicoll, Brady COLLEGE tor at the Jenin Freedom 876 Gerard Ave., 2nd Fl , 319 Frost St., Bklyn O’Callahan, Donald Paneth, 3009 Broadway, Mnhtn Theatre. The evening will Bronx TUE NOV 27 Dean Patterson, Mark Read, MON NOV 19 7:30PM–9PM • $8 Reverend Billy, Erin Sheridan, also include a silent auc- Steven Sherman, Apoorva TUE NOV 13 tion of two original works SUN NOV 18 7:30PM–10:30PM • FREE SCREENING: JULIO GAR- Tadepalli, Naomi Ushiyama, 6:30PM–9PM • $7 by Sabaaneh. 1PM–6PM • FREE FILM: WAVES OF BLACK CÍA ESPINOSA’S THIRD and Amy Wolf.

VOLUNTEER DISTRIBUTORS: Erik Anders-Nilssen, Eric Brelsford, Chris & Pam Brown, Hank Dombrowski,

November 2018 Joseph Epstein, Ed Fanning, Kim Frazcek, Lew Friedman, Mindy Gershon, Tami Gold, Allan Greenberg, Priscilla AdVeRTISe In The Indy Grim, Zack Kelaty, Michael UnIQUe AUdIenCe • AFFORdABLe RATeS • peRSOnAL ATTenTIOn Korn, Jane LaTour, Dave FOR MORe InFORMATIOn, eMAIL [email protected] OR CALL 212-904-1282 Lippman, Ashley Marinaccio, Saul Nieves, Caroline Rath, The IndypendenT Liam Reilly, and Carol Smith. The IndypendenT 3 nOVeMBeR IN THIS ISSUE

nO MInOR InJUSTICe, p4 Around 40 migrant children taken from their parents at the border remain in custody here in NYC.

WORLD, THIRD WORLD WAR FRI DEC 7 IT’S A JUnGLe OUT TheRe, p5 Shot in North Vietnam in 1968, the 6PM–10PM • $25–$30 Retail giant Amazon has Long

fi lm contrasts the inhumanity of PARTY: BLACK TIE “SCHOM- TRAVIS SHINN Island City in its scopes for HQ2. the American war machine with BURG ANGEL” HOLIDAY PARTY the simple humanity and ingenu- Groove the night away with beats hOp A TURnSTILe, LAnd In ity of the Vietnamese peasants by DJ Poison Ivy. Proceeds ben- JAIL, p6 forced to take up armed struggle efi t the Schomburg Center’s work …if your skin is the wrong color. in order to survive. preserving and presenting global LIGHT INDUSTRY black history and culture. BRIeFInG ROOM, p7 155 Freeman St., Bklyn SCHOMBURG CENTER FOR RE- The NYPD, MTA, SBJSA and SEARCH IN BLACK CULTURE AG. THU NOV 29 515 Malcolm X Blvd, Mnht 7PM–8:30PM • FREE AFTeR The pITTSBURGh TALK: TOWARD A GREEN NEW FRI DEC 7 MASSACRe, p8 DEAL 7PM–9PM • $25 In the wake of the synagogue A wide-ranging discussion on how POETRY: ANNE CARSON: ON shooting, columnist Steven to fi ght for a Green New Deal. CORNERS Wishna refl ects on the persistence LEONARD LIBRARY Poet, translator, and professor of hatred toward Jews. 81 Devoe St., Bklyn of Ancient Greek, Anne Carson delivers an illustrated lecture, MIdTeRM MAdneSS, p10 THU DEC 6 “On Corners.” Presenting a range America votes and further rips

6:30PM–8:30PM • FREE of texts and fi gures both clas- MAGICAL STEPHEN HALL itself apart in the process. HISTORY: MUSLIMS IN BROOK- sic and contemporary, Carson BEINGS: The Pixies LYN LISTENING PARTY will touch on inspirations from current line up(from left The FInAnCeS ThAT BInd, p12 For well over a century, Muslims Homer’s Odyssey, Aristotle and to right): David Lovering, Saudia Arabia is waging a have lived, worked and prayed in Sophokles, to Samuel Beckett, Paz Lenchantin, Joey genocidal war. It carved up a Brooklyn, making it a major center Jorge Luis Borges, James Turrell Santiago, Black Francis. reporter with a bone saw. And of Muslim life for NYC and the and many more. Catch them at Brooklyn you might be surprised what nation. Celebrate the online pub- THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY Steal this month. they are investing their oil lication of Brooklyn Historical So- Fifth Ave., Mnhtn wealth in. ciety’s Muslims in Brooklyn oral history collection, which brings to GORILLA MeXICO’S pOpULIST light the stories of Muslims from WARFARE: APE MOMenT, p14 all over the Borough. (Anyone Protecting The Unlike the U.S., Europe and BROOKLYN HISTORICAL SOCIETY Environment?) from much of Latin America, our 128 Pierrepont St., Bklyn Stephen Hall, on view at neighbors to the south are Westbeth until Nov. 24. venturing leftward. UnTROUBLInG pARAdISe, p16 These Puerto Ricans aren’t just rebuilding their city after Hurricane Maria, they’re reimagining it. SISTeRS In ARMS, p18 A new documentary showcases the women who were at the forefront of Nicaragua’s Sandinista revolution. CLOSeTed In The LOCKeR ROOM, p19 Mario breaches the topic of homosexuality in men’s sports. COpULATInG COMRAdeS, p20

The Soviet Bloc wasn’t all 2018 November collective farming and party meetings. Women had great sex! dOnnA GOTTSChALK’S LenS, p21 She captured the intimate IndypendenT The moments behind the lesbian liberation movement of the 1970s. TRUMp depReSSIOn hOTLIne, p22 How to speak in public and save

TED RALL the world. 4 IMMIGRATION ORphAned By hATe

By Chelsey Sanchez il Liberties Union, which is suing the Trump Adminis- Epstein, who represents neighbor-

tration for the children’s release. hoods on Manhattan’s east side, FOR FREEDOM: CHELSEY SANCHEZ n Halloween eve, President Donald For the youth held in New York, there is currently said during the press conference. Members of Movement Trump, clad in a black and white striped no publicly available data on how many are being held “Unfortunately, Claudia’s son is for Justice in El Barrio jumpsuit, was handcuffed and led be- or in which facilities. Members of the state legislature gonna be scarred from this four- rally outside a foster hind bars into a facility in East Harlem. introduced the SCAR Act earlier this summer, a piece month experience and who knows center in East Harlem Except it wasn’t really Trump, but a of legislation that aims to increase the transparency of how much longer? How much can that houses migrant demonstratorO in a mask. The bars were composed of facilities like the Cayuga Center. we endure?” children separated from seven strands of black duct tape fastened to the rod of At a press conference in front of the Thurgood Mar- Members of Movement for their parents. a clothing rack. The facility, however, was genuine. The shall Courthouse on Oct. 15, Claudia, a 32-year-old im- Justice in El Barrio are not demonstration, staged by the Movement for Justice in migrant from Mexico, tearfully recounted her attempts completely sold. El Barrio occurred on the sidewalk outside the Cayuga to retrieve her son, who she said is being held in New “We don’t believe that that tackles the root of Center, which currently holds children separated from York, after the two entered the country together. the problem,” said Maria Mercado, a member of their parents at the southern border. “I don’t know what I am going to do,” a translator the organization. The demonstration was the Movement for Justice in communicated on her behalf. “I have complied with all Benjamin and Epstein say their bill is a step toward El Barrio’s fourth protest in front of the Cayuga Center, [...] that they are asking me to provide them and they transparency but agree that it isn’t a comprehensive so- where the community organization demanded the re- just don’t know when I can have my child.” lution for the children and their parents. Even reunifi ca- unifi cation of children and parents separated as a result She was joined by State Senator Brian Benjamin and tion is just the beginning. of Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy. There, on the side- Assemblymember Harvey Epstein, two Democrats “You can’t just return them after you separated them walk across the street from a line of garbage trucks and who co-sponsored the SCAR Act. It would require and just let them off on their merry way,” Benjamin near an overpass for the Metro-North Railroad, about every federally-contracted child welfare agency in the said. The children need to be provided with resources, 25 Movement members gathered to stand in solidarity state that is holding impacted children to report to the he added, including mental health care and access to with children still being held inside. state’s Commissioner of Children and Family Services education, “given the fact that we created this mess.” City offi cials said that approximately 40 children every 15 days. For now, however, all that parents like Claudia can were in custody in New York City as of September — This report would provide essential information on do is wait. three months after a federal judge ordered the reunifi - the detained children, such as how many of them are cation of separated children with their parents within currently in the system and how many have thus far 30 days. Approximately 120 children out of a peak of been reunited with their parents. Reported informa- 2,300-plus in June are still in U.S. government custody, tion would be made available to the public. according to an October report from the American Civ- “We need to save families like this from future scars,” November 2018 The IndypendenT 5 CORPORATE WELFARE pRIMe TARGeT COnCeRnS GROW AS AMAZOn SeT TO pLACe 2nd CORpORATe hQ In QUeenS

By Peter Rugh Here in New York, Amazon’s arrival will fur- that it includes incomes from ther enrich our moneyed real-estate lobby, already the affl uent surrounding sub- HAMMERED: he people who occupy the new luxury the object of much kowtowing by local and state urbs. Last year, Mayor Bill de Amazon’s expected arrival towers springing up in Long Island politicians, just as rent regulations come up for Blasio called for Long Island could be another nail in City love their glittering views of the renewal next year. City to be upzoned as a part of New York’s coffi n. Manhattan skyline across the East Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Nov. 5 offered to his “affordable housing” plan River. When I look at Long Island rechristen himself “Amazon Cuomo” to bring — more luxury housing in return for a pittance of TCity’s skyline, I see coffi n nails. the company to New York, as well as renam- units available to low-income renters. Sure, some of them reach 50, 60 stories high, ing Newtown Creek, the polluted waterway Long Island City residents have the added mis- and they’re just as chic and glittery as anything that separates Long Island City from Brooklyn’s fortune of living in an “opportunity zone.” In- Manhattan has to offer. But they are coffi n nails Greenpoint neighborhood, in its honor. He has stituted as part of President Donald Trump’s tax nonetheless. It takes awfully big nails to bury a also offered Amazon hundreds of millions of dol- cut last year, the opportunity zones offer lucra- city like New York alive after all, and an awful lars in subsidies. tive federal tax breaks to companies that invest in lot of them too. But the city’s wealthy developers Exactly how much taxpayer loot the trillion- poor neighborhoods. have been busy. Forty-one new buildings contain- dollar company and its multibillionaire CEO Jeff The idea goes back to Margaret Thatcher’s ing over 12,500 new rental units went up in the Bezos would receive is not public knowledge. Great Britain, but in its current U.S. iteration, Queens neighborhood just last year. And if these Nor has there been the slightest suggestion from university campuses, military bases and even a nails in New York’s casket happen to be glittery, Amazon Cuomo that he might consider chop- golf course owned by the president have fallen well, all the better for pricing out the poor and ping those hundreds of millions in half. That under opportunity-zone status. So has 60 percent working class. would seem a reasonable expectation, given that of New York State, including much of Long Is- When the news broke on Nov. 5 that a whopper Queens would receive only half of the proposed land City, based on plans submitted by the Empire of a coffi n nail could be headed all the way from HQ2 and, presumably, only half the 50,000 mid- State Development Corporation and approved by Seattle to Long Island City, it promised landlords and devel- opers one hell of a payday. NEW YORK’S GOVERNOR HAS OFFERED “It’s the biggest success for New York in ten years,” Eric Anton of the brokerage fi rm TO RENAME HIMSELF AMAZON CUOMO Marcus & Millichap told the Real Deal, assuming Amazon, TO BRING THE COMPANY HERE. HE HAS which has Queens in its scopes as it prepares to launch its ALSO OFFERED HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS second North American head- quarters, pulls the trigger. Jonathan Bailey of the OF DOLLARS IN SUBSIDIES. Queens Anti-Gentrifi cation Network had a slightly different take. “We’re go- dle- and upper-income jobs that will allegedly Gov. Cuomo. ing to see massive displacement and grave damage come along with our dough — “mostly jobs for When Amazon sets up shop, it will pay zero to our democratic institutions as well,” he told people who could already get jobs,” points out capital gains tax for seven years. Neither will de- The Indypendent. Samuel Stein, an urban planning specialist at the velopers in the surrounding area, whose property Amazon’s 500,000-square-foot sarcophagus- CUNY Graduate Center. will skyrocket in value thanks to Amazon’s pres- inducer will likely split in two as it hurdles this “We’re actually subsidizing the process of cre- ence. Once they sell, they won’t have to pay taxes way from its northwestern launchpad, with one ating more homelessness, paying to create the con- on their profi ts either. Nor will they be required to half busting into Crystal City, Virginia, across the ditions in which our current homeless crisis will hire union labor. Potomac from Washington, D.C. and the other become much worse,” Bailey warns. Speaking on the Brian Lehrer Show on Nov. hammering down near the eastern terminus of the Amazon-fueled gentrifi cation is widely blamed 7, state Sen. Michael Gianaris of Queens de-

Queensboro Bridge. for a homelessness epidemic in Seattle, where ris- clined to take a position on HQ2, but said he 2018 November The asking price for rents in Long Island City ing rents have led to about 12,000 people living had “real questions” about the subsidies Amazon has already practically doubled over the past ten on the street or in shelters. In New York, one in would receive, the company’s impact on housing years, from $35 to $65 a square foot. But Bailey 128 people are homeless on a typical night. and the burden its arrival would place on the is concerned not only about gentrifi cation, but the Ironically, the conditions that have helped city’s transit system. political power Amazon and the developers who spawn the luxury buildup in Long Island City — It’s not just its views of Manhattan that make stand to profi t from its arrival will wield. When which made it an attractive target for Amazon — Long Island City an attractive place to live and IndypendenT The Amazon’s hometown of Seattle enacted a so- were created in the name of affordability. work, but the 13 bus lines, eight subway stations, called “head tax” of $275 per employee on busi- At a cost of $1.4 billion in forgone taxes, de- two Long Island Railroad stops and the ferry nesses that gross more than $20 million a year, the velopers have been taking advantage of the state’s dock it harbors. There’s also a potential tramline, company threatened to spend lavishly to unseat 421a program, which grants them tax-exempt the Brooklyn-Queens Connector, that the mayor City Councilmembers who backed the measure, status for 10 to 40 years as long as 20 percent of has touted and which would likely get a political and an Amazon spokesperson hinted that it might the new units are “affordable,” based on the city’s even leave Seattle. The tax was repealed in June. area median income — a dubious metric, given Continued on page 17 6 CRIMINAL JUSTICE

hOppInG The TURnSTILe WhILe BLACK The nypd ReALLy dOeSn’T WAnT yOU TO KnOW hOW RACIST They ARe

By Peter Rugh tions, yet, without explanation, this data only appears Incomplete as it is, the data does show signs of change. in percentages. Arrests for turnstile hopping fell by 70 percent from

f you are caught hopping a subway turnstile in Confused? That appears to be the point. the last quarter of 2017 to the second quarter of this DANIEL FISHEL New York City, you are four times more likely “What are they hiding?” asks CSSNY researcher year. The drop is likely due in part to increased public to be booked if you are black than if you are Harold Stolper. “That’s impossible to say for sure but scrutiny on the NYPD and because Manhattan District white. That is according to a new analysis of there is documented evidence of racial targeting.” Attorney Cy Vance, whose offi ce oversees the city’s most long-awaited enforcement data released by the The NYPD did not respond to requests for comment heavily-traffi cked subway stations, has declined to pros- NewI York Police Department, conducted by the Com- from The Indy. It has previously claimed that the delay ecute fare evasion in most cases. munity Service Society of New York (CSSNY) and in the data’s release was due to logistical issues but later But racial disparities in terms of enforcement have provided to The Indypendent. shifted its argument, saying that its publication would persisted. Neglecting to swipe a MetroCard carries People of color bore the brunt of fare evasion sum- endanger public safety. very different consequences depending on the color of mons, 78.2 percent, and of arrests, 93.9 percent, CSS- “It is an absurd contention,” said Lancman. “And it a person’s skin and where it takes place. A black person NY found. Just 3 percent of white individuals stopped is one that the police did not bring up during the hearing stopped for fare evasion in Brooklyn is 30 times more for fare evasion were arrested, compared to 14 percent or bill-drafting process even once.” likely to be arrested than a white person in Manhattan, of African Americans. The NYPD has also contended that it is simply going according to CSSNY’s analysis. The analysis is the result of City Council-approved where the crime is, the neighborhoods with the highest The reason behind the disparity in arrests likely stems legislation that passed last year and went into effect in number of criminal complaints. from the department’s policy of detaining so-called January. It requires the department to disclose the race, “No,” says Stolper, who co-authored CSSNY’s previ- “transit recidivists,” individuals given summonses or gender and age demographics of riders ticketed or cuffed ous report based on Brooklyn public defender “theft-of- arrested previously in the transit system — even if the at each subway station in the city for turnstile-hopping. service” arrest data from 2016. Even within high-crime case was later dismissed in favor of the accused. Critics Lawmakers were compelled to act after a 2017 CSSNY and high-poverty neighborhoods, there were consider- charge that the NYPD’s recidivist database serves to en- report, drawn from arrest data maintained by Brooklyn ably higher arrest rates in neighborhoods like East New snare people of color in the criminal justice system, sim- Defender Services and the Legal Aid Society, confi rmed York and Brownsville that were predominantly black as ply for the being unable to afford a $2.75 subway ride. the daily experiences of black straphangers and exposed opposed to white or Hispanic. Arrests and summonses will likely go down further a strong racial bias on the part of the NYPD in Brooklyn. The law is intended to bring NEGLECTING TO SWIPE CARRIES VERY transparency to the department’s enforcement tactics citywide and, by shining a light on its behavior, DIFFERENT CONSEQUENCES DEPENDING curb and ultimately halt the de- partment’s systemically racist po- ON THE COLOR OF A PERSON’S SKIN licing practices. Only when City Councilmember Rory Lancman, who introduced the legislation, AND WHERE IT TAKES PLACE. fi led a lawsuit against the NYPD and the city in September did the NYPD publish its data. The NYPD “might be going where the crime is but beginning in January, once the Metropolitan Tran- Though what was fi nally released on Oct. 3 points to a lot more so if the neighborhood is predominantly sit Authority fully implements its Fair Fares program. the continued persistence of racist enforcement on the black,” said Stolper — at least in Brooklyn, the focus Long-sought by anti-poverty campaigners, it provides part of the NYPD, the information available remains of CSSNY’s initial study. That’s why station-by-station low-income New Yorkers with half-priced MetroCards. vague and incomplete. If nothing else, the department’s data from across the city is so important. It is needed Councilmember Lancman, who has thrown his hat critics say, it further indicates the lengths the police force in order to determine which communities the NYPD is in for next year’s Queens District Attorney race, says will go to prevent the public from gauging just how rac- targeting across the board. In Brooklyn, it is African- that if elected he’ll follow Vance’s lead and won’t pros- ist it is at an institutional level. American communities, in other parts of the city the ecute turnstile hopping either. Instead, he wants to treat “I don’t even think they [the NYPD] would say they populations targeted might be different. the violation as a civil offense. are in compliance,” Councilmember Lancman told The Yet, as of now, it is impossible to develop a complete, “We shouldn’t run anybody through the criminal Indy. “The police department is afraid the full disclo- ground-level picture. In one particularly glaring exam- justice system for it any more than we run anybody sure of the data would reveal the extent to which fare ple of just how vague the data the NYPD provided in through the criminal justice system for not feeding evasion enforcement is discriminatory toward people of October are, there are four stations located along 125th the meter when they park on the street or for leaving color and poor people. They dread the reckoning that Street in Manhattan, but only one 125th Street station their trash out before it is supposed to be picked up,” November 2018 will come from that.” is listed in the published spreadsheets. Each of the sta- said Lancman. The data available covers the fi nal three months of tions located along the thoroughfare inhabits a separate 2017 and the fi rst six months of this year. It gives demo- neighborhood with a unique racial composition: from El graphic breakdowns for the total number of summonses Barrio to the east through central and west Harlem with and arrests, but omits exact numbers for most of the its pockets of heavy gentrifi cation and, further west, up city’s 472 subway stations — the exception being a “top to the predominantly white area surrounding Columbia 10” where the most arrests occurred. It also provides University. To which 125th Street is the NYPD refer-

The IndypendenT demographics for the bottom 90 out of the top 100 sta- ring? So far, that’s anyone’s guess but the NYPD’s. Indypendent Ad 5x7 06-23-15.pdf 1 6/23/15 1:56 PM 7 BRIEFING BROADCAST ON MORE THAN 1,300 PUBLIC TV AND RADIO STATIONS WORLDWIDE ROOM A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman and Juan González

KNOW YOUR is vacant, according RIGHTS to a September survey THE The Right To Know Act took effect conducted by realtors VERDICT this October. Passed by the New York Douglas Elliman, up IS IN: A fan City Council last year, it requires of- from 7 percent in 2016. of Justice Ruth DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG fi cers to tell members of the public Bader Ginsburg why they are being questioned and makes her Tune In Live Every Weekday 8-9am ET to obtain consent before conducting IF YOUR views known searches in instances where they lack TRAIN during a Nov. ELIA GRAN • Audio, Video, Transcripts, Podcasts probable cause. Most legal scholars IS LATE, 8 emergency believe the latter provision is already CHANGE rally in Times • Los titulares de Hoy (headlines in Spanish) granted by the U.S. Constitution, al- YOUR Square to though advocates say the law is nec- SCHEDULE protest • Find your local broadcast station and schedule essary given the NYPD’s history of NYC Transit is having President fl outing the 4th Amendment through a better than average Trump’s fi ring • Subscribe to the Daily News Digest its now largely defunct stop-and-frisk autumn. According to of Attorney policy. Offi cers must inform the pub- September data pub- General Jeff Follow Us @ DEMOCRACYNOW lic they have the right to refuse to lished by the MTA on Sessions. be searched and receive documented Oct. 24, major inci- — , Pulitzer Prize–winning author consent before conducting a search. dents fell by nearly 35 percent from With the exception of traffi c stops the same period last year and delays and stops at subway entrances (which dropped by 4.4 percent. Improvements comprise a large portion of NYPD to on-time performance, however, are “A deeply moving and profoundly unsettling wake up encounters with civilians), offi cers are partly the result of NYCT adjust- SIX BY TEN call for all citizens. The use of solitary confinement is required to distribute business cards ing schedules to factor in habitual deeply immoral and we must insist that it be banned listing their name, rank and other ba- delays. That’s the (somewhat) good in all of our nation’s prisons. Immediately.” sic information and provide a reason news. Here comes the other kind. for the encounter. MTA Chair Jo Lhota is threatening —Heather Ann Thompson fare hikes — in addition to those set to be announced in December — and 32 YEARS service cuts due to shortfalls in the au- AFTER IT WAS thority’s operating budget post-2019. INTRODUCED, BILL TO PROTECT SMALL FAIR THEE WELL, BUSINESSES GETS RULE OF LAW HEARING We never thought we’d print this, but SIX Every City Councilmember loves liberals in New York and across the mom and pop, but if they were drown- country hit the streets in protest after ing, the councilmembers are not sure Attorney General Jefferson Beaure- if they would save them. That is the gard Sessions was forced by President takeaway from the hearing on the Trump to resign on Nov. 8. Rallies Small Business Jobs Survival Act (SB- were held the following day in hun- JSA) held last month at City Hall, dur- dreds of U.S. localities from Pensacola, ing which councilmembers and city Florida to Anchorage, Alaska. Due to BY offi cials hemmed, hawed and equivo- his ties to the Trump campaign, Ses- cated over the bill, fi rst introduced in sions, a virulent xenophobe, recused 1986 and amended seven times since. himself from overseeing Special Coun- SBJSA is essentially a bill of rights for sel Robert Mueller’s investigation into commercial tenants. It mandates bind- Russian meddling during the 2016 U.S. ing arbitration in lease disputes and election. In his place, the president in- 2018 November 10-year leases — necessary for many stalled White House loyalist Matthew small businesses to recoup startup Whitaker as Acting AG. Whitaker has TEN costs and pay off initial debts. The bill criticized the special counsel for look- is opposed by the powerful Real Estate ing into Trump’s fi nances as part of his StorieS from Solitary Board of New York, a major campaign probe and is personal friends with Sam donor to Small Business Committee Clovis, co-chair of Trump’s 2016 cam- IndypendenT The Chair Mark Gjonaj, Council Speaker paign and a witness in Mueller’s inves- Cory Johnson and others. Nonethe- tigation. Unlike Sessions, Whitaker has EDITED BY TAYLOR PENDERGRASS less, SBJSA has enough votes to send not recused himself and poses a danger it to the mayor’s desk, though to the to the Mueller probe. AND MATEO HOKE chagrin of its backers it will likely undergo amendments. Nearly 20 per- cent of Manhattan’s storefront space 8 FIRST PERSON

When They hATe yOU FOR BeInG A JeW An AnCIenT hATRed ReBOOTed FOR The InTeRneT AGe

By Steven Wishnia century anti-Semitism, which responded to the rapacious power of robber-baron capitalism by blaming “international Jewish bank- he fi rst things I learned about politics as a child in- ers.” Its blaming a despised ethnic-religious minority for systemic cluded that we were drinking powdered milk so me and exploitation inspired the German social-democrat August Bebel to my brothers wouldn’t get leukemia from nuclear fallout dub it “the socialism of fools.” That socialism of fools also set the like my friend Philip with the nasty dog, that whatever intellectual template for the right-wing demagoguery commonly prosperity my parents had was because my grandpar- mislabeled “populism,” which draws mass support with tirades Tents were in labor unions, and that people I thought were called the against “elites,” but intensifi es the power of the rich while con- “Knotsies” had murdered our relatives in Europe. demning demographic scapegoats. So I was not shocked that some putz in Pittsburgh decided to Codifi ed in the czarist-Russian forgery of The Protocols and be a one-man Einsatzgruppe and killed 11 Jews in a synagogue. I later by Nazism, this anti-Semitism’s core myth is that Jews are was bitterly fatalistic. In 1942, Einsatzgruppe B, one of the Nazi using their control of fi nance and media for world domination, as “special action” squads that followed the Wehrmacht east, burned well as manipulating rebellion by inferior races not smart enough to 1,100 Jews alive inside a shul in Slonim, Belarus, including most of do it on their own. One far-right meme circulating recently is that my grandfather’s family. according to The Protocols, one of their top tactics is undermining So what else is new? People have wanted to exterminate Jews for Western countries by fl ooding them with immigrants from inferior millennia, from Haman in ancient Persia to the drunken Russian nations. That was the Pittsburgh putz’s imagined grievance. mobs in the pogroms of 1905. I have lived virtually all my con- Donald Trump has promoted a diluted version of that myth, with scious life with the knowledge that there were people who would his claims that George Soros — the current avatar for the “interna- have loved to smash my newborn-baby self’s soft skull against a tional Jewish banker” villain — is fi nancing the caravan of Hondu- wall — with the attitude, as Colonel John Chivington said to jus- ran refugees wending its way through southern Mexico. tify his 1864 massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho children at Sand Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents at the Creek, Colorado, that “nits make lice.” border was both racist and proudly sadistic, two of the core ele- Two things are distinctive about Jew-hating (a term I prefer to ments of Nazism. But it was like a local Stage 1 cancer, not an ag- NO TO HATE: Jewish

“anti-Semitism,” which was a late-19th-century euphemism intended gressively metastasized Stage 4. protesters sit shiva outside ALL PHOTOS GILI GETZ to give it some pseudo-anthropological respectability). It’s far more I fear we are entering Stage 2. There are millions of people who the Metropolitan Republican exterminationist than most other varieties of racism; Latino immi- are proud to be racist sadists, and trumpet any nonsense that backs Club at 122 E. 83rd Street grants face more insults and oppression than American Jews do, but their beliefs. on October 31 to honor the people who hate them say “Send them back,” not “Hitler was right.” “In the cruel and terrible time in which our generation has been memory of the 11 victims And it behaves like a lethal variant of herpes — a virus that is often condemned to live on this earth, we must never make peace with killed at a synagogue dormant, but never goes away, and fl ares up episodically. evil,” wrote Vasily Grossman, the Russian-Jewish novelist who shooting in Pittsburgh. The That persistence surprises some people. World War II forced Ameri- covered the battle of Stalingrad and was the fi rst reporter to write protesters demanded that cans to start treating Jews like white people, as Adolf Hitler had shown about the Treblinka extermination camp. “We must never become club members renounce the logical extreme of things like “restrictive covenants” that prohib- indifferent to others or undemanding of ourselves.” white nationalism after ited property from being sold or rented “by any Hebrew or by any previously hosting the Proud person of the Ethiopian, Malay or any Asiatic Race.” But it didn’t go Boys, a hate group that away, from Richard Nixon’s Oval Offi ce mutterings about how “the advocates political violence. Jews are an irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards” who “totally dominated” the media to the circa-1990 street peddlers with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in between the patchouli oil and MAKING A STAND: The Blackman’s Guide to Understanding the Blackwoman. Fourteen of the protesters The nexus for its current resurgence is conspiracy theory. In the were arrested after Internet era, bizarrely ludicrous ideas have become widespread; you blockading the entrance to the no longer have to write away to an obscure post-offi ce box to fi nd Metropolitan Republican Club. them. A 2016 NBC News poll found 41 percent of Republican re- spondents believed that President Barack Obama — whose birth announcement was printed in both Honolulu newspapers THE NEXUS FOR ANTI-SEMITISM’S in August 1961 — was not born in the United States, and only 27 percent accept- November 2018 ed that he had been. “Birtherism” is an CURRENT RESURGENCE IS analogue of Holocaust denial, an obvious falsehood used as a “factual” argument to cover attitudes too blatantly racist to CONSPIRACY THEORY. express in public. The deeper conspiracy-theory worldview is that the world is se- cretly controlled by an infi nitely powerful and infi nitely evil cabal.

The IndypendenT The intellectual template for this comes directly from late-19th- 9 cafe culture community

COMING EVENTS NOVEMBER 30 25 WORLD UNDER SIEGE: BUILDING A GLOBAL PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT MARIELLE FRANCO + BERTA CÁCERES, PRESENTE! 6:30pm - 9:00pm ONE DAY SUMMIT ON GENDER AND STATE VIOLENCE Panel discussion from leaders tied to struggles in the Philippines, 9:00am - 7:00pm Palestine, Brazil, and Puerto Rico on what it means to build an anti-imperialist and anti-fascist movement today, rooted in local Commemorating the International Day for the Elimination people’s struggles. of Violence Against Women. 27 ABOUT US We are a movement incubator for marginalized FASCISM IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL REPRODUCTION: communities and working class. An educational REFLECTIONS ON TODAY’S STRONGMEN and cultural space. ace.

7:00pm - 10:00pm 2018 November Release of Strongmen: Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, Trump, peoplesforum.org Modi. Kirkus review says: ‘readers seeking a literate [email protected] crash course in bottom-of-the-barrel geopolitics will +1 347-695-1095 quickly devour this book.’ 320 West 37th Street The IndypendenT The New York, NY 10018 SPEAKERS: Eve Ensler, Ninotchka Rosca, Lara Vapnyar and Vijay Prashad. #peoplesforumnyc 10 ELECTORAL POLITICS

The dIVIde deepenS The MIdTeRMS COnFIRMed The RepUBLICAnS ARe A MInORITy pARTy deSpeRATeLy CLInGInG TO pOWeR

By Nicholas Powers cated. Future America is a rising, demographic, cultural and genera- tional wave on the horizon. ow bad could it get? Every day it seemed the President The future is here but it can’t break into the present. Two main rea- joked about violence or threatened it. Speaking at rallies sons explain why. First, the Democrats get more votes but don’t win or on TV, he poured his authority into the deepest fears beyond the urban bubbles. In six of the last seven presidential elec- of his followers and told them to attack his enemies. They tions, Democrats won the popular vote by millions. The gap between heard him. In Pittsburgh, a right-wing fanatic killed 11 in parties will grow. It’s the geography of Future America that holds it aH synagogue. In Manhattan, the white nationalist Proud Boys hit protest- back. Clustered in cities, it leaves vast swathes of heartland out of ers like punching bags. I got hate mail calling me an “ugly nigger”. reach and in the red. Hate crime spilled blood across America. It made voting, feel like a Future America is also kept back by the inner dynamics of the Dem- life or death act. Standing in line at the polling place, a heavy urgency ocratic Party. Thomas Frank, mapped how from the 70’s, Democrats emanated from the Black poll monitors, gay couples, liberal gentrifi ers shed the working class to chase the white collar crowd. The courtship and Latino construction workers. We were saving our own lives. And was fulfi lled by Bill Clinton. Obama put a ring on it. In this neoliberal the life of the nation. I voted and left, knowing it was just one turning era, cultural identity was more palatable to college-educated voters, point in a long, drawn-out struggle of what it means to be American. not working class politics. It caused a divide to grow that Democrats papered over with rhetoric and milquetoast reforms. Increasingly, frustrated workers were caught in a voting trap; vulture capitalist Re- HOUSE OF CARDS publicans on one side, technocratic centrist Democrats on the other. Two Americas are on a collision course. The conservative one erected Terrifi ed of Republicans, they gave money, time, work and votes to a wall around itself, the progressive one is growing fast and needs the Democrats, who splurged on consultants who seemed to be really more space. Every election, they smash against each other because good at losing. Republicans already built Trump’s wall, just not at the border. They And they lost. Big. Obama left a skeletal party in his wake. During built it around the voting booth. his terms, conservative Democrats, especially on race and immigra- The Republican Party rigs elections it can’t win. They’ve created tion, left for the Republicans. Early in the 2016 campaign, reports interlocking walls to stop Democrats. The oldest is felony disen- were coming out that union members eyed Bernie or Trump for help, franchisement. Nearly six million people who served time have been not Hillary Clinton. stripped of the vote. After that, the next wall came in 2013, when the Now, Future America is slowly, resurrecting a progressive wing in Supreme Court gutted the Civil Rights Act that forced states with a the broken Democratic Party led by fi gures such as Alexandria Oca- history of racism to clear any voting changes with the Federal Gov- sio-Cortez. It is more liberal on race. It is more liberal on social spend- ernment. In less than 24 hours, politicians, tripped over each other ing. Yet, it faces downward pressure from the nucleus of centrist elites to enact laws to stop Black voters. Texas, Mississippi and Alabama embodied by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. It faces the arduous enacted voter ID laws. They purged voters from the rolls. Thousands work of transforming non-voters into voters to build a new base that of polling sites were closed. will send progressive policy into the halls of power. Republicans want to destroy democracy because if let be, democ- racy would destroy them. It seems odd to say. They have the White House, the Senate and a majority of state legislatures If you look clos- A HOUSE DIVIDED er, Republican power is a chimera. The red state base is shrinking and dying. In 2016 Trump received almost three million fewer votes than The day after the midterms I found that every face, every conversa- Clinton but won the electoral college. In this year’s midterms, the tion had a mix of relief and disappointment. Sure, it was better than Democrats won the cumulative national vote from all 435 congres- before. Who wants Trump rampaging through the White House with sional races by about seven to eight points and narrowly fl ipped the no chill and nearly zero resistance? Even so, where was the god damn House. In the Senate, which confi rms all federal judges, Democratic Blue Wave? Liberals on shows, podcasts and articles said it came but candidates won 45 million votes to the Re- publicans 33 million, but the GOP actually gained seats. IN EVERY STATE THE FUTURE The Republican Party is dying and so is the America they represent. They are mostly white, two- thirds Christian and many are BUBBLES UP FROM THE CHAOTIC MIX evangelical. They are aging. They are less educated in a hi-tech era. They are slipping OF PEOPLES IN THE CITIES TRYING TO backward in time as the world moves on. When they see the future, it frightens them. BREAK THE NOSTALGIA FOR THE PAST Trump and the party elite have nothing to offer them but a wall. It doesn’t have to be real, just a metaphor to express the siege IN WHITE RURAL AREAS. mentality of Red State America. If they keep building it, one day they’ll discover themselves trapped inside. I looked at the map and saw red everywhere. But it was better. As the new reality set in, I realized with this small victory came a chance to size up what the past two years of one-party BLUE STATE BLUES government had been. I could sum it up in one word. Fear. Increasing every day. Fear. The nail-biting night of the midterms, I studied the political map of Seeing Trump on TV, rage against refugees, threatening to shoot November 2018 America and saw cities erupting like blue volcanoes in red plains. Ev- them or take away birthright citizenship; all of it sent volts of fear ery state, had this rural-urban divide where the future bubbles up through us. His every wild whim was magnifi ed by the halls of power from the chaotic mix of peoples in the cities trying to break the nos- like a bullhorn. And his followers — from rally MAGA hat fans to talgia for the past in white rural areas. neo-Nazis to the Proud Boys — sprang up to terrorize the majority, Future America is Democratic. Millennials, the largest generation the Future America. Strutting in 19th Century beards or black leather since the Baby Boomers, are decidedly more liberal. They are more or Trump 2020 shirts, they looked tough and scary, so much so, it was diverse, secular and increasingly socialist. They are Black, Latino and easy to miss how terrifi ed they were.

The IndypendenT Asian. Democrats are deeply favored by women. They are more edu- Behind the wall, Red State America tears itself apart. It’s like a 11 GARY MARTIN

Tracy Chapman song. They are poisoned by a reactionary ideology tionalism. The dollar may not be the international reserve currency. that abets a racist projection of their worst fears on to us. When they Our growing national debt could break the federal budget. Somehow beat us, shoot us, vote against us; they are attacking their own shad- amidst all of this chaos, progressive forces have to steer the nation. ows but we live with scars. I remember when I fi rst had hope after Trump’s election. Not just We are faced with multiple crises. Both political parties are being rage. Hope. It was when he tried to enforce the Muslim Ban and thou- upturned by an internal class war. In the Republican Party, the work- sands showed up at airports to protest. It felt like a new social con- ing class won a pyrrhic victory. They embarrassed the elite by thrust- tract was being written in the chants and signs and actions. Every pro- ing a blowhard village idiot into the White House but were betrayed test since from the ones to stop family separation at the U.S.-Mexican just the same. The “beautiful” new healthcare system and the robust border to the ones to stop Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confi rmation defense of Social Security Trump promised, well Senator Mitch Mc- has been done in a similar spirit. Connell just said they were on the chopping block to pay for the tax Every wall creates a spillover. The wall rising in Brazil, Hungary, cut he pushed for GOP’s billionaire donor class. Britain, wherever they rise, the people do too. In the Democratic Party, the millennial working class faces a neo- liberal consensus that has been rattled but not broken. They have the deep work ahead of bringing the millions of non-voters, the young, the poor, people of color and the less educated into the voting booths. It is a new base that if it materialized, could support real progress. They have to work a corporate media that is suspicious of socialism at best and hostile to it at worse. All this political work comes amidst the increasing devastation of climate change, increasing automation as artifi cial intelligence be- comes our co-worker and as white America continues its downward spiral into panic. The United States will drift from the global center as a multi-polar world rapidly emerges in the wake of Trump’s na-

SIGNS OF A BLUE WAVE political world when she knocked off 10-term incumbent Rep. RED STATE REFERENDUMS Joe Crowley in their June primary contest. This time she won Conservative red state voters are known for voting against As The Indy goes to press, Democrats are on track to gain her Bronx-Queens district with 78 percent of the vote. She their material interests. However, voters in Nebraska, Idaho more than 30 seats and flip the House of Representatives will be joined in Congress in January by her fellow democrat- and Utah all voted in favor of expanding Medicaid benefits while the Republicans have increased their Senate major- ic socialist Rashida Tlaib who was elected with 84 percent for low-income adults after their Republican-dominated state ity. The split decision garnered most of the headlines in this in her Detroit, Michigan district. The only other socialist in legislatures refused to do so. Meanwhile, voters in Arkansas year’s midterm elections. Compared to the expectations Congress is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. In 2018, more and Missouri both overwhelmingly approved minimum wage shared by many, it felt like a Blue Splash. Journey further than 40 members of the Democratic Socialists of America increases. In Florida, a ballot measure to restore the voting down the ballot, however, and you will find many places were elected to offices at the federal, state and local level. rights of 1.4 million ex-felons was approved with more than where all that canvassing, phone banking, text banking and 64.5 percent of the vote. small-dollar donations made for the Blue Wave hitting hard. FACES OF THE FUTURE Rashida Tlaib will be joined by Ilhan Omar as the first two THIRD PARTY UPDATE NEW YORK REPUBLICANS ROUTED Muslim women elected to Congress. Deb Haaland of New In New York’s third-party Olympics, the Working Families New York Republicans have controlled the State Senate Mexico and Sharice Davids of Kansas became the first two Party garnered 106,000 votes with Andrew Cuomo on its bal- almost continuously since the mid-1960s. It is their last bas- Native American women elected to Congress. 2016 National lot line. In doing so, it surpassed the 50,000 vote threshold tion of power as the state trends more Democratic and they Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes of Connecticut and Ayanna required to maintain its ballot line status for another four have made it a place where progressive legislation goes to Pressley of Massachusetts became the first two Black years. The WFP originally backed actor and activist Cynthia die. Not any longer. Eight Republican seats were flipped on women to be elected to the House from a New England state. Nixon in the Democratic primary before opting to support Nov. 6 and the Democrats turned a one-seat disadvantage In New York, Leticia James became the first Black woman to Cuomo in the general election. The Greens, who refuse to into a commanding 39-24 majority, their largest since 1912. be elected the state’s Attorney General. cross endorse major party candidates, also preserved their The lingering question now is whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo ballot line with their gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins will pit suburban state senators against the city to stymie WALKER TAKES A HIKE receiving 96,000 votes. sweeping rent law reforms, universal health care, better MTA Wisconsin voters finally fired Republican Gov. Scott Walker, oversight and more. the two two-term incumbent famous for stripping the col- — JOHN TARLETON lective bargaining rights of the state’s public sector workers MORE STATE HOUSE GAINS in 2011. Despite millions of dollars in backing from the Koch Democrats added roughly 330 state legislative seats across the Brothers, Walker lost by one point to Tony Evers, the head of country this after losing more than 900 seats during the Obama the state’s public school system. years. In addition to winning the New York State Senate, 2018 November Democrats have also fl ipped the state senate in Colorado and KANSAS VOTERS REJECT VOTER SUPPRESSION Maine Senate and the New Hampshire Senate and House, the MASTERMIND Connecticut Senate and the Minnesota Senate. Democrats are Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has been the architect now are in full control in New York, Illinois, Colorado, Maine of many of the voter suppression laws that Republican-con- and New Mexico where they hold both the legislature and the trolled states have enacted over the past decade. Seeking a governor’s chair. “These ‘laboratories of democracy’ can now promotion, Kobach ran for governor this year on a hard-right IndypendenT The begin to forward progressive alternatives on everything from platform in normally conservative Kansas but was defeated money in politics to climate change, said Robert Borosage, by Democrat Laura Kelly by 48-43 percent. Kansas schools president of the Institute for America’s Future. have been decimated in recent years by Republican tax and budget cuts. With Kobach offering more of the same, Kansas OCASIO, FOR THE WIN voters decided they had had enough. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, officially became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Ocasio-Cortez shocked the 12 13 ECONOMY ESTEBAN GUERRA

Fortress and companies of their ilk, such as the Blackstone Benjamin isn’t sanguine about attempts by companies Group, have gained increasing clout in the New York region by like SoftBank or subsidiaries like Fortress to distance their willingness to fund development projects deemed too risky themselves from the Saudis. by bigger banks. “They are absolutely responsible,” she says. “SoftBank “The fi nancialization of New York City rental housing really has taken many billions in Saudi money and they were all too SAUDI INC. took hold in the mid-2000s real-estate boom, though we could happy to do that before Khashoggi’s murder. So I think it’s arguably say this process began much earlier, when real-estate great to peel away the layers [with subsidiaries like Fortress] FROM TIMES SQUARE TO TRAIN LINES TO DAILY NEWSPAPERS, investment trusts became more popular after the early 1990s re- and not let them get away with trying to separate themselves cession,” Desiree Fields, a lecturer at the University of Sheffi eld by these false distinctions that they put in the way. Saudi in England who specializes in the relationship between fi nance money is dirty money and they need to be exposed.” THE U.S.’S CONTROVERSIAL ALLY IS INVESTING BILLIONS OF and real estate in New York, told The Indy via email. “In the The situation might be different if the United States had mid-2000s, investors were pursuing all kinds of opportunities in an economy where less power was in the hands of private- real estate, and as the boom got closer to the bust, they got into equity companies that are always on the lookout for fast DOLLARS IN AMERICA. riskier strategies. Asset-management fi rms like Blackstone and cash and cheap debt, and are willing to overlook ethical Fortress play a crucial role in directing surplus capital.” concerns a repressive regime raises when it kills journalists Fields notes that these fi rms profi ted from “a broader con- and wages a protracted war against civilians in Yemen. By text where it is acceptable to treat housing in fi nancial terms, the time the Saudi kingdom fi nally takes its state oil compa- where these fi nancial logics come to outweigh social ones, and ny, Aramco, public in 2021, Western investors will be even a decade of record-low interest rates and stock-market volatil- more likely to overlook its fl agrant human-rights abuses. ity [that] pushed investors to seek out profi t in property and via “One thing that I think is important to recognize is that By Rico Cleffi Fund… without the PIF [the kingdom’s Public Invest- lenders have begun the process of getting riskier strategies.” the source of a large chunk of the capital being managed by ment Fund], there will be no SoftBank Vision Fund.” illiquid assets off their balance sheets to In this context of risk and volatility, Fortress gave Kushner these fi rms comes from our own pension funds — especial- evelopers are getting ready to break SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son visited Trump Tower meet heightened capital requirements. Partners, the real-estate company owned by the president’s son- ly those of public-sector employees like teachers, fi refi ght- ground on a massive retail/entertainment in December 2016, where he told the President-elect he Among the few providers of fi nancing in in-law, a $57 million loan when Jersey City balked on giving tens ers, etc., and university endowments,” Fields says. “It is complex that could be one of the most sig- would commit $50 billion to the U.S. economy. Son, who the risky sectors of a capital-constrained of millions in tax abatements and fi nancing bonds to its falter- entirely possible that a schoolteacher could be renting in a nifi cant transformations of Times Square later reportedly helped broker a $4.1 billion subsidy for world, Briger and his team stand to make ing One Journal Square project. Fortress’s CWCapital subsidiary Blackstone-controlled property that her retirement savings since Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s Disneyfi - Foxconn to build a factory in the key swing state of Wis- billions of dollars for themselves and for also sold off Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village have been funneled into. Building more public understand- cationD crusade purged the porn shops and theaters. consin, told reporters at the time: “This is great. The their investors. complex in 2015. Fortress was also an early lender behind both ing of these connections, and recognition that community TSX Broadway, touted by its backers as “the most U.S. will become great again.” Trump declared the Japa- of the proposed series of towers adjacent to the Brooklyn Botanic politics and labor politics are one and the same, is a good compelling consumer destination on earth,” promises nese CEO “one of the great men of industry.” Fortress’s top leadership became billionaires, despite the Garden that critics fear could block the garden’s sunlight. place to start. a “state-of-the-art, experiential, global branding plat- SoftBank also happens to be the largest venture-cap- company’s poor performance, including a disastrous run Fortress’s parent, SoftBank, isn’t the only fi nancial services “It is also crucial to support and pursue alternative mod- form” with a hotel and a “smart” retail environment that ital investor in New York City real estate. Using data as the fi rst publicly traded private-equity fi rm, during fi rm dealing with the Saudis. Blackstone, the world’s largest asset els of land and housing ownership that explicitly privilege will track visitors’ consumer data. The builders plan to from research site Pitchbook, the Real Deal recently put which its stock fell to $1 per share. manager and the biggest private landlord in the United States, social over fi nancial values,” she adds. “Community land elevate the landmarked Palace Theater 30 feet in the air the fi gure at $4.5 billion in direct investments. How did fi rms like Fortress and Softbank become as- received a $20 billion commitment from the $2 trillion Saudi trusts, mutual housing associations and limited-equity co- and promise an 18,000-square-foot LED screen, poten- Late last year, SoftBank bought Fortress Investment cendant in New York and the world at large? Financial Public Investment Fund for its infrastructure investments. operatives are all strategies that work against speculation. tially the largest in Times Square, on the mall’s exterior, Group with the explicit intent of using the private-equity journalist Rana Foroohar, author of Makers and Takers: Pressed about Blackstone’s Saudi commitments by Bloom- Pursuing these alternatives curbs the infl uence of players presumably for beaming selfi es and advertisements. The fi rm to complement the Vision Fund. How Wall Street Destroyed Main Street , describes a pro- berg, president Larry Fink remarked, “The world for business is like Blackstone to the extent that they pull land and hous- project has tech and real-estate reporters salivating. Fortress management has been known to refer to cess of “fi nancialization,” where “fi nancial markets have not black and white.” ing out of the market.” Little scrutiny, though, has been paid to one of the themselves affectionately as “garbage collectors,” ow- become the tail that wags the dog.” The Saudis also have close ties to other major U.S. invest- When construction on TSX Broadway starts this win- project’s main fi nancial backers, Fortress Investment ing to their strategy of gobbling up “distressed” assets. “What I mean by that is the traditional role of fi nan- ment houses, including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and ter, the name of Jamal Khashoggi might just be a distant Group, a shadow bank owned by a Japanese investment This practice garnered the fi rm negative press coverage cial markets in our economy is to be a kind of facilitator J.P. Morgan. murmur in the news cycle, an unfortunate occurrence from bank largely reliant on Saudi Arabian money. after its mass foreclosures on New Orleans homeowners or a helpmeet to real businesses,” she told The Indypen- “A lot of Western investors got very excited about this months earlier. Now might be as good a time as any to take After journalist Jamal Khashoggi was apparently following Hurricane Katrina. Fortress’s holdings have dent, “to allocate capital to help owners of capital make [the Saudi investments] for two reasons,” says Foroohar. a sober look at our economy and ask some tough questions. killed and dismembered at the Saudi consulate in Is- been wide and varied: hundreds of regional newspapers investments into the economy. We now have a system “At a deeper level and on more of tanbul, President Trump mused to reporters about the across the country (through its Gatehouse Media sub- that has changed radically in the last four or fi ve decades. a kind of existential level, I think we importance of the kingdom’s “$450 billion” investment sidiary); until recently, thousands of senior-living facili- If you look at the capital fl ows coming out of the largest ‘YOU CAN HARDLY BUY A CUP OF need to ask, ‘What is our fi nancial in the United States. Trump wasn’t just placing an exag- ties; billions of dollars in student loan debt; and, at one fi nancial institutions, only about 15% of them actually system for?’” Foroohar says. “Be- gerated price tag on a murdered journalist. He was also point, a portion of the debt accrued by Michael Jackson’s go onto Main Street. The rest of it exists in a kind of a cause right now, it’s about facilitat- offering a rare bit of honesty: Billions of dollars in Saudi Neverland Ranch. Its portfolio also includes one of the closed loop of buying and selling existing assets, stocks, COFFEE WITHOUT LINING THE ing the issuance of debt so that com- capital are tied up in the U.S. economy. country’s largest mortgage lenders, New Residential In- bonds, mortgages, etc.” panies can buy back shares and give The Japan-based SoftBank, which owns both Sprint vestment. It holds the debt for the scandal-sunk biotech “You can hardly buy a cup of coffee without lining the dividends to the world’s wealthiest and Yahoo! Japan, has used its $93-billion Vision Fund company Theranos, and it owns multiple freight lines, a pockets of one of these fi rms,” says Eileen Applebaum, POCKETS OF ONE OF THESE FIRMS.’ people. This does nothing to support to acquire majority stakes in Uber (and many of its glob- fl eet of airplanes, an oil-refi ning terminal and the Unit- an economist and codirector of the Center for Economic Main Street growth. It does not con- al competitors), as well as WeWork and companies like ed State’s only private light-rail system, in Florida — a and Policy Research, who co-authored a comprehensive “One, they bought the story that the Saudis were serious tribute to any kind of increase in productivity, in wages. We Mapbox (which makes the navigation platform for Lyft). recent source of scandal for outgoing Florida governor, treatise on fi nancialization, Private Equity at Work: about economic and political reform. But they also said, have a fi nancial system that is supporting completely the The Vision Fund, called “the largest private pool of mon- Rick Scott, who killed a federally-funded rail project When Wall Street Manages Main Street. “When these ‘Hey, here are large pools of money.’ If you’re J.P. Mor- wrong kinds of things. Let’s ask the question, ‘What do we ey ever raised” by the Financial Times, is also a major only to invest in Fortress’s. fi rms fi rst emerged, we called them leveraged-buyout gan or if you’re [Blackstone CEO] Steve Schwarzman, it’s want the fi nancial system to do for our society?’” investor in Slack, DoorDash, the Virgin Galactic private Fortress’s post-fi nancial crash investment strategy was [companies], barbarians at the gate.” Now, she explains, a great deal.” Representatives from Fortress Investment Group, Soft- space operation, and GM’s self-driving car unit, Cruise. best described in a 2011 profi le in Institutional Investor: they “spruced up their image, they call themselves pri- Medea Benjamin of the anti-war organization Code Bank and Blackstone did not respond to requests to com- Last year, Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York vate-equity fi rms as opposed to leveraged-buyout compa- Pink has been an outspoken critic of the U.S.-backed Saudi ment for this story.

Times wrote that the “Vision Fund could reasonably be The unhappy crosscurrents that are nies, although their main activity is still buying up Main bombing campaign in Yemen since it began in 2015. Ac- 2018 November described as a front for Saudi Arabia and perhaps other igniting protests against capitalism Street companies using tons of debt, and [those same cording to the United Nations, the war has put 14 million countries in the Middle East.” (The United Arab Emir- and causing political dysfunction companies’] equity.” people at risk of starvation and is currently the world’s ates, a close ally of the Saudi crown, is also an investor.) in Washington are creating the best For the most part, these equity fi rms generally don’t worst humanitarian crisis. When asked if the Khashoggi While the Vision Fund isn’t SoftBank’s only cash investment opportunities that [Fortress produce anything. killing could shift public perception on the Saudi regime, pool, it represents a major chunk of investment power co-chair Peter] Briger and the credit team “In a particular industry, they might be a very big player,” Benjamin said it depends. November 2018 for a company with total revenues in the $80 billion at Fortress have ever seen. The credit says Applebaum, “but as a part of the economy, they’re not “The Trump administration is anxious to push all of INDYPENDENT THE range. Other Vision Fund investors include Apple, which crisis in Europe, populist uprisings in that big. It’s easy to exaggerate them. In the greater scheme this under the carpet and go on with business as usual and famously kicked in $1 billion, Foxconn and Qualcomm. the Middle East and the debt downgrade of things, in a country with an economy as large as ours, they we also know that companies are anxious to see this all But Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — the of the U.S. are among the economic and are not that large.” Yet alternative lenders like Fortress have blow over,” replied Benjamin. “But now there’s been a sea country’s de facto ruler, architect of its famine-inducing geopolitical factors that have set the stage parlayed their fi nancial capital into political capital. “The 1 change in the attitude of the American people towards Sau- war in Yemen and the man widely suspected of having for a global fi re sale. Debt-laden nations percent is populated by hedge-fund and private-equity fund di Arabia. Those of us who’ve been yelling and screaming ordered Khashoggi’s assassination — recently bragged like Greece and Portugal have to sell owners. They have a lot of money, they’re using it for lobby- in the wilderness for years have suddenly found receptive

THE INDYPENDENT to Bloomberg, “We are the creators of SoftBank Vision assets to raise capital. Banks and other ing in their own interests. They are a big force in politics.” ears among Americans who never paid attention to this.” 14 MEXICO

MeXICO’S AMLO BUCKS The RIGhT WInG TRend BUT WILL he BUCK The SySTeM?

By Laura Carlsen For his third campaign, he broadened his base by toning down the class rhetoric and focusing on ending corruption and waste. ndrés Manuel López Obrador walked into Mexico President Peña Nieto made that an easy target. Corruption scan- City’s Azteca stadium at his presidential campaign’s dals during his six-year term included his family’s occupying a closing rally June 27 to a rock-star reception. He multimillion-dollar mansion bought by a favored contractor, al- shook people’s hands on his way up to the stage and leged bribes from the Odebrecht construction company, an appar- posed for selfi es, as a crowd of more than 100,000 ent spy operation against human-rights and anti-corruption activ- welcomedA him. ists and an investigation showing that his government funneled The name of the Mexican president-elect’s winning coalition, $192 million in public funds into shell companies. Juntos Haremos Historia — Together We’ll Make History — Mexican citizens were fed up with corruption, disillusioned GREAT summed up the moment. AMLO, as he’s known, defi ned his com- with the economic model that made the rich richer and increased EXPECTATIONS: ing government as the “Fourth Transformation,” placing it along- the ranks of the poor, scared of rising crime and violence, and Andrés Manuel side Mexico’s independence, the Reform War of the 1850s and the ready for a change. AMLO had the winning formula this time López Obrador will be Revolution of 1910-20. around. He and his team barnstormed the countryside, created inaugurated Dec. 1 amid “This is one of the most important movements in the world to- a massive social media presence and built alliances that kept the soaring hopes that he day,” he told the crowd. “The three transformations we’ve experi- popular base while bringing in prominent business fi gures. can transform Mexico’s enced had to be done with arms. We’re about to carry out a trans- López Obrador won the July 1 election with a record-breaking corrupt political and formation without bloodshed, peaceful, orderly, but profound, and 53 percent. Peña Nieto’s handpicked successor got just 16 percent economic system. I’d say radical — and no one should be afraid, because the word of the vote. AMLO’s party, the Movement for National Regenera- But will he be able to radical comes from ‘roots,’ and this transformation will root out tion (MORENA) also won control of both houses of Congress and accomplish his populist, the corrupt regime of injustices and privileges.” took fi ve of the nine governorships in play, including the Mexico left-wing agenda? The crowd roared, and the world looked on with astonishment. City federal district where López Obrador previously served. In Brazil, the United States, Paraguay, Hungary, the Philippines With political power fi nally in his hands, he has proposed rais- and many other countries, the extreme right has been reaping ing the minimum wage (about 59 cents an hour), increasing spend- the electoral harvest of insecurity, fear and rejection of the status ing on pensions for the elderly, job creation, expanding access to quo. But in Mexico, a president who slams the system where the education, ending the drug war and addressing the root social wealthiest 10 percent of the population controls 64 percent of the causes of crime and violence. Now the question is: To transform nation’s wealth and the richest 1 percent controls nearly half, who Mexico, how far will and can he go? promotes public programs to redistribute wealth, rails against “the mafi a in power,” and favors a greater state role in national devel- opment and seeks non-military solutions to crime will soon take SIGNS FROM THE TRANSITION power — in Latin America’s second-largest economy, right next door to the United States. Mexico has a fi ve-month lame-duck period between elections and the inauguration of the new president. Incoming presidents usu- ally lie low or meet with the outgoing government behind closed • • • doors to arrange the hand-off of power. But López Obrador began convening his cabinet and announcing programs the day after July 1. The press practically camped out in front of his offi ces, and long Andres Manuel López Obrador’s rise was way off script as lines of citizens formed to present their concerns to a harried staff far as Mexico’s ruling class was concerned. Following 71 years of and sometimes the president-elect himself. one-party rule under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) López Obrador’s cabinet has more women than any in Mexico’s — including an election stolen from a leftist candidate in 1988 — history, including the Secretaries of the Interior, Social Develop- a tacit agreement among elites brought the conservative National ment, Economy, Public Administration, Labor, Environment, Cul- Action Party (PAN) to power in 2000. Very little changed. The ture and Energy. They’re also 49 percent of the new legislature, PAN extended the neoliberal economics that PRI president Carlos making macho Mexico a world leader in gender parity. The cabinet Salinas de Gortari set in the late 1980s. It let the PRI maintain its also encompasses a volatile mix of interests. Evangelical Christians political machine, while sharing the benefi ts of crony capitalism and conservative businessmen are strange bedfellows with historic a la mexicana. Elites foresaw a bipartisan model similar to the fi gures from Mexico’s left. business-as-usual democracy of Mexico’s northern neighbor. The The new Congress that took offi ce Sept. 1 has prioritized legis- U.S. government had no problem with that. lation to cut back government spending on salaries and luxuries, Then López Obrador came on the scene in 2000. A former PRI increase social programs, build transparency into budget and leg- politician who left the party with other dissidents, he was elected islative activities, create a ministry of Public Safety, enact stronger mayor of Mexico City, where he was very popular. He fi rst ran for sanctions against electoral fraud, expand infrastructure, expand president in 2006 under the slogan of “For the Good of All, First access to free public education and restore labor rights public the Poor,” openly denouncing neoliberalism and the North Ameri- school teachers lost under Peña Nieto. can Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mexico’s poor, marginalized But the MORENA government has two big external obstacles: by globalization imposed from above, massively and actively sup- Donald Trump and international fi nancial markets. Trump has ported his candidacy. been surprisingly cordial, but the degree to which López Obrador AMLO arguably won that election — even the 2006 PRI can- has gone out of his way to avoid riling the erratic U.S. president didate admitted later that his ballot count gave the victory to his indicates a real concern. Their letters to each other since the elec- November 2018 leftist rival. But election offi cials proclaimed conservative candi- tion read like a bromance. The markets like that, but many AMLO date Felipe Calderon victor by half a percentage point, rejecting supporters want to see the new government stand up to Trump demands for a full recount. AMLO supporters occupied the na- after Peña Nieto’s capitulations. In a recent poll, Mexico had the tion’s capital for months. lowest Trump approval rating of any country in the world—a mere In 2012, López Obrador ran again, losing to PRI candidate En- 6 percent expressed confi dence in his leadership. rique Peña Nieto by a 6 percent margin in a four-way race. The There have already been important test cases. AMLO sent his lesson he learned was that to win in a deeply fl awed system, you own negotiator into the NAFTA renegotiation with the Trump

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CAGUAS, pUeRTO RICO: SQUATTeR CITy AGAInST A BACKdROp OF GenTRIFICATIOn, AUSTeRITy And hURRICAne WReCKAGe, ACTIVISTS ARe BUILdInG The WORLd They WAnT TO LIVe In nOW.

Story & Photos by Erin Sheridan volunteers “were feeding 400 to 500 people every day” out of their mu- tual aid center — one of dozens of grassroots, de-facto hurricane relief he main thoroughfare in Caguas, Puerto Rico, a city of stations that sprang up across the island in the absence of federal relief. nearly 150,000 people, remains desolate for hours at a Urbe Apie quickly shook its reputation as a collective full of “la time. Its buildings, ranging from pale pinks to bright or- peluz,” she laughs. The phrase means hairy people, a common deroga- ange and lime green, appear vacant. Many of the store- tory term for leftists in Puerto Rico. fronts have boarded windows, as if the shopkeepers left in Relationships were forged over hot meals. Volunteers coordinated Ta hurry and haven’t looked back. trips to check on neighbors. The organization took over various vacant Hurricane Maria hit Caguas, 19 miles south of San Juan, with the spaces throughout Caguas, utilizing them as distribution centers that same devastating force that met other municipalities on Puerto Rico’s formed a solidarity economy still thriving today. eastern coast. But for locals, it was a common sentiment that life in The impact is evident. While it may seem unlikely that a predomi- Caguas was already careening in an unsustainable direction well before nantly young, loosely-organized urban squatter organization like Urbe last year’s hurricanes — Irma, followed by the even more devastating Apie and citizens of this majority working-class city could maintain a Maria — were even on the radar. productive relationship, that is precisely what happened. City blocks abound with vacant apartments, a situation caused not After feeding so many people in such dire circumstances, “They’ll only by Maria, but also in large part by landlords who are holding out never forget you,” Hernández says and smiles. She exchanges greetings for a fl ood of foreign investment. Puerto Ricans have long expected an with everyone she passes in the street. For each of them, she recalls a infl ux of wealthy mainlanders in what some activists characterize as the compelling backstory. island’s “third invasion.” Post-Maria, Puerto Rico is struggling under “I watched her teaching students in the orchard,” shares Hernández a new wave of austerity measures imposed by the Financial Oversight as a middle-aged woman waves from across the avenue. Local students and Management Board — setup by Congress in 2016 to restructure are required to complete “green hours” in order to graduate high school its debt. and Urbe Apie offers garden space to surrounding schools. “The way The island’s government is aiming to privatize its public resources she talks about the herbs, the plants, ‘Here, touch this, smell this, isn’t and is incentivizing mainland investment in tech and the island’s tour- it wonderful?’ I thought, ‘This woman is amazing.” ism economy. Business elite from the mainland, ready to take advantage Besides its gardens and mutual aid center, Urbe Apie maintains a of tax breaks, arrive prepared to buy up entire blocks of land. Caguas’ patchwork of squats that include a clothing exchange, a kitchen, a cafe, convenient location, just inland from the big city, would be the next a gallery space, a library, a bicycle repair shop, living quarters and even logical step in the line of gentrifi cation — cheap property within driving a building where addicts can exchange needles. The organization has distance of San Juan and world-renowned, pristine coastline. also worked to provide condoms for local sex workers. The future looks bleak in Caguas. Just over 37 percent of the city In every space the organization occupies — on walls, on doors — lives below the poverty line, well above the national average of 14 per- there is poetry, murals of graffi ti. Members regularly organize com- cent. Homelessness and displacement have reached unprecedented levels munity art classes at one of the collective’s larger buildings. “In a world in this small city, where the local economy has long struggled to com- where you have no control of anything, at least you can paint a wall,” pete with chain stores based on the mainland. says Hernández. The situation is not dissimilar to that of Manhattan, where 20 per- Not all of Urbe Apie’s buildings are rented. Hernández — who de- cent of retail space remains vacant as property owners hold out for cor- scribes herself in English as an “uncharacteristic” representative of porate tenants willing to pay rents mom-and-pop shopkeepers can’t. the group because she, unlike many of her younger counterparts, has Maritza Hernández But Maritza Hernández, a member of the squatter collective Urbe Apie, a background in contract negotiations — has been able to bargain compares Caguas to any “small town in America.” with landlords. “You know what happens,” Hernández says, pointing down an av- When Urbe Apie does decide to squat at a location, it fi rst carries out AN ALEXANDRIA enue of vibrantly colored, empty storefronts. “They put in a mall and a thorough investigation before deciding to occupy the property. Of THEIR OWN: they build a Walmart and then nobody comes to the [local] shops any- “The Spanish were very good at keeping records,” says Hernández. Unlike the ancient library, more.” According to Puerto Rico’s Centro De Periodismo Investiga- “So everything that happens with the building has to be registered. We Urbe Apie’s lending tivo, Puerto Rico has a higher percentage of Walmarts per square mile ask questions like, ‘Who’s the owner?’ ‘What’s going on?’ ‘What’s hap- room has sprung out of than any U.S. state. pening [with the property]?’ ‘Are they interested [in working with us]?’ wreckage. “And then if the [landlords] are not reasonable and they want really We try to approach the owners sometimes if we know.” high rents, then nobody rents them,” Hernández explains. “That’s what Many landlords are simply choosing not to rent out unoccupied happened here.” buildings, holding out for tenants willing to pay exorbitant prices as Pinpointing the root of Urbe Apie’s mission, she says, “Nothing was the island gentrifi es. In Puerto Rico, squatting has long been a solution more evident post-Maria. We cannot depend on the government, we to the island’s housing crisis. Nearly one in fi ve Puerto Rican homes cannot depend on anybody. If we don’t provide for ourselves, nobody is are built illegally on abandoned government land. An estimated half going to help us.” of the island’s homes are built without offi cial permission, a process November 2018 It is diffi cult to say precisely what Urbe Apie translates to in English. that Hernández and others attribute to close-knit, family-based com- One of the group’s founders, Omar Ayala González, characterizes the munity networks through which land and property have been shared meaning behind the group’s name in poetic terms, as “an invitation across generations. to walk, to connect with spaces, to discover and activate them for the Urbe Apie is charting fairly new territory in taking over effectively benefi t of all.” abandoned, privately-owned properties. As long as the owners of the For Caguas residents whose poverty was exacerbated by the storm, properties lay no claim to the unused buildings, or otherwise have no community organizations like Urbe Apie played a life-saving role.

The IndypendenT Hernández estimates that soon after Maria Urbe Apie’s small team of Continued on next page TUNE IN 17 MONDAYS 6–6:30PM AT WBAI 99.5FM WITH HOSTS ELIA GRAN & speculations on property values instantly AMAZOn changed,” he said. “People across New LYDIA Continued from page 5 York and the surrounding area are going to have their rents affected, and the taxes boost if Amazon arrives, possibly making on the homes they own are going to go up. MCMULLEN- it one more public benefi t for Bezos and his It’s not something we can opt out of. It is company to milk. something that is going to affect all of us LAIRD “If you think about what the premise whether we like it or not.” of capitalist urban planning is, it’s that the The Queens Anti-Gentrifi cation Net- state creates the conditions for capitalist work is still formulating a plan to fi ght accumulation, but then takes back some- back, but right now, “it is super-important thing for the public through taxation,” said for people to get involved,” Bailey added. Stein. “This is just giving away without any As he and other housing activists girded kind of public benefi t.” themselves for Amazon’s arrival the Wall Bailey cautions that even New Yorkers Street Journal reported Google plans to who don’t live in Queens will be buried mop up 1.3 million square feet of offi ce alive in higher rent and — though Amazon space on lower Manhattan’s west side. might not be feeding the till — taxes. “When Amazon announced they INDY were going to building a headquarters, RADIO NEWS The next eviction tactic It now fl ies around her pUeRTO RICO the alleged owner took, ac- house and sits on her shoul- Continued from previous cording to Hernández, was der when she goes outside. I DESIGN THE INDY page to accuse the occupiers of She and other Urbe theft. The police stopped by Apie members are nurs- I DESIGN FOR CHANGE intentions of renting them to let Urbe Apie members ing Caguas back to health I CAN DESIGN FOR YOU out, the collective says it is know that there were pho- as well. They maintain a well within its rights to uti- tographs of them “stealing positive outlook, embrac- lize the abandoned spaces doors.” ing uncertainty as part of for the sake of struggling “Even the lieutenant of the uncharted territory of residents. the state police came over,” building the city up from Once Urbe Apie deter- she recalls. “Why would the grassroots. mines that the squatting is they mess around with Puerto Rico can’t viable, members move in some people taking a door achieve a real recovery with and begin to revitalize the from an abandoned place if do-it-yourself organizing. space. At the collective’s there’s nobody claiming the That will ultimately take largest building — housing door?” the state mobilizing and living quarters, a bike re- Hernández describes her directing the necessary pair shop, a library, a meet- love for the building. The resources. That’s not hap- ing space and two rooftop volunteers who live inside pening right now in Puerto terraces — members have and maintain the adjacent Rico. For Urbe Apie activ- faced off with the law. orchard, she says, are even ists and members of similar “The fi rst time [the own- more attached to the place collectives that have sprung ers] came over with the law- than her because they’ve up amid the mutual crises yers and said, ‘If you don’t created a home inside. of gentrifi cation and hur- leave in fi ve days we’re go- But she has a wider vi- ricane devastation, theirs is ing to bring the police,’” sion for Caguas. Hernán- not merely a struggle over says Hernández. dez has submitted propos- squatting, but is also about She and others knew als to open a convenience holding on to vital living that the owners would have store and has completed the spaces as the island shifts to bring a court order to construction of two com- rapidly around them. kick Urbe Apie out, so the munity gardens in collabo- Occupation comes out of volunteers decided to stay. ration with neighbors. The necessity. 2018 November This particular building, collective will soon open a “There is a phrase peo- just past the city center, sits cabaret-style cafe, teatro ple use here when they oc- abandoned because it is the and event space, El Refl ejo, cupy buildings,” Hernán- subject of an inheritance where local artists and mu- dez says, staring proudly MIKAEL dispute and remains un- sicians will exhibit work. at a makeshift community claimed by either party. Hernández is perhaps garden next to the contest- IndypendenT The “Until then,” furthers more of a peluz than she is ed squat. “Aquí vive gente, TARKELA Hernandez, “we don’t even aware. Though she presents ‘people live here.’” know if the person coming an image akin to a profes- GRAPHIC over has any authority to sional working mom, she kick us out because if it’s has, for instance, adopted a DESIGN [in] succession, they need pigeon that she found dying everybody to agree.” and nursed back to health. [email protected] 18 DOCUMENTARY

A ReVOLUTIOn ReMeMBeRed

¡Las Sandinistas! a guerilla war. The same basic the Nicaraguan economy has grown more Dir. Jenny Murray script played out in countries rapidly than that of any of its Central

Alpha Dog Productions, Nov. 21 throughout the hemisphere. American neighbors and the country ex- STILL FROM WOMEN IN ARMS FEATURED IN ¡LAS SANDINISTAS!. MCRM PRODUCTIONS/ITVS. This fi lm puts us on the perienced relative social peace compared ground with a group of pow- to the unrelenting gang violence in other By Mark Read erfully committed Nicaraguan adjacent countries. Ortega was re-elected women as they live through in 2012. Since then a growing number of as Sandinistas, a new feature- this history. Director Jenny Murray ex- Nicaraguans have chafed under his heavy- length documentary fi lm that pertly weaves rare and revealing archival handed rule, including several prominent examines the Nicaraguan footage with deep interviews that sensi- ex-Sandinistas who have denounced him. revolution of the 1980’s, ar- tively explore what it felt like to partici- The women in this fi lm fall squarely into rives in theaters at a critical pate in a revolutionary struggle for justice. that category. They are among the leading politicalL juncture in which crises in Cen- I left the theater feeling as though I had critics of Ortega’s rule. tral America are once again center stage. been given a glimpse into a life that I se- In linking the unfair treatment of the Refugees streaming northward toward cretly wish I could live myself — a life of women of the FSLN at the hands of male the U.S. border fl ee violence while the unswerving purpose and profound com- leaders such as Ortega to the current ef- president calls them animals and sends mitment that these women lived fully and forts to oust him from the presidency, army troops to meet them, threatening to without regret. Just as importantly, these the fi lmmakers come dangerously close shoot unarmed civilians. At such a mo- women lift the veil on the stubborn culture to taking the side of U.S.-backed groups ment, a fi lm like this can offer a much- of machismo and sexism that pervaded the that seek to undermine the current gov- needed refresher course on the history and FSLN, despite its stated aspirations to fi ght ernment. While the fi lmmakers may not consequences of U.S. intervention in the for women’s equality. This contradiction have intended to take a side in the cur- hemisphere, helping us better understand arises again and again throughout their rent confl ict, the fi lm can be read as mak- the root causes that push those refugees to revolutionary careers and it extends into ing the case that, while the Sandinista fl ee in the fi rst place. the current moment, where they continue revolution was necessary and noble, the The fi lm does this while providing us to fi ght for women’s equality. They are male leadership of that revolution — and with the specifi c and critical perspective an amazing group of women, with deep Ortega specifi cally — lacked integrity and of female Sandinistas who are the pro- insights into the challenge of combating honesty and thereby betrayed the revolu- tagonists of this story. It’s a point of view male supremacy while simultaneously at- tion, rendering the current government il- that has largely been excluded from offi cial tempting to overthrow a violent capitalist legitimate. Given the prominent political histories. This fi lm generously provides a regime. This fi lm is a valuable contribu- role of the fi lm’s protagonists it is hard not corrective, reminding us that women made tion to our understanding of revolutionary to see it as an opposition fi lm, which made up the majority of the Sandinista Front for movements and the perils that come with this reviewer somewhat uncomfortable. National Liberation (FSLN) and as many adopting vanguardist — and thereby hier- All that said, I would strongly rec- as 30 percent of its combatants when the archical — structures and strategies. ommend this fi lm to anyone interested revolution triumphed in 1979. In telling What is less clear, at least to this review- in Central American history, the revo-

us the story of the female Sandinistas, the er, is whether or not this fi lm contributes to lutionary spirit, or radical feminism. It FREEDOM FIGHTERS: MCRM PRODUCTIONS/ITVS fi lmmakers are in effect able to tackle two a better or worse understanding of what is paints an amazingly detailed and inti- Women made up as many as 30 percent very important subjects simultaneously: happening in Nicaragua today. The politi- mate portrait of a revolution, which is a of the combatants at the height of the revolution itself, and what Dora María cal situation in Nicaragua is highly com- rare thing for a fi lm to even attempt. It is Nicaragua’s 1979 Sandinista revolution Tellez, one of the protagonists, refers to as plex. With turmoil and violence engulfi ng defi nitely worth your time to go see this that overthrew their country’s U.S.- “the revolution within the revolution.” that country this spring, there do not ap- fi lm, but I would advise some skepticism backed dictator. For anyone that came of age in the pear to be any clear-cut good guys. towards any conclusions the fi lm might 1980s, the story of the Nicaraguan revo- Despite being voted out of power in encourage in regards to what is happen- lution and its ultimate unravelling is an 1991 (a defeat that many historians attri- ing in Nicaragua today. MULTI-TASKING MAMA: A emblematic tale of Cold War U.S. foreign bute to popular fatigue with a long-run- Sandinista rebel nurses her child. policy and the heavy toll its anti-commu- ning war against an army of U.S.-backed nist crusades took on Central America. mercenaries), the FSLN retained a great During the 1980s more than 200,000 peo- deal of popularity throughout the country ple were killed in Nicaragua, El Salvador due to the remarkable social progress it had November 2018 and Guatemala in dirty wars backed by achieved, especially in regards to public the Reagan administration. U.S.-backed health and national literacy rates. In short, client states that routinely used torture, while the Sandinistas had been defeated by disappearances and extrajudicial execu- the United States, the people of Nicaragua tions to control their populations were still held very favorable views of them. In seen as crucial allies. When people simply 2006, longtime FSLN leader Daniel Orte- could not bear it anymore, they took up ga was voted back into the presidency.

The IndypendenT arms and went into the jungle to train for During Ortega’s second stint in power, 19 FILM

COMInG OUT On The FIeLd

Mario Dir. Marcel Gisler “Drugs, sex with to soccer, which Frenetic Films, available on minors, gay stuff — might explain MORE iTunes, VoD and DVD some things players why the fi lm is THAN JUST PRO FUN MEDIA Co-founded by Michael Ratner just can’t do!” Ma- rumored to have TEAMMATES: (1943-2016) President, Center rio’s manager says been optioned by a Aaron Altaras (left) and for Constitutional Rights; and By Gordon Glasgow to him. major Hollywood Max Hubacher in Mario. hosted by movement lawyers Heidi Tears fall, one of studio, its setting Boghosian, Executive Director, A. fter premier- the pair quits, the other suc- changed to the NFL. J. Muste Memorial Institute; and ing to acclaim ceeds and its safe to say that One strange aspect of ho- Michael Steven Smith, New York in Europe, Ma- unless you’re a homophobe mosexuality in professional City attorney and author. rio — a moving there is no happy ending to sports is that it obviously ex- coming-of-age fi nd refuge in with this fi lm. ists and, although large por- taleA of love, homoeroticism Speaking over Skype, ac- tions of Western society have and repression within the tor Max Hubacher, a Bern come to reject homophobia, tight-knit milieu of profes- native, tells me that he drew being gay in the male sporting sional men’s soccer — is on his own experiences as a world continues to remain ta- bluestockings available for streaming state- youth while researching the boo — almost as if stadiums radical bookstore | activist center | fair trade cafe 172 ALLEN ST • 212-777-6028 side this November. role of Mario. and locker rooms comprise a bluestockings.com The story begins in Bern, “I played soccer growing parallel universe. where we follow protagonist up,” he said. “I wanted to be a I recently spoke with a Mario Luthi’s progression as professional athlete and there Bavarian sports psychologist he plays for the youth team of are constantly homophobic who works closely with Ger- one of Switzerland’s premier comments being made, by many’s Bundesliga football football clubs. It is a near-mo- both the players and the train- league. She did not wish to nastic life, with teammates, ers. It’s so embedded into the be identifi ed in order to pro- coaches, matches and training culture. ‘Wow, that kick was tect patient confi dentiality. consuming almost every iota totally gay, work on your left Sexual repression is one of of Mario’s energy. He is one foot more’ or ‘Don’t kick like the primary topics men dis- of the team’s best players and a faggot,’ might be another cuss when they visit her of- NOV 17 • 7-9:30PM a practical shoe-in to play in comment you’d hear.” fi ce, she explained. EDUCATION: Mark Bray and Robert the Swiss Super League until True to the fi lm, homopho- “Sometimes they will come Haworth present a new collection of a new arrival, Leon, comes bia pervades soccer’s upper to me and tell me that they are Spanish anarchist Francisco Ferrer’s in from Hanover. The Ger- echelons as well, Hubacher’s masturbating a lot, thinking writings. man immediately stands out time spent with professional about a male teammate,” she among his Swiss home-grown players while preparing for his said. “Other times, it’s about NOV 26 • 7-9:30PM peers. He’s easygoing and part confi rmed. extra-marital affairs, players WELLNESS: The Hetrick-Martin Institute comfortable with himself. “If you want to have sex often feel that their lives were provides PrEP, testing, free condoms and Mario frets at the prospect with another man, are you constructed too early on, of- other sexual health services. of competition from Leon for really going to feel comfort- ten by the dreams of their par- a slot on the fi rst team (they’re able telling your teammates or ents, and they subsequently NOV 30 • 7-9:30PM both strikers) and begins to coaches?” he asks. “Will you feel trapped in a dynamic they BOOK LAUNCH: Join the editors of worry even more when he feel comfortable telling your aren’t comfortable in.” Kathy Acker: The Last Interview and fi nds out that the club has agent? You spend over half Gisler hopes his fi lm will Other Conversations. given them an apartment to- your life with these guys. They breach the near-ubiquitous gether. Sooner or later — al- control both your personal life silence surrounding queer- 2018 November most inevitably it seems — the and your ability to be bought ness in sports. Mario played two are daydreaming in one and sold by bigger clubs.” in wide theatrical release in another’s arms about fl y- Mario’s director, Marcel Europe and he says that he has ing off to Barbados and are Gisler, tells me that, based heard from many professional trying their best not to hold on his research, some clubs soccer players who have gone hands while walking down will actively try to cover up a to see it. Unfortunately, many IndypendenT The the street. When rumors of players’ homosexuality. “If a went in disguise or to theaters the affair begin to circulate, player is single for too long, a in places where they would not only are the players met manager will often make sure likely not be recognized. with hostility, but a meeting that a [public relations] agency with the club’s manager and fi nds him a woman to be seen chairman threatens both of with in public,” he said. their careers. Homophobia is not unique 20 BOOKS

$ 10 Burger or veggie burger Why The RedS and a Draft Beer WeRe BeTTeR In Bed 5  7 PM DAILY | 214 STARR ST Why Women Have Better Sex Under of their male partners. Socialism Ghodsee writes about the By Kristen R. Ghodsee responses to her 2017 Op-Ed Random House, 2018 and uses some of them to com- pare the experiences of women who grew up during socialism By Ann Schneider to those of their daughters. One young Bulgarian woman wrote,

hat if you had your the second thing her mother always LYNNE FOSTER own guaranteed in- asks her (after how are you?) is “Are come, six month’s you having enough sex?” paid maternal leave, Sadly, we in the United States are WE CELEBRATE AND SUPPORT free health care having less and less sex according to andW government-subsidized day care? annual social surveys. Little of the MOVEMENTS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE Wouldn’t that turn you on? It’s no pipe so-called sexual revolution remains 50 dream; for 70 years, the Soviet Bloc years after the phrase came into curren- countries provided these benefi ts and cy. This decade, only 66 percent of 18 much more to its women. And not solely to 30 year olds reported having sex at to ensure a growing population of fu- least twice per month, compared to 73 ture workers. The Russian Revolution percent 20 years ago. Eighteen percent was sparked by women going factory of this age group reported having had to factory, demanding the Tsar pull out no sex at all in 2016, the year before of World War I. At least at the initial sexual harassment became a national fl owering of Bolshevism, women’s rights concern. There may be many reasons were at the forefront. This history has for this, but “even the best stimulation been obscured, if not deliberately sup- will not help to achieve pleasure if a pressed here in the bastion of free mar- woman is stressed or overworked, or kets. Kristen Ghodsee, an ethnographer worried about her future and fi nancial known for her research in Bulgaria, stability,” Ghodsee says. Romania and the Czech Republic has One consequence is a declining birth brought us a book that shares the same rate, which in the United States, is at a title as her opinion piece in the New 38-year low of 1.77 children per woman. York Times that went viral last year. In the fi rst fi ve years after free market re- Not all of these benefi ts survived forms were introduced in East Germany, Stalin’s reign, but the mere fact of the the birth rate dropped by 60 percent. Cold War between East and West meant Neither “lean-in feminism,” which healthy competition to demonstrate a tells us to become better at advancing superior quality of life, i.e., one free of our careers, nor religious exhortations racism and sexism. And free love did ex- about our “highest calling” offer any ist up to the demise of the Soviet Union viable solution to this problem. Social- in 1991 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, ism by defi nition means social provi- culminating in “The Great Orgasm sioning of housing, healthcare, public War,” measured by reported sexual sat- transportation, education and childcare. isfaction of women. While the United Medicare and Social Security remain the States was sending men to the moon, most popular government programs of Czech sexologists were uncovering the all time. Social insurance for men and mysteries of the clitoris. women, whether in or out of the work- The ’70s and ’80s were the golden force was introduced to Russia by Alex- years for sexual expression of all types andra Kollantai following the 1917 rev- in the Eastern Bloc. A 1984 study of olution. It survives today and Vladimir comparative sexual satisfaction in East Putin is encountering great resistance to and West Germany found that German raising women’s retirement age from age Democratic Republic (GDR) youth re- 55 to 63. ported being highly satisfi ed with their As socialism comes back into vogue sex lives, both women and men. Eighty- today, we should be realistic about both fi ve percent of the young women report- the fl aws and achievements of past so- November 2018 ed that they achieved orgasm “often” or cialist experiments. As Ghodsee’s book “almost always.” The same questions highlights, a 21st century socialism were posed in 1988 in the Federal Re- could give us a lot more than Medicare- public of Germany (FGR) aka West Ger- for-All, free public college and a Green many and less than half (46 percent) of New Deal. Whoopee! the young women reported feeling sexu- ally satisfi ed after their last sexual en-

The IndypendenT counter. This compared to 84 percent 21 PHOTOGRAPHY

FROM FeARFUL FAnTASy TO FInALLy FRee

Brave, Beautiful Outlaws: The Photographs of living out of a packing crate — yes, a pack- sadly hijacked to apply to lesbians who are Donna Gottschalk ing crate — suggests an uncomfortable re- trans-exclusionary. On a positive front, queer Leslie-Lohman Museum lationship between poverty and queerness. women are still laser-focused on getting their Thru March 17, 2019 For so long queers were not seen as rights, just like in Gottschalk’s day, and now capable of having families. Gottschalk they have the Internet to make it all the easier. mowed that idea down too, by photo- Queer female photographers are certainly more By Gena Hymowech graphing a queer couple and their child, as well-known. Zanele Muholi. Annie Leibo- well as writer Sue Katz with the daughter vitz. Catherine Opie. But what of Gottschalk’s ear the entrance to “Brave, of her girlfriend. She also highlighted the pain peers? Where are their exhibitions? Where are Beautiful Outlaws” is a picture of family with pictures of Marlene Elling, who the queer women of color who were taking pic- of Donna Gottschalk at the suffered sexual abuse from one or more rela- tures in that era? I fi nd it hard to believe they 1970 Christopher Street Gay tives, left foster care and was in juvenile deten- didn’t exist. I, for one, would love to see more Liberation Day parade. Snapped tion, where, at 14, she was punished for loving exhibitions of women like Gottschalk, women Nby Diana Davies and looking like a young Bob another girl. In one photo, the very butch Mar- who are or were as brave and as beautiful. Dylan in the “Subterranean Homesick Blues” lene is naked from the waist up, smiling. The video, she holds a sign that says, “I AM YOUR nakedness feels like another reframing of queer WORST FEAR/I AM YOUR BEST FANTA- sexuality — women who look as masculine as SY.” This one picture has a hell of a lot to say she did were not supposed to be topless. about how queer women were viewed — dis- One activity queer women were engaging criminated against and looked down upon, but in, for sure, was attending conferences. In two also an object of lust. “Love me or hate me/I’m such pictures, Gottschalk shot women sleep- still an obsession,” as lesbian rapper Lady Sov- ing at the Revolutionary Women’s Conference ereign once sang. in Limerick, Pennsylvania, perhaps indicating Unlike the mainstream, which could only that they played — wink, wink — as hard as see queer women through a funhouse mirror, they worked. We learn politically marginalized Gottschalk offers an alternative view, steeped groups did not always act with each other’s best in familiarity. interests in mind. “The Revolutionary Women’s Raised in the Lower East Side, Gottschalk Conference was organized immediately after is an activist who aligned herself with the Gay lesbian feminist participants in the Black Pan- Liberation Front and trained at Cooper Union thers’ Revolutionary People’s Constitutional until she became demoralized by its heterosex- Convention in Philadelphia marched out in pro- ist culture. “Brave, Beautiful Outlaws” is her test when their demands were being ignored,” fi rst public exhibition, and, whether that’s by says one plaque. And then there’s Betty Friedan, choice or bad career luck, it’s been a loss for the seeing lesbians as a danger to feminism. art world either way. The historical perspective Gottschalk attempted to be inclusive, includ- coupled with a raw style that pulsates with sex ing Black and trans subjects. There is a special and love and horror, and above all, humanity, section devoted to her trans sibling Myla. The Donna Gottschalk, Self-Portrait in makes this a must-see. picture taken of Myla wearing her sister’s dress, Maine, 1976. One of Gottschalk’s subjects was Joan E. Bi- allowing herself to embrace her true gender Collection of the ren, a fellow photographer. Gottschalk took a identity, is a highlight. Myla’s eyes are closed, Leslie Lohman picture of Joan lying in bed topless and half- a sense of relaxation — or sadness — fl ooding Museum. covered by a sheet, one hand under the cover. her face. Years later, Myla will have to hide her The photo instantly turns the sophisticated gal- trans identity to keep a job as a night mainte- lery visitor into a peeping Tom — should we nance worker, and Gottschalk will be there to Donna Gottschalk, really be watching someone who might be mas- take the photo. Myla seems resigned to her fate Marlene, New 2018 November turbating? But Gottschalk wants us to enjoy it, in that picture and you just might want to lift York, 1969. and the fact that we know the photographer is her out of it and into 2018, not that it’s that Collection of the her lover makes it kind of okay. This is more much better on this side of the calendar. Like Leslie Lohman than just a hot picture, though. Gottschalk Marlene, Myla died before her time and both Museum. reframed queer sexuality as an authentic lan- deaths feel like they might have something to do guage that connects women in love. The image with being queer. IndypendenT The refl ects a rare “lesbian gaze” that replaces the Following Gottschalk’s time in New York, Donna Gottschalk, common male one of the day. In Biren’s nearby she went to join lesbian-separatist communi- Helaine on her photo of Gottschalk, lesbian nudity is reframed ties in California, a furthering of her activism, girlfriend’s lap, as merely practical as we see Gottschalk getting but the exhibit does not show that. Once, les- Provincetown, into a tub, which, because this is the pre-gen- bian separatism was all the rage but that has 1974. Collection of trifi ed Manhattan of the 1970s, is in a kitchen. been replaced by a respect for intersectional- the Leslie Lohman That shot, like Gottschalk’s image of a lesbian ity. Radical lesbianism thrives, but it has been Museum. 22 From TRUMP DEPRESSION International Publishers HOTLINE

I have felt nervous speaking before do we press on with the constant feel- groups of people ever since my school ing that planet Earth is on borrowed

days. I can still hear my classmates time? I’m feeling more than a little JON QUILTY laughing at me when I would begin hopeless. Thank you, stuttering and lost track of what I Now more important then ever! was reading. These days, there is a lot — COREY, Brooklyn to say but I’m unsure I can do it. Do Two books on one of the defining you ever get nervous when you are ideologies of the 20th century. on stage? You seem to relish being the Corey, center of attention. Don’t feel “a little hopeless.” Feel re- Dimitrov’s ground breaking report to ally deeply unforgettably what-the- — MARIA,MARIA, Morningside Heights hell-is-happening-am-I-going-to-die the 7th World Congress and a series hopeless. The Earth’s crisis isn’t an is- of lectures given by Italian Communist sue, it’s all the issues. It’s life and death Maria, the “center of attention” no for all of us. leader Palmiro Togliatti on the nature longer exists. People who want to walk You ask “How do we press on?” of Italian Fascism—with an into that spotlight — they disappear. The important thing is to fi nd our radi- Colin Kaepernick is the one person I calism, because the Earth is already introduction by Vijay Prashad can think of who is really the center of in an extreme state and we are sort of attention, and he doesn’t want atten- wandering with our iPhones into death. Order via the IP tion. He wants simple justice. We’re shopping. We’re trying to get websitwww.intpubnyc.com Well, Colin is a QB surrounded by laid. We go to blockbuster fi lms about TV cameras. You can say that he has the end of the world, but as far as the or call: a special situation. But Alexandria real world is concerned, we’re busy. 212-366-9816 Ocasio-Cortez was tending bar a few Put it this way, Jim Crow would still months ago. She must be an inspira- be directing Americans to the colored tion to you, yes? She looked around her fountain without 10,000 street actions, neighborhood and began to celebrate thousands of songs and prayers and her Change-a-lujah! sermons, and Fannie Lou Hamer and That’s it. If you want justice then do Martin Luther King and Joan Baez and your personal radical thing and the old James Farmer and Nina Simone and cultural edifi ces of the corporations, James Baldwin and Rosa Parks and art forms, religions — they will threat- Fred Shuttlesworth and Malcolm X eningly lean over you. and Medgar Evers and Thurgood Mar- But those edifi ces have been eaten shall and Emmett Till. from the inside by the psychosis of capi- And everyone of these people would talism. They have left us with zombie say that the movement was deeply police, pixel pollution and millions of moving to everyone. The heroes were people who are eroticized by hatred. mostly unknown. The transformation The people who have what’s left of left each person saying — I will do ev- the spotlight — let’s call them proper- erything I can do. ty-owners — they are border-fetishists. The imminent end of civilization Their laws are devices that harvest don’t have nothin’ like that. And why crimes among the just. They are afraid not? We haven’t forced the story out SUBSCRIBe that beyond the edge of their spotlight of the “environmentalism” closet. The is the darkness of the hordes of others, millions of premature deaths, whatever who, in actuality, are billions of mov- climate change and the Sixth Extinc- ing souls full of light. tion comes to, couldn’t even be dis- Maria. You don’t need voice les- cussed during the midterms. sons! Don’t wait to be pre-affi rmed be- Isn’t climate change the ultimate TOdAy! fore you break into your freedom. Let’s pre-existing condition? ascend to the Sacred State of Exalted Corey, let’s not press on, let’s be 12 ISSUeS FOR OnLy $25 Embarrassment! Disrupt the Earth- willing to die. The Civil Rights Move- haters with raw love. Racism is main- ment is our gold standard of social tained by isolation. Crash gated com- change. They risked everything. When- MAILed STRAIGhT TO yOUR munities with some rough forgiveness. ever there is a new fracked-gas pipeline Interrupt, disrupt, trespass, shock and coming toward New York. We know hOMe eVeRy MOnTh educate and love. Maria each of us is we have to throw our bodies across it. already in the center. You are and you always knew it. REVEREND BILLY IS AN ACTIVIST AND IndypendenT.ORG/SUBSCRIBe Love-a-lujah! POLITICAL SHOUTER, A POST-RELI- GIOUS PREACHER OF THE STREETS AND OR Send A CheCK OR MOney ORdeR TO The • • • BANK LOBBIES. GOT A QUESTION FOR November 2018 REVEREND BILLY? JUST EMAIL REV- IndypendenT/388 ATLAnTIC AVe., 2nd FL./ Dear Reverend, [email protected] AND UN- I’m sure by now you’ve heard about BURDEN YOUR SOUL. BROOKLyn, ny 11217 the UN’s report that essentially gives humanity until 2030 to get its act together in order to curb the worst ef- fects of climate change. Realistically, The IndypendenT The IndypendenT we’re not going to pull this off. How 23 November 2018 November The IndypendenT The Reverend Billy& The StopShopping Choir Joe's Pub at The Public 425 Lafayette Sundays at 2pm nov 25 dec 2, 9, 16, 23 15$ info & discounts REVBILLY.COM A Spirited revival in Dark Times