alive and kicking: In THese TImes turns 30

February 2007 Say what? A politically correct best political coverage lexicon for today Jehangir Pocha on the world in 2037

karen j. greenberg reports

PLUS: Who’s to blame for America’s new torture techniques? Mischa Gaus investigates Changing the South and Southwest Will Change America

Working people in states such as Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Colorado are uniting for justice with the support of our union— SEIU—and our local communities.

In Houston, more than 5,000 janitors who made $20 a night doubled their income and won health insurance for the first time.

In Florida, more than 4,000 nurses and other employees at six hospitals formed unions to improve the quality of care and win a better future for their families.

As working people in the South and Southwest unite, we will help build progressive majorities not only in our own states but in the nation.

To win affordable health care for all, immigration reform, and other changes, we need a national movement that unites working people in every region.

And that takes all of us—innovative and dynamic unions, effective community organizations, and committed activists—working together in 2007 and beyond.

For more information, see www.SEIU.org. 5111.900H kp 1.18.07  f e b r u a r y  0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s Changing the contents Volume 31 - Number 02 frontline South and Southwest 8 Fa m i l i e s b E h i n d Ba r s Immigration policies are putting children in jail By Kari Lydersen Will Change America a l s o : –Vets fight for their benefits –Why is the EPA closing its libraries? 48 56 –U.S. corporations decry Chinese labor reform Working people in states such as Texas, –Declassified, but unavailable 12 a p pa l l- o - m e t er Florida, Arizona, and Colorado are uniting By Dave Mulcahey for justice with the support of our union— SEIU—and our local communities. views 15 d r o p p i n ’ a d i m e Media reformers amass in Memphis In Houston, more than 5,000 janitors who By Laura S. Washington made $20 a night doubled their income and 26 11 16 t h e t h i r d coa s t won health insurance for the first time. Barack’s black dilemma By Salim Muwakkil In Florida, more than 4,000 nurses and CULTURE other employees at six hospitals formed FEATURES 54 I n Yo u M o R E t h a n unions to improve the quality of care and Yo u r s e l f The Internet, a frog and a bottle of win a better future for their families. 24 Eight Reasons To Close GuantÁnamo beer Enumerating why the rest of the world shuns us. By Slavoj ŽiŽek By Karen J. Greenberg a l s o : As working people in the South and 26 InteRrogations behind barbed wire –Peter Boyle’s dark night Southwest unite, we will help build Who’s to blame for America’s new torture techniques? of the soul By Mischa Gaus –The dark life of progressive majorities not only in our own Dinesh D’Souza’s soul states but in the nation. 30 Visiting America’s Gulag –Sayonara, Mr. Smith A personal tour of a legal no-man’s land 45 h E a lt h & s C i e n ce By H. Candace Gorman Faith healing with homeopathy By Terry J. Allen To win affordable health care for all, immigration reform, and other changes, we 32 Dreaming Up New Politics need a national movement that unites working people in every region. Thinking differently in an age of fantasy By Stephen Duncombe 46 Looking Back , Moving Forward Don’t trust anyone over 30—except ITT 36 A Politically Correct Lexicon And that takes all of us—innovative and dynamic unions, effective community By John B. Judis, Sheryl Larson and other Your “how to” guide to avoid offending anyone in these times alums organizations, and committed activists—working together in 2007 and beyond. By Joel Bleifuss 48 Eyes Off The Prize 38 Solidarity Across Borders What will the world look like in 2037? It’s not just corporations that are multi-national By Jehangir S. Pocha By David Moberg 52 Kucinich Comes Back in ’08 42 Education reform: pass or fail? The Ohio representative talks about being right on Assessing the damage of NCLB Iraq all along By Adam Doster By Daniel Sturm

For more information, see www.SEIU.org. 5111.900H kp 1.18.07 I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y  0 0 7  editorial

“With liberty and justice for all...”

Thirty More Years Founding Editor and Publisher James Weinstein (1926-2005) ack in 1976, when James Wein- thanks to Sinclair’s work, Roosevelt signed Editor Joel Bleifuss stein decided to move to Chi- the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. Executive Editor Jessica Clark cago to start In These Times, his Though coined by Roosevelt as ape- acting MANAGING Editor Phoebe Connelly inspiration was Appeal to Rea- jorative, “muckraker” became a badge of Associate Editor Brian Cook Editor-at-Large Sheryl Larson Bson, a socialist weekly published out of honor by journalists willing to risk soci- Senior Editors Craig Aaron, Terry J. Allen, Patricia Girard, Kansas, between 1895 and 1922. ety’s disapproval to write honestly about Aufderheide, Lakshmi Chaudhry, Susan J. Douglas, At its peak in 1912, the paper had 761,000 the world they lived in. Christopher Hayes, David Moberg, Dave Mulcahey, Salim Muwakkil, David Sirota, Silja J.A. Talvi, Kurt subscribers—including 38,000 in Okla- In These Times was—and is—inspired Vonnegut, Laura S. Washington homa. When the Post Office banned its by those muckrakers. One of the maga- Contributing Editors Dean Baker, Frida Berrigan, special issues, which had print runs in the zine’s original subscribers, the late Sen. Will Boisvert, Phyllis Eckhaus, Barbara Ehrenreich, Annette Fuentes, Mischa Gaus, Juan Gonzalez, millions, subscribers around the country, Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) put it this way: Miles Harvey, Paul Hockenos, George Hodak, Doug “the Appeal army,” circulated it by hand. “Meaningful democracy cannot survive Ireland, John Ireland, Hans Johnson, Kari Lydersen, Appeal to Reason was founded at a time without the free flow of information, even Naomi Klein, John Nichols, James North, James Parker, Kim Phillips-Fein, Jehangir Pocha, Aaron when American society confronted both (or especially) when that information Sarver, Fred Weir, Adam Werbach, Slavoj Žižek the effects of the industrial revolution and threatens the privileged and the powerful.” Proofreaders Alan Kimmel, Brian O’Grady, the emergence of corporations as domi- Today’s agenda is different from that Norman Wishner nant players in national politics. In Ameri- of the Progressive Era, but citizens face a Interns Michael Burgner, Nick Burt, Brandon can cities the majority of citizens had little similar challenge. The wars we started in Forbes, Chelsea Ross, Wanda Victores control over their own lives. The places Afghanistan and Iraq are spiraling out of Art Director Rachel Jefferson they lived were unsanitary, the food they control. More and more families cannot Illustrator Terry LaBan ate unsafe, the conditions of their work afford health insurance. Civil liberties are web Director Seamus Holman horrendous and their pay meager. Chil- increasingly violated. Cataclysmic dam- Publisher Tracy Van Slyke dren were exploited for their labor. Wom- age to the Earth’s environment is ignored. Associate Publishers Erin Polgreen, Anna Grace Schneider en lacked the right to vote. Blacks, Chinese And the Bush administration, abetted by Circulation Director Peter Hoyt Americans and Indians suffered institu- the corporate media, has repeatedly lied PUblishing Interns Katharine Goktuna, Kelly tionalized racism and discrimination. to the public in order to win elections and Ragusa, Gabrielle Sinclair

Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, Helen Hunt reward its wealthiest supporters. In These Times Publishing Consortium Jackson, Lincoln Steffans, Abraham Ca- In These Times was founded on the be- Grant Abert, Theresa Alt, Aris Anagnos, Stuart han, George Seldes and many others wit- lief that a healthy democracy requires a Anderson, Collier Hands, Polly Howells and Eric Werthman, Betsy Kreiger and David Kandel, Nancy nessed this injustice and decided to do thoughtful and independent media—a Kricorian and James Schamus, Lisa Lee, Chris Lloyd, something about it. In newspapers and watchdog for the people. In a democracy, Edith Helen Monsees, Dave Rathke, Abby Rockefeller magazines, they chronicled the misery a crusading press and an informed public and Lee Halprin, Perry and Gladys Rosenstein, Lewis and Kitty Steel, Ellen Stone-Belic, Dan Terkel, Studs in their midst. In league with the writers, can, together, create change. Terkel social reformers and political activists In the forward to Appeal to Reason: Board of Directors Joel Bleifuss, Janet Geovanis, of the day—people like Henry Demar- 25 Years In These Times (the 2002 book Robert McChesney, David Moberg, Dave Rathke, est Lloyd, William Dean Howells, Ida B. edited by former Managing Editor Craig Beth Schulman, Tracy Van Slyke Wells, Frank Norris, Jane Addams, Eu- Aaron), Weinstein wrote: In These Times (ISSN 0160-5992) is published monthly by the Institute for Public Affairs, 2040 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60647. Periodicals postage gene V. Debs, Victor Berger and Florence paid at Chicago, IL and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address As small as In These Times is in the world changes to In These Times, 308 E. Hitt St., Mt. Morris, IL 61054. This issue (Vol. Kelley—these journalists became the of American media, it has played a vital 31, No. 02) went to press on January 26, for newsstand sales from February 9 to March 2, 2007. The entire contents of In These Times are copyright © 2007 backbone of the social movement that role in keeping honest journalism alive … by the Institute for Public Affairs, and may not be reproduced in any manner, ushered in the eight-hour work day, child either in whole or in part, without permission of the publisher. Copies of In A viable new left cannot exist without prin- These Times’ contract with the National Writers Union are available upon labor laws, public health departments, cipled, rigorous publications to inform it, request. Contact the union at (212) 254-0279 or www.nwu.org. Subscriptions are $36.95 a year ($59 for institutions; $61.95 Canada; $75.95 and food and safety regulations. and to help give it direction. That was what overseas). For subscription questions, address changes and back issues For example, in 1904 and 1905, Appeal to we intended to do in 1976 when we cobbled call (800) 827-0270. Complete issues and volumes of In These Times are available from Bell and Reason serialized Sinclair’s The Jungle and together In These Times’ initial staff in Chi- Howell, Ann Arbor, MI. In These Times is indexed in the Alternative Press cago. It remains our purpose today. Index and the Left Index. Newsstand circulation through Big Top Newsstand he was damned by the powerful. “I have Services, a division of the IPA, at (415) 445-0230, or [email protected]. utter contempt for him,” wrote President Printed in the United States. Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt derided And, with support from readers like MMUNIC PHIC CO ATIO GRA NS UNION LABEL ® IN GCIU TER ION 759-C crusading journalists as “muckrakers” un- you, it will remain our purpose for de- NATIONAL UN able to look up from the filth and appreci- cades to come. ate America’s glory. Yet, for all his disdain, –Joel Bleifuss

 F e b r u a r y  0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s mixed reaction

Attempts by the United States Administration to redefine ‘torture’ in the framework of the struggle against terror- ism in order to allow certain interrogation techniques that would not be permitted under the internationally accepted definition of torture are of utmost concern.

—U.n. Commission on Human Rights, Feb. 16, 2006 Report Recommending the closure of GuantÁnamo

LaBanarama by terry laban

Percentage of Americans who say they 77 “always look for ways to save money,” according to the Pew Research Center.

Percentage increase in consumer 6.9 spending on goods and services in 2006—the largest increase since the bubble year of 2000, according to Advertising Age.

Number of Americans 18,000 who die each year from treatable and preventable diseases be- cause they don’t have health insurance, according to the Institute of Medicine.

billion: Estimated amount that the $161 United States would save each year on paperwork if it adopted single-payer health care, according to the Drum Major Institute.

q u i d p r o q u o

The Quid: The Quo: The prospect of a newly elected Dem- The finalH ouse bill, passed during the ocratic Congress stemming corruption infamous “100 Hours,” cut only $5.5 caused a flash of anxiety:Would there billion. The lobbying team represent- be no more grist for Quid Pro Quo’s mill? ing Big Oil, including former Rep. Jim The thought has safely perished. Chapman (D-Texas), reached out to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) current Democratic Texas Reps. Gene terrified oil execs late last year with Green and Chet Edwards, who con- her promise to “roll back the multibil- vinced Pelosi that they were serious lion-dollar subsidies for Big Oil.” The about protecting their benefactors. subsidies and tax breaks in place over One of the lobbyists involved im- the next five years for this industry parted this eternal D.C. truth: “[G]ood making record profits total $32 billion. lobbying is always bipartisan.”

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y  0 0 7  letters

Corrections a problem racial prejudice is dollars to private corpora- in the 21st century, but is that tions via the Department In “America’s Toxic true of their female counter- of “Defense.” Should we fail Sweatshops” (January), the parts? I don’t think so. to do this (as we did with Texas Campaign for the Just as racial minorities Nixon), the legacy of once Environment was errone- have to work twice as hard again trashing the Magna ously reported as one of the to get half as far as many of Carta and our Constitution groups that jointly published their white counterparts, so will soil everything we at- the report “Toxic Sweatshops.” too, do white women who tempt to do in the world for Two other groups that did work for a living and are decades to come. participate in drafting the often head of household. Karen Hayes report—the Silicon Valley Not that they don’t have it via e-mail Toxics Coalition and the easier than many minori- Center for Environmental ties, but they still cannot Not a Pretty Picture Health—were not cited. Also, compete with white guys. The photo accompanying the article misidentified what the acronym OSHA stands On the Nose The discrepancy in pay rates Natalie Y. Moore’s article on says it all. Beyoncé (“Beyoncé’s Bootyful for. It is, of course, the Oc- Antonia Juhasz’ “Spoils of cupational Safety and Health War” (January) was the most Administration. stunning, head-on account The need for a just economic and In “A Dark Night In Iceland,” of what was really going on (January) one of the rivers during the Iraq invasion/de- social policy demands equality for all, in the photo on page 33 was molition-so-U.S.-contractors/ no matter what color they are painted, misidentified. It is Jökulsá á corporations-could-get-all- Dal, not Jökulsá á Fljótsdal. the-money-and-Iraq-would- or how they are plumbed. We regret these errors. be-bound-by-WB/IMF/ WTO-loans-forever-and-ever It’s important to remem- B’Day,” November 2006) is The State of the Union (whew!) that I could ever ber that the need for a just one of the most reprehensible BY KURT vo n n eGUT hope to read. economic and social policy I’ve seen in a long time, in Condensed into those six demands equality for all, no terms of the fundamental pages was an incredibly suc- matter what color they are assumptions underly- cinct outline of the market painted, or how they are ing it. Looking at subversion of an entire (if plumbed. the photo, one can cobbled together) country- Carol R. Campbell easily imagine the that-was. Keaau, Hawaii singer as a ‘Barbie Bravo, ITT! doll’ complete Connie Hall Impeach! with moveable Chicago, Ill. I was pleased to see John joints and that Nichols keep the idea of im- animals are on Parsing Inequalities peachment alive (“In Praise this earth to be While I cannot disagree of Impeachment,” December the playthings of with most of Rinku Sen’s 2006). humans. arguments about the fail- I believe that the impeach- Ellen Rosner ure of white progressives to ment process is necessary via e-mail recognize racism in its many to demonstrate to the world disguises, her reasoning has that we Americans do Art Director a basic flaw that must be not appreciate being lied Responds addressed. It’s important to to, bankrupted and made The photo—like it or identify your enemies—but objects of hate by an admin- hate it—is from the album recognizing friends and allies istration that gained power artwork for Beyoncé’s recent can be even more critical. Yes, by deceptive means, with release, B’day. Though it white progressive men fail the intent to wage war on wasn’t a personal favorite, it to understand just how big Iraq and redistribute our tax conveyed the tone of the story.

 f e b r u a r y  0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s contributors

Dear Reader, Karen J. GreenBerg is the executive director of the Center on Law and With this issue, you hold a piece of In These Times his- Security at NYU School of Law. She is tory in your hand. the editor of the NYU Review of Law Thirty years ago, In These Times was established as a and Security and The Torture Debate national, non-profit magazine that was independent in America (Cambridge University of all political parties, but committed to informing and Press). She served as co-chair for El- building a national progressive movement. That core liot Spitzer’s transition team for Homeland Security. She mission has not changed. On page 46, you will read how is a frequent writer and commentator on issues related In These Times has made its mark over the last 30 years to national security, terrorism, and torture. Greenberg is through the memories of former In These Times editors. currently working on a book about Guantánamo. This issue also celebrates the present: In These Times just won the 2006 Utne Reader Independent Press Award Rick Perlstein is the author of Before for “Best Political Coverage.” As the Utne Reader observed, The Storm: Barry Goldwater and the since becoming a monthly magazine in 2006, In These Unmaking of the American Consen- Times has had a “palpable, politically unpredictable sus, winner of the 2001 Los Angeles energy—a little less worry and a lot more fight.” This Times Book Award for History. He is award reflects the dedication, passion and creativity of currently working on its sequel, titled the In These Times staff and writers who are committed to Nixonland: The Politics and Culture of producing journalism that questions authority, provides the American Berserk, 1965-1972, which will be published provocative analysis, and informs a movement for change by Scribner in early 2008. He also writes a biweekly col- and true American democracy. We couldn’t have received umn for The New Republic Online. He lives in Chicago this accolade without the support of readers like you. On and online at www.rickperlstein.org. page 18, we honor the In These Times community whose contributions make the magazine possible. Mischa Gaus has been a freelance investigative reporter On a final note, I want to thank and say farewell to two for five years, after a few eye-opening stints in corporate special people, Executive Editor Jessica Clark and As- media. A graduate of Northwestern’s Medill School of Jour- sociate Publisher Aaron Sarver. In the last five years they nalism, his work is published most frequently in In These have taken In These Times to extraordinary new levels of Times, where he was recently named contributing editor. journalism and productivity. But they won’t be missed His work has also appeared in AlterNet, The New Standard too much—our friendships are deep and both will con- the Chicago Reader, and unwillingly, twice in the Wall Street tinue to write for these pages. I also want to congratulate Journal. His writing focuses on the abuses of power, often Phoebe Connelly, the new Acting Managing Editor, as returning to the concerns of labor and political economy. well as Erin Polgreen and Anna Grace Schneider, who will Adam Doster both become Associate Publishers. These three young was an In These Times intern last summer, women will help In These Times continue to flourish. making editorial contributions in the office and spec- tacular plays on the softball diamond as the centerfielder I hope you enjoy this special issue. And let’s all toast for the ITT Deadline Dogs. A senior at the University of to another 30 years. Michigan, he’s currently taking one three-hour seminar —Tracy Van Slyke on Stalin and another on the works of James Baldwin. h o w t o r e a c h u s

Letters to the editor Special Requests Advertising We encourage letters to the editor, To inquire about lost or damaged Advertisers who choose In These and reserve the right to edit them issues, back issues and classroom Times reach a highly educated, for clarity, grammar and length. subscriptions, please contact Anna motivated and civically engaged Send them to: 2040 North Milwaukee Schneider at [email protected]. audience. Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647. Or submit Subscription Questions To request a media kit, or learn about them electronically at: www.inthese- online and print advertising opportu- times.com/site/about/contact. Please To renew your subscription or change your address, please call 800-827-0270. nities, please contact Erin Polgreen at include your full name and address. [email protected].

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y  0 0 7  frontline

the auspices of “keeping families together,” children and parents are incarcerated to- gether at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, as it is now called, and at a smaller facility in Berks County, Penn. Attorneys for detainees say the children are only al- lowed one hour of schooling, in English, and one hour of recreation per day. “It’s just a concentration camp by an- other name,” says John Wheat Gibson, a Dallas attorney representing two Pales- tinian families in the facility. In addition, there have been reports of inadequate healthcare and nutrition. “The kids are getting sick from the food,” says Frances Valdez, a fellow at the Uni- versity of Texas Law School’s Immigra- tion Law Clinic. “It could be a psycholog- r.

S ical thing also. These are little kids, given Protesters stand only one hour of playtime a day, the rest outside the T. Hutto of the time they’re in their pods in a con- Residential Center during tained area. There are only a few people a candlelight vigil on per cell so families are separated at night. Christmas Eve, 2006. There’s a woman with two sons and two

Jay J. Johnson-Castro, daughters; one of her sons was getting really sick at night but she couldn’t go to him because he’s in a different cell. One Families Behind Bars client was pregnant and we established there was virtually no prenatal care.” U.S. immigration policy is putting kids in jail. When local staff for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LU- By K ari Lydersen LAC) collected toys for the children at Christmas, Hutto administrators would amed after the co-founder facility houses no Mexicans.) not allow stuffed animals to be given to of the Corrections Corpora- In the past, most of them would have the children, according to LULAC na- tion of America (CCA), the T. been free to work and attend school as tional president Rosa Rosales. Don Hutto Correctional Cen- their cases moved through immigration “That’s what these children need— terN in Taylor, Texas, opened as a medium- courts. “Prior to Hutto, they were releas- something warm to hug,” she says. “And security prison in 1997. Today, the federal ing people into the community,” says Ni- they won’t even allow them that, why, I government pays CCA, the nation’s larg- cole Porter, director of the Prison and Jail can’t imagine. They say they’re doing a fa- est private prison company, $95 per per- Accountability Project for the ACLU of vor by keeping families together, but this son per day to house the detainees, who Texas. “These are non-criminals and non- is ridiculous.” wear jail-type uniforms and live in cells. violent individuals who have not commit- A CCA spokesperson refers media to But they have not been charged with ted any crime against the U.S. There are vi- the San Antonio office of Immigration any crimes. In fact, nearly half of its 400 or able alternatives to requiring them to live and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but that so residents are children, including infants in a prison setting and wear uniforms.” office did not return calls for this story. and toddlers. But as a result of increasingly stringent Immigrants have been housed at the The inmates are immigrants or chil- immigration enforcement policies, today facility since last summer, and pub- dren of immigrants who are in depor- more than 22,000 undocumented immi- lic outrage and attention from human tation proceedings. Many of them are grants are being detained, up from 6,785 rights groups has grown in the past few in the process of applying for political in 1995, according to the Congressional months as more people have become asylum, refugees from violence-plagued Research Service. aware of the situation. In mid-Decem- and impoverished countries like Hon- Normally, men and women are de- ber, Jay J. Johnson-Castro, a 60-year-old duras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Somalia tained separately and minors, if they are resident of Del Rio, Texas, walked 35 and Palestine. (Since there are different detained at all, live in residential facilities miles from the Capitol to the detention procedures for Mexican immigrants, the with social services and schools. But under center, joined by activists along the way

 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s and ending in a vigil at the center. school can be a very grounding thing “Everyone I have talked to about this is Getting Vets Their for a veteran returning from war.” shocked that here on American soil we Scavetta is just one of the many vets are treating helpless mothers and inno- Benefits Back Jack Mordente works with as director of cent children as prisoners,” says John- ick Scavetta lives with his wife Veterans Affairs (VA) at Southern Con- son-Castro, who had previously walked and young daughter in a small necticut State University in New Haven. 205 miles along the border to protest the Rtown near New Haven, Conn. He Mordente says he learned last May that proposed border wall. “This flies in the joined the Army at 18, in part to earn the Department of Defense was telling face of everything we claim to represent money for college, and served in the war-activated Guard and Reservists that internationally.” regular Army and then the Reserve for if they left paid drill status they would A coalition of attorneys, community a total of 15 years, reaching the rank of lose their GI Bill education benefits. organizations and immigrants rights Sergeant 1st Class. In 2005, his Reserve “And in fact it’s not true,” he says. groups called Texans United for Families unit was called up, and he served a year VA representative Keith Wilson is working to close the facility. The Uni- in Afghanistan. backs up Mordente’s interpretation. versity of Texas Immigration Law Clinic Scavetta says he made a firm deci- Providing a bit of history, he says that is considering a lawsuit challenging the sion to leave the military last February, in 1985 Congress created GI Bill educa- incarceration of children. and planned to use his GI Bill benefits tion benefits for members of the Guard Valdez sees the center as a political to pursue a master’s degree in political and Reserve for the first time. Then, he statement by the government. science and to study Arabic at Southern adds, “During Gulf War I, some indi- “Our country likes to detain people,” Connecticut State University. But he viduals in the Guard and Reserve were says Valdez. “I think it’s backlash for the was told in his exit briefing that if he de- called up for active duty, which inter- protests that happened in the spring— activated—in military terms, “left drill fered with their ability to pursue their like, ‘We’re going to show you that you’re status”—he would not be eligible. education. So Congress passed a law not that powerful.’ It’s about power.” n “Imagine if someone told you, ‘We that allowed the delimiting date (i.e., promise you these benefits if you serve eligibility deadline) to be extended for Kari Lydersen has been writing on immigra- your country,’ and you held up your end a period equal to the time they’re acti- tion issues for 10 years. Her most recent book is of the bargain for six years in the Re- vated plus four months.” Out of the Sea and Into the Fire. With this issue, serve, a year or two deployed overseas,” Mordente says if a member of the she joins In These Times as a contributing editor. he says. “It’s frustrating, especially since Guard or Reserve knows he or she is eli-

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I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7  a c t n o w

gible and files for the benefit, the Veter- Solar Cookers for Safety ans Administration will pay it. But the Department of Defense More than 17,000 displaced Suda- (DoD) interprets the law differently. Lt. nese women at the Iridimi refugee Col. Steve Beller of the Army National camp in Chad risk abduction, Guard writes the Guard policies to im- branding or rape every time they leave the makeshift village to gather plement Army regulations. He says that firewood. In an inspired effort to pro- the Department of Defense, unlike the tect these women and improve their VA, interprets the law to restrict eligi- quality of life, Jewish World Watch, in bility for benefits to those who remain partnership with Netherlands-based on drill status. manufacturer KoZon, sent more than “The general counsels of the VA and 2,000 solar ovens to Iridimi since the the DoD issued opposite opinions,” he spring of 2006. says. The two departments are trying to According to Executive Director resolve their differences, but until they Tzivia Schwartz-Getzug, the use of do, Beller says, “We will continue brief- solar cookers has reduced the inci- ing as our attorneys have stated, that Need to know how to clean up a mine? Too bad. dence of rape in Iridimi by 65 per- those benefits terminate upon leaving cent and transformed the camp’s Selective Reserve.” He adds, “The fund- economy. Rather than sell firewood ing we get for bonuses, retention and Why are EPA to supplement their incomes, says the GI Bill is all in one pot. If we take Schwartz-Getzug, “the women that money and give it to a vet, that Libraries Closing? have created their own industry, means there’s a soldier sitting in the n February 2006, when President making and selling cloth carrying desert to whom I can’t give a re-enlist- Bush unveiled his budget proposal for bags for the ovens” ment bonus.” IFY 2007, the EPA Library Network The solar cookers are also good for Scavetta knows he’s eligible, but has learned that its annual disbursement the environment. Since many refu- still run into roadblocks. “I applied for would be slashed 80 percent from 2006 gee camps are located in remote, my GI Bill benefits in August,” he says, funding levels—from $2.5 million to just arid areas with little vegetation, nat- “and I haven’t heard anything from the $500,000. A month later, administrators ural resources are quickly depleted. VA. I tried to call them, and got redi- at the EPA’s Region 5 facility in Chicago One cooker preserves the equivalent rected to a call center, and the voice says circulated an e-mail announcing it would of 1,000 pounds of firewood per year, nobody’s available to talk to me and be the first to close. By October, two oth- greatly reducing the environmental hangs up.” He’s putting his school ex- er regional libraries were gone. Together, impact of one family. penses—about $1,400 per semester—on the three facilities had served the entire The project has been so success- his credit card. “To not have a quicker middle United States. ful that the United Nations has delivery system for the benefits we’re en- Since last year, the EPA has drifted launched a committee to replicate titled to is, quite frankly, bullshit.” from its initial assertion that the move is the project in other camps. Besides serving veteran-students at purely budgetary to embrace the closings One $30 donation provides trainings SCSU, Mordente is also president of as a technological achievement. “EPA’s li- and the raw materials for two cook- the National Association of Veterans brary modernization is providing better ers. For more information, visit www. Program Administrators, and through access to a broader audience,” says EPA jewishworldwatch.org. his organization he is trying to get the spokesperson Jessica Emond. “When li- —Erin Polgreen word out nationally. He says student braries go digital, everyone benefits.” vets make up more than 20 percent of Not everyone sees it that way. Oppo- the nearly 400,000 members of the nents of the plan have presented a laundry Guard and Reserve from all branches of list of concerns ranging from questions the military who have served in Iraq or about the EPA’s motive to critiques of its Afghanistan since 2001. So far, the VA’s method. Foremost among the critics are Wilson says the department has paid employees of the agency itself. Shortly af- about 3,400 people under this provi- ter the initiative was proposed, the presi- sion, with a maximum payment of $300 dents of 17 union locals—representing a month. No one knows how many re- over 10,000 EPA scientists, researchers tired GIs haven’t applied because they’ve and support personnel—lodged a formal been told they’re ineligible. protest against the closings. “These are war-activated Guard and In a letter to Sens. Conrad Burns (R- Reservists who sacrificed,” Mordente Mont.) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), says. “And now they’re being told they’re members of the American Federation not eligible for a benefit theyare eligible of Government Employees, the National for. It’s appalling.” Treasury Employees Union, the National –Melinda Tuhus Association of Government Employ-

1 0 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s ees, and the Engineers and Scientists of Still others question the value of digi- California urged Congress to reverse the tization itself, arguing that access is only Fights Over Chinese budget cuts and mandate that the EPA part of the equation. keep its libraries open. They have been “A simple search engine just isn’t Labor Reform joined by a growing coalition of lawmak- enough,” said Burger. “With the loss of ast March, in his annual speech ers, advocacy groups and citizens. the brick-and-mortar facilities comes to the National People’s Congress, “The EPA libraries are essential to the the loss of the most important asset in LChinese Premier Wen Jiabao an- agency’s ability to carry out its mission to the library: the librarian. After all, what nounced wide-ranging economic reforms protect human health and the environ- good is information if you can’t find it?” of “epoch-making significance,” including ment,” says Michael Halpern, outreach Further, the EPA itself has admitted that a new labor law that would crack down on coordinator for the Union of Concerned it may not have the authority to digitize inhumane working conditions. Scientists (UCS), one of several groups certain copyrighted material. Add to that But the move sparked opposition from actively engaged in the debate. the fact that many EPA compendiums are many American and European corpo- Founded in 1971, the EPA Library Net- hundreds of pages in length and contain rations, even though they have long work consisted of 27 facilities across the complex maps and graphics—which re- claimed that their business activities in country at its height, serving 10 regional quire special viewing formats—and it’s the People’s Republic of China promote agency offices, two research centers and easy to see why digitization of the entire human rights. 12 EPA laboratories, as well as thousands catalogue is virtually impossible. of ordinary citizens. The libraries house A newly invigorated Democratic Con- information on everything from basic gressional majority has taken up the sciences, such as biology and chemis- cause. In a November 30 letter to EPA try, to local records on hazardous waste, administrator Stephen Johnson, Reps. drinking water, pollution prevention and John Dingell (D-Mich.), Bart Gordon toxic substances. (D-Tenn.), Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) According to Public Employees for En- and James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.) urged

vironmental Responsibility (PEER), in the agency to stop closing libraries until s

2005 the library network handled more Congress has had the chance to review ge than 134,000 research requests from its the plan. The lawmakers had previously t t y Ima own scientific and enforcement staff and asked the Government Accountability e

housed an estimated 50,000 “unique” Office to look into the closings. FP/G A / S

documents that are available nowhere “Congress … has approved neither the K AR

else. “Access to information is one of President’s 2007 budget request nor the P R E the best tools we have for protecting the library closure,” they wrote. “We request T environment,” says Jeff Ruch, PEER’s ex- that you maintain the status quo of the PE ecutive director. “The dismantlement of libraries and their material while this is- Chinese laborers in front of Tiananmen Gate EPA’s Library Network has been directed sue is under investigation.” As In These from above without any assessment of Times went to press, the outcry seemed The first draft of the law would have the information needs of the agency.” to be having some effect. required all employers in China to sign Emond says that the EPA has imple- On January 12, a Washington D.C.- written contracts with workers (prefer- mented a stringent agenda to ensure that based blog run by Cox Newspapers ably without fixed termination dates), no essential material gets lost and has reported that the EPA had halted the restricted mass layoffs, increased sever- followed the American Library Associa- closings. But Emond says this was a mis- ance pay and boosted the power of the tion’s (ALA) guidance by developing cri- characterization since the agency never government-sponsored All-China Fed- teria for reviewing its library collection. planned to close any more libraries. eration of Trade Unions to negotiate ALA President Leslie Burger takes is- Nevertheless, she says, “We have re- layoffs, salaries, working conditions and sue with that assertion. “The [ALA’s] scheduled our recycling schedule in or- internal company policies. loose collection of resources is a good der to take time to address some of the In a suprise move, the government starting point for thinking about collec- Congressional questions.” asked for public input. Nearly 200,000 tion development policies but does not So far, the EPA says it has digitized comments were sent in. The responses constitute ALA guidance and criteria,” about half of its collection, but admits it were mostly from Chinese workers, but said Burger, in a recent statement to the will take at least another two years to fin- representatives of American and Euro- National Advisory Council for Environ- ish the project. pean business organizations, including mental Policy and Technology. Halpern worries the damage may al- the American Chamber of Commerce in UCS’s Halpern also takes issue with the ready be done. “Even if Congress acts Shanghai and European Union Chamber linking of digitization and closings. “The now, it’s pretty difficult to put a library of Commerce in China, also chimed in, EPA’s plan is backwards,” says Halpern. “A back together once the bookshelves and criticizing the proposed safeguards. They thoughtful and deliberate digitization of the microfilm readers have been sold warned that the new law would discour- all of the information in a library’s col- and scientific journals have been recy- age their corporate members from mak- lection should occur before the library’s cled,” he says. ing further investments in China. physical location is closed.” –Christopher Moraff The business community made its in-

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 1 1 fluence felt. Andreas Lauffs, a Hong Kong- The Ministry of Public Security estimat- companies oppose [Chinese] labor law,” based lawyer who advises Western corpo- ed that there were 87,000 public protests says John Frisbie, president of the U.S.- rations on Chinese employment law, says in 2005, a six percent rise over the previ- China Business Council, a Washington, that in mid-January the Chinese govern- ous year. Although the ministry reported D.C.-based lobbying group with several ment began circulating a second version a steep drop in disturbances during 2006, hundred member corporations, includ- of the law. Although much of the first ver- the South China Morning Post, a Hong ing Wal-Mart, Microsoft and Boeing. The sion was left intact, companies no longer Kong newspaper, has reported that the council did send the Chinese government have to worry about union approval for Chinese government began stopping the a letter several pages long, mostly criticiz- changes such as conducting layoffs. Lauffs national media from covering protests and ing the proposals requiring companies to says he had expected government to sim- strikes, and many experts question wheth- secure the union’s approval before laying ply ignore all the criticism. “Frankly, I was er the unrest has actually lessened. off workers or changing any policies. surprised how big the changes were.” Lauffs says party leaders are trying to Some groups, however, were more ag- This has pro-labor groups in the Unit- put their stamp on history by addressing gressive. The American Chamber of Com- ed States crying foul. “[Western corpo- the fact that “many quarters of society merce in Shanghai, which represents more rations] have shown themselves to be have totally lost out since the ’80s.” But than 1,000 corporations, submitted several hypocrites,” says Tim Costello, co-direc- he feels they have gone about it the wrong dozen pages and rejected most of the draft tor of Global Labor Strategies, a Boston- way. Migrant workers tend to work long law. And, according to their own English based think tank. “They’re opposing the hours for Chinese-owned companies, translation, they also gave the Darwinian very things that can raise the living stan- and usually receive little or no overtime advice, “that the fittest survives is the basic dards of Chinese workers.” pay, an issue not covered by the new law, principle of all creatures.” Experts say the Chinese government he says. Local governments are too weak Costello says pro-labor forces need hopes to close the huge wealth gap be- or unwilling to enforce existing labor to publicize the role played by multina- tween prosperous urban dwellers and the law, and frequently let domestic firms get tional corporations in suppressing pro- vast majority of Chinese citizens who have away with serial violations. In contrast, gressive trends in China. Many unions gained little from the global economy. he claims, the Western-owned firms he simply criticize the Chinese government, Violent disturbances, largely driven by represents give all their workers contracts, but he does not believe that’s enough. the millions of migrant workers with few and maintain good working conditions. “We need to put the attention back on rights or protections, have become com- Other business advocates agree. “It is global capital.” mon throughout China. a complete misnomer to say [American] –Brian J. Rogal appall-o-meter

5.3 McMansion Of One’s Own we see parents get into it a 6.3 Worst. Surgery. bit more than the kids,” one When archaeologists and historians builder told the Journal. In Ever. centuries hence try to understand the one case the family “got into Medical tourists will want glory that was America, the acme of a big argument over color to steer a wide berth around world-dominating civilizations, they will patterns and plumbing. I sort Romania. The nation’s doc- have to explain not only the McMansion, of stayed out of it until they tors union is coming to the but the Mini-Me McMansion. The latter, worked it out for themselves.” defense of a scalpel-happy an excrescence described recently in the surgeon who was fined Wall Street Journal, is the miniature struc- 2.4 DesMoines Never $200,000 for what may be the ture that many members of the American Looked So Good most appalling act of mal- mandarin class build, usually in the back- practice ever. yard, so that their offspring may share in In the mad, mad world of London real estate, an apartment in the Professor Naum Ciomu was operat- the manifold joys of real estate lunacy. ing to correct a testicular malformation According to the Journal, some of city’s posher ’hoods selling for less than a million is news. Thus the furor when a when he suddenly flipped out. Upset at these structures are merely elaborate having mistakenly severed the patient’s playhouses. But custom builders report place in Kensington was listed recently for $335,000. Problem is, the musty, cave- urinary channel, Ciomu grabbed a a growing trend in commissions to scalpel and, uh, relieved the patient of a replicate the parental McEdifice, and to like pad has no electrical service or heat, and it measures a mere 77 square feet, rather important organ. As the surgical include upgrades such as media rooms, team watched in horror, Ciomu then satellite TVs and deluxe finishes. Con- according to the Associated Press. The space it occupies at 18 Cadogan Place sliced a neat stack of fleshy coins. struction costs often run into six figures. The price of a new package for the Ostensibly built for the kids, these might best be described as the part of the house where Victorian families used injured party ($40,000) will be covered structures actually appear to stimulate by the hospital’s insurance. Damages, some as-yet undiscovered pleasure center to lock the club-footed stepchild. No matter, it’s a screaming buy and however, are ordered to come out of in the brains of overachieving suburban- Ciomu’s pocket—which is what the ites. Often enough, young Kaitlynne and the seller’s agent is considering several offers. The lucky buyer, the agent admits, doctors union objects to. Sets a bad Skyler find their new bowers an unwanted precedent, they say. introduction to adult stress. “Sometimes will probably have to sink another 50 1 2 large into thef eplace b r ua to r ymake 2 0 0 7 it habitable. —DaveI n T M h eulcahey s e T i m e s Declassified, But snapshot Still Unavailable t the stroke of midnight on December 31, hundreds of mil- Alions of pages of secret govern- ment documents—including 270 million pages of FBI files—were instantly declas- sified, promising to shed light on every- thing from the Cuban Missile Crisis to government surveillance of antiwar and civil rights activists in the ’60s and ’70s. It was to be a “Cinderella moment,” said the New York Times, for researchers of the government’s secret history. But upon contacting the National Archives, researchers learned that declassification is not the same thing as release—none of the documents were publicly avail- able for review. The confusion over the documents’ status was understandable. The 2003 Ex- ecutive Order that President Bush signed with great fanfare clearly stated that gov- ernment documents more than 25 years ALLAHABAD, INDIA—A girl dressed as a goddess waits for handouts old “shall be automatically declassified from Hindu pilgrims near the ritual bathing site at the confluence whether or not the records have been re- of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers, January 24, viewed,” which many took to mean they 2007. The 45-day Ardh Kumbh Mela (Half Pitcher) festival in northern would be available to the public. But it did India is the largest religious gathering in the world. It commemorates not provide for the documents to be auto- the conflict between gods and demons over a pitcher filled with the matically made public. appall-o-meter In the words of the Justice Department, ‘nectar of immortality’. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) the policy of automatic declassification means that the material must be “reviewed for declassification, exemption, and/or stumbling block that journalist Jon Wie- be frustrated to learn that even those that referral to other government agencies.” ner often encountered in his 23-year bat- are deemed releasable might not be avail- Furthermore, it provides for nine areas of tle to obtain John Lennon’s government able for many years, due to the enormous exemption and, beyond that, laws such as surveillance files. amount of material that was declassified the Privacy Act can present numerous ob- When Lennon’s remaining 10 FBI files on January 1 and the huge backlog that stacles that ensure many documents will were finally released last month, Wiener exists at the National Archives. remain secret indefinitely. notes that they did not reveal any sensi- Even before the recent batch, there Some of the exemptions outlined in tive intelligence that would have com- were already approximately 400 million Bush’s Executive Order appear reason- promised an allied government. Instead, pages of documents that the National able enough—for example, if an agency he says, they “contained only innocuous Archives has yet to release. Hampering head determines that declassification information about Lennon’s antiwar ac- their efforts is a chronic understaffing would “reveal information that would tivities in London in 1971 that had always problem, which was only exacerbated by assist in the development or use of weap- been publicly known.” budget cuts last year. ons of mass destruction.” But others, Catherine Nielsen, FOIA coordina- The scarcity of funds certainly “serves as such as the exemption for information tor at the National Security Archive, a a constraint,” says Bill Leonard, director of that would reveal “an intelligence source Washington-based nonprofit that seeks Information Security Oversight Office at or method,” can be easily abused to keep to educate the public on the secret history the National Archives. And he notes that embarrassing information secret. The of U.S. foreign policy, says that it is “hard it will be an ongoing issue each year. FBI has often claimed this exemption for to say” how many of the exemptions are Despite this backlog, Leonard says the information obtained through wiretaps, legitimate and how many are designed to new policy is generally a positive devel- which, of course, is one of their standard maintain undue secrecy relating to official opment, noting that “the specter of de- “sources and methods.” misconduct. classification” has already forced various Another exemption provided by the Furthermore, regardless of how many agencies to release documents that oth- Executive Order regards information of the newly declassified documents - ul erwise would still be secret. obtained from foreign governments, a timately remain secret, researchers may –Nat Parry

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 1 3 THE EPIC BATTLE OF OUR TIMES A twenty-year-veteran federal prosecutor specializing in criminal fraud indicts Bush, Cheney, et al., and gives them seven days in court before a jury of their peers.

“Much more powerful than the 9-11 report. A tour de force.” —Chalmers Johnson

“This book . . . shines a brilliant beam of light into the fog of main- stream news and politics. If you're tired of partisan rhetoric and media evasions, read United States v. George W. Bush et al.” —Norman Solomon

“With her imaginative Grand Jury approach, Elizabeth de la Vega gives us a front-row seat for the evidence of violent crimes by high officials of the Bush administration.” —Ray McGovern, retired CIA analyst N E W Y O R K T I M E S B E S T S E L L E R

UNITED STATES v. GEORGE W. BUSH et al. by Elizabeth de la Vega �Available at bookstores everywhere, or direct Published by Seven Stories Press from TomDispatch.com from the publisher at 1-800-596-7437. www.sevenstories.com 256 pages; $14.95; paperback )N4HESE4IMES 9EARSOF4ELLING4RUTHTO0OWER

Leo W. Gerard James D. English International President International Secretary-Treasurer

Fred Redmond Ken Neumann Thomas M. Conway International Vice President National Director for Canada International Vice President

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United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union Five Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 • 412-562-2400 www.usw.org

1 4 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s Droppin’ a Dime

l aur a s. washington Cultivating the Media Garden he tides, they were a-rising in ment. Monsieurs Adelstein and Copp played political hard- Memphis last month at the Free ball, extracting a pledge from AT&T that it would observe TPress National Conference for Media net neutrality for the next two years. That victory, combined Reform. A record-busting 3,000 people at- with the Democratic Party sweep, had the crowd pumped. tended—a sizeable boost from the 2,500 at Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the Subcommittee the 2005 confab in St. Louis. Media orga- on Telecommunications and the Internet, added hot sauce to nizers packed the ballroom of the Memphis the concoction, calling for the demise of corporate influence Convention Center to rally in a deafening in his committee. “I believe we can do it right and will con- call for change in the corporate media. tinue to fight to make national telecommunications policy The highlights were many: reflect our highest aspirations as a society,” he pledged. “The Rev.” Bill Moyers: The mild-man- A Senior Moment: The other “Rev,” Jesse L. Jackson Sr., was nered Southern gentleman kicked off the conference with also in town for the conference and King birthday celebra- a lilting, yet blistering, denunciation of the evil corporate tions. Jackson recalled that the concept of a broad-based ra- and public media. He delivered a withering critique of Re- cial and economic coalition was birthed on King’s last birth- publican attempts to spin the public and cow the media into day: Jan. 15, 1968. Three months before his assassination, King somnolence. convened a meeting at a church On the eve of the birthday Bill Moyers delivered a withering basement in Memphis, with of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., African Americans from deep Moyers compared the corpo- critique of Republican attempts to South Georgia, Alabama and rate-owned media of today to spin the public and cow the media Mississippi, whites from Appa- plantation owners of long ago. lachia, native Americans, and “What happened to radio, hap- into somnolence. Jewish allies from New York, pened to television, and then it Jackson told the crowd. happened to cable. If we are not diligent, then it will happen The rainbow emerged. “We had never really worked to- to the internet, [creating] a media plantation for the 21st cen- gether before,” Jackson recalled, adding, they were “choos- tury dominated by the same corporate and ideological forces ing coalition over coexistence.” that have controlled the media for the last 50 years.” Jackson’s inclusion was one of many concerted efforts “Something is wrong with this system. This is the mo- the Free Press made to capture the black struggle under the ment freedom begins,” he went on, “the moment you realize banner. The media reform movement had been running at someone else has been writing your story, and it’s time you a diversity deficit, and had been rightly attacked as a bastion took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself.” of displaced white male elites in search of a platform. Moyers chose not a pen, but a megaphone to announce This year, the dovetailing of black and white voices was he would be back on PBS in April, with a reprise of his old impressive. Activist actor Danny Glover, deejay Davey D, weekly program “Bill Moyers’ Journal.” the Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus and The coo-some twosome: Everywhere Michael Copps and Janine Jackson of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, to Jonathan Adelstein—a couple of Washington-bureaucrats- name a few. The end result: A rainbow that would do King turned-rock-stars—went at the conference, they were met proud. with hosannas and standing ovations. The Whisper Number: Still, a fear of victories undone hov- Last year, the FCC commissioners did some serious dam- ered under the radar. You can be sure that the corporate me- age to an American corporate icon, AT&T—and boosted dia doesn’t plan to adopt oblivion as a return address. Media the cause of “net neutrality.” They set conditions on FCC ap- activists have to learn to work with like-minded members proval of the merger of AT&T and Bell South, commanding of the corporate media to change the landscape. Moyers, that the new company pledge to treat Web traffic equally. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, and Amy Goodman of “De- The Internet is imperiled by the gatekeeper aspirations of mocracy Now” are already doing it every day. cable and telephone companies to control the “tubes” that It’s a fertile moment. Media consolidation, falling circula- carry broadband media. If corporations are allowed to con- tion, declining ad revenues and layoffs have put both main- trol the flow of the Web, they can dismantle its inherently stream media and independent media into a tailspin. egalitarian infrastructure, and endanger independent me- Get to work, media reformers: The flowers can bloom for dia and political organizing in the process. progressive endeavors. Instead of pissing in the garden, it’s 21st Century free speech: No worry, at least for the mo- time to cultivate the soil. n

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 1 5 the third coast

by salim muwakkil Barack’s Black Dilemma he day after the national cel- rican Americans who were betrayed by the slave masters’ ebration of King Day, Sen. Barack favorite blacks. The logic seems simple: Be suspicious of THussein Obama (D-Ill.) announced those like you who are liked by those who dislike you. he was forming a committee to explore a Despite these suspicions, most African Americans seem run for the presidency. Obama’s rapid as- pleased with the Obama phenomena, if also perplexed by cent and the popular draft that has swept the intensity of white Americans’ affection. All of this is him into the presidential race would have new ground, which is why, aside from his political stance or amazed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ideological leanings, Obama’s public prominence will spark Less than 40 years after his assassina- necessary discussions on race in American culture. tion virtually killed the civil rights move- Obama’s racial hybridity is expressed as “black” in the Unit- ment, many white Americans seem will- ed States only because “one drop” of African blood denoted ing to back a black man for their leader. Even King dared blackness in a society dependent on racial slavery; this quality not include a black president in his celebrated dream. became a social taint with a devastating impact on the psyches To paraphrase James Brown, this is a brand new bag. Had of African Americans. As late as 1968, James Brown sparked Brown not died last Christmas, he might have written a a minor cultural revolution with his song, “Say it Loud (‘I’m song about it. Black and I’m Proud’).” It is one Obama’s announcement was of Obama’s favorite songs. met with the kind of media cov- Many blacks wonder if mainstream Some who question Obama’s erage that makes politicians’ whites love Obama because of his racial credentials raise the mouths water. Such media point that, unlike most Afri- adulation has accompanied the lack of history as a slave, which elicits can Americans, his family his- 45-year-old since his keynote no feelings of historical guilt. tory was not framed by genera- speech at the 2004 Democratic tions of chattel slavery. Black National Convention and his Republican Alan Keyes raised election to the U.S. Senate that same year. Before that, he was that issue during his disastrous senatorial campaign against an Illinois state senator who had earned bipartisan respect Obama. Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh have also raised for his energy, intelligence and political acumen. it. In fact, some conservatives are so distressed by his popu- Obama won his Senate seat through a series of lucky larity that they’ve hinted he could be a “Manchurian Can- breaks (i.e., both of his major political rivals were done in didate” for Islam, programmed during his short childhood by damaging allegations from former spouses), as well as stint at an Indonesian madrasa. Whew! his political appeal. His Ivy League education and well- But his unusual ancestral narrative may also fuel the fer- modulated eloquence wear well in the mainstream, but vor of Obama’s white support, in that his lack of slave histo- have sometimes provoked suspicion from the black elector- ry elicits no feelings of historical guilt among whites. They ate. This Hawaiian-born son of a black Kenyan and white love Obama because he doesn’t hate them, as they suspect Kansan is a brother from another … blacks should. Another theory making the rounds on black Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) exploited those suspicions when talk radio proffers that some whites see Obama as a way to Obama challenged him in 2000 for his First District con- redeem America in the eyes of a world angered by the Bush gressional seat. Obama lost badly. In fact, Obama has had administration—the multicultural Obama’s calming pres- to deal with questions of racial authenticity since his initial ence serving as a necessary balm. foray into politics. Perhaps that’s why the line in his conven- But where does this great black hope of whites stand on is- tion speech, that black parents must guard their children sues of enduring interest to African Americans? In Chicago, against the “slander that a black with a book is acting white,” Obama won over many of his black critics by persuading resonated with such authority. them of his integrity, and with a legislative record that con- Some of the same qualities that make Obama alluring to vinced them he had the black community’s interest at heart white Americans (his affability, his seeming lack of racial even as he cultivated alliances with other political forces. grievance) are troubling to many African Americans. They For the most part, however, African Americans under- wonder if the senator feels as connected to the black commu- stand that Obama’s bid for national office requires a more nity as he does to the educated elite with whom he spent so complex political calculus than the protest candidacies of much of his formative time. the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They know it’s a This is a skeptical tradition formed by generations of Af- brand new bag—they just want it to stay funky. n

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I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 1 7

GFCH07inthesetimes100.indd 1 1/19/07 12:26:35 PM dear readers, For three decades, In These Times has reported on and analyzed the social and political moments that have defined our world.In These Times was founded with the understanding that as an independent, nonprofit maga- zine, it would need the support of a community of read- ers who are dedicated to providing the news and views that the mainstream media ignores and that our nation’s political discourse so urgently needs. Over those same 30 years, members of the In These Times community have, without fail, contributed above and beyond the cost of their subscription to help publish this magazine. These individuals are the backbone of In These Times. With this 30th anniversary issue we honor the more than 2,000 women and men who supported the maga- zine in 2006. We would also like to extend a heartfelt thanks to the members of the In These Times Publish- ing Consortium, who hold the magazine as a public trust, and the In These Times board of directors. In These Times wouldn’t exist without all of you. In THese Times Lewis and Kitty Steel Publish i ng Ellen Stone-Belic On behalf of the staff, the writers whose work fills Consortium Dan Terkel Grant Abert Studs Terkel these pages and our readers, thank you for your dedi- Theresa Alt Board of cation to In These Times. Aris Anagnos Stuart Anderson Directors Collier Hands Joel Bleifuss Polly Howells and Eric Janet Geovanis In solidarity, Werthman Robert McChesney Betsy Kreiger and David Moberg David Kandel Dave Rathke Nancy Kricorian and Beth Schulman James Schamus Tracy Van Slyke Lisa Lee in Memoriam Chris Lloyd Edith Helen Monsees B.C. Bingham Jo List Tracy Van Slyke Joel Bleifuss David Rathke Abby Rockefeller and Kevin McKeogh Publisher Editor Lee Halprin Walter Quinn Perry and Gladys Josephine Willard Arthur and Marilyn Rosenstein Woodruff

19761 8 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981f e b r1982 u a r y 2 0 01983 7 1984 1985 1986 1987I n T h e s e1988 T i m e s 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2 0 0 6 Kenneth Basom Fred Brewster Brian Carey H. Cho Morris and Shirley supporte rs Marc Bastuscheck and Lauren and Ginger Stephen Carle Glenn Choy Diamond Edmund Abegg Constance Cooper Brightwell Frederika Carney George Chrestensen Gordon Diebel Daniel Abel Ruthanna Battilana James Bristol Deborah Carney Stanley Christianson Larry Dieckmann Chad Abrams Lewis Beale Tom Broderick Catherine Carpenter Howard Christofersen Gregory Dion Emerson Abts Vera Beaton Edwin Brookman Amy Carr Lisbeth Chvatal Tim Dirkx Lionel Acevedo David Beckman Oran Brown Wallace Carr Daniel and Hollis Dixon Timothy Adam Suzanne Behr Lawrence and Susann Dolores Carr Barbara Clark Herman Dobbs Mary Adami Joy Beierle Brown Barbara Carson Theo Clark Manuela Dobos Eloise Adams Steve Beitler Richard Brown Hellene Carter George Clark Sandy Doctoroff Ronald and Warren Belasco Tom Brown Virginia Carwell H. Fred Clark Orlando Dona Marilou Adams Kay Bell James Clark John Donaghy Michael Adams Ed Benish Erin Clermont Michael Donovan Ruth Addison Peter Benner Anderson Clifford Patrick Dooley Harold Ahrens Adrian Bennett Carolyn Coglianese Richard Doonan Phyllis Akif Elbert Bennett Alvin Cohen Alvin Dorfman James Akins Irving Bennett Bruce Cohen Jacob Dorn Marjorie Akrep David Bentley Jonathan Cohen Gene and Rose Doty Gerald Albert Michael Benton Theodore Cohn Joseph Dove Karla Alfano David Berkshire Jim Colando Alan and Claire Mohamed Alibhai Kay Berkson Bill Coleman Downes Eric Alstrom and Sidney Daniel Collins Frances Dreisbach Wayne Alt Hollander Sam Coltrin Jeannie Dritz Arthur Alter Robert Berman T.A. Conorich Maxine Drury Norman Altstedter Ronald Bettig Jack and Dee Cook Leah Dubinett John Ameer Edward Betzig Jane Cooper Melvyn Dubofsky James Amory Stephen Bickel Brenda Cooper Rich Dudder Suzanne Antisdel Stanley Bier Sharon Cooperman S. Crawford Duhon Paul Aponte Eugene and Roger Felix Charles Dunn Stephen Appell Birmingham Louise Cort David Dunning Michael Apple C. Bissell Cornelius Cosgrove Dan Duranso Louis Aragona Wallace Bjorke Hugh Cosman William Durr Linda Arden Timuel Black Bruce Coston David Eakins Joan and Paul Armer Willie and Estella Michael Courville George Eastman Jesse Arnold Black Jim Cowart Taner Edis Lucy and Peter Ascoli Susan Black William Cowlin Thomas Edson Regan Asher Jane Blake Theodore Coxe Steven Edwards David Austin Philip Blank Marguerite Craig Ralph Eells Christian Avard Joel Blau A. Crompton Michael Egan Eleanor Bader Alistair Bleifuss Elsie Cross Peter Ehrenstrom Leo Baefsky Patti Bleifuss Richard Crow Betty Eichhorn Stanley Bagley Rodney Bleifuss James Cudney Elizabeth Eid Anthony Bahl Charlotte Bleistein Laurel Cummins Morris Einhorn Luigi Bai John Bloch James Cunningham Margaret Elizares James Brumley John Cashman Paul Baicich Jeffrey Blum Helen Cuprisin Marc Elliott Gregory Brungardt Paul and May Caswell Jerry and Jean Bails Dorothy Blumner Mary Curtis Bob Ellis Anthony Buba Maria Cattell Patrick Bair Jennifer Boal and Martha Cutler Linda Ellis Richard Buck Charles Caughlan John Baker Roland Geoff Micheile Dangelo Lauran Emerson Dennis Buckley James Causey Paul Bakke Elspeth Bobbs Jean Daniels Norman Enfield Janet Burdick Fernando and Renate James Baldwin Brian Bock Bruce Danielson Ellis Engelsberg Frances Burford Cavalcanti Keith Ball Eleanor Bohacek Bob Datz Cathy England Ray H. Burton Leonard Cavise and Bruce Bandy Phillip Bond Andrew Daughters David Ernst Carolyn Byerly Susan Kaplan James Banta Clayton Bond Charles Dawe James Ethridge Jeri Cabot and Bill Alice Chan Cindy Barber Ruth Bonsignore and Mark Dawson Dwayne Eutsey Olejniczak Nicholas Chaparos John Barker Andrew Shapiro Richard Dawson Merrill Evans Caron Cadle Anthony Chapin Brandon Barnard Robert Bonthius Grail Dawson Charles Evans Denis Cagna Gordon Chapman Ingrid Barnett Tom Borchard Jeanna Daykin Joe Evans Dennis Caine Helen Charpentier Ed Baron Purnima Bose Joe De Maris Frances Everton Robert Calhoun David Chase Paula and Hal Baron Blair Bower Dennis Deegan Candace Falk Elaine Calos Robert Cheeks Diane and Larry Barr Michael Bradley Henry Degenaars Norman Faramelli Lee Campbell Thomas Cheesman Art Barrett Edward Bradley Charles Dehlinger Stephen Farkash Michael Campbell Barry Cheney Patrick Barrett John Brandt Charles DeKnatel James Farnam and Patricia Campbell Ko Cheng and Heather Barrow Noel and Joy Brann Leonard Denholm Mary Stovall Robert Campos Chinchu Liu Beverly Barsy Bradley Braun Jerry Depew and Patricia Farrell Peggy Carey Martin Cherry John Bartley Jan Breidenbach and Dorothy Lamperti David Favor Bill Carey Joseph Chiappone Mike Barton Dan Stormer

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1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 I n1996 T h e s e T i1997m e s 1998 1999 2000 2001f e b r u a r2002 y 2 0 0 7 2003 2004 2005 2006 20072 3 by k aren j. greenberg

he first detainees arrived in Guantánamo four ings, the administration has continued to argue that the prisoners months to the day after the 9/11 attacks. From the do not have the right to contest their detention in a U.S. court. opening of Camp X-Ray—the first site of imprison- Tment, notorious for its tin-roofed open-air cages—to It violates the Geneva Conventions the recently completed permanent prison known as Camp 6, Guantánamo is a prisoner-of-war camp that is not critics have called for its closure. Even President Bush has said, labeled as such. From the beginning, the administra- “I’d like to end Guantánamo. I’d like it to be over with.” Yet he tion took the legal position that the captives brought to refuses to close it because, he says, it holds detainees who “will #2 Cuba were not prisoners of war, but fell into the vague, murder somebody if they are let out on the street.” newly created legal category of “enemy combatants.” It’s time to look at the powerful reasons to close Guantánamo, But according to the International Committee of the Red Cross both the standard ones enumerated below—and also what may Commentary to the conventions, no such intermediate ground be the most compelling, if unspoken, one of all: Guantánamo between civilians and prisoners of war exists: “Every person in must be closed because the United States needs to indicate that enemy hands must have some status under international law: it has decided to change course. Closing Guantánamo will help he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third to restore America’s standing in the world and in the eyes of its Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, [or] own citizens. a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; It is a legal no-man’s-land nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law.” Guantánamo Bay Naval Base was established as a As the camp was being built, military personnel I interviewed coaling and naval station under U.S. control in 1903. said they knew not to use the words “prison-camp,” or “prison.” It has no civilian legal authority (you can’t get a mar- Why? Under the Geneva Conventions, a prisoner cannot be #1 riage license there, and you can’t be arraigned) and interrogated, punished, or forced to answer questions beyond U.S. military authority is limited. According to the Department rank, name and serial number. of Justice, the prison is not indisputably U.S. territory, nor does it necessarily fall under the jurisdiction of any foreign entity. Prisoners are degraded and abused According to the Church Report—an official investigation of Abusive treatment of Guantánamo detainees has Guantánamo prepared by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church III, a been documented in lawyers’ notes, FBI memos, former navy inspector general for the Armed Services Commit- statements from released detainees and court affida- tee—Guantánamo’s uncertain legal footing may have been a fun- #3 vits submitted by attorneys representing detainees. damental reason the administration decided to use the facility to Jumah Al Dossari, a Bahraini detainee who has been incarcer- interrogate al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. “Perhaps most impor- ated at Gitmo for five years, wrote to his lawyer, “At Guantánamo, tantly,” the report states, “GTMO was considered a place where soldiers have assaulted me, placed me in solitary confinement, [other] benefits could be realized without the detainees having threatened to kill me, threatened to kill my daughter, and told the opportunity to contest their detention in the U.S. courts.” me I will stay in Cuba for the rest of my life. They have deprived According to Northwestern University Professor Joseph Mar- me of sleep, forced me to listen to extremely loud music and gulies, the administration’s legal position rests on “the remarkable shined intense lights in my face. They have placed me in cold claim that the prisoners have no rights because they are foreign rooms for hours without food, drink or the ability to go to the nationals detained outside the sovereign territory of the United bathroom or wash for prayers. They have wrapped me in the States.” In 2004, in Rasul v. Bush, the Supreme Court ruled that Israeli flag and told me there is a holy war between the Cross U.S. courts have jurisdiction in hearing habeas corpus petitions and the Star of David on the one hand and the Crescent on the from Guantánamo. Yet through a series of laws and military rul- other. They have beaten me unconscious.”

2 4 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s All of what he describes is illegal for the 194 countries that have prison in Jordan. This suggests that Guantánamo may have been ratified the Geneva Conventions—of which the United States is a smokescreen for more inhumane, less legal incarceration and one—as well as those that have ratified the Convention Against interrogation practices elsewhere. Torture (which the United States has signed, with reservations). According to Armando Spataro, a senior Italian prosecutor known for his work on global terrorism, Guantánamo and the Prisoners have no way to prove U.S. renditions policy “is extremely damaging to all our efforts to integrate our Muslim communities.” Muslims around the world their innocence are asking why there is so little international opposition to the Under the Constitution, every prisoner in U.S. cus- U.S. policy of imprisonment without due process. The collateral tody has the right to legal representation and to due damage of Guantánamo—the incarceration of nearly 800 indi- #4 process, i.e. a trial (habeus corpus). Yet the detainees viduals who are denied legal rights, who regularly report being at Guantánamo, though afforded Combatant Status abused and who face a lifetime of imprisonment—is incalculable. Review Tribunals, cannot have their own counsel at those hear- It breeds new angers and resentments, and thus new enemies. ings and have no meaningful way of contesting evidence, some Last March, the Department of Defense finally released the of which is secret. To date, not one individual among the nearly names and countries of the detainees. It turned out that many 800 incarcerated at Guantánamo has been charged with a crime were not captured on the battlefield but picked up elsewhere in recognized under either U.S. or international law. Moreover, the the world, in the Gambia, in Pakistan, and even in Europe. In all, Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006 is the latest attempt to persons detained in Guantánamo Bay come from 46 different na- strip captives of their right to argue their appeals in U.S. courts. tions, including Spain, France and the United Kingdom. MCA is currently being challenged in two cases—al Odah v. United States of America and Boumediene v. Bush. Briefs in these … and alienates our allies cases argue that the Act is unconstitutional and that the retroac- At a time when international solidarity is needed tive suspension of the detainees’ right of habeas corpus does not to confront the potent and lethal enemy of terror- apply to pending cases. These briefs focus on the Constitution’s ism, Guantánamo has led to widespread distrust of Writ of Habeus Corpus, which states that such rights shall only #7 the United States. British Prime Minister Tony Blair be revoked at times of rebellion or invasion. has called for Guantánamo’s closure. And Justice Lawrence Col- lins, a British high court judge, has said, “America’s idea of what It undermines intelligence efforts is torture is not the same as ours and does not appear to coin- Despite the tens of thousands of hours of inter- cide with that of most civilized nations.” rogation that have taken place at Guantánamo, very Baltasar Garzon, Spain’s most prominent magistrate for crimes little worthwhile intelligence has been extracted. of terrorism, has warned, “If we continue along these lines, we are #5 What information is left is now five years old, and it on the road to committing crimes against humanity.” is doubtful that any Guantánamo prisoner has knowledge of a In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has said, “There is no ticking bomb or a current plot. question … An institution like Guantánamo in its present form And while the government maintains that detainees can pro- cannot and must not exist in the long term.” vide a primer on jihad networks and al-Qaeda’s strategic goals, at this point, the information is likely out of date. Besides, what It will signal a fundamental change can be extracted from individuals who, for the most part, were the wrong people to imprison in the first place. of strategy in the war on terror According to a report by Seton Hall School of Law, 86 percent Guantánamo is the single most potent symbol in of detainees were arrested by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance the misguided war on terror. In the wake of 9/11, the and “handed over to the United States at a time when the United #8 United States’ pledge to do everything in its power States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies.” to protect its people from further harm led to a pol- Moreover, Guantánamo’s very existence has alienated poten- icy of overreaction. Closing Guantánamo will signal that the tial inside sources of information. Two years ago, at a Center on United States has emerged from its confusion, and regained a Law and Security conference in Florence, Italy, two of Europe’s place among civilized nations. leading terrorism magistrates pointed out that attempts to infil- We must no longer act like scared victims, willing to make trate terrorist cells had become much more difficult in the wake any bargain with any devil to create the illusion of safety. We of rising public anger over Guantánamo. must reassert our confidence in the rule and wisdom of law. En- emies must be combatted with legal tools, military prowess and It creates new enemies diplomacy—not with illegalities, bullying and walls of silence. Guantánamo has fomented that which it was creat- Closing Guantánamo is not about bowing to human rights ed to combat—anti-American extremism and jihad. concerns or even to the law. We must close it as a signal to the Guantánamo is just the public face of a global net- world that, even in the face of danger, the United States remains #6 work of “ghost prisons.” According to Human Rights true to its values. Closing Guantánamo is a pledge of allegiance First (formerly the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights),the to the American past and to the American future. n United States has acknowledged 20 detention centers in Af- ghanistan, in addition to the bases at Bagram and Kandahar; as a Research for this article was contributed by Center on Law and prison near the Afghan border in Kohat, Pakistan; and the al Jafr Security Research Fellow Francesca Laguardia.

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 2 5 Interrogations Behind Barbed Wire Who’s to blame for America’s new torture techniques? by mischa gaus

is psychiatrists call it Accusations of drugging 14 of his countrymen in a series of incre- “Groundhog Day.” In These Times has learned that sev- mental releases detainee lawyers find ar- José Padilla—the once-re- eral other detainees have joined Padilla bitrary. The men were held briefly by the H nowned “dirty bomber” who in claiming they were involuntarily Saudi government, but are now free—al- is now little more than a dim light in the drugged. though they have been instructed by the government’s galaxy of desperadoes—has Adil Al Nusairi, a 33-year-old former United States government not to speak spent almost five years in solitary confine- Saudi police officer, says he was impris- about their experience. ment. Whenever his lawyers attempt to dis- oned by the Taliban while traveling to Two other Guantánamo detainees say cuss his case with him, he has the same re- Pakistan for eye surgery, before being they’ve found drugs powdered or half-dis- sponse, begging them over and over again sold to U.S. forces for a bounty by Paki- solved in their food and drink. Kristine not to. When they try, his face seizes in tics stani police. Several times during his Huskey, now at American University’s In- and his body contorts uncontrollably. four-year incarceration at Guantánamo, ternational Human Rights Law Clinic, rep- “Mr. Padilla may be suffering from Nusairi claims he was injected with an resented one of the men, Fawzi Al Odah, some form of brain injury,” writes a fo- unknown substance, according to his a Kuwaiti who is still being held captive. rensic psychiatrist who evaluated him lawyer, Anant Raut. Lawyers for the other detainee who has for his lawyers. His story illuminates One time, groggy and disoriented af- reported finding drugs in his meals have what has happened to many prisoners of ter spending half a day in a freezing cell, requested anonymity to protect their cli- America’s war on terror. he says he was interrogated for hours, his ent from potential repercussions. In addition to being tormented psycho- captors demanding over and over that he The effects detainees report are consis- logically, Padilla and other Guantánamo admit he was part of al-Qaeda. tent: Dizziness and disorientation, leth- detainees say the U.S. military has “OK, I’ll admit it, if you’ll let me sleep,” argy and “clouded” thinking. Lawyers drugged them against their will. Each he said, according to his lawyer’s notes. say the reports are credible because they new disclosure of U.S. treatment of de- Sent back to his cell, Al Nusairi tried to were volunteered by the detainees, were tainees hints at a continuing fascination read the Koran and couldn’t. He became not produced in response to government in the intelligence community with de- so weak he could barely lift his arms. His demands or accusations, and are detailed, veloping and employing interrogation vision blurred and he began to drool un- discrete events. techniques that arise from a long and controllably onto himself. Because of the obstacles repeatedly put spotty history—techniques intelligence Despite facing allegations similar to in front of counsel, lawyers for the de- research says cannot be depended on to many other detainees, Al Nusairi was re- tainees have difficulty accessing medical extract reliable information. leased from the camp last May along with records. Padilla, however, boasts some-

May 8, 2002 June 28, 2004 Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, is arrest- In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court rules January 11, 2002 ed at O’Hare International Airport. that a U.S. citizen held as an enemy combatant First prisoners from the “war on He is not given access to attorneys must be given “meaningful opportunity to terror” arrive in Guantánamo for two years. contest factual basis for his detention.”

February 27, 2002 Late 2002 The first coordinated large-scale hunger Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller approves the creation of “Behavioral strike occurs at Guantánamo, after a guard Science Consultation Teams.” The teams, made up of a psychia- removes a homemade turban from a pris- trist and a psychologist, observe Guantánamo interrogations oner during prayer. from behind one-way glass and offer suggestions on how to make interrogations “more productive.”

2 6 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s ity for the “dirty bomb” plot on Binyam Mohamed, a detainee at Guantánamo and one of three prisoners who made statements under duress connecting Pa- dilla to al-Qaeda’s leadership. After be- ing captured in Pakistan, Mohamed was rendered to Morocco at the behest of the United States. Moroccan jailors elicited the information about Padilla at the tip of a razor blade, sunk repeatedly into Mohamed’s genitals, according to his at- torney, Clive Stafford Smith. Mohamed’s case may one day be heard

es in the new $125 million Guantánamo g a tribunal building, future home of the Im administration’s quasi-courts. It’s a legal environment plastic enough to permit Camp Delta at Guantánamo Naval Base hearsay and evidence derived from tor- in Guantánamo, Cuba. ture, so long as it’s “reliable” and in the “interest of justice,” in the words of the Mark Wilson/GettyMilitary Commissions Act passed by Congress last September. thing no Guantánamo detainee can: A half years at the Charleston Naval Brig Since Padilla, like Mohamed, was U.S. passport. Because he is a U.S. citizen, in South Carolina as an “enemy combat- termed an enemy combatant during his his lawyers have been able to investi- ant.” In December 2005, when an im- detention at the Charleston Navel Brig, gate his detention more closely than any minent Supreme Court deadline could how the military treated Padilla is un- Guantánamo prisoner. Finding out what have forced a precedent-setting review known, despite a September court order has been done to this very broken man of his military imprisonment, the Bush demanding his medical records be re- could breach the walls erected by the administration changed his status from vealed. His lawyers say they have received Bush administration around the medi- “enemy combatant” to criminal defen- 68 “fairly innocuous” pages, separated by cal and psychological treatment of the dant. Pending a review of his mental the two-year gap from when he was tak- 14,000 prisoners that the Pentagon says competency, he now faces a civilian jury en to the brig in 2002 and when he was are currently being held in Iraq, Afghani- in Miami on federal charges of conspir- given access to attorneys in 2004. stan and Guantánamo. ing to participate in and aid “violent ji- Details about what took place during had” in Bosnia and Chechnya in the late that period could reveal much about Becoming an enemy combatant ’90s. Robert Chesney, who specializes the lengths the administration has gone In May 2002, eight months after the in national security law at Wake For- to break detainees. Padilla has repeat- 9/11 attacks, Padilla was arrested at est University, has compared the pros- edly said he was injected with a “truth Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, ecution’s tactics to charging Al Capone serum,” possibly LSD or another hallu- accused of plotting to explode a crude with tax evasion. cinogen. Orlando do Campo, a member radioactive bomb. He spent three and a The government now pins responsibil- of Padilla’s defense team, says the medi-

June 29, 2006 In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court August 30, 2004 holds that the military tribunals of the Gitanjali Gutierrez, from the Center Detainee Treatment Act (signed into law six for Constitutional Rights, is the first months before) are in violation of both mili- civilian lawyer to visit Guantánamo. tary code and the Geneva Conventions.

June 28, 2004 February 15, 2006 October 17, 2006 In Rasul v. Bush, the Supreme Court The United Nations Commission on Bush signs the Military Commis- rules that non-citizen detainees Human Rights releases a report recom- sions Act, which retroactively have habeus rights—their cases mending the closure of Guantánamo. dismisses the habeus corpus rights can be heard in the federal courts. of enemy combatants.

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 2 7 cal records thus far mention no drug- hunger-striking detainees was unethical. specifically intended to inflict severe phys- ging. To date, only a few scant notes He wrote, “I do not feel the individuals in ical or mental pain or suffering.” chronicle the military’s psychological this situation meet the criteria for ethical evaluation of him. The record is so thin self determination.” Decades of dubious tactics Padilla’s psychiatrists call it “unusual” For the most part, the medical com- Regardless of who is or isn’t responsi- and “concerning.” munity has repudiated the U.S. military. ble for drugging detainees, the informa- “Someone popped in his cell and wrote The American Medical Association and tion gained from doing so is not well re- one line,” says do Campo. American Psychiatric Association have garded by intelligence professionals. But Padilla’s lawyers call his treatment “out- prohibited their members from par- the Bush administration has a record of rageous.” He was housed in a nine-foot ticipating in interrogations—and the ignoring career intelligence officers. In a by seven-foot cell, the window of which psychiatrists have spelled out practices 2002 memo written to justify torture in was taped to prevent natural light from they find incompatible with Hippocratic overseas interrogations, former Assis- entering. The cell was furnished with a principles, including humiliation, inflic- tant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee ar- steel platform for a bed, had no clock, tion of physical pain, and sensory and gued that drugging should be included and darkness and temperature were con- sleep deprivation. in the roster of techniques available to trolled externally. Noxious smells seeped The one professional group that has interrogators. And while that memo in, and adjoining cell doors were elec- not banned the aiding of interrogation is was repudiated, Guantánamo attorneys tronically opened and closed, disrupting the American Psychological Association maintain that their clients are being his sleep. (APA). A leaked interrogation log, re- drugged. What most terrifies Padilla, according ported by Time magazine two years ago, “Truth serums do not force the subject to the psychiatrists’ reports, is the Bush reveals that a psychologist was present to tell the truth,” writes Kristin E. Heck- administration’s final trump card. If the during an interrogation where the pris- man and Mark D. Happel of the MITRE civilian trial proves unsatisfactory, the oner was made to perform dog tricks and Corporation, a military-funded research administration has reserved the right to given intravenous fluids to force him to center, in “Educing Information,” a sur- again declare Padilla an enemy combat- urinate on himself. vey of interrogation research published ant and return him to the brig. The ethical stance of the APA is mean- by the National Defense Intelligence The Bush administration seemingly ingful because during a six-year period College in December. “[A]lthough a claims the right to subject detainees to in the ’90s, the military granted some subject’s inhibitions have been lowered, whatever it sees fit. In 2005, when he was psychologists the same prescribing privi- there is no guarantee that any of the in- head of Guantánamo’s medical system, leges as psychiatrists—a privilege long formation elicited will be accurate,” they Capt. John Edmondson, a physician, an- sought-after by the APA and one it con- write. According to the report, the per- nounced that due to the conditions of tinues to lobby the government to expand. sistence of coercive strategies in interro- the detainees’ incarceration, their com- The APA passed a resolution condemning gation is based on anecdotal knowledge petency could not be assumed—and thus torture last August, but pointed to the U.S. and Cold War norms, not rigorous ex- medical interventions could be delivered government’s reservations about the U.N. amination of effectiveness. without their consent. Convention Against Torture in their reso- “Truth drugs” have long proven unre- Edmondson made the claim in re- lution. Those reservations claim that, “in liable. The Korean War brought public sponse to accusations that force-feeding order to constitute torture, an act must be hysteria about Chinese and Soviet brain- washing camps turning captured GIs into unwitting dupes. In response, in 1953 the CIA launched Project MKULTRA, a se- ries of 149 experiments over two decades that used subjects—including prison- ers—to test mind-control techniques, including hypnosis and then-new hallu- cinogens like LSD. The Senate’s Church Committee brought the abuses to light in the late ’70s, revealing that only a handful of thousands of subjects knew what was being done to them. Not a single mind-control experiment succeeded. “The whole MKULTRA pro- gram was a giant dead-end,” says Alfred es

g McCoy, a University of Wisconsin-Madi- Guards in Guantánamo a Im son historian and author of A Question of have borrowed interrogation techniques Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold from training meant War to the War on Terror. to innoculate U.S. Far more influential as a model for soldiers from torture. getting prisoners to reveal sensitive in-

Mark Wilson/Gettyformation was the CIA’s KUBARK in-

2 8 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s terrogation manual, written in 1963 and The application of SERE’s cortisol That the tactics learned at SERE were declassified a decade ago. Along with findings to detainees could allow inter- being exported to the interrogation a discussion of building rapport with rogators to find their “breaking” points, chambers of the “long war” became very interrogation subjects, it recommends Brig. Gen. Stephen Xenakis, a psychia- apparent to Col. Morgan Banks, a SERE coercive strategies: Deprive subjects of trist who led the Southeast Regional administrator and psychologist who ad- sensory stimuli, destabilize and disori- Army Medical Command before retir- vised on interrogations at Guantánamo ent them, and use self-inflicted pain— ing nine years ago, told In These Times. and Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. for instance, having the captive stand at Using the measure of cortisol to find the Consequently, he instituted a new rule attention for great lengths of time. Such hormonal point at which a detainee can for SERE graduates in 2004: Sign a pledge

Details about what took place during Padilla’s two-year detention without counsel could reveal much about how far the administration has gone to break detainees. tactics are more likely to sap resistance no longer protect himself could help in- that SERE techniques will not be used on than inflict pain. terrogators inflict the precise amount of detainees in U.S. custody. Taking this advice, the military devised stress that would make a detainee most Such assurances come too late for Pa- a training program to aid soldiers in re- vulnerable to questioning. dilla, who becomes “visibly terrified” at sisting interrogation if they are captured. But while truth serums and SERE the thought of watching his interrogation The nexus of the military’s “stress inocu- tactics—and their associated mental tapes and “appears to be incapacitated by lation” training is the Survival, Evasion, changes—both produce acquiescence, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” accord- Resistance and Escape (SERE) courses at the efficacy of either is very much in ing to psychiatric evaluations. the JFK Special Warfare School at Fort doubt. Steven Kleinman, an Air Force “It is clear that there are definite simi- Bragg, North Carolina. The SERE train- senior intelligence officer, writes in larities, with some techniques being ing process has been reverse-engineered “Educing Information” that compliance identical, between some of the tactics to exploit detainees. with interrogators has been confused allegedly used on José Padilla and those As Jane Mayer reported in the New with meaningful cooperation. Born of adapted from the SERE program for use Yorker in 2005, many of the elements the desire to understand—and with- as interrogation methods at Guantánamo of the SERE curriculum surfaced in stand—Soviet-era coercive interroga- and elsewhere,” says Nathaniel Ray- Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, including tions, Kleinman writes, the emphasis of mond, senior communications strategist insulting detainees’ religious texts, water- U.S. interrogators has focused on tech- for Physicians for Human Rights, which boarding prisoners, exploiting national niques to bring about submission, not tracks detainee abuse. flags, humiliating detainees sexually, and the production of reliable information. In court filings, Padilla’s lawyers de- the essentials of sensory surfeit and deni- “Once torture starts, it begins very scribe him as a “piece of furniture”—a al: hooding, shackling, muffling, denying quickly to proliferate,” says McCoy, the man objectified and dehumanized by the sleep, withholding food and clothes, and historian. “The techniques become in- U.S. government; a government that is subjecting prisoners to loud, repetitive creasingly brutal. Whether it’s Algiers relentlessly focused on extracting infor- noise and temperature extremes. in 1957 or Afghanistan in 2002—in ev- mation, regardless of its utility or its ve- Another element of the SERE program ery instance we have, it proliferates out racity, from him and hundreds of others. is biochemical. Psychologists and psy- of control.” At any cost. n chiatrists at Fort Bragg have studied the level of hormones present in stressful situations, particularly cortisol, which in- creases anxiety and alertness. The chang- es in cortisol levels recorded during the trainings have been among the largest ever documented, according to a 2000 report in Special Warfare, a publication 30 of the JFK Special Warfare School. “Stress inoculation occurs only when the stress intensity is at the optimal level,” the report’s authors wrote, “low enough so as not to overwhelm them ... if the stress level is too high, stress sensitization will occur.” www.dppc.com • 847-824-1111

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 2 9 Inside America’s Gulag A Guantánamo lawyer reports from a parallel legal universe By H. Candace Gorman

ccording to the U.S. government, Guantánamo Bay is leased to Uncle Sam A by the Cuban government. However, Cuba does not recognize U.S. claims to the Bay and has not accepted lease payments for decades. Therefore, while Guantánamo is officially Cuban territory, it is effectively a fiefdom of the es g

United States military. Guantánamo’s bi- a zarre political status makes it a perfect Im haven for the parallel legal universe the

Bush administration has created for “en- FP/Get t y A / emy combatants.” E This parallel legal universe is populat- QU RO ed by the likes of Attorney General Al- ERTO berto Gonzales. On January 17, Gonzales B AL shocked the Senate Judiciary Committee D A with his statement that “the Constitution doesn’t say, every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended.” Gonza- Above, Cuban soldiers guard les wasn’t trying to have a philosophical Point 8, the Cuban border post at discussion with the Senate; he isn’t the the Guantánamo Naval Base. philosophical type. No, it was more sin- Right, a map showing Guantánamo Bay. ister than that, and we must now wait to find out how this novel theory ties in he said. Stimson does not seem to real- with whatever illegality the administra- ize that it is unethical for an attorney tion currently has up its collective sleeve. to retaliate against opposing counsel by Couple that with the menacing re- exerting financial pressure. And I can marks made on January 11, the fifth an- tell you unequivocally that, contrary to niversary of the opening of Guantánamo, Stimson’s claim, my client is not a terror- by another denizen of this twilight world, ist, and neither are the vast majority of attorney Cully Stimson, the deputy as- prisoners locked up at Guantánamo. But detainees must receive a security clear- sistant secretary of defense for detainee with legal geniuses like these running our ance and have a protective order entered affairs. Stimson was yucking it up on Fed- country, is it any wonder that the men in by the court. The protective order out- eral News Radio about the uproar that he Guantánamo have languished for five lines the rules for habeas counsel. I ap- was sure would ensue when the media years? plied for my security clearance in Janu- reported which corporate law firms were My client, Abdul Al Ghizzawi, has been ary 2006. In February, I received news representing Guantánamo detainees. held in Guantánamo Bay since 2002. On that my client’s health was deteriorating “When corporate CEOs see that those Dec. 9, 2005, I filed a petition for habeas and I filed an emergency motion to have firms are representing the very terrorists corpus on his behalf but I had to clear the protective order entered. The Justice who hit their bottom line back in 2001, a daunting series of bureaucratic hurdles Department opposed the order and the those CEOs are going to make those law before the government would allow me judge subsequently denied my motion, firms choose between representing ter- to meet with him. In order to see our cli- saying that I didn’t show anything “con- rorists or representing reputable firms,” ents, attorneys representing Guantánamo crete” or any “impending irreparable

3 0 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s harm.” The judge did not explain exactly that first meeting. I knew little about ously overturned by a second tribunal how I was to show something concrete Al Ghizzawi and it seemed plausible to in Washington (five weeks after the first when I was not allowed to communicate me that he might be the “worst of the tribunal) because the military claimed it with my client. worst”—which is what our government had new evidence against him. My se- In early June I received an email from claims Guantánamo is holding. Howev- curity clearance allowed me to see the another attorney whose notes were er, when I entered the tiny windowless top secret “new evidence” and although “cleared” from his last visit to the base. room, I met a frail, bearded, jaundiced I cannot disclose the contents, I can as- He told me that his client was concerned man of about 45, wearing a khaki jump sure the readers of In These Times that because Al Ghizzawi was ill with liver dis- suit and flip flops with his feet shackled there was nothing new presented to the ease. I filed another emergency motion to a ring on the floor. In time, I learned second tribunal—nothing whatsoever. and this time the judge relented. Since I this member of the “worst of the worst” If my client had a fair habeas hearing had now received my security clearance I had been the owner of a spice shop and today, a basic right in our legal tradition, was granted permission to see my client. bakery in Jalalabad when, in December (that is, until Attorney General Gonzales I arrived at Guantánamo on July 15 on 2002, he was turned in to the Americans announced it was never part of our con- a small plane owned by a cargo airline. for a bounty—typically $5,000. He was stitution), he would be a free man. But The 14-seater takes three hours from Ft. initially held at Bagram Airforce Base for now, Al Ghizzawi enters his sixth Lauderdale because the plane must circle before being sent to Guantánamo in year, languishing in Guantánamo. n around Cuban airspace. As I flew in to March 2002. Initially our military de- H. Candace Gorman is a civil rights attor- the small military airport I was surprised termined he was a non-enemy combat- ney in Chicago. Adrian Bleifuss Prados, her law at how arid and dismal this part of the ant but this determination was mysteri- clerk, contributed to this article. island looked. The base, home to 8,500 servicemen, is divided in two parts, sep- arated by the bay. The main part of the military installation is on the windward side of the bay. Attorneys are housed on the leewardside at a dumpy military ho- tel called the Combined Bachelor Quar- ters. There is one restaurant on that side, a dive called The Captain’s Galley. Every- thing is deep fried. The morning routine for habeas coun- sel is to take the 7:40 bus to the ferry and the 8:00 ferry to the windward side Congratulations to In These Times for where the prison camp is located. While the leeward side is ramshackle and bar- 30 Years of creating social change! ren, the windward side is surreal. There is (of course) a Starbucks, a McDonalds, a combined Subway-Pizza Hut, a Wal- Build the movement for social justice Mart-like big box store called the Nex and a gift shop … yes, Guantánamo has a gift Fight on behalf of working women shop that sells Guantánamo key chains, shot glasses, t-shirts and shell tchotckes. Organize for universal healthcare Fillipino and Haitian workers staff all the establishments. And in the distance, be- More than a standard union job — the California Nurses Association and National yond these icons of American consump- Nurses Organizing Committee seek Organizers and skilled Labor Representatives tion, is the “gulag.” who would relish the chance to build strong workplace committees, develop local After eight months of delays and ob- leadership,and mobilize members to fight corporate control of healthcare in Chicago, California, and struction, and after a great deal of ef- other locations nationwide. We led the successful fight against Schwarzenegger’s attacks on nurses. fort both on his part and mine, I was Please email resumé and cover letter indicating geographical locations you are willing to consider finally allowed to meet Al-Ghizzawi nationwide to: Rose Ann DeMoro, Executive Director, e-mail preferred: [email protected] at the “gulag.” My briefcase and papers Fax: 510-663-2771 were examined in a cursory way. (On later trips, these searches resulted in For more information, please visit www.calnurses.org and www.nnoc.net letters to my client being confiscated on the grounds that they made oblique reference to “world events.”) I was then ushered by my escort behind a chain- link fence, through three gates into a sweltering cinderblock hut at Camp Echo. I was a little nervous going into A VOICE FOR NURSES ~ A VISION FOR HEALTHCARE

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 3 1 Dreaming Up New Politics Thinking different in an age of fantasy By Stephen Duncombe

n the autumn of 2004, shortly before the U.S. presidential elec- tion and in the middle of a typically bloody month in Iraq, the New York ITimes Magazine ran a feature article on the casualty of truth in the Bush admin- istration. In a soon-to-be-infamous pas- sage, the writer, Ron Suskind, recounted a conversation between himself and an unnamed senior adviser to the president: The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solu- tions emerge from your judicious study of discernable reality.’ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you are studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s ac- tors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’

It was clear how the Times felt about this peek into the political mind of the presi- dency. The editors of the Gray Lady pulled out the passage and floated it over the ar- left side of the political spectrum on com- presidential term, would be reelected. ticle in oversized, multi-colored type. This puter listservs, call-in radio shows and How could my reaction be so different was ideological gold: the Bush adminis- print editorials over the next few weeks. from that of so many of my colleagues tration openly and What worried me then, and still worries and comrades? Maybe I was becoming a arrogantly admit- me today, is that my reaction was radi- neocon, another addition to the long list ting that they didn’t cally different. My politics have long been of defectors whose progressive God had care about reality. One could diametrically opposed to those of the Bush failed. Would I follow the path of Chris- almost feel the palpable ex- administration, and I’ve had a long career topher Hitchens? A truly depressing citement generated among the as a left-leaning academic and a progres- thought. But what if, just maybe, the prob- Times liberal readership, an sive political activist. Yet I read the same lem was not with me but with the main enthusiasm mirrored and words that generated so much animosity currents of progressive thinking in this amplified all down the among liberals and the left and felt some- country? More precisely, maybe there was thing else: excited, inspired . . . and jeal- something about progressive politics that ous. Whereas the commonsense view held had become increasingly problematic. that Bush’s candid disregard for reality was For years progressives have comforted evidence of the madness of his administra- themselves with age-old biblical adages tion, I perceived it as a much more disturb- that the “truth will out” or “the truth shall ing sign of its brilliance. I knew then that make you free.” We abide by an Enlight- Bush, in spite of making a mess of nearly enment faith that somehow, if reasoning everything he had undertaken in his first people have access to the Truth, the scales

3 2 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s will fall from their eyes and they will see to the player as he or she develops new targets shifted with location and over time, reality as it truly is and, of course, agree skills, and characters respond based upon but the method of protest—and the phi- with us. But waiting around for the truth the player’s past actions. In video games, losophy behind the method—remained to set people free is lazy politics. unlike almost all other mass media, the constant. RTS believes that political ends The truth does not reveal itself by vir- spectator also becomes a producer. must be embodied in the means you use. tue of being the truth: it must be told, This runs counter to much of how pro- Giving the idea of “demonstration” new and we need to learn how to tell the truth gressive politics is done these days. Con- meaning, protests should literally demon- more effectively. It must have stories wo- sider the typical “mass” demonstration. strate the ideal that you want to actualize. ven around it, works of art made about We march. We chant. Speakers are pa- When RTS organized a protest what we it; it must be communicated in new ways raded onto the dais to tell us (in screeching were really organizing was a framework for and marketed so that it sells. It must be voices through bad sound systems) what activity. We would decide upon a place and embedded in an experience that con- we already know. Sometimes we sit down time and put out a call. We printed up pro- nects with people’s dreams and desires, in a prescribed place and allow the police paganda and press releases, trundled in a that resonates with the symbols and to arrest us. While these demonstrations sound system, and set up legal teams to get myths they find meaningful. We need a propaganda of the truth. All advertising is about transformation, and Progressives like to study and to know. We like to be right (and then complain transformation was once the property of the left. that others are not). But being right is not enough—we need to win. And to What were democracy, socialism, feminism and win we need to act. I propose an alterna- civil rights if not dreams of a world transformed? tive political aesthetic for progressives to consider, a theory of dreampolitik they might practice. are often held in the name of “people’s people out of jail if they get arrested. But power,” they are profoundly disempower- the actual shape the protest took on was de- Go to Grand Theft Auto school ing. Structured with this model of protest termined by who showed up and what they Progressives need to study dreams. For- is a philosophy of passive political specta- did. We saw what we were doing as open- tunately, we have a ready-made laboratory torship: they organize, we come; they talk, ing up a space: literally, in terms of reclaim- at our disposal. Unfortunately, it takes the we listen. Progressives need to re-think our ing a street from auto traffic and specialized form of something progressives tradition- game. If people aren’t joining us maybe it’s use, but also metaphorically by opening up ally disdain: commercial culture. Rec- because the game we’re playing just isn’t a space for people to explore what political ognizing the importance of commercial much fun to play. activism could mean for themselves. We fantasies does not necessitate some sort of With Reclaim the Streets (RTS) we tried turned spectators into producers. pseudo-populist embrace of the entirety playing by different rules. For five years I of popular culture. But it does mean that was an organizer with the New York City Think different we need to recognize that in these ex- franchise of this international direct-ac- Violent video games aren’t the only pop- pressions some popular will is being ex- tion group. Beginning in London in the ular fantasies that progressives can learn pressed. How that will is being manifested early ’90s as an unlikely alliance between from. As much as it might pain us to ac- in popular culture may be something to environmentalists and ravers, Reclaim knowledge, we can also learn a great deal condemn—or applaud—but the will it- the Streets merged protests with parties, from advertising. Progressives traditional- self has to be dealt with. Acknowledging taking over streets and turning them into ly respond to the fantasies of Madison Av- the present passions of people is not the pulsing, dancing, temporary carnivals in enue as reactionaries. We’re against it, and same thing as accepting things as they are. their demand for public space. we want to oppose it with what we know: Instead, current desire is the fulcrum on The RTS protest model proved popu- reason. But perhaps which to leverage future change. lar. From its relatively small first recla- there are other ways As unlikely as it seems, progressives can mation of Camden High Street in 1995, for progressives to also learn a lot from a best selling shoot- demonstrations grew steadily in size and think about advertising. We ’em-up video game like Grand Theft Auto. scope; the model spread to cities across need to burrow deep into it, Yes, all the hand-wringing, wet-blanket, the United Kingdom and Europe, then drilling past the sizzle into the moralistic critics of video games are right: Australia, Israel, South America, and the steak. There we’ll find its DNA, Grand Theft Autois apocalyptically violent. United States. the code that guides its But there is something else about these Acting autonomously, activists adapted various permutations, games, especially morally suspect ones like the London model to local conditions. Grand Theft Auto, that demands our atten- In New York, RTS protested everything tion. They are wildly popular. Why? from the privatization of public space to Video games like Grand Theft Auto may the World Trade Organization, throw- appeal to our worst libidinal instincts—a ing demonstrations to draw attention to bit of eros and a whole lot of thanatos— the destruction of community gardens but these games also demand the partici- and highlight the exploitation of Mexican pation of the gamer; new worlds open up American greengrocery workers. Political

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 3 3 no matter what product is being sold. From of a happy family is placed next to these building blocks I believe we can re- a picture of McDonald’s: Bingo— assemble a model of communication and Big Macs are familial bliss. The persuasion that is true to progressive ideals goal is to equate unlike items, and effective in today’s world. In brief, we collapsing difference into unity. need to heed the call of Apple Computer’s How can progressives hope to grammatically challenged campaign and appropriate such a principle as as- “think different” about advertising, and sociation? Why would we want to? To our politics. answer the second question first, we All advertising is about transformation. must. Linear logic belongs to the age of The product advertised will transform the sentence and the paragraph; asso- you from what you are (incomplete, inad- ciative logic is in tune with the present equate, and thoroughly normal) into what visual era. If progressives wish to com- you would like to be (fulfilled, successful, municate in the present, they need to and completely special). Transformation learn the language of association. was once the property of progressives. Conservatives use it all the time. Think What were democracy, socialism, anar- of the propaganda of the second Bush ad- chism, civil rights, and feminism if not ministration in preparation for their war in dreams of a world transformed? Advertis- Iraq. By constantly referring to Iraq in the ing is, in essence, a promise—often a false same sentence as terrorism, and Saddam promise, sometimes ironic, but a promise Hussein in the same breath as al-Qaeda, nonetheless. Progressives need to work on the administration effectively forged an our promises. association that continues today. Too often, we progressives pitch our But is that what progressives should do: cause in reactionary terms of hanging elide the truth and play a cynical game of on to what we have and holding the line. realpolitik? I don’t think so. We can find Reclaim fun Or we make appeals to guilt and sacri- ways to harness the power of association Progressives can use association at the fice, asking people to give up what they without slipping into a moral morass. level of organization building as well. I already have so that others might have a Associations conjure up an ideal, not an learned this in mid 1990s working with the piece of it. These are appeals to the past equation of facts. But this does not mean Lower East Side Collective (LESC), a com- or to a diminished present. They take for that associations must be built upon lies. munity activist organization I co-founded granted that the best we can do is redis- Lines of connection and association have in New York City. We didn’t fundraise by tribute what we have already attained and been traced by progressives before. These applying for grants, sending out direct- that we cannot all gain more. Because of were the lines that Martin Luther King Jr. mail appeals or badgering people on the this they are doomed to failure. wanted us to follow when he asked us to street. Instead, we raised money for our For a moment imagine an advertise- consider where we get our sponges, our organization by throwing huge, raucous ment that asks you to stay where you are, soap, our coffee, tea, and toast: “Before dance parties. We goofed around and so- to accept things as they are, or, if you are you finish eating breakfast in the morning, cialized while tabling for causes. We prid- looking for social change, promises to you’ve depended on more than half of the ed ourselves on our cleverly worded signs. make things personally worse for you. world.” Associations were what King was And, working with groups like Reclaim the Progressives often do this and, tactically describing late in his life when he drew Streets and More Gardens!, we turned our speaking, are insane for doing so. out the connections between the war in demonstrations into festive carnivals. In Advertising also requires us to “think Vietnam and poverty and race hatred in brief, we enjoyed ourselves. different” about the the United States. More recently, Ted Nor- The projection of “fun” was part of a very way we think. dhaus and Michael Shellenberger, in their conscious strategy on our part to counter- We like to think provocative 2004 white paper “The Death act the public perception of leftists as dour, we derive our truths through of Environmentalism,” argued that the en- sour, and politically correct—a stereotype linear logic, but the trick of vironmental movement needs to articulate that had some validity, at least in the Lower advertising is its ability to a wider set of associations, articulating (and East Side of Manhattan in the mid-1990s. circumvent such logic, sub- publicizing) links between industry and LESC had a standing working group stituting associations for weather, resources and war, nature and val- whose function was fun. We called it, with equations. A picture ues. The principle of association is an op- tongue firmly in cheek, the “Ministry of portunity for progressives to move past the Love.” Within a year of our founding we timid linear logic that inspires no one and had more than 50 activists working with to harness a powerful tool of persuasion. us and were engaged in six simultaneous But it’s not enough to draw connections campaigns. We also had been attacked by between things we do not like; associa- several on the sour left for being too joyous. tions can also communicate what we are That’s when we knew we had succeeded in for and what kind of world our policies transforming the association of progressive might create. activism from sacrifice to pleasure.

3 4 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s progressive politics. The problem fringe politics guaranteed their irrelevance. is not desire, but where desire has They are also the very people who led the been channeled Republicans to power over the past few Progressive desire (as well as decades. During the same decades groups some rather more base ones) has like the Democratic Leadership Council provided material for copywrit- argued that the Democratic Party needed ers and creative directors for decades. to abandon its margins and move to the In its own convoluted way, and for its own center. They were successful. As a result pecuniary objectives, Madison Avenue the Democrats have virtually no connec- has been an invaluable propaganda bu- tion to the aesthetic and political fringes of reau for progressive ideals, keeping hope the progressive movement today. alive. Each advertisement, along with this It’s a shame because these activists—in The importance of fun in or that product, sells the dream of a bet- all their marginality—have a better under- politics is not just the luxury of the ter life. Now it is time to turn the tables. standing of how the center operates than privileged activist. In the middle of the mur- Advertising has provided us with sophis- do the centrist professionals inside the derous civil war in El Salvador, Salvadoran ticated techniques to reach people and Beltway. They understand the popular de- women would immediately create three connect with their desires; now progres- sire for fantasy and the political potential committees when setting up new refugee sives need to use these tools to redirect of dreams, and they know how to mobilize camps: one on sanitation and construction, progressive passions back into progres- spectacle. They have a better read on the another on education, and a third, comité sive politics. Karl Marx once argued that attractions of popular culture and the pos- de alegría, on joy. Yes, activism involves only socialism could unlock the material sibilities of harnessing this for progressive sacrifice—a sacrifice of free time as well as promise of capitalism; today I believe that politics than the “pragmatic” center who, the bliss of ignorance. But activism is also only progressive politics can free the fan- secure in their sense of superiority, stick to social, exhilarating, rebellious and fun. tasies trapped within advertising. their failed script of reason and rationality. Which make better selling points? It is time to cut our losses and try an- Modern politics is about appealing to Have a dream other tack by moving the strategies, tac- people; you need to attract activists into Embracing our dreams does not ne- tics, and organization of the margins to an organization and supporters to your cessitate closing our eyes, and minds, the center. This will take convincing on all cause. The hair shirt wearing, self-sacrific- to reality. Progressives can, and should, sides. Those on the margins need to take ing progressive may be a suitable candi- do both: judiciously study and vividly power seriously, giving up the privileged date for sainthood, but politically they are dream. In essence, we need to become a purity of the gadfly and court jester and a liability. Branding is the new buzzword party of conscious dreamers. making peace with the dirtier aspects of in advertising; it’s the set of associations Right now the only people flying this practical politics: the daily compromises attached to a product or corporation. Poli- flag are sequestered to the far fringes of that come with real governance. Those in tics, whether we like it or not, are branded progressive politics. Some of this mar- the center have to be open to a new way too. The important question is what sort ginalization is of their own choice. Many of thinking about politics that challenges of brand we want to build. street activists and political performers are some of their core beliefs about the suf- suspicious of more mainstream progres- ficiency of judicious study and rational Advertise desire sives who, in their eyes, have abandoned discourse and the efficacy of a profes- The most valuable lesson progressives the utopian dreams that once directed sionalized politics. The centrists need to can learn from advertising, however, has and motivated the left. They also have acknowledge that their model of politics to do with the power of desire. Advertis- contempt for the tactical (non)sense of a is, ironically, out of touch with ing circumvents reason, working with the bumbling, fumbling Democratic Party. “At the cultural center of our society. magical, the personal and the associative. least we shut down Seattle and opened up They must be willing A journey of emotions rather than an ar- a discussion on the politics of globaliza- to dream. n gument of fact, advertising’s appeal is not tion,” they brag (an estimation shared, with cognitive, but primal. This emotionality, some concern, by the editors of the Finan- Stephen Duncombe is an associ- perhaps all emotionality, disturbs progres- cial Times). Disgusted by the conciliation ate professor at New York Universi- sives. As heirs to the Enlightenment, pro- and incompetence of their more moderate ty’s Gallatin School and a life-long political activist. For more on the gressives have learned to privilege reason. comrades, these progressives often keep politics of dreaming see www.dre- Feelings are what motivate the others: Bible their own company. ampolitik.com. thumpers, consumers, terrorists, the mob. But this marginalization is not entirely All true, but emotions also can motivate of their own making, for progressives ensconced in the center show little inter- © 2007 by Stephen Duncombe. This piece is est in their left flank. Here conservatives adapted from Dream: Re-imagining Pro- have something to teach us. The Repub- gressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy (The lican Party learned to look to its margins. New Press, January 8, 2007). Published with Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove, the permission of The New Press and avail- Ronald Reagan—all these men at one time able at good book stores everywhere. might have been described as people whose

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 3 5 A Politically Correct Lexicon Your ‘how-to’ guide to avoid offending anyone By Joel Bleifuss

people who are not black. Whether one uses ‘black’ or ‘African American’ indicates how strong your social rela- tions are with those communities.” And Chris Raab, founder of Afro-Netizen, says, “People who are politically correct chose to use African American, but I don’t recall any mass of black folks de- manding the use of African American.” Asian: The correct term to use for any- one of Asian ancestry. When accuracy is desired, nationality of origin is ap- pended to “American,” as in “Korean American.” Sen, who describes herself as South Asian or Indian American, says that there is “some push around not conflating everybody into Asian. This is mostly an issue among new immigrants. If there hasn’t been time for a generation, it seems to be hard to move those folks to the Asian category.” Bitch: A word, says Baim, which is “ab- solutely being reclaimed by a younger generation of women who are asserting their sexuality and control of their sex- n the late ’70s, “politically cor- South Asian woman. She is the publish- uality.” Successfully repurposed by Bitch rect,” “PC” for short, entered the er of Colorlines, a national magazine of magazine over the past decade, ‘Bitch’ is public lexicon. Folks on the left used race and politics, for which she has de- now becoming passé as less edgy writ- the term to dismiss views that were veloped a PC style manual. Tracy Baim ers like Cathi Hanauer, author of The Iseen as too rigid and, also, to poke fun is a 44-year-old white lesbian. She grap- Bitch in the House, adopt it. Similarly, at themselves for the immense care they ples with the ever-evolving nomencla- though more slowly, “slut,” “whore” took to neither say nor do anything that ture of sexual identity and politics as the and “cunt” are being reappropriated. might offend the political sensibilities of executive editor of Windy City Times, a “The young people use those terms all others. “You are so PC,” one would say Chicago-based gay weekly. Lott Hill is a the time teasingly and sometimes to with a smile. In the ’80s, the right, tak- 36-year-old white gay male who works even refer to themselves,” says Hill. “It ing the words at face value, latched on at Center for Teaching Excellence at Co- is more common to hear someone say ‘I to the term and used it to deride leftish lumbia College in Chicago. He interacts am a slut’ than ‘I am a whore.’ ” “Cunt” voices. Beleaguered progressives, ever with lots of young people—the font from is gaining currency among some young earnest, then defended political correct- which much new language usage flows. lesbians, though Baim says it is a word ness as a worthy concept, thus validating that gets stuck in her throat. “While it is conservatives’ derision. Today, on both African American: In 1988 Jesse a reclaimed word, it is one I can hardly the left and the right, being PC is no Jackson encouraged people to adopt say, the same way some older blacks laughing matter; three decades of cul- this term over the then-used “black.” have trouble saying the n-word.” ture wars have generated a bewildering As he saw it, the words acknowledged Black: At Colorlines “black” is used with thicket of terminology. black America’s ties to Africa. “African a capital B, while The Associate Press To help me parse what’s PC and what’s American,” says Hill, is now “used more Stylebook advises use of the lower case. not, I had help from people attuned to by non-African-American people, who Boi: A word, says Hill, that is “used by the nuances of words, particularly those cling to it because they are unsure what young queer people to refer to either that describe race, ethnicity and sexual word to use.” Sen says, “African Ameri- young gay males or young females who identity. Rinku Sen is a 40-year-old can” is favored by “highly educated are presenting as males.”

3 6 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s Brown: A general term for people who Baim says, “I use it all of the time.” ject to the term, seeing it as a way to are not white. Colorlines uses “brown” Some feminists, like Andi Zeisler, the linguistically eradicate “Indian” and in a casual or playful way. “We might editor of Bitch, find “guys” problem- thus the history of their oppression by have a headline ‘Brown People to the atic. “We assume the descriptor ‘guys’ whites. “I almost always hear Native Back’ in a story about restaurant hier- denotes a quality of universality,” she American, and in the more enlight- archy,” Sen says. Sometimes used to re- says. “It would be hard to imagine ened conversations there is usually ‘in- fer to Latinos, as in the “black-brown” a group of men being addressed by digenous’ thrown in there somewhere,” coalition that helped elect Harold their server as ‘hey you gals’ and not says Lott. Sen says, “Native American Washington mayor of Chicago in 1983. taking offense, but the reverse hap- seems to be a more distant construc- Chicano: Correct term for people of pens all the time.” tion, developed by academics.” Mexican ancestry, popularized during Hir (Hirs): Gender neutral for him and Nigger: “It is a word that white stu- the civil rights movement. “We use it to her. At Wesleyan University, incom- dents struggle with and black students refer to U.S.-born people of Mexican de- ing freshmen are instructed to use use pretty freely,” says Hill. “Young scent,” says Sen. “Mexican American is gender-neutral pronouns in campus people are much more open to using the more distant, politer thing to say.” correspondence. As one person wrote it, especially young people who are Dyke: A word lesbians have reclaimed. on the university’s online Anonymous black or who have been exposed to Hill, however, says that among the Confession Board, “I am usually at- more diverse groups of people.” While young it is “on its way out.” tracted only to people of hir original Sen says, “I can’t imagine a political or gender, rather than hir intended gen- a social multiracial situation where it Fag (faggot): The new “queer.” “Like the der. As such, I’m afraid that I’m, like, would be appropriate, but I know that n-word, it’s a word that can be said by viewing hir wrong, or not respecting is because I am too old. The word is so gay people,” says Hill. “I hear ‘fag’ a great hir wishes or something.” prevalent in the popular youth culture, deal, especially among queer-identified Hispanic: “We never use Hispanic,” grounded in hip-hop, that I wouldn’t young people, like ‘don’t be such a fag’ or like to predict where that debate is go- ‘you are such a fag.’ ” says Sen. “It privileges the European roots of the identity of Mexicans born ing to end up. But if the popular cul- Feminist: “A word that the younger in the United States.” Hispanic, howev- ture ends up agreeing that it is okay generation doesn’t always embrace,” er, is the preferred term of people in the to use, then I think there are a lot of is how Baim, 44, describes it. A lot of Southwest whose families are descen- pretty scary implications.” young women, she says, are “feminists dents of Spanish colonists. Queer: Anyone who falls outside the but they don’t want to be pigeonholed.” Indian: lines of straight. “It has been reclaimed “Feminist somehow became a tainted The preferred term for Native Americans. “Indians either use their far ahead of faggot or dyke,” says Baim. word along the way,” says Hill. “I have “It is our buzz word,” says Columbia heard a lot of people say, ‘this sounds specific tribal name or use Indian,” says Sen. “You use the qualifier American College’s Hill. “It is how we avoid saying feminist’ or ‘I used to be a feminist.’ ” 2 when you need to distinguish from In- all of those letters [GLBTQ IA].” REM Gay: The word used to refer to males dian Indians.” lead singer Michael Stipe, for example, is and, inclusively, to the whole gender- queer, not gay. “For me, queer describes Latino: (capital “L,” with “a” or “o” at the bent community. “College-age people something that’s more inclusive of the end used to connote gender) Politically are more likely to refer to themselves as gray areas,” he told Butt, a pocket-sized correct term for those from Spanish or queer,” say Hill. “People out of college are Dutch “fagazine.” “It’s really about iden- Portuguese speaking cultures. “We use more likely to refer to themselves as gay.” tity I think. The identity I’m comfort- it instead of Hispanic when we want to able with is queer because I just think Girl: “ ‘Girl’ is used by older women,” refer to many different national groups it’s more inclusive.” says Baim. “It is kind of nice because it where there has been an indigenous- used to be used derogatorily and now it European mix,” says Sen. Transgendered: (trans) A person who is used in a fun way.” is not presenting as their biological Lesbian: “The younger generations are 2 gender. “It is fascinating how transgen- GLBT: Shorthand for GLBTQ IA. less connected with the terms ‘gay’ and dered is becoming like an octopus with GLBTQ2IA: ‘lesbian’, ” says Baim. “Lesbian is out of The acronym for Gay, Les- all the tentacles of identity and personal favor as a self-identifying label, it means bian, Bi, Transgendered, Queer, Ques- design. The transgendered movement is something political, something more tioning, Intersex, Allies. “This is coming burgeoning and fluid, they are creating rigid than the younger generation is from the youth movement, the college all of these new ways to define who they comfortable with.” campuses, it has not seeped into the are,” says Baim. whole community at this point,” says Macaca: The latinization of the Bantu Ze: Gender neutral for he or she. As Mary Baim, who at the Windy City Times uses “ma-kako,” meaning monkey. Accord- Boenke writes on the PFLAG (Parents, GLBT, an acronym the New York Times ing to the Global Language Monitor, for- Families and Friends of Lesbians and has not yet seen fit to print. mer Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) helped Gays) Web site: “When talking with Les- make this the most politically incorrect Guys: Very controversial. Used, espe- lie Feinberg, noted transgender author, I word of 2006 by using it to refer to an cially in the Midwest, when referring asked Leslie which pronouns to use. Ze Indian American. to a group of people. “In Chicago that shrugged hir shoulders and said ze didn’t word gets used a lot,” says Hill. And Native American: Some Indians ob- care.” n

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 3 7 Eyes Off the Prize As Iraq dominates U.S. attention, China, India and Iran are emerging as the next world powers By Jehangir S. Pocha

The resurgent cultures of China, Iran and India will irrevocably alter the world in the next three decades.

bout 30 years ago, U.S. dip- life in the year 2037 will be the re-emer- perceptions of this complex and contra- lomats famously dismissed the gence of three ancient nations: China, In- dictory country generally revolve around civil war raging in the jungles dia and Iran. Their powerful economies, banal sound bites of it being a “software of Cambodia as a “sideshow” muscular militaries, ambitious politicians, superpower.” And, because official and Ato the Cold War. Callous as that was, the nationalistic populaces and resurgent cul- public views of Iran are so dogged by mis- uncomfortable fact remains that the dip- tures will irrevocably alter the lives of the comprehension and prejudice, the entire lomats were probably right. As bloody 2.9 billion people who will then be living country is seen almost exclusively through and heartrending as the situation in within their borders. But beyond that, a political lens, even though Western dip- Cambodia got by 1977, in the end it ap- these three countries will radically alter lomats themselves tell us the Islamists rul- pears to have had only a limited bearing the balance of power in the world and give ing Tehran are almost totally out of step on the wider historical forces at work in people and nations everywhere a new im- with the rest of the country. the world, adding a further dimension petus to recreate their own societies. The relatively few editors, business- of sheer meaninglessness to the tragedy That this will happen is certain. What’s men, academics and officials committed and trauma that still haunts millions of up for grabs is what it will mean for the to studying China, India and Iran pro- Cambodians. United States and the world. Yet the Unit- vide us with invaluable insights into these Today, headlines are fixated on the gore ed States and most other countries seem countries. But they still generally label and chaos unfolding in Iraq. The conflict to be only marginally prepared to deal what we are seeing in these three ancient there has been shaping the outcome of the with this nascent new world order. civilizations as “amazing change.” In real- elections in many Western nations, and is China is the nation whose resurgence is ity, it is much more: not just change or certain to be the most contentious foreign best understood in the West. But despite evolution, but a paradigmatic shift that policy issue in the 2008 U.S. presidential the media hype around China, the coun- will challenge the basic framework of the election. Yet this unrelenting focus on try is only of marginal interest to the aver- post-WWII world. Iraq obscures the reality that in another age American citizen and policymaker, as 30 years the Bush administration’s ad- illustrated by the fact that when Chinese s with any new idea, the world is venture there will probably look like the President Hu Jintao visited Washington trying to cope with the changing Cold War-era face-off in Cambodia does earlier this year President Bush didn’t Adynamics in China, India and Iran now—a tragic mistake fuelled by hubris even offer him a state dinner, dismissing by squeezing them into existing structures that cost countless innocent lives and bil- him with just a hurried lunch. India, for and processes. But the national ambitions lions of dollars, but which ultimately had all the ferment and change it is experi- of the rising East and the sheer scale of only a limited effect. encing, receives hardly any diplomatic or their change will force a major, if not com- Instead, the principal dynamic shaping media attention. Both official and general plete, re-thinking of the global system.

3 8 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s Just as the turn of the last century saw means on someone else’s money, while Chinese officials are generally deferential Germany, Japan and Italy demand (but so also allowing the United States to raise to the United States in their public com- misguidedly pursue) their own place in its huge debt in its own currency, thereby ments, many say privately that they realize the sun, China, India and Iran will soon neutralizing any currency risk. that China is lending money to the United demand that the global system that cur- This can happen because international States, which in turn is lending dollars to rently protects the United State’s interests loans are mostly denominated in dollars global institutions such as the Internation- adapt to accommodate their own eco- and when a country borrows too much its al Monetary Fund (IMF) and thereby ac- nomic and strategy ambitions. The most own currency depreciates, thus making it quiring greater clout over the global finan- immediate impact will be on the three pil- more expensive for the borrowing coun- cial system, particularly over the countries lars of U.S. dominance: the global finan- try to pay back its dollar-denominated dependent on the IMF for loans. cial system that has the U.S. dollar at its center, the global oil and gas trade which What we are seeing in these three ancient es the United States currently controls, and g a m America’s “soft power,” or its ability to win civilizations is not just change or evolution, it is friends and arguments based on the popu-

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SO just like the original Bretton Woods re- terms India borrowed 10 billion rupees. If tions, such as an Asian Monetary Fund, D’ gime maintained de jure from 1945 to India borrows another $1 billion in 2007 that would lend Asian surpluses to Asian

ASTIAN 1973. While the original Bretton-Woods and investors deem that excessive, the borrowers. Not only would this dimin- B

SE was a formal system that fixed nations’ value of the rupee will fall to, say, 12 ru- ish the United States’ ability to dictate currency rates to their gold reserves, pees to a dollar, which means it will now economic policy to borrowers, it would Bretton Woods II is an informal ar- cost India 12 billion rupees to pay back cement regional ties by giving Asian na- rangement that pegs exchange rates to the original $1 billion it borrowed. tions a vested interest in each other’s de- the U.S. dollar. Because the United States borrows in velopment and stability. Currently, more than 30 nations, in- its own currency, it is immune from this cluding China and Saudi Arabia, have currency exchange trap. The $1 billion eanwhile, Iran poses its own their exchange rates pegged to the dollar the United States borrows remains $1 bil- threat to the dollar. Currently, the in one form or another, allowing them lion even if the dollar devalues globally. Mglobal oil and natural gas trade to export their goods into the United In fact, it is the lenders who bear the cost is conducted mainly in U.S. dollars. Since States and maintain huge trade and cur- of the devaluation, as the $1 billion they countries need to pay for their oil in dol- rent account surpluses. This arrangement get back will be worth less vis-à-vis their lars, they strive to acquire them, and this works as long as this surplus is used to own and other currencies. further strengthens both demand for the purchase U.S. dollar-denominated debt, What policy makers should now be- dollar and its central role in the world including the U.S. national debt. With gin to grapple with, according to former economy. But Iranian President Mahmoud this money coming from China, Saudi U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Sum- Ahmadinejad has begun talking about sell- Arabia and other countries, the United mers, is that the rationale for China to ing Iranian oil and gas for Euros and other States can then finance its $8 trillion buy U.S. debt is slowly fading. Beijing’s internationally traded currencies. If Iraq budget deficit. This allows the U.S. Fed- huge stock of dollars is threatening its does indeed fall into the Iranian orbit, as eral Reserve to produce enough money own economy with inflation and the many fear it will, and if Iran can get Iraq to stimulate spending by U.S. consumers, United States’ mammoth debt is mak- to follow suit, along with Iran’s ally Ven- who will then buy Chinese-made clothes ing China and other countries wonder if ezuela, about a third of the world’s energy and home theatre systems (or Saudi oil) U.S. dollars are truly a wise investment. would no longer be traded in the dollar, via the “fixed” exchange rate. The Asian In the last year alone, China, the United but in Euros or other currencies. countries then invest their profits into Arab Emirates, Russia, Italy, Switzer- Another worry for Washington is that U.S. T-bills—in other words, lending it land, Qatar and New Zealand have all Tehran and Beijing have close military ties back to the United States so the cycle can said they will reduce their U.S. dollar and are deepening their efforts to keep the repeat itself over and over again. holdings and buy more gold and Euros. United States out of energy-rich Central This system has worked well until now. China also realizes its dollars are sub- Asia, an area that has always been seen by China is an exporting juggernaut and has sidizing U.S. growth when they could be Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and New Delhi about $1 trillion in foreign reserves, most used on domestic development projects as their backyard. In the months follow- of which is used to buy U.S. debt, includ- and/or lent to other Asian nations with ing the 9/11 attacks, Washington surprised ing $350 billion in U.S. T-bills. This has whom it wants to buy influence at the these regional powers by using the interna- allowed Americans to live beyond their expense of the United States. Though tional alarm over global terrorism to estab-

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 3 9 network and oil market, and China is already constructing a pipeline through Kazakhstan that would give it direct ac- cess to Russian and Caspian Sea oil. New Delhi and Beijing have raised Washing- ton’s ire by backing a more audacious proposal to convert the prized Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which has been designed to bring gas to Europe, into a supply route for Asia. New Delhi wants to extend the pipeline to Syria, where oil could be loaded onto tankers and shipped es g a to Asia through the Red Sea. Im erhaps most significantly, /Get t y m however, the rise of China, India Shanghai boasts what Pand Iran is increasingly weighing may be the world’s largest

-Chishol down what Joseph Nye, a former chair- g collection of postmodernist man of the National Intelligence Council, skyscrapers, with a vast skyline of more than 4,500 towers, built almost entirely which provides the president and intelli- during the economic boom of the past 15 years. gence agencies with National Intelligence atalie Behrin Estimates, calls the United States’ “soft N power”—the attractiveness of American lish new military bases in Tajikistan, Uz- This would formally unite China, Russia, ideas, culture and values. bekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Washington also India, and Iran in a quasi-military alli- After the end of the Cold War, a U.S.- used its clout to buy major oil fields in the ance for the first time, fueling talk of an defined system of secular democracy and area and created the strategically impor- emerging axis between these four pow- free markets was widely hailed as the tant Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which ers that could balance, and maybe even universal governance model. Now, the allows Western countries to directly access threaten, U.S. influence in the region. increasing diffusion of Chinese, Indian the Caspian Sea’s energy reserves without Indications of this crested this past year and Iranian ideas, culture and values is needing to go through Russia or Iran. when Moscow, Beijing and New Delhi de- increasing the soft power of these coun- Shi Yinhong, director of the American fended Tehran against the United States’ tries. This is most evident in the increas- Studies program at the People’s Univer- attempts to curb its nuclear activities by ing global appetite for their cultural ex- sity in Beijing, is concerned that tensions imposing sanctions. In fact, New Delhi, of- ports, including movies, books, fashion in the region heightened last year when ten seen as the most pro-United States of and art. As more and more people—in- the United States supported the “color” the four countries, even threatened to walk cluding Westerners—consume Chinese, revolutions that toppled pro-Russian and away from a much sought-after civilian nu- Indian and Persian culture, they are de- pro-Chinese allies in Ukraine, Georgia clear deal of its own with the United States if veloping a greater appreciation and re- and Kyrgyzstan, and replaced them with Washington pushed it too hard to support gard for these countries, making it easier pro-Western democrats. In response, the the sanctions against Iran. The SCO has for Beijing, New Delhi and Tehran to put region’s rising powers and disgruntled dic- also asked the United States to withdraw their points of view out to the world. tators are pooling their umbrage against all of its troops from the K-2 air base it set For example, the success of the Chi- the United States’ geopolitical dominance up in Kazakhstan just after the 9/11 attacks. nese Communist Party in bringing more under the diplomatic shell of the six-na- Meanwhile, both Russia and India have es- people out of poverty than any other tion Shanghai Cooperation Organization tablished new military bases in Tajikistan, country in history and in rebuilding (SCO), says Madhav Nalapat, professor not far from the U.S. base there. China’s global clout is making China, not of geo-politics at the Manipal University The economic endgame in all this is to the United States, the model for many in southern India. “The SCO is well on dilute Washington’s hold over the Caspi- nations, particularly in Africa and Asia. track to becoming an organization that an Sea’s energy reserves, says Robert Kar- This sentiment was loudly mouthed by directly challenges the geopolitical reach niol, Asia-Pacific editor forJane’s Defense some African leaders during the recent of the United States,” he says. “China is in Weekly. China and India, the world’s fast- Africa summit in Beijing. Even in demo- the driver’s seat because it sees itself as the est-growing energy consumers, want to cratic India, ministers, businessmen and next United States.” divert Central Asia’s energy resources to- laypeople often talk admiringly of China’s Initially, the Chinese-founded SCO ward their own economies, and Iran and one-party system, wishing its effective- had only five other members: Russia, Russia, the region’s largest energy suppli- ness for themselves. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and ers, are keen to reduce their dependence For its part, Iran is directly challenging Kyrgyzstan. But in July 2006, Iran and on sales to the West. the United States’ democratization push in India (as well as Pakistan and Mongo- Both Russia and India have begun to the Middle East with its own unique no- lia) were inducted as observers and are talk of a Central Asian “energy club” that tion of Islamic democracy. Given the way expected to become full members soon. would create a regional gas grid, pipeline things are shaping up in Iraq, Palestine and

4 0 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s Lebanon, it’s likely that Iranian ideas and contain Germany, Japan and Italy back- this approach is pursued with the best values and not American ones will shortly fired a century ago. There is already a of intentions, it could short-circuit un- become the dominant force in the region. growing sense in China, India and Iran der the burdens of the complexities and U.S. attempts to defend democracy after that the neo-conservatives are likely to contradictions that plague relations and the recent military coup in Thailand have push the United States into repeating the interests between the West and the ris- also been undermined by China, and, mistakes of colonial Europe. The much- ing East, as well as between China, India more disturbingly, Beijing and New Delhi touted Project for the American Century and Iran themselves. have been the main opponents of a U.S. plan to take military and economic action A stable and balanced world order against the government in Sudan, which is committing genocide in the Darfur re- will only emerge if the United States can gion. As a U.S. diplomat in Beijing puts it, arrive at negotiated understandings with “We just cannot exert our will anymore. We have to consider what China and In- China, India and Iran. dia think before we do anything.” If the trajectory of China, India and developed by Paul Wolfowitz and com- Yet neither the United States nor Eu- Iran’s resurgence is not derailed by the pany is seen by many analysts in China, rope is investing the time and resources substantial problems facing these coun- India, and Iran as a direct challenge to required to engage astutely with a resur- tries—poverty, corruption, religious their vision of an Asian Century. The gent China, India and Iran. Unlike the turmoil and widening imbalances in ensuing resentments are already ignit- men, materials and money invested in un- income—the world of 2037 will look ing new waves of anti-Americanism in derstanding and dealing with the Soviet substantially different from today, with these countries and elsewhere. Union during the Cold War, the tidal wave Americans carrying much of the nega- A stable and balanced world order will of change coming from the East remains tive burden of the change. Yet, as Nye only emerge if the United States can ar- on the periphery of Western mindsets. points out in his book, The Paradox of rive at negotiated understandings with Thirty years from now, the greatest American Power, any U.S. attempt to China, India and Iran over how their cost of the war in Iraq might well be that undermine or contain the emergence of new and growing financial, energy and it proved to be the siren song that lured these new powers could backfire just like military interests can be achieved within the United States away from its natural if Britain, France and Russia’s attempts to a globally acceptable framework. Even if challenging course, onto the rocks. n

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 4 1 Education Reform: Pass or Fail? As No Child Left Behind comes due for reauthorization, questions remain about whether it really helps children learn By Adam Doster

he Cerveny Middle School in Northwest Detroit looks like any other aging public school in a de- pressed urban area. The ominous Tbrick structure is checkered with Cold War-era bomb shelter signs, the linoleum tile floors are scuffed from years of foot traffic and a busted clock rests on a hall- way wall in dire need of a paint job. But one classroom on the second floor is markedly different. A Malcolm X quotation—“I never felt free until I be- gan to read”—lines the outer wall, and Gary Paulsen’s teenage classic Hatchet ud Clo

leans against the chalkboard alongside c a M

a biography of Che Guevara. When the c bell rings, a seventh grade language arts Moni class enters the room and begins an or- f derly, active and sophisticated discus-

Can bureaucrats craft rtesy o

sion about the effects of depopulation on u o

their once-enormous city. Welcome to education policy that c English class with Nate Walker. benefits students? hoto Walker, 26, in his fourth year as English p teacher, basketball coach and drama di- rector at Cerveny, is tired of the status quo two hours, it is clear that he understands tuted in Texas when Bush was governor, in education. Instead of using customary and embraces the complexities of edu- but prominent Democrats Rep. George textbooks or worksheets, he applies state cating children. The same cannot be said Miller (Calif.) and Sen. Edward Kenne- and federal standards to materials and ac- about leaders in Washington. dy (Mass.) were instrumental in revis- tivities that he crafts with his students’ in- ing the original draft. terests in mind. During a recent lesson on Reauthorization on the horizon All three of these players have made it expository essays, Walker challenged his On January 8, 2002, President George clear that they will work toward reauthori- students to develop a research question, W. Bush signed into law the No Child zation. With Democrats now in control of thesis statement and supporting argu- Left Behind Act (NCLB), his most sig- Congress, Miller has assumed chairman- ments about truancy in the Detroit Public nificant domestic policy initiative. Over ship of the newly renamed House Com- Schools. He then let them debate. “I give the last five years, this sweeping legisla- mittee on Education and Labor, and Ken- [the students] a lot of freedom to explore tion transformed K-12 education, gen- nedy heads the Senate Health, Education, their own ideas,” he says. “Everyone has a erating supporters and detractors in the Labor and Pensions Committee, meaning voice. It’s interactive.” process. This year, NCLB is up for reauh- both will set the agenda in their respective By learning reading through dialogue torization, amid growing concerns that chambers. Both also claim that reauthori- and communication, Walker’s students the bill is not achieving its goals. The re- zation of NCLB is a high priority. Likewise, develop analytic abilities while simulta- sulting debate will galvanize citizens and in his recent State of the Union address, neously cultivating the skills to pass any policymakers concerned with the state of Bush said that NCLB “has worked for test thrown their way. They also behave American education. America’s children—and I ask Congress and enjoy themselves; something that Introduced in early 2001, NCLB ben- to reauthorize this good law.” To improve Walker insists wasn’t always the case. “I efited from a groundswell of national NCLB’s public image, the administration work really hard to try and build a posi- unity following 9/11. Congress passed recently unveiled a snazzy American flag- tive learning environment,” says Walker, it in an overwhelming bipartisan vote. themed logo for the legislation. “a classroom that people want to come Many of NCLB’s major tenets were de- Yet with renewal right around the to.” After witnessing Walker in action for rived from school reform efforts insti- corner, many Americans remain un-

4 2 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s clear about what NCLB does. Accord- NCLB flaws and motives California actually widened over the past ing to a poll conducted in the fall of Although some argue that it’s too early five years, which runs counter to Bush’s 2005 by Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup, 54 to pass judgment, recent evidence sug- insistence that the law is successfully ad- percent of parents with children in pub- gests that the bill has fallen short of its dressing educational discrepancies. lic schools said they knew little or noth- lofty goals, leaving parents, educators Andrew Rotherman, co-director of the ing about the law. That’s not surpris- and legislators discontented. Three major education policy think tank Education ing—teasing out the key points of the studies released in November reported Sector and a former assistant to President 670-page bill can be overwhelming. Es- persistent achievement gaps between stu- Clinton for domestic policy, sees these dis- sentially, NCLB reauthorizes previous dents of different racial, geographic and parities as fundamentally unjust. “What’s federal education mandates in hopes socioeconomic backgrounds. According dehumanizing is that the odds of outcome of improving the performance of all K- 12 students, thereby eradicating what ‘Can’t we reasonably assume that high-stakes, Bush has called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” To do this, the law relies high-pressure testing, the threat of failure and all on a strict accountability system, called Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). the time wasted on test preparation are turnoffs AYP divides students into subgroups— rather than incentives?’ all ethnic/racial groups present in the school, low-income students, students with disabilities and students with lim- to the Northwest Evaluation Association, are better off if you are rich and dumb than ited English proficiency—and requires an Oregon nonprofit testing organization if you are poor and smart,” he says. that each subgroup in a school reach that studied the results of 500,000 reading Upset with the lack of progress, citizens state-determined levels of proficiency on and math tests administered in 24 states outside of Washington have leveled more standardized tests in math and reading. If between 2004 and 2005, pupils attending systemic criticisms at the law. Many argue one subgroup fails, the entire school fails. poor schools achieved less growth than that high-stakes testing is poor motiva- By the 2013-2014 school year, the law will those attending rich schools for each sub- tion for struggling students. In her book require all states to set their levels of profi- group at every grade level. It found the In Defense of Education: When Politics, ciency at 100 percent. same variance between students of color Profit, and Education Collide, Elaine Ga- For schools that fail, NCLB institutes and white students. The Educational Test- ran asks, “Can’t we reasonably assume a series of sanctions and remedies that ing Service, a nonprofit assessment devel- that high-stakes, high-pressure testing, force schools to improve and at the opment and research organization, report- the threat of failure, and all the time wast- same time gives students attending low- ed similar findings; in 2005 black students ed on test preparation are turnoffs rather performing institutions a series of op- scored considerably lower than white stu- than incentives?” Critics also contend that tions. After two years of failure, schools dents in math, science and reading. And a by elevating the importance of test results, are deemed “in need of improvement,” study by the Policy Analysis for California teachers must narrow their curriculums meaning that school administrators Education found that achievement gaps in and exclude crucial but non-tested sub- must devise a two-year improvement plan following strict peer-reviewed guidelines and that students must be al- #ONGRATULATIONSONYOUR lowed to transfer to another school in the district or a nearby charter school. A third year requires the offering of 5) supplemental services like tutoring, a fourth year triggers “corrective action”— such as changes in staff and curriculum ANNIVERSARY
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I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 4 3 industrial economy of the 20th century required obedience and rapid cognition, skills that tests cultivate sufficiently. Now, as semi-skilled labor disappears—the Bu- reau of Labor Statistics projects a 21.2 per- cent increase in professional occupations from 2004-2014 and a one percent de- crease in production employment—com- mand-and-control education methods are training students for non-existent jobs. Instead, educators should focus on fos- tering the growth of critical thought in or- der to prepare students for a life of produc- tive citizenship. “Because that struggling es Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) walks up to g a the podium flanked (from right to left) by kid is going to be put into the world in six Im Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Rep. George Miller or seven years, we need to advocate edu- (D-Calif.), Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) and cation for citizenship if we really want any Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, after hope,” Walker says. Walker not only uses a meeting at the White House on the fifth dialogue to encourage students’ indepen- anniversary of the No Child Left Behind Act. dent-thinking skills, but also plans direct-

Mark Wilson/Getty action projects that link class material with the student’s immediate surroundings. For jects like history, art, foreign language, tors in 2006-2007, up from $300 million example, two years ago, after reading a sto- music and physical education. in 2003-2004. Textbook publishers are ry about segregation and the lack of qual- The most damning criticism of the law is exacting similarly huge profits. McGraw ity educational resources black students aimed at its crude and unrealistic proficien- Hill, which publishes the materials for receive, Walker’s students painted the cy goals. By using one annual test score as a NCLB’s Reading First program, cited in its lockers in their hallway to improve their measurement of attainment, AYP focuses Quarterly Report that sales in the Elemen- physical environment. Though this was on achievement to the exclusion of assess- tary and High School market were criti- a relatively small act, advocates ranging ing student growth. “We’re placing the em- cal to their frequent double-digit growth from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Detroit phasis on the product of the educational in earnings per share (17.6 percent in the activist Grace Lee Boggs have long argued process instead of the process [of learning] second quarter of 2006). that such praxis-based projects encour- itself,” says Walker. In October 2004, a co- The Bush administration has also pro- age civic engagement by making children alition of national educational, civil rights vided the opposition plenty of ammuni- aware that they are social agents, capable and religious groups produced a “Joint Or- tion. Ignite Learning, a company owned of redefining and revitalizing their schools ganizational Statement on NCLB” that has by the president’s brother Neil and backed and neighborhoods. since gathered more than 100 signatories. financially by Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Their first recommendation was “to - re Talai, developed a system last year named The politics of renewal place the law’s arbitrary proficient targets COW, or “curriculum on wheels.” COW is The lack of progress under NCLB, cou- with ambitious achievement targets based a high-tech instruction aide for teachers pled with the new political landscape of on rates of success actually achieved by the that expects to produce $5 million dollars the 110th Congress, will likely complicate most effective public schools.” in revenue in 2006, according to Business- the reauthorization process. Many recently It is the unreasonable proficiency goals Week. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, elected Democrats, who did not participate that have convinced many that the hidden former First Lady Barbara Bush donated in the construction of the law, bemoaned agenda of NCLB is to sacrifice the public an undisclosed amount of money to the NCLB throughout their campaigns. education system in the name of profit, Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with explicit Tim Walz, a high school geography either through the development of expen- directions that it be spent only on educa- teacher and the newly elected representa- sive and privately produced supplemen- tional software produced by, you guessed tive of Minnesota’s 1st District, called the tary education materials or the eventual it, Ignite Learning. bill “an uneven, bureaucratic nightmare privatization of schools. “NCLB is a dol- Perhaps most devastating, NCLB has [that] harms the students and schools who lars game and it needs to be understood had a chilling impact on discussions need it most.” Meanwhile, Republican leg- on that level,” says Walker. “It has nothing about alternative educational philoso- islators are increasingly voicing their dis- to do with the children—it has to do with phies and techniques. To educate Ameri- pleasure about the greater federalism that making people rich.” can children effectively, Walker says poli- NCLB mandates. Sen. Jim DeMint (R- Private tutoring, for example, has wit- cymakers and educators alike must break S.C.) recently told an audience at the Her- nessed explosive growth since the law’s from the long-accepted U.S. pedagogical itage Foundation, “You can’t have quality inception. ThinkEquity Partners, a San framework and re-envision the role of development with a top-down approach. Francisco-based investment bank, esti- education in the 21st century. It’s time to change the way we’re thinking mates that public schools will funnel more Lawmakers crafted NCLB using an out- about [NCLB] because it’s not working.” than $900 million dollars to private tu- dated understanding of the economy. The “NCLB is not just a straight left-right,

4 4 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s Republicans and Democrats issue,” says in the middle of the year. it seems unlikely that Cerveny would have Rotherman. “There are real intra-party Even HQT is not without its opponents. passed its reading tests in 2006. disagreements about the legislation, Aaron Tang, co-director of Our Education, But education reform can’t be viewed which means it is a less likely candidate a youth organizing organization, believes in a vacuum. Studies show that test-score to get done in this environment.” HQT fails to differentiate between quali- discrepancies appear as early as kin- On Jan. 24, the administration attempt- fied and quality teachers. “Having a few dergarten, proving that factors outside ed to placate critics like DeMint when it extra pieces of paper doesn’t guarantee that of schools largely contribute to gaps in released “Building on Results: A Blueprint a person can educate or inspire students,” achievement. If Congress is serious about for Strengthening NCLB,” which largely Tang says. He would like to see the govern- leaving no child behind, it must imple- emphasized the need for increased school ment explore modes of alternative certifi- ment measures to reduce family and choice and local control. But Democrats, cation, such as the New York City Teaching youth poverty, such as eradicating gaps in including Kennedy and Miller, immedi- Fellows (NYCTF) program, which awards health care coverage and raising stagnat- ately called it a non-starter. mid-career professionals, recent college ing wages for Americans who work long Even with these divisions, complete re- graduates and retirees fellowships to teach hours away from their children. peal seems unlikely; the political will and in New York City’s underperforming and When Walker asked his students to the power of the authors will not allow for understaffed schools. In just six years, the produce supporting arguments about a comprehensive reinterpretation of the program has placed 7,500 fellows in the why Detroit schools had high truancy federal government’s role in education. For nation’s largest district, totaling almost 10 rates, the 20 seventh graders in his class Bush, NCLB is the only substantial bipar- percent of the entire system. didn’t hesitate: Kids aren’t taught any- tisan domestic policy he has passed in six By reducing the barriers to entry, thing of value; it can be embarrassing to years, so it is important for both his legacy NYCTF and similar programs allow ea- try and catch up if a student is pegged and his attempts to pass favored legislation ger college graduates or people in related as struggling; and students lack support through the new Congress. fields, such as doctors or scientists, the from their parents, teachers and peers. Conversely, Kennedy and Miller, stead- chance to provide a welcome infusion of More support from legislators wouldn’t fast supporters of testing and accountabil- human capital. Walker himself was a so- hurt either. n ity, believe that the law is well intentioned, ciology major who took advantage of al- just poorly executed. The two men will ternative certification through the Teach Adam doster is a senior at the University of likely focus the debate in Washington on for America program. Without the aid of Michigan and the managing editor of the Michi- ways to fine-tune the bill. Measures should alternatively certified teachers like Walker, gan Independent include increasing funding to reach the full amount initially promised during authorization and putting more qualified teachers in the classroom. With these po- litical realities, Rotherman believes that full reauthorization—with only limited changes—will happen, but not until after the next presidential election. In the meantime, legislators must take additional steps to fulfill the promises guaranteed by NCLB. Emphasis should be placed on the other major section of the bill, the Highly Qualified Teacher Provi- sion (HQT). Authored primarily by Miller, HQT requires that all children be taught by a teacher with a bachelor’s degree and state-certification (among other require- ments) in core academic subjects like Eng- lish, reading, science and math. Initially, the provision wasn’t taken seriously in Washington—zero states passed the first deadline and no legitimate sanctions were ever crafted, so a one-year extension was granted. “The Bush Administration cham- pioned a $100 million dollar teacher in- centive, but that’s like throwing a bucket of water into the ocean,” says Rotherman. To catch up, districts are now taking rash and ineffective steps. In Baltimore, classroom assistants deemed highly-qualified were forced to transfer to high-poverty schools

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 4 5 1984

2006 Looking Back, Moving Forward ith this issue In These convention in Detroit that year, I took off under Nixon, liberalism was returning Times celebrates its 30th an- during an afternoon to visit a bar or two with a vengeance and the country was niversary. On page 18, we in Macomb County where I expected to resuming the movement toward the left honor those readers whose find Chrysler workers. Armed with a tape that had begun in the late ’50s. It was hard Wfinancial support has kept the magazine recorder, I sat down with several guys who for us to accept that the Carter years were afloat. In These Times has also relied on had been recently laid off and asked them the Indian Summer of liberalism, and that labors of love. In the past 30 years, many about Reagan, Carter, national politics, the magazine (originally titled “The Inde- folks have passed through the doors of labor unions, taxes, welfare and foreign pendent Socialist Weekly”) was, at best, 1509 N. Milwaukee, 1300 W. Belmont and, policy. They began complaining about the a marginal voice in American politics. It currently, 2040 N. Milwaukee, to devote Democrats giving money to blacks and to was probably easier for me to acknowledge themselves to producing journalism that welfare programs and not caring about because after a decade or so as a socialist makes a difference. We asked a few former them. I transcribed the interview and apparatchik and theorist, I’d decided to staff members to reflect onIn These Times planned to print almost all of it because become a journalist. and the role it has played in politics and in I thought it was revealing about what the The early dreams of the magazine died their lives. Here is what they said. white working class was thinking that sometime around then. Today, the situa- summer (pollster Stan Greenberg would tion is different. Jimmy is gone, sadly, but John B. Judis, 1976–1995, has been go to Macomb County after the 1984 elec- since the middle of the ’90s, the country listed on the masthead as San Francisco tion and discover the same sentiments). has begun moving left again. The Bush bureau chief, foreign news editor, politi- But to my surprise, my fellow editors didn’t period will represent the Indian Sum- cal editor, associate editor, senior editor, want to print it. “They sound like Archie mer of American conservatism. And at Washington correspondent and contribut- Bunker,” Jimmy Weinstein, In These Times’ such a time, a publication like In These ing editor. He is currently a senior editor at founder and editor, said, meaning that the Times can play the vital role that it was The New Republic. interviews sounded like fictional versions designed to play—advancing ideas and My favorite stories about In These Times of the working class. Eventually, we settled approaches that Dick Durbin or Hillary tend to make me look good, and I’ll tell on a short sidebar. That November, Rea- Clinton won’t be willing to embrace right one of them, but with a certain altruistic gan swept Macomb County. now, but might, with sufficient prodding, purpose in mind. In 1980, I was cover- My point is one about the present as in a few years. And, as Jimmy conceived ing the presidential election, and there much as the past. In These Times began it, In These Times has a unique ability to was growing dissatisfaction in the office at a time when Jimmy, myself and others advance a new understanding because with what I’d characterize as my creeping at the magazine believed that after a con- it is published in the Midwest and is less centrism. When I went to the Republican servative surge (the word of the month) susceptible to either West Coast counter-

4 6 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s culturism or East Coast elitism. I wish the is now a professor of global sociology at viewed me. With his shock of white hair magazine and its editors well and urge Kansas State. and grandfatherly demeanor, it was like them to keep the original promise of the When Jimmy started the paper, he meeting an old friend at a bar. The Chau- magazine in mind. thought it would cover the activities of tauqua delighted Jimmy, who looked puck- “the Movement”—a large, democratic ish and amused the whole time, because Kerry Tremain, 1976–1979, was found- and socialist assembly of labor, women, it brought together his “old Left” friends ing art director of In These Times. He is civil rights and environmental activists— and his young “new Left” colleagues in currently the editor of California maga- that he expected would (re)emerge in the an intergenerational meeting of political zine and a former executive editor of late ’70s. All along, he insisted that the minds. At the end of the evening, I recall Mother Jones. staff cover the movement when it made drinking with Studs (old left) and watch- Jimmy Weinstein launched In These news, not when it took a “position” on ing John Judis (new left) do the pogo on Times from an office on Polk Street in San events. “This is anews paper,” he’d remind the ballroom dance floor. Francisco, next door to a donut shop, two the staff, “not a theoretical journal.” blocks from a deli-restaurant where he This approach disappointed many Sheryl Larson, 1982–1993, was In and I ate lunch every day. Jimmy always people on the left who thought the paper These Times’ managing editor. ordered the same dish—half a roast chick- would “cover” their latest pronounce- Proudest memory during my 11-year en with a cup of borscht—and pretty soon ments. But it also made the paper a sound, tenure as managing editor: The three- I did, too. He had hired me as an assistant critical, journalistic enterprise rather than part, award-winning series that Dick for $50 a week, which he paid in cash, and a movement cheerleader. Unfortunately, Russell wrote in 1989, detailing alarm- usually in arrears, with winnings from the large, singular movement that Jimmy ing NASA data about encroaching global gambling. I designed the prospectus whose anticipated never took shape. Instead, a warming and outlining steps to stop it. soaring claim—that a democratic socialist less-cohesive series of separate movements Favorite extended conversation (and majority would soon emerge—seemed emerged, and these did not create the kind they were legion): Christopher Lasch, plausible, at least when Jimmy said it. of readership base that Jimmy expected. not long before he passed away, reflecting To my astonishment, I also learned Still, the paper has played an important not only on the meaning of the Republi- from him that the Kansas town where and durable role, charting the newswor- can revolution but life in general. I’d attended junior high school was once thy struggles of grassroots, national and Most-repeated sentence to writers: The the home of Appeal to Reason, the social- global movements over the years. check is in the mail. ist newspaper, circulation 750,000, that The highlight of my work with In These Most-repeated sentence to staffers: served as the historical inspiration for our Times was our first Chautauqua, which Wait until next week to cash your check. own effort, and of immigrant minework- was held in the winter of 1977. I recall Ed Most treasured memory: The chance ers who, in 1912, had given most of their Sadlowski, a beer-barrel of a man who led to consume hundreds of cheap, but good, votes to Eugene V. Debs. Sixty years later, an insurgency of dissident steel workers, lunches with Jimmy, always the formi- I had run away from just such towns, al- rousing the crowd with blunt, furious, dable teacher. ready dominated by what is now called the working-class rhetoric. Afterwards, I sat religious right, to Berkeley, where I under- and talked with Studs Terkel, who inter- continue d on page 63 went immersion therapy in the ultra-left sectarianism then on the rise. Jimmy (together with John Judis) res- cued me from that insanity, and restored my hope for a democratic left. Jimmy took the long view. He loved a well-reasoned argument and a silly pun even better. He was serious of purpose, but re-introduced me to irony. He was a fine writer and grammarian, a dedicated historian and a democrat. All these qualities he brought to Chicago, where they shaped the new newspaper and girded us against sectar- ian attacks. The values Jimmy implanted in In These Times made the jangling cold, the Milwaukee Avenue dust, the late pay- checks and even the staff squabbling worth enduring. Those values and his love of life have informed everything worthwhile that I’ve done in journalism and in the rest of my life. They still do.

Robert Schaeffer, 1977–1978, was www.afscme31.org an In These Times managing editor. He

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 4 7 Solidarity Without Borders Confronted with multinationals and business-friendly trade agreements, unions have begun to act globally by david mober g ith John Lennon’s “Imag- ine” playing in the back- ground, more than 1,000 leaders of service and tech- Wnology unions from around the world gathered in Chicago in the fall of 2005. As delegates at the Union Network In- ternational (UNI) convention, they rep- resented about 15 million workers in 140 countries. The challenge they faced was laid out in bold by the banner before them: “Global companies require global organizing, global unions.” It’s an idea that’s as old as it is new. Back in 1848, Marx and Engels exhorted the workers of the world to unite, and in the late 19th century, during an earlier wave es of globalization, confederations of unions g

Juan Somavia, a in similar industries—like metalwork- director-general of the Im ing—began to form across borders. But International Labor Organization, speaks

in the United States and elsewhere, the FP/Get t y A idea remains new and alien to many labor at the November /

2006 meeting of the ANI

leaders, even as those same international UB K

International Trade

union groupings—now called Global EL Union Confederation. Union Federations (GUFs)—confront a MU seemingly borderless economy dominated SA by transnational corporations. Despite the long history of global fed- Union (SEIU) local. Last September, she Cold War disrupted globalization of both erations, no real global union exists. “For flew to Warsaw to help organize security capital and the labor movement. Unions in a union to exist at any place and any time, guards as part of a multinational security richer countries often scored their politi- there are many preconditions,” says Ron industry unionizing campaign. cal gains by creating national welfare states Oswald, general secretary of the Interna- “I was so inspired that so many peo- and using national governments to rein- tional Union of Foodworkers (IUF), one of ple they want solidarity to take care of force trade union power. the most imaginative global union federa- their problems,” Figus says. “They know International solidarity was often a tions. “First workers [must] know there’s a a single worker cannot do nothing. They one-way affair, from rich countries to union, and employers [must] know there’s were very interested what was my experi- poorer ones, including expressions of a union. I’m not sure any worker or em- ence. They listened to me. These are kids solidarity to jailed unionists. U.S. unions ployer knows there’s a global union. It’s a of those who created Solidarity. We told often subordinated their work to their brand, not a reality. International com- them what you can get if stick together.” country’s anti-communist foreign poli- panies are clearly a reality. International cy. International labor elites focused on unions have yet to become so.” The long detour groups such as the 88-year old Interna- There are signs that global unions may Workers have been acting together across tional Labor Organization (ILO)—a Ge- become more than mere brands. Alexan- borders for a long time. The eight-hour day neva-based United Nations institution dra Figus is one of the small indicators of movement of the late 19th century was in- composed of government, business and progress. Twenty-seven years ago, Figus, ternational, and the Haymarket incident in labor representatives who establish rights 51, emigrated from Poland to Chicago, Chicago was commemorated as May Day, and standards for workers globally, but where she became a janitor and leader the international workers’ holiday. But two can do little to enforce their directives. in her Service Employees International world wars, a global Depression and the The contemporary global economy

4 8 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s presents labor with a double challenge do without the Internet,” says Christy lenge will simply be to increase global co- in regards to global solidarity. On the Hoffman, an SEIU official who serves as operation and coordination. one hand, corporations push workers the European-based organizing director Part of the problem is the weakness of into competition over who gets jobs and for UNI’s property services division. what passes for global governance and la- investment, especially in highly mobile Eric Lee, founder of the LabourStart bor law. Today, the most powerful global manufacturing or digitized services. At Web site (www.labourstart.org), which governance of the world economy comes the same time, unions, even in rich coun- mobilizes labor supporters around global from institutions like the World Trade Or- tries, realize that they can—and often causes, says that the Internet greatly in- ganization and the International Monetary must—work together to confront those creases the speed and numbers of activists Fund, which tilt against labor. Although it corporations and to lift the standards of working conditions everywhere. Last November, the 57-year old Inter- The revolutions in communications and national Confederation of Free Trade transportation that enabled corporate Unions—the world’s largest organization of national union federations—merged globalization have also made it easier for workers with a smaller world federation of unions aligned with Christian Democratic politi- around the world to come together. cal parties, as well as several independent federations, such as the communist-ori- responding to a crisis—like a successful often appears that corporations write the ented GGT of France. Stan Gacek, AFL- campaign to reverse the firing of an Irish rules of the new global economy, they still CIO assistant director of international union shop steward for wearing her union rely on governments to do their bidding. affairs, calls it a “major quantum leap, in pin. It has also increased the involvement By using their economic and political terms of organization of the labor move- of grassroots activists. “International power to change governments and laws, ment on a global basis.” solidarity work has penetrated to the global unions can change those rules. Guy Ryder, general secretary of the shop floor level,” he says, “and hundreds Labor unions around the world have newly expanded federation, now called of times as many people are involved in agreed that international trade and eco- the International Trade Union Confed- global solidarity work.” nomic agreements must include protec- eration (ITUC), says that the politics of tion of labor rights. When no such protec- the merger were as important as its size, A cold splash of reality tions exist, U.S. unions have increasingly roughly 168 million workers. “This would Unions are seeking other ways to meet used legal avenues to challenge corpora- have been almost unimaginable even global capital on a more level playing tions and both the U.S. and foreign gov- four years ago,” Ryder says. “Unions saw field. In January, several unions—Amicus ernments. The AFL-CIO has taken cases the Cold War as an element of division in and the Transport and General Work- to the ILO contesting the Bush adminis- the labor movement, even 15 years after ers Union (T&G), two of Britain’s largest tration’s National Labor Relations Board the end of the Cold War.” unions; IG Metall (the giant German met- decisions that restrict the right to organize. The merger also created a closer alli- alworkers union); and the Steelworker and And Mexican and U.S. unions have filed ance between the ITUC and the GUFs. Machinist unions in the United States— NAFTA complaints about U.S. violations As a result, the GUFs will focus more on announced plans for a new “super union.” of the rights of Washington apple pickers organizing and bargaining by industry The proposal is still just a “theoretical and North Carolina state employees. The and corporation, leaving broader political concept,” says Steelworkers’ International AFL-CIO also has used trade law to chal- work to the ITUC. Affairs Director Gerald Fernandez, but lenge labor rights violations in China and “The key on global work is to figure out other unions are also talking about form- Jordan, but new free trade agreements have ways to do global grassroots action, not ing joint cross-border unions. And the removed the threat of suspending trade meetings,” says Larry Cohen, president of Farm Labor Organizing Committee al- preferences for violations of worker rights. the Communications Workers of Amer- ready organizes in both Mexico and the And some unions have employed a pow- ica. “For a hundred years, too much has United States to represent largely migrant erful but controversial legal tool, the Alien been about sending leaders to meet and workers in North Carolina and Ohio. Tort Claims Act. Used mainly by the Inter- dine together, which is great for building Yet a cold splash of reality is needed. national Labor Rights Fund—successfully relationships, but we’re looking for global Easier communication and the consolidat- against Chevron’s slave labor practices in events, ways for people to act together.” ing forces of global capital may help unite Burma—this law permits workers victim- The revolutions in communications unions, but language, institutional struc- ized overseas by U.S. corporations to sue and transportation that enabled corporate tures, levels of economic development, in U.S. federal courts. globalization—such as cheaper airfares national identity, strategic differences, and Though such cases often accomplish and the Internet—make it easier for work- national labor laws and traditions all act little, they build the case that labor rights ers around the world to connect. Korean as dividers. At a time when the former are human rights, deserving of protection workers can send videos of their partici- “international unions” covering neighbor- in future trade deals. “Using NAFTA labor pation at a Haymarket rally in Chicago ing countries like Canada and the United or ILO complaints [or] raising our nation- over their cell phones back to a rally of States continue to separate into national al labor law problems to an international co-workers in Korea. “We couldn’t even unions, creating global unions will not be dimension can be helpful if it’s part of a begin to think about doing the work we easy. For the foreseeable future, the chal- broader campaign strategy,” says Lance

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 4 9 “The criticism that Europeans and Brazilians have of Americans is, ‘You’re only into international solidarity when you’re about to go on strike or negotiate or there’s a plant closing. What about the rest of the time?’, ” says Ben Davis, Mex- ico representative of the AFL-CIO’s Soli- darity Center, which trains and supports unions in many countries. But relationships are growing more bal- anced, and campaigns are becoming less reactions to crises and more a part of glob- al strategies. “We’ve moved from global es

g solidarity to global strategy,” says Ginny a

Im Coughlin, UNITE HERE’s global strategies director. “Instead of making lots of state-

FP/Get t y ments, we’re making mistakes, running A / into obstacles, which means we’re making ORET

Teamsters striking against F progress. We’ve embarked for the first time LA UPS have benefited in union history on a real cross-border or-

from global support. ENT C ganizing effort in hotels and hospitality.” IN

V As UNITE HERE bargained last year with U.S. hotel chains, it also supported a Compa, an international labor law expert Targeting transnationals new community-religious-labor organi- at Cornell University. The most important global work in zation, London Citizens, which is work- One strategy for changing the politi- recent years has been cross-border cam- ing with the almost entirely non-union cal climate for labor involves negotiation paigning in support of strikes or orga- London hotel workforce. Besides helping of International Framework Agreements nizing drives at particular transnational British workers unionize, UNITE HERE between Global Union Federations and corporations. Most are so-called “com- wants to stop U.S. hotel chains from em- transnational employers guaranteeing prehensive campaigns” that find chinks bracing this new London operating mod- basic labor rights. The IUF bargained in the corporate armor where unions and el—outsourcing room-cleaning to immi- the first of these agreements in 1988 with their allies, usually non-governmental or- grants minimally paid by the room, rather Danone, the French food giant, and now ganizations like churches or worker rights than offering them fixed wage. various federations have negotiated more advocates, can apply pressure. Such global SEIU has recently ramped up its global than 50 such agreements. support has been critical in high-profile organizing dramatically. It is working with Many strategists saw them as at least U.S. labor victories, like the Steelworkers’ two GUFs (UNI and IUF) on organizing improvements on the codes of conduct battles with Ravenswood Aluminum and the transnational corporate leaders in four that transnationals adopted as public Bridgestone/Firestone, the 1997 Teamster industries—security guards, school bus relations gambits to fend off criticism strike against UPS and UNITE HERE’s drivers, janitors, and (with UNITE HERE) from unions and anti-sweatshop groups. campaign at the Brylane clothing ware- “multi-service companies” that provide At best, they might be first steps to- house (owned by a French multinational). food, laundry and other services. Thanks wards global collective bargaining. But Currently, the west coast longshoremen to coordinated global union pressure, the deals mainly ratified rights workers are working with Korean unions to help the three multiservice giants—Aramark, had in Europe and were unenforceable organize Blue Diamond almond workers Compass and Sodexho—have quietly in the United States or the global South. in California, because Korea is a major agreed to terms tht will make organizing “Now we’re talking about much tougher market for the company, and the Mine- their workers much easier. agreements,” Oswald says, that would workers are jointly campaigning with Aus- “The huge consolidation [in global ser- guarantee unions access to workers and tralian miners to organize Peabody Coal. vice corporations] has made it more pos- recognition by the most expeditious In most cases, U.S. unions ask their sible to organize with fewer players,” says means possible. counterparts to pressure corporations with Stephen Lerner, SEIU’s property services Still, with few exceptions, global col- whom they have some clout. Western Eu- director. If global labor can guarantee lective bargaining barely exists. The In- ropean union leaders, however, often do workers’ rights to organize at each of these ternational Transport Workers’ Federa- not understand how anti-union businesses companies, there’s an opportunity to orga- tion (ITF) campaigned for many years to are in the United States and are more ac- nize quickly on a huge scale. Also, though force “flag of convenience” ships—which customed to civil consultations with em- the companies are global, the services fly flags of countries like Panama to avoid ployers rather than confrontations. They they provide can’t be shifted to low-wage regulation—to pay wages for cargo ship have at times complained that the Ameri- countries, as with industrial or digital crews that the ITF defined as fair. Eventu- cans wanted them to risk their close rela- service work. “They can’t move the build- ally a global industry group agreed to bar- tionships with employers, without getting ings,” Lerner says. “workers [can] support gain directly with the ITF. help in return from Americans. each other because they’re not competing

5 0 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s for the same jobs.” Ultimately he believes “Mexico is one of our largest trading both the global political climate and the there should be true global unions that partners,” says the Steelworkers’ Fernan- rules of the global economy. In some parts match the scope of global companies. dez. “If we can’t take care of labor rights in of the world, particularly Latin America, When SEIU encountered resistance our hemisphere, how can we do it in other unions recently have turned more to from security firms owned by Swedish- hemispheres? We have a philosophical ba- populist and socialist politics, says Cor- based Securitas, they turned for help to the sis for assisting them. That’s what unions nell professor Kate Bronfenbrenner, who Swedish Transport Workers Union, which are about. We also have self-interest. organized a landmark conference on was able to mediate talks. “We put our re- Strong unions in Mexico, Canada and the global comprehensive campaigns. lationship with the company on the line,” United States make it difficult for multina- The global labor movement needs says Transport Workers International Sec- tional corporations to exploit any of us.” agreement on its broad political agenda. retary Lars Lindgren. “We had a good re- Global campaigns can take on a life of As AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard lationship with the company, but SEIU is a their own. When the small Graphic Com- Trumka argues, workers everywhere are sister union, and that comes first.” munications International Union (GCIU) boxed in by policies that promote capital Securitas agreed to be neutral and asked the AFL-CIO in 2001 to help de- mobility, labor flexibility, price stability recognize the union when a majority of velop an organizing plan, they decided and privatization of government. When workers in a city signed union cards, and to target Quebecor, a Canadian-based taken together, those policies, at a global SEIU agreed not to enforce a contract transnational printing giant. With UNI’s and national level, undermine workers’ until most employers in the market were help, they formed a global conference of economic power and social welfare protec- organized. Unions are now globally fight- Quebecor unions and pursued an interna- tions, make organizing more difficult and ing a British-based giant, Group 4 Secu- tional framework agreement. limit what unions can do even if they do ricor], that rejects such a deal. As the company resisted, unions around organize or undertake global campaigns. SEIU and the Teamsters, working the world joined in shareholder actions, “Is the labor movement actually becom- with the British Transport and General protests with religious leaders, in-plant ing more international, either with regard Workers (T&G), had to use shareholder petition drives, and global days of solidar- to employers in organizing and bargain- actions and other tactics relatively new ity—even a sympathy strike. Governments ing or in relation to governments in set- for Europeans to win a neutrality pledge and client corporations were pressured ting policy at both the national and inter- from First Group, a British bus company to threaten cutoffs of lucrative contracts. national levels?” asks one high-level union that become a leader in operating yellow Organizers trained by Solidarity Center official with extensive global experience. school buses in the United States. helped win victories in Peru, Chile and “That’s a tough call to say there’s been real Graham Stevenson, T&G national Brazil, as well as two elections in the United progress.” Yet today more labor leaders transport organizing director, says that States. The Teamsters, which incorporated and workers around the world at least rec- this alliance may help his union stop the the American part of GCIU, hopes talks ognize the need for global unionism, and company from importing American anti- will now revive the stalled campaign. are looking for ways to give the old idea of union management practices. “The useful Simply campaigning more, however, worldwide worker solidarity a viable form thing for us is that our members’ con- won’t be enough. Unions need to change for a new era. n sciousness has risen a lot,” Stevenson says. “We’re awash in American capital, but we don’t want American labor relations.” The development of these global cam- paigns creates complex webs. SEIU has at least 15 staff working overseas, mainly in labor rights Europe, training organizers and develop- ing relationships with individual unions A company is only as strong as find out more about its employees. mutual funds that and the GUFs, which are all poorly fi- make a difference. nanced and understaffed. SEIU also pro- A productive company respects vided IUF with seed money for an orga- Call 1-800-530-5321 or its workers, and treats them as nizing fund, which will be replenished by visit www.domini.com. individuals with real contribu- a share of dues from new organizing that tions to make. Our decisions as the IUF assists. consumers and investors make a The Steelworkers have begun developing difference. “strategic alliances” with unions in Aus- tralia, Brazil, Germany, Mexico and other The Domini Funds are not insured and are subject to market risks. Invest- countries. The Mexican union helped the ment return, principal value, and yield of an investment will fluctuate so that Steelworkers in bargaining with companies an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their like Alcoa and Asarco, which is owned by original cost. You may lose money. Grupo Mexico. And the Steelworkers have You should consider the Domini Funds’ investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses carefully before investing. Please obtain a copy of the Funds’ staunchly defended the union’s leader, Na- current prospectus for more complete information on these and other topics poleon Gomez, when the government re- by calling 1-800-530-5321 or online at www.domini.com. Please read it moved him from his union office for lead- carefully before investing or sending money. DSIL Investment Services LLC, ing a strike over mine safety. Distributor 09/06

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 5 1 in person

By Daniel Sturm Kucinich Comes Back for ’08 To his supporters, Rep. Dennis Kucinich accelerator as the car heads toward the (D-Ohio) represents the sane voice of the cliff. The “Kucinich Plan” proposes replacing Democratic Party—a man who reads books, U.S. troops with an international peace- gives intelligent speeches and acts on principle. keeping force. But after the United States ignored the world’s opposition To his detractors, Kucinich is a small man on an to its invasion of Iraq, is it practical to expect European and other nations to ego trip, too radical to be elected. support America now? Kucinich was the only Democratic can- gan, “Because he was right!” He won a seat I’m talking about a totally different pro- didate in the 2004 presidential primaries in the Ohio state Senate in 1994 and was cess. I’m talking about something that le- to vote against the war in Iraq. His 90-day elected to Congress two years later. gitimates the international community, as plan to end the occupation was dismissed In These Times recently spoke with Ku- opposed to the Bush Administration’s plan by the party’s centrist leaders and he came cinich about his decision to run again for that rejects the primacy of international in fourth in the primaries—behind Kerry, president and his position on the war. cooperation. It is imperative that the Unit- Edwards and Dean. Three years later, the With his proposal to escalate the war ed States take a different course—a course Iraq war has cost the lives of more than through a troop “surge,” President out of Iraq. How do you get the interna- 3,000 American servicemen and untold George W. Bush plans to dispatch 21,500 tional community involved? It begins with thousands of Iraqis. And once again Ku- additional U.S. troops to Iraq. What ef- the United States indicating its intention to cinich, relentless in his call for withdraw- fect would this have? take a new direction. That direction must ing troops, is vying for the nation’s top job. articulate a desire to end the occupation; “My country calls me to action,” he told a More war, more door-to-door fighting, withdraw the troops; close the bases; assist cheering crowd after announcing his can- more civilian casualties, an expansion of in the creation of a new process for recon- didacy on December 12 in Cleveland. the conflict, more deaths of troops, more ciliation, reconstruction and reparation in Kucinich first gained prominence in costs to the people of the United States, Iraq; and stop the privatization of Iraqi oil. 1977 when, at age 31, he was elected mayor more ruination for Iraq and more insta- I think that if the United States would take of Cleveland, becoming the youngest may- bility in the region and the world. And it that position, you’d find receptivity in the or ever elected in a major American city. sets the stage for a conflict against Iran. international community. During his campaign, Kucinich promised Daniel Ellsberg, of “Pentagon Papers” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes to save the struggling city-owned Munici- fame, told Democracy Now that he sending additional troops to Iraq, but pal Light Co. When the company’s private believes Bush plans to attack Iran, she has also said that cutting off fund- competitor tried to force the city to sell, probably without informing Congress. ing for troops already there isn’t an Mayor Kucinich refused. In response, the Ellsberg says a similar escalation hap- option. How does your position differ banks cut off credit and the City of Cleve- pened during the Vietnam War, when from hers? land went into default. In 1979, Kucinich the battlefield was extended into Laos lost his bid for re-election. Years later, the and Cambodia. Could this be possible? I have a great deal of respect for Nancy Cleveland City Council would honor him Pelosi. I think we have to give Democrats for “having the courage and foresight to The analogy is correct. I think this a few weeks to absorb the full impact of refuse to sell the city’s municipal electric president is looking to expand the war. the president’s intentions, and to realize system”—and saving ratepayers more His comments about Iran and Syria were that it is absolutely critical to stop this than $100 million. not conciliatory. He’s rattling the saber at a administration from continuing the war. During his 15-year hiatus from politics, time when saber-rattling hurts our troops. The only way to do that is for Congress to he worked as a TV commentator, media It’s the kind of tough talk that dragged us assume its power under the constitution: consultant, college professor and public into this war, the same braggadocio that the power of the purse. utility consultant. Kucinich re-launched doesn’t pass for statecraft, but shows an I am going to be presenting members of his political career in 1993, with the cam- administration that’s out of control. Here’s Congress and the American people with paign symbol of a light bulb and the slo- a president who’s putting his foot on the this proposition: If the cost of bringing

5 2 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s I’m someone whose career has been heav- ily involved in local government. I know exactly the kind of concerns that com- munities have. Cities need revenue shar- ing again. Cities need job programs and summer job programs for young people. We need to come up with new energy pol- icies to enable the creation of alternative energy. More money for mass transit. It’s almost like domestic policy in America is like the dark side of the moon! Nobody’s even seen it, at least not since this admin- istration took office. What tactical mistakes did you make in 2004? I think that in 2004 the American people weren’t ready for the message I had—not just about Iraq, but about the imperative of taking a new approach in es

g the world, and also focusing back on tak- a

Im ing care of things here at home. Kucinich at a rally for If we look at our capacity for trans- Sherrod Brown in formation as a nation, we move from an November 2006 in American revolution to an American evo- Cleveland Heights, Ohio. lution. And the evolutionary potential of

J.D. Pooley/Getty this country is not being tapped. We’re devolving. We’re going back to a time the troops and the equipment home is in winter and early spring of 2003 will hap- to when we were struggling for survival, the area of $5 to $7 billion, according to pen again, as the surge in troops and this when we were alone in the world. We don’t the Congressional Budget Office, and if escalation occurs. need to do that anymore! We can lead the we have money in the pipeline right now, The Toledo Blade has called you a “di- world by example, and in cooperation. why not bring the troops home with that minutive Cleveland congressman” My approach is to show people the money? If Congress votes to appropriate with a “giant-sized ego.” How do you potential of America to become a place another $160 billion for Iraq in the spring, respond? where there are opportunities for wealth we’ll essentially have given George W. for everyone, opportunities for peace and Bush the money he needs to carry the war I’m not going to dignify this with a security for everyone, and where we don’t through the end of his term. That would comment. There’s a war going on. People have to fear and to worry whether people bring the total war cost, in 2007, to $230 are losing their lives. And what is the To- will lose their homes because they’re try- billion. George Bush has been unequivocal ledo Blade doing? I would ask the Toledo ing to get healthcare for a loved one, or about Iraq, and anyone who’s missed this Blade to join me in challenging this un- they don’t have the resources they need hasn’t been paying attention. He has no just war, and to tell the people of Toledo to achieve their dreams. Lately our idea intention of getting out of Iraq. He intends that the war was based on lies. I would of governance has been all about war; we to keep our troops there until the end of ask them to call for the troops to come have to change that. Otherwise, we are his term. And that’s a death-sentence for a home. Everything I said four years ago going to lose our country. We are going lot of Americans stationed over there. has become mainstream. I’m not speak- to lose our democracy. The anti-war movement hasn’t evolved ing from the margins. We may be at the most pivotal moment much since the start of the war. Why Besides the war, what other issues will of American history, because we’re either not? be central to your campaign? going to change course, and reintegrate with the world community, or we’re going A couple of things are going on. The My campaign isn’t just about the war. to be locked into a broader conflict that Bush administration has been very suc- I’m challenging the very idea of war as will become intractable. I’m determined cessful in sending out conflicting mes- an instrument of policy. I’m saying that and hopeful that we’ll take the upland sages. If you pay attention to what the ad- policies of preemption, first-strike and course. n ministration says, it can be very tough to unilateralism are bankrupt. organize. But if you pay attention to what It begins with an understanding that war Daniel Sturm is a German journalist who they do, it’s pretty easy to organize. Be- is destructive, not only to human life, and covers underreported social and political topics in cause what they do is to continue to pros- the hopes of people, but also to budgets. the United States and Europe. Some of his work ecute war. I think that the kind of surge My experience has told me that the United can be seen at www.sturmstories.com. He cur- we saw in public involvement in the late States has to return to the American city. rently lives in Athens, Ohio.

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 5 3 culture

By Sl avoj ŽiŽek In You More Than Yourself In December, Time magazine’s annual “Person of the Year” honor went not to Ahmadinejad, Chávez, Kim Jong-Il or any of the other usual suspects, but to “you”: each and every one of us using or creating content on the World Wide Web. Time’s cover showed a white keyboard with a mirror They see the mirror-image of themselves. No won- for a computer screen, allowing each of us to see his der Gottfried Leibniz, the 18th century German phi- or her own reflection. To justify the choice, the edi- losopher who invented the binary system, is one of tors cited the global shift from earthly institutions to the predominant philosophical references of the cy- the emerging digital democracy where individuals— berspace theorists: Consider his metaphysical con- you—are both citizen and king. cept of “monads,” those entities of perception, which There was more to this choice than meets the are to the mental realm what atoms are to the physi- eye—and in more than the usual sense of the term. cal, though “without windows” that directly open up If there ever was an ideological choice, this was it: to external reality. Isn’t that eerily similar to what The message—the new cyber-democracy allows mil- we are reduced to when immersed in cyberspace? lions to directly communicate and self-organize, by- The typical Web surfer today, sitting alone in front passing centralized state control—masks a series of of a PC screen, is becoming more and more of a disturbing gaps and tensions. monad with no direct window onto reality, encoun- First, the obvious irony, everyone who looks at the tering only virtual simulacra, and yet increasingly Time cover does not see the others with whom he immersed into the global network, synchronously or she is supposed to be in direct communication. communicating with the entire planet.

5 4 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s One of the latest fads among sexual about one’s self is articulated. The very fact realizes that he is basically a frog.) radicals is the “masturbate-a-thon,” a that I perceive my virtual self-image as The actual couple of man and woman collective event in which hundreds of mere play thus allows me to suspend the are thus haunted by the bizarre figure of a men and women pleasure themselves for usual hindrances that prevent me from frog embracing a bottle of beer. What mod- charity (www.masturbate-a-thon.com). realizing my “dark half” in real life—in ern art stages is precisely this underlying Masturbate-a-thons build a collective cyberspace, my “id” is given wing. spectre: One can easily imagine a Magritte out of individuals who are ready to And the same goes for my partners painting of a frog embracing a bottle of beer, share something with others. But what who I communicate with in cyberspace: I with a title “A man and a woman” or “The are they actually sharing? The solipsism can never be sure who they are. Are they ideal couple.” (The association here with of their own stupid enjoyment. One can “really” the way they describe themselves? surrealist Luis Bunuel’s famous “dead don- surmise that the masturbate-a-thon is Is there a “real” person at all behind a key on a piano” is fully justified.) Therein the form of sexuality that perfectly fits screen-persona or is the screen-perso- resides the threat of cyberspace gaming at the coordinates of cyberspace. na a mask for several different people? its most elementary: When a man and a This, however, is only part of the story. Does the same “real” person possess woman interact in it, they do so under the Additionally, the “you” who recognizes it- and manipulate more screen-personas? spectre of a frog embracing a bottle of beer. self in its screen-image is deeply divided: I Or perhaps I am simply dealing with Since neither of them is aware of it, these am never simply my screen persona. First, a digitalized entity that does not stand discrepancies between what “you” really there is the (rather obvious) excess of me for any “real” person? In short, interface are and what “you” appear to be in digi- as a “real” bodily person over my screen means precisely that my relationship to tal space can lead to murderous violence. persona: Marxists and other critically the Other is never face-to-face, that it is After all, when you suddenly discover that disposed thinkers like to point out that always mediated by the interposed digi- the man you are embracing is really a frog, the supposed “equality” in cyberspace is tal machinery whose structure is that of a aren’t you tempted to squash the slimy deceiving. It ignores all the complex ma- labyrinth. I “browse,” I err around in this creature? n terial dispositions (my wealth, my social infinite space where messages circulate position, my power or lack thereof, etc.). freely without fixed destination, while Slavoj ŽiŽek is the international director of Real-life inertia magically disappears the Whole of it—this immense circuitry the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and in the frictionless surfing in the cyber- of “murmurs”—remains forever beyond the author, most recently, of The Parallax View. space. What Virtual Reality provides is the scope of my comprehension. The ob- reality itself deprived of its substance. In verse of cyberspace’s direct democracy is the same way decaffeinated coffee smells this chaotic and impenetrable magnitude and tastes like real coffee without being of messages and their circuits that even I wish people who the real thing, my screen persona, the the greatest effort of my imagination can- have “you” that I see there, is always already a not comprehend. Immanuel Kant would decaffeinated Self. have called it a cyberspace Sublime. trouble Second, there is the opposite and much commu- more unsettling effect: the excess of my decade or so ago, there was an nicating screen persona over my “real” self. Our outstanding TV ad for beer in social identity, the person we assume to AEngland. Its first part staged the would just be in our social intercourse, is already a well-known fairy-tale: A girl walked along shut up. “mask,” as it involves the repression of our a stream, saw a frog, took it gently into Tom Lehrer inadmissible impulses. However, it is pre- her lap, kissed it, and, of course, the ugly teacher and Sixties songwriter cisely under the conditions of “just gam- frog miraculously turned into a beautiful ing,” when the rules regulating our “real young man. However, the story wasn’t over life” exchanges are temporarily suspended, yet: The young man cast a covetous glance that we can permit ourselves to display at the girl, drew her towards him, kissed Best Wishes these repressed attitudes. Recall the pro- her—and she turned into a bottle of beer verbial impotent shy person who, while that he held triumphantly in his hand. For to In These Times participating in a cyberspace interactive the woman, her love and affection (sig- game, adopts the identity of a sadistic nalled by the kiss) can turn a frog into a on 30 years of neither murderer or irresistible seducer. It is too beautiful man, while for the man, it is to having trouble communicating simple to say that this identity is just an reduce the woman to what psychoanalysis imaginary supplement, a temporary es- calls a “partial object,” that in you which nor shutting up. cape from his real life impotence. Rather, makes me desire you. (Of course, the obvi- the point is that, since he knows that the ous feminist rejoinder would be that what University Professionals cyberspace interactive game is “just a women witness in their everyday love of Illinois Local 4100 game,” he can “show his true self” and do experience is the opposite: One kisses a IFT, AFT, AFL-CIO things he would never do in real-life inter- beautiful young man and, after one gets action. In the guise of a fiction, the truth too close to him, when it is already too late,

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 5 5 ripped down the Red Cross banner. Police only made six arrests. Perhaps they agreed with the construction worker who told the Wall Street Journal, “I’m do- ing this because my brother got wounded in Vietnam, and I think this will help our boys over there by pulling this country to- gether.” At one point, a worker—his name happened to be Joe—recalled: “The whole group started singing ‘God Bless America’ and it damn near put a lump in your throat es g ... I could never say I was sorry I was there. You just had a very proud feeling. If I live to be 100, I don’t think I’ll ever live to see anything quite like that again.” A munici- pal secretary tried to pull a fourth hard Actor Peter Boyle: No Ordinary Joe hat off a kid already being worked over by

Peter Kramer/Gettythree Ima assailants. She found herself pum- meled in turn: “Let go of my jacket, bitch. Lives and-dye maker from Queens, what the If you want to be treated like an equal, New York Times described as an “ape-like, we’ll treat you like one.” (Another article Who’s Afraid of dese-dem-and-dose type,” who strikes in that Life magazine: “Women’s Lib,” by up a conversation with a businessman in Clare Boothe Luce.) an East Village bar. “Forty-two percent Joe’s producers had made what they Peter Boyle? of liberals are queer and that’s a fact,” Joe thought was an allegory. It became, by By Rick Perlstein says. “The George Wallace people took the time of its release, social realism. a poll.” He said he’d like to kill himself a The week after the “hard hat riots,” Time eter Boyle died in December. hippie—“just one.” magazine quoted a Chicago ad salesman, His wacky turn as Frankenstein’s The filmmakers, when the movie a real-life one: “I’m getting to feel like I’d Ptap-dancing monster in a Mel wrapped in February of 1970, had intend- actually enjoy going out and shooting Brooks movie led the obituaries, along ed the scene as too fantastical to be taken some of these people. I’m just so god- with his role as the curmudgeonly father as plausible. Then reality intervened. damned mad. They’re trying to destroy on a hideously popular sitcom. When I On May 4, Ohio National Guardsmen everything I’ve worked for—for myself, heard the news, however, I pulled out shot four students at Kent State. On May my wife, and my children.” In real life, one of my old issues of Life magazine. 8, in a spring rain, students from colleges that actually happened: There was an “Agnew on the Warpath” was the lead all over New York City gathered at Federal epidemic of hippie lynchings in New story. The cover also hymned a new tech- Hall on Wall Street to remember them and Mexico in 1970 and 1971. nology: “Cassette TV: The Good Revolu- protest the Cambodia invasion. Suddenly, This was what the businessman said af- tion.” The date of the issue was October 16, from every direction, 200 construction ter Peter Boyle’s character told him he’d 1970, a time when rage at the bad revolu- workers bore down on them. In their iden- like to kill himself a hippie: “I just did.” tions—Black Panthers forcing shootouts tical brown overalls, they looked like some He explains that he just shot his missing with police; students burning down ROTC sort of Storm Trooper battalion. They car- teenage daughter’s hippie boyfriend— buildings; fornicating hippies like Janis ried American flags, of the sort that topped tracked him down and murdered him, Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, whose deaths off construction sites. They started berating for stealing his daughter’s soul. by overdose were also covered in that is- the police: why weren’t there flags on the Joe decides he likes this man very much. sue—was what made Spiro Agnew cover- flag poles in front of Federal Hall? Had the Together, they set out to find his daughter. worthy: He was on the road campaigning hippies stolen them? (Actually, per federal When they happen upon a hippie com- for the Republican slate by pretending regulations, flags were not flying due to -in mune, their anger turns to lust, and they Democratic senators were gobbling acid clement weather.) The hard hats then burst enjoy the favors of two of the gamines. right alongside the fornicating hippies. through the line of police, who didn’t seem Once sated, they go on their shooting Life also featured a short profile of Pe- particularly anxious to stop them. The hip- spree. One of the girls they shoot, in the ter Boyle. He was 34 years old then, and pies who didn’t manage to melt away were back, is the man’s own daughter. had just scored his breakthrough success beaten mercilessly, some with building Joe is not a particularly good movie, as an actor. But instead of bringing him trade implements wrapped in American despite Boyle’s riveting performance. But joy, it forced on him a dark night of the flags. At Pace University, they set fire to a the film’s argument, though heavy-hand- soul. And that is what leads this, my eu- banner reading “Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, ed, resembled a book of the time by the logy. It tells us so much more about the Kent” and bashed through the locked glass radical sociologist Philip Slater, The Pur- man and his times. doors to get at the students inside. Trinity suit of Loneliness: American Culture at the The movie Boyle had just starred in was Church was turned into a makeshift field Breaking Point. Slater argued that people Joe. His character, Joe Curran, was a tool- hospital, though the angry hard hat mob loathed and feared the hippies because

5 6 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s deep down they knew the hippies were summer, standing with friends in front of deed, Pauline Kael came up with a label for right—“we fear having our secret doubts a bar, he found himself suddenly chased this particular neurosis: “liberal masoch- about the viability of our social system down the street by cops; it was the sum- ism.” That explains why legions of coun- voiced aloud”—and envied their freedom. mer of the Democratic National Conven- tercultural youth flocked to see Joe—and Joe made Slater’s argument flesh: an at- tion. Sitting in front of his apartment, he stood up at the end, shrieking almost joy- tempt to shock viewers into recognizing felt a sneeze coming on; it was tear gas, fully: “I’m going to shoot back, Joe!” that all this hating what you desire led to wafting down from Lincoln Park. “I’m scared,” Boyle told Life. “I’ve been an uncontrollable spiral of violence. In interviews when the movie came scared for a couple of years. I get scared That wasn’t the message that people re- out, Boyle agonized about his portrayal when I meet people like Joe.” But he was ceived. of Joe: “Sometimes I worry we were too scared of Joe’s symbolic victims, too. He’d Life’s reporter followed Peter Boyle hard on him.” He’d talk about how guys walk down the street and experience a around his West Side Manhattan neigh- like Joe were living on the bubble, how stab of horror: What if they shot him? borhood. An excited little old lady ap- their horror of disorder, their racism, had I didn’t see any obituaries that discussed proached him: “I agree with everything its roots in economic anxiety: “He’s got this, the most interesting and profound you said, young man. Someone should every penny he ever made sunk into his chapter of Boyle’s public life. It is something have said it a long time ago.” Construction house, and a black family is moving in on the media prefers to repress: the fact that workers shouted, “Joe!” and greeted him the same block. … It’s a real problem that Americans often hate each other enough like a long-lost friend. Boyle was horrified. most liberals never encounter.” to fantasize about murdering each other, Boyle lived and died a man of the left, This was a wise observation—wiser than in cold blood, over political and cultural practically a pacifist (or, as his “Everyone Slater’s, or the makers of Joe, who fanta- disagreements. Much better to celebrate Loves Raymond” co-star Patricia Hea- sized the left-wing reaction to bourgeois dancing Frankenstein monsters, curmud- ton, a whiny Hollywood conservative, alienation was purely innocent. It wasn’t. geonly sitcom dads. And, by the way, the referred to him “jokingly” on the set, a A perverse pleasure can be had in seeing geniality of dead presidents. Gerald Ford? “pinko flag-burning commie.”) Before he the characters one identifies with depicted He “healed” a nation. Ronald Reagan? His became an actor, he had been preparing as enlightened apostles of peace and love, disposition was always “sunny.” to become a monk. In 1968 he was a cast then watching as they are mowed down as Only good revolutions in America. member at Second City in Chicago. That the victims of sadistic know-nothings. In- Mustn’t upset the children. n [ art s p a c e ]

Invigorate the Common Well, a three-part performance epic, was inspired by a drinking fountain that had been broken for nearly 20 years. The artwork at left was created to evoke the mood of the multimedia series. Sandy Spieler, artistic director of In the Heart of the Beast Theatre in Minneapolis, Minn., wanted to present water as a vehicle for under- standing the loss of public spaces in America. “I was standing in the lob- by, trying to figure out how to bring [these ideas together],” Spieler says, “when I saw the fountain and said ‘well, duh!’ ” The performance premiers on March 2; advisory board members include public health of- ficials, environmentalists, plumbers and Aztec dancers. For more infor- mation, visit www.hobt.org. —Erin Polgreen

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 5 7 Book s depravity” triggered 9/11 and continues to By the time D’Souza zeroes in on the sup- imperil America and the world. posed domestic agenda of the “cultural left” A Wingnut in You may laugh, but you’re not D’Souza’s he has presumably won his readers’ trust. intended audience. He’s aiming for the And he goes straight for middle America’s Sheep’s Clothing folks cognitive scientist George Lakoff gag reflex, describing Democrats, liberals describes as “biconceptuals,” who lean and leftists as perfervid perverts, hellbent

By Phyllis Eckhaus e.com liberal in one regard and conservative in on destroying the family, religion and mo- i t’s deluded to imagine that human another—uncomfortable with the war, rality itself. Yes, D’Souza says, radical Mus- thmov beings are rational creatures. Fear- perhaps, but equally daunted by what they lims hate America and they recruit with i Imongering works, which is why every view as immorality at home. increasing ease among moderates. But not election season campaign strategists im- D’Souza takes pains to soften them up because we’re overrunning their countries, merse us in negative ads. You can’t reason with early chapters designed to disarm. killing and torturing them. (D’Souza says with people in a 30-second spot, but you In a bemused and reasonable tone, he they expect and respect that.) It’s because can scare the hell out of a significant and offers commonsense contentions about our scary cultural norms threaten their pa- hoto courtesy of mrsm

susceptible segment of them, altering elec- American foreign policy that seem to triarchal way of life. p tion outcomes. transcend rhetoric and ideology. De- Atheism, fornication, divorce, femi- The Enemy at Home, the newest tract scribing the “illusions of the right,” he ex- nism, abortion, pornography and ho- from Hoover Fellow and bestselling right- presses frustration with the Bush admin- mosexuality—these, we are told, are wing pundit Dinesh D’Souza, is somewhat istration’s war plan. He suggests that the decadent American diseases spawned subtler than a nasty election ad, but it too way to win against Islamic radicals is to and spread by the “cultural left” since the targets the guts of the potentially persuad- build alliances with moderate Muslims. ’60s. America can win the war on terror if able. And how does one herd persuad- He points out that “terrorism is not the and only if it publicly repudiates the left, ables into the conservative corral, given enemy. ... [T]errorism is a tactic.” And joining forces with moderate Muslims to the growing frustration with Bush and his account of the left’s sentiments and endorse traditional morality. his war in Iraq? D’Souza seeks to revive foreign policy positions is recognizably It’s a slick ploy that takes advantage of folks’ fear of terror by revving up their fear accurate: he says the left fears the Chris- the universal free-floating fear of mod- of shifting sexual mores, then linking up tian right more than the Taliban, hates ern life. Everybody wants to stuff some the two. His core contention is a real at- Bush as much as the right despised Bill genie back in the bottle—D’Souza would tention-grabber, cunning and outrageous: Clinton, and views the war as a pretext beat back women’s and gay rights, I’d turn he claims the left’s promotion of “global for profiteering and imperialism. the clock back to the days before global

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5 8 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s Film with no electoral experience, who con- stantly fidgets, compulsively petting his Mr. Smith Doesn’t face with his hands when stressed, and whose pants are too long. Only 29 years Go To Washington old, he may seem young—but his staff- ers are even younger. As Artie Harris,

e.com By Erin Polgreen i Smith’s 25-year-old communications ne of 15 films shortlisted for a director, describes him, “He’s … short, thmov i 2006 Academy Award nomina- looks like he’s 12 and, you know, sounds Otion for Best Documentary, Can like he’s castrated.” Mr. Smith Get To Washington Anymore? Politicized through his work on is currently playing in limited engage- education reform in economically de- ments across the country. But starting in pressed and mostly black north St. Lou- late February, this funny, fast-paced and is, Smith was one of nine Democrats hoto courtesy of mrsm

p engaging record of contemporary politics vying for the congressional seat vacated in the United States will be available on by Dick Gephardt in 2004. Topping that Jeff Smith makes a political play DVD from its Web site (www.mrsmith- list was heir-apparent Russ Carnahan, warming and nuclear weapons. For good movie.com). Here’s hoping it finds the whose mother, father and grandfather and ill, globalization, industrialization wider audience it deserves. were key political players at the state and technology have wrought dramatic First-time director Frank Popper and national levels. Despite his lack of and escalating change—including loos- opens the film with a rapidfire series of charisma and horrid attendance record ening family ties and gender roles that cuts that establish the disadvantages of as a member of the Missouri state legis- were once sustained by economic neces- underdog-cum-wunderkind Jeff Smith lature, Carnahan was considered all but sity. This is a worldwide phenomenon ar- as he makes an improbable bid for the a shoo-in because he could afford the guably facilitated more by capital than by open House seat in Missouri’s 3rd Con- political experts and D.C.-based con- freedom movements and the somewhat gressional District in 2004. A St. Louis sulting firms considered necessary for less-than-all-powerful American left. native, Smith neither looks nor sounds a modern campaign. Carnahan had a Skilled propagandist that he is, D’Souza like a politician, and he’s not. He’s an name, and that name meant money. pretends to support “tolerance”—but his adjunct professor of political science Popper does a terrific job of contrasting tolerance for fornicators, feminists and gays turns out to mean barest forbear- ance: no rights, public shaming and the graciousness to refrain from running us out of town or stoning us to death. He cautions against stereotypes and eth- nocentrism, but then describes the 9/11 hijackers as “right out of central casting,” fitting the part of the “fanatical Muslim terrorist—right down to their nose hairs.” D’Souza’s tolerance for the left proves equally illusory; every time he says the left is not treasonous or anti-American, he’s actually conveying the opposite mes- sage through repetition and linking. By book’s end, D’Souza is damning the left as more “dangerous than bin Laden’s American sleeper cells” and calling for renewed McCarthyism. In a world beyond our ken and con- trol, it’s tempting to seek scapegoats. And, truth to tell, there’s no obvious answer to how we can manage to live together, in this divided country and on this small planet, given our great differences. But the inspired promise of America, reflect- ed in a Bill of Rights authored by Enlight- enment idealists, is a dynamic vision of ever-expanding freedoms protective and embracing of all. D’Souza’s cramped and vicious work betrays that promise. n

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 5 9 the advantages of the Carnahan politi- cal dynasty with Smith’s modest, middle- class family. While Carnahan’s mother, a former U.S. senator, raises money from A Hungarian Family History national contributors for his campaign, Phyllis Smith stocks her son’s campaign Adam Biro is a Hungarian expat and the founder and owner of the art book headquarters’ fridge with peaches and publishing house Biro Editeur in Paris. In One Must Also Be Hungarian he strawberries and refuses to call her friends chronicles the history of Hungary through the stories of his family and the Jew- to ask for money. “I’m not Jean Carnahan,” ish experience. Here, he writes of his ancestor, Finkelstein Ábrahám: she says, shrugging her shoulders. This is all I know of him. Day laborer. Born in 1806. Napoleon was still Many of Smith’s family and friends ex- press an intense distaste for modern pol- alive—good grief! Napoleon was still emperor while Ábrahám was itics. Smith’s 96-year-old grandmother day laborer. … Cézanne wasn’t born yet. Ábrahám couldn’t imagine thinks that “someone with a mind like what his descendants were to endure, nor the name and the face and he has shouldn’t waste it on politics.” the way of being of one of his great-great-grand sons, me. He couldn’t His brother calls political contributions have imagined that against all mathematical probability I would be, as “a waste of money that kind of makes in the year 2001, his only descendant—and his opposite in gestures, in me sick.” words, in thoughts, in all of my being. That In spite of his family’s objections, I would leave the country and that I would viewers quickly come to understand speak with my wife and children another that Smith is naively passionate about language than his. That I would eat oys- running a clean and constructive cam- ters and that I would like salami and even paign with a focus on bringing the St. Louis community back to politics. smoked paprika sausages. That I would go When discussing campaign strategy, to the synagogue only once a year, at Yom stout, freckled 22-year-old neighbor- Kippur, like all Yom-kippuryid—atheist but hood organizer Matt Henley claims that ashamed. That I would make love naked, “all the other campaigns were money, and even outside on the grass, and for the money, money and ads, ads, ads, but sole pleasure of it. And that I would know Jeff was determined to get out there and nothing about him, born about one hun- meet people.” In the year leading up to dred and fifty years before I was: except the primary, Smith personally knocked that he was a peasant … on almost every door in the district. St. Louisans, for their part, rallied around Smith. His earnest sense of justice and desire for equality is conta- gious, and it’s interesting to see how the founder of the Arch City Chronicle, a than 2,000 votes, the shock is over- community’s perspective changes. Dur- free St. Louis newspaper focused on whelming. In a campaign that seemed ing the first part of Smith’s campaign, politics and civic issues. so just and right and good, what went the citizens he meets refer to politi- In the final month of the campaign, wrong? cians as “them” and “those people.” One dilapidated, run-down St. Louis comes Unfortunately, we don’t really get to elderly constituent, after Smith asks if alive. Smith wins over political analysts, find out. Popper interviews a number of she wants to know anything about his journalists, students and teachers, ulti- St. Louis journalists and political science campaign, tells him, “Nobody’s worth a mately accumulating more money than buffs, but none of them provide a defini- shit.” As Election Day approaches, how- the Carnahan campaign—and more tive answer. While Can Mr. Smith cap- ever, Smith increasingly becomes a local volunteers as well. On Election Day, tures the energy and ideals driving the celebrity. “It’s him, I told you it’s him,” Smith and his staff decide to get the grassroots revolution, it doesn’t address gushes a teenager to his coworkers when vote out (and the media as well) by play- the possibly insurmountable and assur- Smith stops in to get a sandwich. ing a game of basketball in the street. edly unavoidable conclusion: that sim- Through a delicate balance of studio- Smith, in a button-down shirt and tie, ply working at a local level isn’t always based interviews and footage taken di- plays with young black men wearing enough. rectly from the campaign trail, Popper oversized t-shirts and slouching jeans. That doesn’t mean that grassroots conveys both the weariness of citizens They dribble past boarded-up houses strategies are futile. Though the docu- who feel forgotten by the political pro- with overgrown lawns while campaign mentary closes with Smith’s loss, there’s cess and the naive idealism of those staffers urge citizens to vote via mega- a happier ending to this story. Two who pin their hopes on Smith. For both phone. The scene sums up the spirit of years later, Smith ran for Missouri the tired and the hopeful, the Smith the campaign perfectly: No matter who State Legislature and won. So while it campaign becomes a symbol that hear- you are, or where you live, anyone can may be impossible for Mr. Smith to get kens back to “the way the system used play the game. to Washington these days, he can still to work,” in the words of David Drebes, When Smith ultimately loses by less shake things up in the statehouse. n

6 0 f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 I n T h e s e T i m e s she’ll be hitting the road for awhile, but founder) has tended towards the pugna- Looking Back will continue on the masthead as editor- cious and—three decades of gossip to be Continued from page 47 at-large. believed—the magazine has often consist- I came to In These Times in mid-2002, ed of “disorganized, untidy, or incomplete Lasting legacy: An engrained belief amidst the tatters of the dot-com bust. parts.” In this, it resembles the left itself, a that, despite overwhelming evidence to My own bubble gig at Britannica.com jumble of well-meaning, but often Rube- the contrary, better days are ahead. had gone belly-up the year before, and the Goldbergian, coalitions, ideologies and Best summation of my time at In These online version of LiP magazine—which I soon-to-be-toppled idols. Times: Priceless. was co-editing—had earned about 500 In covering this hodgepodge, In These bucks in the intervening months. In These Times has time and again lived up to its Miles Harvey, 1986–1995, was an Times was suffering its own dot-com own name, reinventing itself for each new editor at In These Times. He is currently woes; Jimmy had retired, and publisher generation. Founded as a weekly tabloid working on a book for Random House, to Bob Burnett, a founding vice president of newspaper, it shifted to a biweekly maga- be published in 2008. Cisco Systems, had stepped down to tend zine format in the early ’90s, and then I was offered a job at In These Times to his home fires. It seemed like a fortu- in 2006 to a longer monthly format. Its on the day my father died, 20 years ago itous time to retreat to print publishing. thriving online presence draws more than last October. He was never much of an I’d encountered the magazine several 350,000 readers per month. Along the advice giver, but one of my last conversa- times since my mid-’90s grad school way, it has trained and showcased some of tions with him had been about the pros days, when it was under the sway of the country’s most influential progressive and cons of the opportunity. I told him what we Hyde Parkers jokingly referred voices—literary legends like Kurt Von- that the pay was abysmal and that accept- to as “the Baffler boys”: Tom Frank, negut and Studs Terkel; vibrant working ing the job was certain to ruin any hopes Dave Mulcahey, Chris Lehmann, et al. writers like Barbara Ehrenreich, Rick Perl- I had of a career in mainstream journal- Despite its sometimes dubious produc- stein and Naomi Klein; and high-profile ism. He told me that whenever I talked tion values, the magazine exhibited a editors like Joan Walsh at Salon and Ana about the publication my voice brimmed sense of mirth that its glossier com- Marie Cox at Time.com. with enthusiasm. petitors lacked. It showed up in my life In 2006, in tandem with a groundswell of So I followed his lead and my heart—a again in the late ’90s, in the form of the progressive activism and media-making, a decision I have never regretted. Taking Back to Basics conference, an attempt reinvigorated In These Times staff stitched that job at In These Times turned out to to re-define what was then known as the scraps together. With a new publisher, be like entering graduate school and run- “left” politics, which we’ve lately taken a new art director, a fresh approach and ning away to join the circus at the same to calling “progressive.” There I met col- a slate of young writers, we rose to the time. Because there was never enough leagues who have helped to shape my challenge of our recent times—the head- money for paperclips, let alone payroll, work since, such as Bob McChesney and slapping excesses of the Bush era—and in the place tended to draw a lot of impro- Pat Aufderheide. When feminist writer the process won the 2006 Utne Reader In- visers and eccentrics, people with the Paula Kamen introduced me to Joel, at dependent Press Award for “Best Political ability to laugh off In These Times’s end- the magazine’s 25th anniversary party in Coverage.” While we take no credit for the less absurdities. 2001, it felt like a sign; I applied for the recent Democratic wins (and are sure to No one had a better sense of humor then-open assistant publisher position be watching the Dems with a gimlet eye about himself or the place than its founder and have been wending my way up the in coming months), we played our part in and publisher, Jimmy Weinstein. When he masthead since. bird-dogging the administration. launched In These Times in 1976, Jim had One word comes up often when people It may be a sign: a job well done, time hoped it would become the must-read talk about In These Times: “scrappy.” Both for me to hand off the needle and thread, magazine of an ascendant progressive meanings of the term apply—the mag- time to seek out the next adventure. I’ll movement. azine’s tone (like that of its funny, biting miss it. n That In These Times survives today is thanks in no small part to the efforts of the current editor Joel Bleifuss, who be- gan working at the magazine same week I did in 1986. Back then we were cocksure kids who thought little of staying up all night to get an issue to press; now we’re middle-aged men whose energy is far from boundless. But even today, when I talk about the magazine, my voice still brims with enthusiasm.

Jessica Clark, 2002–2007, is the ex- ecutive editor at In These Times and a research fellow at American University’s Center for Social Media. After this issue QPXFMMTDPN


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I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 6 3 health + science

by Terry j. Allen Faith Healing with Homeopathy or the half ing—for better and worse—that even in new bottles to circumvent patent ex- billion people if the dose has no therapeutic value, it pirations, bribes doctors with perks and Fworldwide who does no harm. And third, the potion cash and hires ghost writers to author use homeopathic is shaken vigorously so that it retains favorable studies? Given the hype, tox- remedies, the potions a “memory” of the allegedly curative icity, and expense of many drugs and can be as healing as a ingredient, a spirit-like essence that Big Pharma’s snake-oil tactics, the side hug, as benignly nut- revives the body’s “vital force.” effects of water (laced with “memory”) ty as knocking wood “A shocking fact,” writes homeo- start looking pretty damn good. If your for luck or as dan- pathic practitioner Bill Gray, “is that condition is relatively minor, self-lim- gerous as believing a the more the remedy is shaken and di- iting or untreatable, you may be a lot dashboard Jesus will luted (serially), the more powerful the better off drinking homeopathy’s Kool- protect you from an onrushing train. curative action! This remains true even Aid-less Kool-Aid. What homeopathy is not, however, is beyond the point of there being even But if you have strep, a broken bone medicine that is scientifically proven one molecule left in the solution!” or a tumor, or if you need immuniza- to work better than a placebo. Inde- Scientific evidence for the memory? tion from infectious disease, reliance on pendent researchers have debunked None. Rigorous, replicable double- a homeopathic placebo may kill you. almost every favorable study they blind studies documenting cure rates British newspapers recently reported have examined and a $1 million prize higher than placebo? Few to none. that homeopathic clinics and phar- for proving homeopathy’s efficacy -re So what about the fact that some macies offered unproven products to mains unclaimed. homeopathic patients get better? Part prevent malaria and other diseases in- Some homeopaths counter that their of the effect comes from the ritual of cluding typhoid, dengue fever and yel- cures are not amenable to scientific consultation with a practitioner who low fever. Travelers who thought they proof. That’s fine, if you want to call the treats the patient like a person rather were protected ignored warnings to multimillion dollar industry what it is: than a body part on an assembly line. use mosquito netting; some contracted faith healing. And just taking anything can help; the malaria. And during the height of the The U.S. homeopathic industry placebo effect is real. In gold-standard, smallpox-terror scare in 2003, Bill Gray would have made my cousin proud. double-blind studies, placebos pre- tried to market a homeopathic “shield” As a kid, he bottled his bath water and sented as possible cures sometimes ri- for smallpox. One reason the FDA sold it to his schoolmates as a magic val pharmaceuticals for effectiveness, stopped him was that its “Homeopathic potion. Unlike this enterprising little or beat taking nothing at all. Pharmacopoeia” does not recognize the charlatan (who went on to work for the Nor are the effects simply psycho- “shield’s” supposed ingredient—Varioli- Nixon administration—you can’t make logical. When volunteers took a place- num, purportedly extracted from “a rip- this stuff up), most homeopaths claim- bo that they were told contained pain- ened pustule of small pox.” It bothers the ing imaginary powers for ordinary wa- killers, they experienced relief, while witless FDA not a whit that Gray’s water ter actually believe in their products. researchers watching PET scans of actually contained no Variolinium. Some are licensed physicians, others the subjects’ brains tracked increased In general, the FDA turns a blind eye simply hang up a shingle. But con- levels of the body’s own pain-relieving to homeopathy’s dangers and nonsense. sciously fraudulent or not, the home- endorphins. In other studies, research Homeopathic remedies “are the only opathy industry is marketing magic; subjects given placebos instead of an- category of spurious products legally selling placebos wrapped in ritual, tied tidepressants also showed chemical marketable as drugs,” according to Ste- with a bright bow of superstition. changes in their brains. FDA data for phen Barrett, M.D., and Varro E. Tyler, Homeopathy rests on three un- six top antidepressants showed that 80 Ph.D., authors of The Honest Herbal. “If proven tenets: First, “Like treats like.” percent of their effect was duplicated the FDA required homeopathic rem- Because arsenic causes shortness of in placebo control groups. edies to be proven effective in order to breath, for example, homeopaths pre- Which brings us to the patient’s di- remain marketable—the standard it ap- scribe its “spirit” to treat diseases such lemma: Have faith in 19th century mag- plies to other categories of drugs—ho- as asthma. Second, the arsenic or other ic or rely on a pharmaceutical industry meopathy would face extinction in the active ingredient is diluted in water that suppresses negative outcomes (in- United States.” n and then that dilution is diluted again cluding death), promotes drugs for non- and so on, dozens of times, guarantee- existent diseases, repackages old drugs contact Terry J. Allen at [email protected]

I n T h e s e T i m e s f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 7 6 1 classified

activism Events Personals Web Sites

www.sagacious-smartass.com Independent Voters of Illinois– Donate $1.00 to help playwright open monthly meetings of the produce play. www.tragicdeatho- SINCE LINKINGSINGLESWHOCARE femperortitus.com booklets National Affairs Committee, Chi- ABOUTPEACE SOCIALJUSTICE DIVERSITY cago, www.iviipoNA.org, cpaidock GENDEREQUITY AND THEENVIRONMENT @hotmail.com or (312) 939-5105. .ATIONWIDEINTERNATIONAL!LLAGES David Halberstam is retarded, &2%%3!-0,% "OX )4 McCain cowardly. www.geocities. ,ENOX$ALE -!    com/ZYF1092 Merchandise /2 WWWCONCERNEDSINGLESCOM

RAGE AGAINST THE Bush ma- Web Sites chine. Find cool anti-Bush/pro- gressive t-shirts, stickers, and www.freedomthroughcooperation.org other sassy gear on one of the Books Outside the box! Secular, spiritual, largest anti-Bush web sites. Visit blogs, books. www.karlroebling.com Lovelife: irreverent, aphoris- us at: www.topplebush.com. tic testament. Gratis from Solus, www.liberalswithguns.com P.O. Box 111, Porthill, ID 83853 Defraudingamerica.com site for college education on his- “... the most extraordinary theoretical perspective tory of government intrigue from former government insiders. Free Free Bumper Sticker. Call ever lent to the American Constitution.” 1-800-630-1330, or see fcnl.org. Friends book downloads and blog. www. Committee on National Legislation. — Prof. Victor G. Rosenblum, defraudingamericablog.com Northwestern University Law School

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