Liberalism and Fascism: Partners in Crime on Page 16

$4 at Newsstands and Bookstores SocialistViewpoint

H The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. —Karl Marx H JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 VOL. 21 NO. 1

June 2, 2020: Black Lives Matter Protest at Clifton City Hall - Clifton, NJ, (Shutterstock)Read Colin Kaepernick: Free Mumia on page 58.

On the Front Cover: s June 07 2020: Peaceful protest against racism and recent U.S. police brutality—Palma de Mallorca, Spain (Shutter- stock). Read Finding the Road to Utopia on page 2.

Finding the Road to Utopia - Page 4 - Page 6 (Art by Nick Roney) Read Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop on page The ABCs of Dialectics Read Liberalism and Fascism: Partners in Crime on page 16. 29. Year of the Plague: Socialism or Barbarism - Page 12 « « « Attention Prison Mail Room: « « « Colin Kaepernick: Free Mumia - Page 58 Prisoners retain their free speech rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That means you cannot legally suppress the expression and consideration of ideas. Prison walls do not form a barrier separating prisoners from the protection of the Constitution, according to the Turner v. Safley ruling. [482 U.S. 78, 107 Sct 2245 (1987)] If you exclude printed matter on an improper basis, or give a false pretext or rationale for its exclusion, because of the ideas expressed in it, you are breaking the law. The prisoner denied access to material he wants to read can bring a civil rights lawsuit against you with cause for seeking punitive damages. In the case of Police Department Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95, 92 Sct 2286, 2290 (1972) the court found that “[A]bove all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, subject matter or content.” Money for War U.S. arms sales soar and bipartisan militarism thrives amid COVID-19 pandemic By Kenny Stancil

The United States sold more than the polls on January 5 to avenge his loss The U.S. “…has by far the biggest $175 billion in military equipment to in the “rigged” presidential contest. military budget on the planet, spending foreign governments in the fiscal year “At stake in this election is control more than the next ten countries com- that ended September 30, Pentagon and of the U.S. Senate and that really means bined,” Lazare continued. “There is no State Department officials announced control of this country,” the president indication that U.S. lawmakers plan to Friday—a 2.8 percent increase com- said. “The voters of Georgia will deter- reverse this trend any time soon: For six pared to 2019, when weapons exports mine which party runs every commit- consecutive years the military budget has totaled just over $170 billion. tee, writes every piece of legislation, either increased or stayed roughly the The latest figures on arms transfers controls every single taxpayer dollar.” same, taking inflation into account. As were released one day before President the National Priorities Project pointed out in June, the military budget in 2019 Donald Trump said that “military accounted for 53 percent of the federal offense...is the most important thing a “That we can find the discretionary budget.” president can do,” during his meander- money for war but not ing speech at the Republican Party’s for coronavirus relief While millions of the country’s Saturday night rally on behalf of Senators working-class households—battered by Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue of exposes the moral rot the Covid-19 pandemic and corre- Georgia who are facing Democratic can- at the center of sponding economic crisis—await a new didates Raphael Warnock and Jon U.S. politics...” relief package that ameliorates wide- Ossoff, respectively, in runoff elections spread hardship, “Congress had no next month that will determine which problem passing legislation to continue party controls the U.S. Senate. Trump’s rationale for backing U.S. military violence,” Lazare added. Loeffler and Perdue came in the form of Although he spent most of the eve- She pointed out that the Senate ver- a warning: “If the radical Democrats...get ning repeating unsubstantiated claims sion of the National Defense power, they will...ram through the most of voter fraud in the November elec- Authorization Act (NDAA) passed on extreme left-wing agenda ever conceived tion and baselessly asserting that July 23 in a vote of 86–14, while the while at the same time, destroying our Democrats will “cheat” again, Trump House version was approved on July 21 military through a lack of funding.” on Saturday still encouraged rallygoers by a margin of 295–125. The NDAA to support the two GOP lawmakers at Whereas Trump portrayed congressio- was subsequently approved last week nal Democrats as by both chambers of Congress. eager to pursue Lazare wrote that while it is “entire- “draconian mili- ly routine at this point, it’s useful to tary cuts,” jour- highlight on the eve of yet another nalist Sarah massive Pentagon handout how the Lazare argued last budget for war could instead go toward week that “the life-preserving social goods.” annual approval “That we can find the money for of the gargantuan war but not for coronavirus relief U.S. military bud- exposes the moral rot at the center of get,” which she U.S. politics, a rot that must be dug out called “one of the and expunged if we are to get through most reliable ritu- this crisis,” she added. als in Congress... is so ordinary and —Common Dreams, December 6, 2020 overwhelmingly https://www.commondreams.org/ bipartisan, it’s news/2020/12/06/money-war-us-arms- U.S. Air Force F-16 Thunderbirds fly in formation at the Thunderbirds barely considered sales-soar-and-bipartisan-militarism- Airshow in Malaysian Air Force Base on October 3, 2009 in Subang, Malaysia. (Shutterstock) newsworthy.” thrives-amid-covid-19

2 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 SocialistViewpoint January/February 2021 Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT www.socialistviewpoint.org CONTENTS email: [email protected] (415) 824-8730

U.S. and World Politics Incarceration Nation Money for War ...... 2 Incarcerated Women Punished for Their Trauma . 42 By Kenny Stancil By Elizabeth Hawes Finding the Road to Utopia ...... 4 Julian Assange’s Farcical Hearing ...... 46 By Bonnie Weinstein By Joshua Cho The ABCs of Dialectics ...... 6 New Push to Free Leonard Peltier ...... 48 By John Blackburn By Nate Rau Year of the Plague: Socialism or Barbarism? . . . .12 Torment in Indiana Prisons ...... 51 By Chris Kinder By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson Billionaire Bonanza Continues ...... 15 Gas Abuses in Indiana Prisons ...... 53 By Brett Wilkins By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson The Untold Story of Jerod Fralerson ...... 55 Liberalism and Fascism: Partners in Crime . . . . 16 By Peter Kamau Mukuria By Gabriel Rockhill COVID-19 in Jails and Prisons ...... 56 Jim Crow Joe ...... 20 By Ella Fassler By Jack Delaney Colin Kaepernick: Free Mumia! ...... 58 Biden, the Emcee at the Billionaires’ Ball . . . . . 24 By Glen Ford A New Development in the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal ...... 59 Socialists Shouldn’t Vote for the “Lesser Evil” . . .26 By Robert Belano “Accelerate Our Efforts” to Free Mumia ...... 60 By Angela Davis Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop ...... 29 By Officer A. Cab You Cannot Decarcerate by Using Tools of Incarceration ...... 62 U.S. Government has Blood of Millions on its Hands .36 Maresi Starzmann Interviews Mumia Abu-Jamal By Dr. Nayvin Gordon COVID Economy: A Deliberate Disaster ...... 37 Book Review By Bruce Lesnick Thoughts on Socialism ...... 64 By Comrade Pitt Their “Global Security” is Fueling Our Revolt! . . .39 By the Etincelle fraction of the New Anti-Capitalist Party Letter to the Editors ...... 65 Israeli Racism in Palestine ...... 40 MOVE Family Says: Free Mumia! ...... 67 By Ramzy Baroud MOVE family Statement

Socialist Viewpoint (ISSN 1535-5438) is published bi-monthly by the Socialist Viewpoint Publishing Association, 60 29th Street, #429, San Francisco, CA 94110. Rates: For one year (6 issues): Introductory rate in the U.S. $20.00; Regular rate in the U.S. $30.00; Bargain rate: $35.00 for two years; All other countries $50.00 (Money orders, checks, etc., should be in U.S. dollars.) Periodicals Postage Paid at San Francisco, California. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Socialist Viewpoint, 60 29th Street, #429, San Francisco, CA 94110

Vol.Vol.Vol. 21, 21,3, No.No. 211 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 3

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

Finding the Road to Utopia Through the death throes of capitalism By Bonnie Weinstein

To say the whole world is in crisis is have the power to stop this downward- In other words, we, the working not an exaggeration, it is a statement of spiral back into barbarism or extinc- class, paid lock, stock and barrel for the fact. Not only are we on the verge of a tion. We have the power to create a development of that vaccine—and all world-ending environmental crisis, we paradise on earth for everyone if we the others coming down the line. And are in a worldwide pandemic under a unite together to create a socialist Moderna, and all the other pharma- system of vast economic and social world of equality and justice for all. ceutical corporations which stand to inequality. Working people across the earn billions from the sale of the vac- Obscene wealth globe are being squeezed by the same cines, pay nothing! Then they will sell capitalist austerity program that is being According to a November 18, 2020 those vaccines back to the government carried out in every country, except for article from Common Dreams by Brett who will pay for the so-called “free vac- Cuba, whose austerity is forced upon Wilkins titled, “Billionaire Bonanza cines” with our tax dollars. So, we 1 them by U.S. government sanctions. Continues” which appears in this issue: workers already have paid twice for the Every decision that is made by world “Ten billionaire owners of vaccines—not counting the cost of our capitalist rulers is made to increase ‘Delinquent Dozen’ companies have own health insurance—if we’re lucky their own wealth at the expense of a combined worth of $433 billion. enough to have it. Since March 18, their combined workers and the environment—noth- personal wealth has ballooned by And what is the reward for ing to them is sacred except themselves $127.5 billion, a 42 percent increase.” and their private wealth. our sacrifice? They are parasites who have out- As one example of our sacrifice, grown their hosts and there are no We get nothing but air according to a December 6, 2020 New other hosts but us—the working class. without the need York Times article by Christina So, they will continue to feed off of us Goldbaum and Will Wright titled, as long as we let them get away with it. to pay for it. “‘Existential Peril’: Mass Transit Faces But it doesn’t have to continue. We do Huge Service Cuts Across U.S.” about To underscore that fundamental drastic cutbacks in public transporta- inequality in the age of COVID-19, a tion across the U.S. due to COVID-19: December 7, 2020 article in the New “Around 2.8 million American York Times titled, “Want Vaccines workers in essential industries like Fast? Suspend Intellectual Property healthcare, grocery stores and phar- Rights” by Achal Prabhala, Arjun macies used public transit to get to Jayadev and Dean Baker about the work in 2018, according to an analysis of census data by the costs of developing the Moderna vac- TransitCenter. That was 36 percent cine for COVID-19 points out: of all transit commuters in the U.S. “…the novel technology at the work force that year, the group said. heart of the Moderna vaccine…was ‘We have been the ones that have developed partly by the National kept the economy of this country Institutes of Health using U.S. fed- afloat because we do not have the eral funds. Moderna then received a luxury to work from home,’ said total of some $2.5 billion in taxpayer Mayra Romero, 43, a restaurant money for research support and as worker in Boston who travels by bus preorders for vaccines; by the com- from her home in nearby Chelsea, pany’s own admission, the $1 billion Mass. ‘We have been the ones who contribution it received for research have been risking our lives and William Dudley ‘Big Bill’ Haywood covered 100 percent of those costs.” exposing ourselves.’”

4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 In other words, walk, bike or skate to We pay for environmental cleanup, demic, racism, sexism and economic work this winter or starve and be homeless! keeping up the infrastructure, the bank inequality—never take responsibility for bailouts, the pharmaceutical industry it. In fact, they blame us for it—we drive You haven’t seen anything yet! bailouts, the bonuses for corporate execu- too much, we want nice clothes, new To point out another tragic example tives and shareholders. We pay the bill to cars, cell phones, Internet service—things of the current social crisis, our children keep the White House in silks and marble. that make us comfortable. What nerve! no longer have viable public education. Workers do the work and pay the We are bombarded every day with With schools shut down, very few taxes that pay the bills for the capital- the message from the capitalist mass children are able to learn completely on ists—the capitalists keep all the profits. media that we are lazy, ignorant and their own. Perhaps if they had the educa- unworthy—they tell us that we are the tional material at their fingertips, highly Capitalism can’t make things greedy ones for wanting even the tini- educated parents or free tutors available better for workers est fraction of what the capitalists have! on a moment’s notice, and, of course, Capitalism can no longer support secure housing and enough food—chil- even a small, well-paid working class. Making the connections dren would be able to succeed and learn Fewer and fewer workers are earning It is clear that certain realizations are virtually. But now, they are on their own livable “union wages” or higher-paid beginning to hit home to workers every- without even housing, or food security. professional and technical salaries. The where. Our economic system is unjust. They aren’t even able to play with each money is flowing up, not trickling Our social system is racist to its very core. other in person. And many have no down. And now, with COVID-19, we Our wars are unjust and catastrophic to access to computers or the Internet. are experiencing mass unemployment. innocent people and to our environment. Their parents are struggling just to The power of the working class pay the rent, the gas and electricity bill, William Dudley “Big Bill” Haywood the water bill, the garbage bill—let Workers do the work (1869-1928), a founding member and alone pay for health insurance, the and pay the taxes that leader of the Industrial Workers of the Internet and private tutoring for their pay the bills for the capi- World and a member of the executive kids. And even though they may still be committee of the Socialist Party of working at “essential” low-paying jobs talists—the capitalists America, famously said, “If the workers or collecting temporary unemploy- keep all the profits. are organized, all they have to do is to ment insurance—that income has put their hands in their pockets and they never been enough to survive on. The capitalist politicians and their have got the capitalist class whipped.” And, of course, most workers can’t media, while they may acknowledge the This is the power of the working class. afford to pay for the things they need growing environmental crisis—the pan- We have the power not only to stop when they need them, so they must pay for them using high-interest credit cards, leaving them in lifelong debt. All calamities under capitalism are weaponized No matter what catastrophe befalls the world, the working class will be held responsible and will have to pay for it—be it climate related disasters, pandemics, wars—the capitalist class will find a way to make us pay while they rake in the profits. We get nothing but air without the need to pay for it. Economic inequality is the most powerful weapon they have to control us—to keep us begging for handouts instead of demanding what is rightfully ours—all the wealth we work to create.

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 5 work, but fundamentally, with the unity the ranks of the military—our sons and I see utopia as a democratically and solidarity of the whole working class daughters—to stand by our side, to lay organized, worker-powered construc- acting together, we have the power to down their arms and help to transform tion of a near perfect world—an eco- take the very means of production out of the world from one devoted to war to nomic system of production devoted capitalist hands, and redistribute all that one devoted to creating an abundant, to satisfying the needs and wants of all wealth to those who created it, with our peaceful, socialist world in the best instead of private profits for the few—a intellect, sweat, tears and blood. interest of all life on earth. scientific, materialist and achievable socialist utopia. By democratically taking control of Foundation of a materialist utopia the means of production we can pro- “A utopia is an imagined com- duce the highest quality goods built to munity or society that possesses last as long as possible and available highly desirable or nearly perfect 1 “Billionaire Bonanza Continues as Workers free to all, instead of designing them to qualities for its citizens.”2 Pounded by Pandemic, Recession and GOP Relief break down so they must be constantly Marx and Engels defined utopian Refusal,” By Brett Wilkins, November 18, 2020 replaced. Producing quality goods will socialism as idealism in contrast to sci- https://www.commondreams.org/ ensure that we are not wasting precious 3 news/2020/11/18/billionaire-bonanza-continues- entific socialism which is based upon workers-pounded-pandemic-recession-and-gop-relief resources on creating future junk to the materialist conception of history— pollute the planet with. 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia the ability of the working class to trans- 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism:_ We even have the power to stop war. form the basic economic structure of Utopian_and_Scientific Through unity and solidarity of action society to meet the needs and wants of 4 See “The ABCs of Dialectics,” by John in our own interests, we can convince all—not just an imaginary paradise.4 Blackburn in this issue of Socialist Viewpoint.

The ABCs of Dialectics By John Blackburn

Leon Trotsky compared formal (384-322 BC) who first identified the This general characteristic of the logic to dialectical logic as a still photo- laws of logic over two millennia ago, world can be expressed in terms of a graph to a movie. A photograph can that we employ constantly today. principle which summarizes an enor- provide a myriad of information about mous domain of different kinds of However close inspection of every experience and which has never yet a particular situation as it was in the phenomenon in the natural world and instant it was taken but that image is been contradicted in any observation human society reveals that the one or experiment, scientific or other- only one moment in a sequence of constant in the universe is change. wise; namely, everything comes from events. The photo doesn’t tell us what other things and gives rise to other has gone before, and we can only guess things” —quantum physicist and what happened next. A movie can ...everything comes from Marxist philosopher David Bohm. show us the narrative sequence leading other things and gives In that sentence Bohm has summarized to that scene and beyond. the essence of dialectical materialism. rise to other things... Marxists pay homage to formal Marx and Engels considered all of logic and recognize it is necessity for all the early philosophers, particularly of us as we deal with the world in our A is not A forever. Aristotle, to be instinctive dialecticians domestic lives, work and to research in but those predecessors did not have every branch of science. “In nature nothing remains constant. Everything is in a perpetual sufficient scientific knowledge to A = A, state of transformation, motion, and understand the motive forces of change. They lived in a world where the estab- A is not = B change. However, we discover that nothing simply surges up out of lished view was that all change resulted All of our systems of classification in nothing without having antecedents from the behavior of capricious gods every branch of study from astronomy that existed before. Likewise, nothing and other supernatural beings. Socrates to zoology and library book catalogu- ever disappears without a trace, in (c470-399BC) would be condemned to ing employ these basic rules of logic. the sense that it gives rise to abso- death for suggesting that his students Humanity owes a great debt to Aristotle lutely nothing existing at later times. question that presumption. It would

6 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 take the accumulated experience of cient for many activities. But nature is In September 2020 after a four-year more than 2000 years of developments not static and other methods of think- mission a human made satellite colin society and science to reveal the ing are needed to understand how and lected material from the surface of an forces driving the dialectical phenome- why changes occur. That method is asteroid, named Bennu with a diameter na in the material world. dialectical materialism. of 500m, 200 million miles from Earth When we wish to investigate nature in It is necessary to start by consider- traveling at more than 100,000-km- more detail or over time it soon becomes ing how we obtain and verify our per-hour. Having orbited, photo- clear that everything is changing so that knowledge. Marx and Engels solved graphed and mapped Bennu, an arm the logic of A = A no longer applies. this issue in philosophy by recognizing projected from the satellite collected A = A and to non-A at the same time. that the source and confirmation of material from its surface and is return- knowledge is human social practice. In ing with it to Earth for analysis. This A is becoming into B. the process of carrying out the tasks was a massive collective human under- It is this contradiction to formal logic necessary to live, humans have always taking and a monumental tribute to which is at the heart of dialectical logic. acted collectively whether it be as hunt- our knowledge of the universe, our This is the law of “the unity of er gatherers or in modern high-tech engineering and mathematical prowess. opposites.” industries. Knowledge of the world is Everything is at once itself and in the obtained collectively through the sens- Evidence of dialectics process of becoming something else. es of individuals, but humans have Wherever we look in nature, history, always lived in social groups so that sociology and even our daily lives we The changes in the natural world are knowledge and practical techniques will find evidence of the laws of dialec- not beyond human understanding. have always been shared communal They have characteristics and patterns tics that Hegel systematized in his products, transmitted down genera- “Logic.” It is knowing what to look for. which are recognized and classified into tions and preserved collectively. the laws of science. It was the German As a trainee microbiologist I learned philosopher, Georg Frederick Hegel to use the compound microscope. My (1770-1831) who, basing his studies on “The laws of logic are first experience was overwhelming and 2000 years of philosophical speculation, exciting as I looked into a world I didn’t scientific progress and influenced by the the reflections of the know existed. I had to learn how to set revolutionary political climate during objective in the up the microscope and to focus on his young life who identified the general subjective consciousness specimens. With years of experience, I laws of dialectics that are in operation learned to identify different microor- everywhere in nature and society. of man.” ganisms, hundreds of different cell (Warning: Hegel is not an easy read.) types and to distinguish healthy from For Hegel, all of nature was a mani- Marxists start with the view that our diseased tissues. Electron microscopy festation of the original “notion” or knowledge of the material world is fairly would lead me to recognize intra-cellu- “Absolute Idea” which finds itself accurate. Scientific research and practical lar structures, organelles and viruses. through progressive development in experience are continually expanding So, too, with dialectics. Once the the material world to result in absolute and refining our knowledge and deepen- basic laws are known we can recognize self-knowledge. Hegel was an idealist. ing our understanding of every aspect of them in operation wherever we find For him the idea came first and mate- nature. In just over two centuries our them and with practice, our skills as with rial reality its product and means of knowledge of the universe, its origin, his- any activity will improve and be refined. self-realization. For materialist Marxists tory and future developments have been the external world is primary, and our “The dialectics of things produces elucidated in considerable detail from the the dialectics of ideas not vice versa.” thinking is the product of the activity of detailed internal structure of the atom our brains absorbing through our sens- Lenin taught “The laws of logic are the back to the beginning of time with the reflections of the objective in the sub- es, integrating, processing, analyzing Big Bang. We know the evolution of our jective consciousness of man.” and reflecting on the information it is solar system and its context in the Milky receiving. Dialectical thinking is derived Way galaxy and how our own planet has Trotsky warned of this too: from the dialectical nature of reality. changed over the past 4.5 billion years “You can’t just foist dialectics on We think using the principles of has left evidence that has been unraveled facts but must derive it from the formal logic as they are true most of by science charting the universe as it has facts, from their nature and their the time and are necessary and suffi- evolved in 13.7 billion years. development...”

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 7 We cannot impose dialectics on the contradictions in ideas have their no mass but has the properties of a par- nature or science or any field of investi- origin in the material world which is ticle and a wave and all physical matter gation—they are either there or they are ever changing. The driving force of from atoms to galaxies are products of not. Yet we find dialectics wherever there those changes are the real internal con- light. Energy and matter—two oppo- is change. However, once we are familiar tradictory forces active in all things sites—are interchangeable in the natu- with dialectics and science, we realize including nature and society. ral world. (E=M times C squared) that dialectics are the logic of evolution. Dialectics is frequently illustrated in From the simple to the highly com- the form of a general triad. Thesis + plex from the inner workings of the Dialectics and the triad antithesis = synthesis. atom to the expanding cosmos, to The concept of dialectics goes back A useful but simplistic example is: detailed investigations of life’s pro- to Plato (437-327 BC) where contra- cesses inside organisms, the interac- dictory points of view are presented in Sodium—a highly reactive metal + tions between opposing forces and a debate. We know of Socrates views chlorine—a poisonous gas together phenomenon are universal. only through Plato where he presented forms sodium chloride (common salt) an essential for life. The components of the nucleus of debates between Socrates and oppo- an atom are massless electromagnetic nents in a backwards and forwards (The triad formula was never used radiation “condensed” into subatomic exchange of opinions. As a result of by Hegel and I have not come across it particles and some such as the Higgs this dialectical debate views change and in Marx or Engels either.) boson acquire mass. a deeper level of understanding of phi- This example can be useful as an losophy will emerge. The unity of the positively charge introduction to the concept of the nucleus with the negatively charged Hegel knew that the dialectical unity of opposites generating some- electron is the fundamental building method was an essential to philosophy, thing qualitatively new. block of all chemical matter while the but that Plato’s ideas were insufficient. Contradiction exchange and sharing of electrons The opposites presented in a dialectical Contradiction or the “unity of between atoms is the principal mecha- debate were not mutually exclusive but nism of chemistry. facets of the same thing, that contra- opposites” is the fundamental motive diction was necessary and when force of all change. A star is a dynamic equilibrium resolved, a higher level of understand- The Big Bang first produced light between gravity and the thermonuclear ing is reached. For Marx and Engels, (electromagnetic radiation) which has reactions at its core where hydrogen is being fused to form helium. Eventually the hydrogen fuel will run out and the star will implode, then explode sending debris containing all the chemical elements of the periodic table up to iron into space. The dying stars create all of the chemical elements necessary to make planets like ours and water the most abundant chemical compound in the universe. From some combination of these inorganic materials life will emerge on Earth and from unconscious chemical matter eventually a combination will produce consciousness and the ability to reflect on the dialectics of its own nature. Consider the chicken embryo developing within its shell of inorganic cal- cium compounds. Absorbing the nutrients from the yolk the embryos’ cells multiply transforming the energy and nutrients into internal organs and Karl Marx portrait on East German 100 mark (1975) banknote. (Shutterstock) limbs—the non-living yolk is trans-

8 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 formed into a live chick. Eventually the discover that they contain not only new cells others are being induced to chick breaks free from the confinement organic molecules such DNA, proteins commit suicide (apoptosis) by special- of the shell to a qualitatively new life. If and fats but inorganic chemicals such as ized cells sculpting each tissue and it continues to be fed, the chick’s baby sodium, potassium, chlorine and is organ into the form that will carry out feathers will be replaced by adult ones overwhelmingly water. It is the constant a particular function such as liver, skin, which may allow the gravity bound movement of materials into and out of brain or skeleton. bird to fly. In time, if the bird is fortu- the cells and the constant regeneration Reaching maturity for every organ- nate to live to sexual maturity and find of the internal organic structures that ism is the combination of cell multipli- a mate, it will contribute to the next are the essential activities of life. Life is cation, differentiation and destruction. generation. It will change from being a the product of the unity of opposites, In humans, before we have reached dependent to being independent then, the organic and the inorganic. sexual maturity, the processes of degen- a parent. At some point in this seem- Everything that lives will eventually die eration and ageing have already begun. ingly repeated cycle of life, some of this but that is not an event, it is a process, When we examine other phenome- successful line of birds will produce an and not the end to the story. Corpses na that are presented as polar opposites egg that hatches to release a type of bird are food for a multitude of organisms by formal logic, we see that they too are that is qualitatively different from its from the microbial to the carrion eaters. inseparably linked. ancestors and, if able to reproduce, will be the first generation of a new species. Necessity and chance (The egg came before the chicken.) Life is the product That you are reading this means that Whenever we investigate any natural of the unity of opposites, you necessarily have an uninterrupted phenomenon, we discover that nothing is the organic and ancestry that goes back some 3.5 billion permanent. Some changes are impercep- the inorganic. years to LUCA the common ancestor of tibly slow to our senses, on our human all life on Earth. In that period count- time scale—the Scottish Highlands were less trillions of other organisms have as high as Everest (8,828 meters) 600 mil- All living things inhabit an environ- died, many of them to feed our ances- lion years ago but Ben Nevis the highest ment which includes other living tors each of whom survived long has been reduced to 1345 meters. Other beings. Whether it be in a pond, or enough to produce descendants. Most processes we can watch, monitor and inside a human body, every living cell of the species that ever lived are now sometimes control such as gardening, is in a community and in communica- extinct. It is the accumulated chance cooking and scientific experiments. Yet tion with many others. In the pond survivals through the immediate trials others are so fast that all they leave is the there is a lot of eating. There are carbo- of life and five mass extinctions that trace of their having been, such as the hydrate producing plants which were necessary for you and I to be here. identification of the Higgs boson. become food for herbivores who in In sexual reproduction a sperm Close examination of a group of A turn become prey to carnivores who makes a chance encounter with a shows that all As are not identical. In are themselves prey to other carnivores receptive egg as the necessary event. microscopic examination no two micro- and parasites. All living organisms pro- Two haploid cells with different ances- organisms or cells or viruses are identical, duce waste which becomes food for try (usually) combine their genetic yet we can classify them. For expediency other life forms. material DNA to produce a unique and practicality these negligible differ- The ecology of the pond is deter- individual. The DNA in each of the ences are usually ignored while the quan- mined by a lot of dialectical processes gametes is itself the product of the ran- tity may be the most significant factor. but above all by the essential dialectics dom shuffling of the genetic material The trained eye of a hematologist how- of life and death. each parent has inherited from their ever can examine a specimen of blood in Within the bodies of every living parents in such a way that unless cloned the microscope, recognize minuscule but multicellular organism there are simi- every individual human has a unique significant differences in cells and so, can lar dialectical processes at work—life genetic profile. This process has been detect and diagnose leukemias or ane- and death, growth and decay. In the necessary for every one of us but there mias. In these cases, A is not A with an course of living every body is in a con- have been a myriad of chance events expert’s close inspection and that may be stant state of change. Millions of cells that lead to the evolution of humans a matter of life and death. are dying while others are being gener- and to each of us as living individuals. When we investigate chemical com- ated every second of our life. While the A dandelion seed-head releases 100s position of individual living cells, we body is growing by the production of of new seeds into the air that may travel

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 9 for many miles. Most will not survive to essential functions through internal mammals, were then able to multiple germinate but by chance a few will and disease and injury. These have limits as never before, migrating and coloniz- grow to maturity be fertilized (not an beyond which is death. ing niches excluded to them before. absolute with all dandelions) by a I will concentrate on one of the par- Radiation and multiplication lead to chance visiting pollinator— bee, a but- ings of formal logic1—the transformation diversification and the appearance of terfly or a beetle and give rise to anoth- of quantity into quality and vice versa. many new lineages and species. During er generation of seeds. It may be the that time many species of mammals repetition of a seemingly endless cycle, The first point to make is that qual- have come into being and become but detailed investigation will show that ity and quantity are inseparable, every- extinct. One particular line of primates gene shuffling means each seed is a thing is both of these at the same time leads to the evolution of Homo sapi- unique individual. Some from each which is a dialectical relationship. In ens, a creature, like no other before generation have to survive the hazards mathematics there are abstract quanti- that could not only produce the means of natural selection or the species will ties (x and z) but in the real world it is of life for itself but could reflect on its become extinct. In time this seemingly quantities of material things (qualities) own origins and take consciously random process will reveal the effects of that we work with—one liter of milk, planned measures to affect its own natural selection. There are over 200 five apples, two kilos of sugar. Even a future as a species. species of dandelions which have single item (quality) has some volume, evolved from a common ancestor, each weight and other measurable (quantifi- Negation of the negation with a unique genetic profile, morphol- able) characteristics. Everything has an ancestry from ogy and ecological niche all formed by In nature quantity can profoundly which it has emerged. The whole of the chance mutations in their DNA togeth- affect quality. The example used by natural history and the diversity of life er and selected by the opportunities Engels of the Periodic Table, which was on Earth is a manifestation of this dia- and challenges of the world. The fossil in its infancy in his day, has been con- lectical law. record shows innumerable plant and firmed with every element discovered or All life on Earth is descended from animal species that are now extinct but manufactured in the lab. The addition LUCA, a prokaryote, (a microscopic the vacancies they left were soon filled of a proton to the nucleus of an atom single-celled organism that has neither often by unrelated organisms. changes it into a different element. a distinct nucleus with a membrane One species’ demise is an opportu- In biology a myriad of species of nor other specialized organelles,) a nity for others. inorganic ions—atoms that have gained bacterial-like organism which evolved or lost an electron—have an essential about 3.5 billion years ago. Her dece- Cause and effect role in every aspect of living processes dents multiplied, displaced any con- Cause and effect are inseparably within cells and the tissues of the body. tending life forms and diversified being linked in every event in nature. Every the only form of life on Earth for a Atoms and electrons new effect produces a change in its time. At some point where some aggre- environment—it has become the cause The loss or gain of an electron can gation of cooperating prokaryotes (A of further changes. profoundly affect the physical, chemi- microscopic single-celled organism cal and biological behavior of atoms— that has neither a distinct nucleus with In all chemical reactions as the prod- poisons are neutralized, explosives uct accumulates it becomes a break on a membrane nor other specialized tamed and both employed in living organelles) formed an entirely new life its own production, which is referred to systems that are dependent upon them. as negative feedback. The living body is form eukaryotes—cells with a nucleus. The transfer of the hydrogen ion (H+) These new organisms also evolved a dependent on an infinite series of regu- through a series of stages in cells until lator mechanisms that control the method of generating genetic diversity it combines with oxygen, to form water more rapidly—through sexual repro- internal environment of the body and is the principle means by which our maintain it despite both external and duction, the combining of genetic cells obtain the energy to facilitate all of material from different sources. internal challenges. These mechanisms the other life processes. known collectively as homeostasis all Prokaryotic evolution had proceed- operate by signals that affect the activity Qualitative change is the founda- ed slowly over billions of years, how- of cells and organs. The consequences tion of quantitative expansion. ever with eukaryotes the rate of evolu- of the actions are reported back so that Sixty-five-million years ago a mete- tionary change is accelerated and with- the effect is now a new cause. This or hit the Earth—an event that ended in a short time, complex multicellular results in a dynamic equilibrium being the era of the dinosaurs. A relatively organisms appeared. While the most established which maintains the body’s unimportant group of animals, the abundant organisms on Earth are still

10 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 prokaryotes, it is multicellular life that the previous stage in the butterfly’s life in the class struggle so that we can has dominated for the last 500 million cycle and a qualitatively different form intervene to promote those movements years. In that time there have been five needed for other activities. which serve the interests of the working mass extinctions each of which created All complex organisms go through class and try to block those that don’t. conditions that allowed the emergence definite stages of development but not Marx and Engels were the first to of new life forms that would radiate, as dramatically compartmentalized as recognize that history has always been diversify and predominate for a time to butterflies and their insect relatives. the product of class struggles. The be supplanted by a life form that desire for socialism and a better life for emerged from its ranks. The truth is always concrete all, among the working class, is a prod- In our own lineage we have primi- Irrespective of the general laws of uct of poverty and deprivation which tive ancestors whose unique character- dialectics we have discussed, the truth are themselves inescapable products of istic was a biological experiment, an of what is happening in the real world the capitalist system. The capitalist sys- internal spinal column. For millions of is always our starting point. The truth tem produced the proletarian class—a years these creatures were not signifi- is always concrete. The particular laws unity of opposites in constant struggle. cant but in time they would give rise to of dialects are not proscriptions for The workers create the wealth which fish whose relatives, the amphibians, every situation and all time. They are a the capitalist class appropriates, and would acquire the means to colonize guide to analysis and action in today’s that dialectical relationship will only be the previously uninhabited land. Some world and will be the foundation for resolved when the means of produc- decedents of the amphibians would the higher levels of consciousness that tion are expropriated from the capital- evolve into exclusively land dwelling will emerge with social progress. ists, directed to social use and the but “cold blooded” reptiles—a branch Why is any of this important? entire capitalist state apparatus is destroyed. Others believe that another of which over time evolved into inter- First if we want to understand how the road is possible, but the last few decades nal heat producing mammals. From world works and then our thinking has to have shown that gains made over gen- our DNA through our anatomy, physi- correspond to that reality. Everything in erations by the working class can be ology and biochemistry we can still the universe is in constant movement but removed in an instant. trace the biological features our ances- that does not make it lawless and unknow- tors have bequeathed to us. Each has able. The specific branches of science Sections of the Labour movement been a platform from which other investigate particular spheres of nature may have abandoned the class struggle developments were generated eventu- and have their own laws and paradigms. but the capitalist class never does. ally leading to a qualitatively different The constant that connects all branches Knowledge is the guide to correct type of organism. of knowledge is dialectics. actions and that, above all, is the “Negation of the negation” is not a Surgeons are encouraged to adopt importance of dialectical materialism negative concept. The best of the old is hobbies such as playing a musical instru- which gives us a more comprehensive maintained while escaping from its ment or model making both of which understanding of the world than any constraints so that new potentials are require practice, patience manual dex- particular branch of science or other now presented. terity and concentration. All are skills school of philosophy. A caterpillar lays its fertilized eggs on that they also employ in the operating Marx and Engels realized that capi- a leaf. The eggs hatch releasing the cat- theatre. As recreational activities they talism had created a dialectical rela- erpillar that was developing inside. The are also refining the skills that will be put tionship of the capitalist class and the caterpillars are eating machines and to practical use in the life and death proletariat. The poverty and misery also an important food source for many environment of the operating theatre. created by capitalism will only be abol- birds and animals. Those that survive So, too, with dialectical thinking, it ished irrevocably when the proletariat form a cocoon around themselves is a tool like all others that our skill in takes control of society and runs indus- where the caterpillar body is broken using improves with practice. In our try, commerce and farming for need down to all but its nervous and respira- everyday life, of work and studies we not profit. Dialectical materialism is an tory systems then used as material and will encounter dialectical processes optimistic philosophy. No situation is fuel to build a new butterfly. When constantly if we choose to look, until permanent. The masses cannot be per- ready, the butterfly breaks out of its dialectics becomes our natural way of manently held down or contained and cocoon and sets off in search of a sexual thinking. It is our most important every condition is only temporary. partner and, if successful, the cycle con- weapon in the class struggle. It allows To return to our movie analogy. It tinues again. Each stage is a negation of us to identify trends and developments has a determined end which must flow

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 11 logically from the proceeding story Year of the Plague: Socialism or Barbarism? line. The director may have had options for the final cut, but the viewer has to That is the question passively accept the outcome. That is By Chris Kinder where the analogy ends, for we have the choice to remain observers or to What is the answer to the endless first independent Philippine Republic, actively participate. For Marxists, that question of what is to become of waging war against it and Katipunan- means above all, in the class struggle, human society in the late-late stage of led rebels until 1913—15 years of bar- where dialectical and historical materi- the capitalist-imperialist strangle-hold baric terror. The U.S. caused at least alism are our greatest weapons. on the world, amid a disastrous pan- 200,000 civilian deaths, and used tor- Professor Hegel became a conserva- demic, a looming and deadly environ- tures such as waterboarding, later used tive in his old age and thought that mental degeneration, and the increas- in North Korea and Vietnam. constitutional monarchy was the pin- ingly authoritarian regimes imposing Cuba was forced into a treaty which nacle of human government. The revo- rigid, rightist responses to crises infect- robbed it of true independence until lutionary of his youth had turned into ing nations around the world? Is it to 1959, when the puppet regime was the opposite, a reactionary, in later be a future of socialism, or a degenera- overthrown in a revolution which life—a common enough story. tion into worsening barbarism? abolished capitalism. Puerto Rico became a U.S. colony. We must also Dialectics forces us to face the truth The barbarism of however unpalatable. Marx and Engels remember the nuclear and fire bomb- U.S. imperialism realized that the state is the guardian of ings of Japan and Germany in 1945— capitalism and only with its revolu- If we define barbarism as extreme all against civilians—when their rulers tionary overthrow and replacement by cruelty, including enslavement, incar- had already lost the war. While the U.S. the dictatorship of the proletariat ceration, genocide and war, visited prosecuted the Nazis for their geno- internationally can socialism be upon any people or peoples on the basis cidal acts in the Nuremberg trials, the brought about. That knowledge then is of race, sex, national identity, economic crime of mass bombings of civilians the foundation for the program, strat- status, opposition to higher authority, was never brought up, as it would have egy and tactics of revolutionary com- or for any other reason, then all U.S. condemned the U.S. and Britain for munists and what distinguishes us and colonial history is rife with it. This genocide along with the Nazis. from other socialists and anarchists. applies to all presidential administra- tions, though many may not see the Barbarism is in Human history multiple examples as anything more The argument has been made that Suggested reading: than the errors of one administration or violence and war—barbarism—are Introduction to the Logic of Marxism, by other, or the result of “a few bad apples.” inherent in our bones as humans. In George Novak Yet the ripping of children out of the his New York Times bestseller, Sapiens, Socialism Scientific and Utopian, by Frederick arms of their asylum-seeking parents, A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Engels and the deportation or confinement of Noah Harari focusses a lot of his analy- In Defense of Marxism, by Leon Trotsky innocent immigrants in concentration sis on how pre-historic humans, up to camps—immigrants who are fleeing the and including Homo Sapiens, devel- murderous results of U.S. destruction oped violence and killing into part of 1 Without going into detail here I have listed a series of pairings that formal logic puts in of their home countries—along with our heritage today. He reviews weap- opposition to each other. As a mental exercise repeated racist murders by police and ons development and practices such as look at these pairings in contexts that you are their fascistic allies are stark reminders the killing of old or infirm people who familiar with: Subject and object; Host and that the system is crumbling. can no longer contribute to the clan or parasite; Growth and decay; Life and death; U.S. imperialism began very bar- grouping they are in, though he says Cause and effect; Necessity and chance; Essence they were infrequent. and appearance; Content and form; Self and barically. After its rise as an industrial non-self; Particular and universal; Quantity into capitalist power, the U.S. went to war An article in the New York Times quality. in 1898 against Spain in order to grab Book Review section about “War, How its colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico and Conflict Shaped Us,” by Margaret the Philippines, after these colonies MacMillan, claims that war “is in our had already revolted against Spain. bones.”1 I found the sentiments Claiming possession of these former expressed in this book—as quoted in Spanish colonies, the U.S. attacked the the review—to be enraging. “War is

12 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 waged by men, not beasts or gods. To modern human beings. If we define opment happened in the pre-human call it a crime against mankind is to this period of development as the lifes- millenniums. We walked on two legs as miss half its significance,” according to pan of the genus Homo, or humans— we descended from Apes as MacMillan. “War is not merely a nega- which culminated with us, Homo Australopiths, a pre-human hominid tive force,” concludes the reviewer, Sapiens—then we are talking about such as the famous fossil named “it’s an engine of change and creativi- approximately 2.5 million years.2 This “Lucy.” In the succeeding hundreds- ty;” and, “War Helped liberate period of human development is well of-thousands-of-years, we evolved as women.”—also from the reviewer. The over 2,000 times the length of modern the genus Homo, starting with Homo book also notes that civilians were spe- historical times, which are just 12,000 Habilis. One of many Homo species to cifically selected as targets in the World years at most. come, Homo Habilis pioneered the War II allied bombings of Japan and Two-point-five-million-years is the development of stone tools. Germany for purposes of terrorizing time period in which our nature as The development of stone tools was the population. humans was defined. The recent 12,000 not just an instant, or a simple fact of But is it “in our bones?” years is when our nature has become human evolution, as it is often ren- distorted by class division. The modern dered. A stone tool requires skill. It This all sounds like a good descrip- historical period, despite all its techni- requires knowledge of the right kind of tion of the barbarism of modern warlike cal achievements, is barely a drop in stone, and where to find it. It requires class society so far. But here is the kick- the bucket of fundamental biological skill to make the sharp edge that is er, Macmillan begins the book with a and social human development. needed to separate the furry skin from reference to Otzi, the pre-historic man Violent class divisions have defined a large animal, and skill to actually whose body was found in the Italian only the latest, very small period of acquire that furred skin for clothing (it Alps in 1991, well-preserved in ice for humanity on this planet, but they have will need days of drying after removal 5,000 years. This man had an arrow- fundamentally—but hopefully not from the animal). All this did not head embedded in his shoulder, and has permanently—disrupted and corrupt- evolve at once, it took thousands-of- been presumed to have been murdered. ed that which is our real human nature. years of development. The very first This is used to indicate how war is “in stone tools might just have been used our bones,” according to the reviewer. Human nature developed slowly, to crack open the bones of animals that Is murder, mayhem and war in our but surely had been stripped bare, left by predator bones, in our DNA as human beings? Humanity was a long-time in devel- animals, and used by humans to access First of all, note that Otzi was killed opment, and some of this basic devel- nutritious bone marrow. 5,000 years ago, well within the 12,000 years of the development of agriculture and of class divisions in human society. All the writers and reviewers cited here have ignored the one defining difference between modern historical society, and pre-historic human evolution—class division. Communal, cooperative groupings All human evolution and social development in the hundreds-of-thousands of years prior to the historical period, was based on communal, cooperative groupings. This formed the basic nature of humanity. Humans cooperate with each other. They survive by working together as a group. They do not fight wars or have conflicts anything like modern societ- BOLZANO, ITALY - APRIL 27, 2016: Reproduction of Oetzi the Similaun Man in the South Tyrol ies for their entire development as Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy, Photo by Zigres. (Shutterstock)

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 13 Development of tools required lan- Modern human community is a today. Today’s “communities” are guage, and passing knowledge on to fraud based on the class struggle, which the youth. In a word, it required com- Modern human community is a emerged only in the last ten or 12,000 munity. distorted version of what it should be. years—men suppressing women, Human communities as they appear nations oppressing other nations, This is how humans evolved today are frauds. Yes, it is true that empires oppressing slaves, feudal lords The skills needed to make stone people collect together in many types oppressing peasants, etc. Finally, the tools are just one example of the devel- of communities that are apparently capitalist/imperialist class exploiting opment of human community. free of any connection to the class the working classes of the world. Humans were not as strong or as fast as struggle, such as bridge clubs, golf Socialism is the human answer to most of their animal adversaries. They clubs, yacht clubs, chess clubs, you barbarism (we) had to work together to preserve name it. Humans connect in groups, as ourselves and our families. First, we is our nature. But most such social Workers’ unions and revolutionary were victims of the big predators, then, groupings reflect status in society. parties are the organizations we need after many thousands of years, we were now to correct the situation. big game hunters. How did that come Humans are a community, a collec- about? The long-term development of Two-point-five-million- tive that works together. That is what a community together with a division years is the time period we are. Capitalism, imperialism—these of labor within the community was are all recent impositions that must be essential. Some are gatherers, some are in which our nature as overthrown and discarded through hunters, etc. Big brain development humans was defined. workers’ revolution. The global human and language was essential in this community must be united in a coop- development. The recent 12,000 years erative unit, just as we were for hun- How did humans begin to control is when our nature has dreds-of-thousands-of-years. Of fire for their use, which enabled cook- become distorted by course, primitive communities were ing of food, and which in turn pro- small local groups, and the globe today moted better nutrition and bigger class division. involves several billions. But the human brain development? Was it just one day nature of community and cooperation is basic. We can overcome today’s cri- some person said “hey, let’s capture The controlling “communities” ses—it is how we evolved, and it is how some fire, keep it going, learn how to today are based clearly on the class we must survive now. And its name restart it if it goes out, and use it to structure of society—corporate board today is—socialism. cook food, so that we can grow our rooms, business confabs, police and mil- brains, and sit around the campfire itary units. Police and military have very and look at the stars?” Of course not. strong camaraderie for a reason—they 1 This quote is from the review, “What Is It This was a process of learning, over are communities designed to protect Good For?” by Dexter Filkins, New York Times thousands of years, involving innu- property, slavery, and to repress the Book Review, November 29, 2020. Unless other- merable individuals with different working class and racial minorities. wise indicated, the other quotes here are from the book as rendered in the review. experiences with fire, and culminating There was no such thing as private prop- in a community solution. 2 2.5 million years is the number Harari gives erty for 2.5 million years, and all sub- in Sapiens for the beginning of the genus Homo, The development of the big brain of communities (gatherers, hunters, tool or humans. Other estimates of the timing for Homo Sapiens is inseparably connect- makers, etc.) were integral and coopera- this vary slightly. ed with the development of the human tive parts of the whole community. community in the past two million or Human community did not evolve more years, and the language that is the for 2.5 million years with anything like most important part of that. It is today’s class divisions. Yes, there may impossible to imagine the develop- have been occasional adversaries, and, ment of human community without yes, there may have been some brutal language. acts in primitive communities, but And now, how are we to imagine there was nothing like modern war, or that today’s class divided human “com- the conflict between sub-communities munity” is real? It is not. within the social group that obtains

14 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Billionaire Bonanza Continues Workers pounded by pandemic, recession, and GOP relief refusal By Brett Wilkins

A handful of billionaires and corpo- companies whose profits are Courtenay Brown, an Amazon Fresh rations are enjoying record financial coming at the expense of work- warehouse worker in New Jersey and gains—often attained at the expense of ers and communities, including organizer with the worker advocacy worker safety—during the peaking retailers like Walmart, Amazon, group United for Respect, said, “While coronavirus pandemic, according to a Target, Dollar Tree, and Dollar Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is on track to become report published November 18, 2020, Store, gig economy companies the world’s first trillionaire, the frontline by a coalition of advocacy groups. like Instacart, and food produc- workers like me who’ve built his fortune As 2,814 people died within 24 ers like Tyson Foods. are treated like we’re disposable.” hours December 19, 20201, during the • Also included is the investment Brown added: deadliest pandemic in a century, pluto- giant BlackRock and private equity “As the virus spikes, we get more crats and their businesses are thriving firms like Leonard Green Partners, and more orders, and Amazon like never before, in no small part due Blackstone, Kohlberg, Kravis Rob- expects us to work at inhumane to a system rife with profiteering, erts & Co., Cerberus Capital, BC rates. The pace is blistering, and opportunism, and worker exploitation. Partners, and CVC Capital Part- people get injured on the job a lot, So says the report, entitled, “Billionaire ners. These private equity firms people get sick, people are scared of Wealth vs. Community Health: own several essential healthcare, catching [Covid-19], and Amazon is Protecting Essential Workers from grocery, and pet supply companies. not doing enough to protect our lives. It’s time for Amazon’s workers Pandemic Profiteers,” which focuses • Ten billionaire owners of the to get some actual compensation for on 12 of the most egregious pandemic “Delinquent Dozen” companies the essential work we’re doing—we profiteers—the “Delinquent Dozen”— have a combined worth of $433 don’t need feel-good TV commer- who include the owners of Walmart billion. Since March 18, their cials thanking us for being heroes, and the CEOs of Amazon and Target. combined personal wealth has we need $5 an hour in hazard pay, These companies and their owners ballooned by $127.5 billion, a 42 paid sick leave, and workplace pro- and executives have benefited from percent increase. These ten bil- tections from this dangerous virus.” their “monopoly positions,” the report lionaires are: Jeff Bezos (Ama- The report contains a set of recom- states, but their success “hasn’t trans- zon); Alice, Rob, and Jim Walton mended solutions for companies lated into better pay or safer working (Walmart); Apoorva Mehta employing essential workers, as well as conditions for the employees showing (Instacart); John Tyson (Tyson for lawmakers seeking to protect work- up to work in a pandemic.” Foods); Steve Schwarzman ers and reduce the power of plutocrats (Blackstone); Henry Kravis and and the businesses they own. For It’s not just corporations—“private George Roberts (KKR); and employers, these include immediately equity firms have bought up essential Steve Feinberg (Cerberus). offering workers at least $5 per hour in businesses in the healthcare, grocery, and hazard pay, paid sick leave, and other pet care industries, only to aggressively The report features harrowing testi- essential benefits. For legislators, an cut costs, skimp on worker safety, and monies from workers affected by both Essential Workers’ Bill of Rights, work- load companies up with debt to boost the pandemic and their employers’ place health councils, a pandemic their own profits,” the report notes. policies and actions. wealth tax, and a profiteering oversight “I close the register many nights, so I Among its key findings: committee are among the recom- know my store’s revenue has practically mended remedies. • As of November 17, the combined doubled since the coronavirus hit,” said wealth of 647 U.S. billionaires Kenya Slaughter, an employee of Dollar “When billionaire owners and CEOs increased by almost $960 billion General—which is partly owned by the fail to fulfill their responsibility during since mid-March, the beginning global financial behemoth BlackRock. this extraordinary time, it is the duty of of the pandemic lockdown. “But we workers haven’t gotten any elected officials and Congress to step in • Since March, there are 33 new extra money, even though we’re risking and enact public policies to protect billionaires in the U.S. Driving our health, and our families’ health, to essential workers and their communi- this exploding inequality are 12 keep the stores running.” Continued on page 36

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 15 Liberalism and Fascism: Partners in Crime By Gabriel Rockhill

“The intellectuals cast a veil over the chological warfare campaign waged they have been—sometimes subtle, dictatorial character of bourgeois democ- under the deceptive banner of “totali- sometimes forthright—partners in racy not least by presenting democracy as tarianism” has done much to further capitalist crime. For the sake of argu- the absolute opposite of fascism, not as dissimulate this line of demarcation by ment and concision, I will here focus just another natural phase of it where the disingenuously presenting communism primarily on a conjunctural account of bourgeois dictatorship is revealed in a as a form of fascism. As Domenico the non-controversial cases of Italy and more open form.” —Bertolt Brecht Losurdo and others have explained with Germany. However, it is worth stating Time and again we hear that liberal- great historical precision and detail, this at the outset that the Nazi racial police ism is the last bulwark against fascism. It is pure ideological pap. state and colonial rampage—which far represents a defense of the rule of law Given the ways in which the current surpassed Italy’s capabilities—were and democracy in the face of aberrant, public debate on fascism tends to be modeled on the United States. malevolent demagogues intent on framed in relationship to purported destroying a perfectly good system for liberal resistance, there could scarcely Liberal collaboration in the rise of their own gain. This apparent opposi- be a timelier task than that of scrupu- European fascism tion has been deeply engrained in con- lously re-examining the historical It is of the utmost importance that temporary so-called Western liberal record of actually existing liberalism Western European fascism emerged democracies through their shared origin and fascism. As we shall see even in this within parliamentary democracies myth. As every school child in the U.S. brief overview, far from being enemies, rather than conquering them from the learns, for instance, liberalism defeated fascism in World War II, beating back the Nazi beast in order to establish a new international order that—for all of its potential faults and misdeeds—was built upon key democratic principles that are antithetical to fascism. This framing of the relationship between liberalism and fascism not only presents them as complete opposites, but it also defines the very essence of the fight against fascism as the struggle for liberalism. In so doing, it forges an ideological false antagonism. For what fascism and liberalism share is their undying devotion to the capitalist world order. Although one prefers the velvet glove of hegemonic and consensual rule, and the other relies more readily on the iron fist of repressive violence, they are both intent on maintaining and developing capitalist social relations, and they have worked together throughout modern history in order to do so. What this apparent conflict masks— and this is its true ideological power—is that the real, fundamental dividing line is not between two different modes of capitalist governance, but between capitalists and anti-capitalists. The long psy- (Art by Nick Roney)

16 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 outside. The fascists rose to power in October 19, 1935, on what it meant to “The results are at hand: bour- Italy at a moment of severe political and have the material resources necessary geois democracy transforms itself economic crisis on the heels of WWI, to support 1,000 Nazi orators with legally, pacifically, into a fascist dic- and then later the Great Depression. their own cars, who could hold some tatorship. The secret is simple This was also a time when the world 100,000 public meetings in the course enough: bourgeois democracy and had just witnessed the first successful of a year. In the December 1932 elec- fascist dictatorship are the instru- ments of one and the same class, the anti-capitalist revolution in the U.S.S.R. tion, the Social Democrat leaders, who exploiters. It is absolutely impossible Mussolini, who had cut his teeth work- were far to the left of contemporary to prevent the replacement of one ing for MI5 (United Kingdom’s domes- liberals but shared their reformist instrument by the other by appeal- tic counter-intelligence and security agenda, refused to form an eleventh- ing to the Constitution, the Supreme agency) to break up the Italian peace hour coalition with the communists Court at Leipzig, new elections, etc. movement during WWI, was later against Nazism. “As in many other What is necessary is to mobilize the backed by big industrial capitalists and countries past and present, so in revolutionary forces of the proletar- bankers for his anti-worker, pro-capi- Germany,” wrote Michael Parenti, “the iat. Constitutional fetishism brings talist political orientation. His tactic Social Democrats would sooner ally the best aid to fascism.”1 was to work within the parliamentary themselves with the reactionary Right Once its power was secure, howev- system, by mobilizing powerful finan- than make common cause with the er, fascism revealed its authoritarian cial supporters to bankroll his expan- Reds.” Prior to the election, the face, transforming itself into what sive propaganda campaign while his Communist Party candidate Ernst Trotsky referred to as a military- black shirts rode roughshod over picket Thaelmann had argued that a vote for bureaucratic dictatorship of the lines and working-class organizations. the conservative Field Marshal von Bonapartist type. It unflinchingly set In October of 1922, magnates in the Hindenburg amounted to a vote for about—at a rather different pace in Confederation of Industry and major Hitler and for war. Only weeks after Italy than in Germany—completing bank leaders provided him with the Hindenburg’s election, he invited the task it had been hired to accom- millions necessary for the March on Hitler to become chancellor. plish by crushing organized labor, Rome as a spectacular show of force. eradicating opposition parties, destroy- However, he did not seize power. ing independent publications, putting Instead, as Daniel Guérin explained in ...the Nazi racial police a halt to elections, scapegoating and his masterful study Fascism and Big state and colonial ram- eliminating racialized underclasses, Business, Mussolini was summoned by privatizing public assets, launching the king on October 29th and was, page—which far sur- projects of colonial expansion and according to parliamentary norms, passed Italy’s capabili- investing heavily in a war economy entrusted with forming a cabinet. The beneficial to its industrial supporters. capitalist state turned itself over with- ties—were modeled on In establishing the direct dictatorship out a fight, but Mussolini was intent on the United States... of big capital, it even destroyed some of forming an absolute majority in parlia- the more plebeian and populist element with the help of the liberals. They ments in its own ranks, while crushing supported his new electoral law in July Fascism in both cases came to power many confused liberals under the jug- through bourgeois parliamentary 1923 and then made a joint slate with gernaut of repressive class warfare. democracy, in which big capital bank- the fascists for the election on April 6, rolled the candidates who would do its It was not only within Italy and 1924. The fascists, who had only had 35 bidding while also creating a populist Germany that bourgeois democracy seats in parliament, gained 286 seats spectacle—a false revolution—that allowed for the rise of fascism. This was with the help of the liberals. marshaled or suggested mass appeal. also true internationally. Capitalist The Nazis rose to power in much Its conquest of power took place with- states refused to form an antifascist the same way, by working within the in this legal and constitutional frame- coalition with the U.S.S.R., a country parliamentary system and courting the work, which secured its apparent legit- that fourteen of them had invaded and favor of big industrial magnates and imacy on the home front, as well as occupied from 1918 to 1920 in a failed bankers. The latter provided the finan- within the international community of attempt to destroy the world’s first cial support necessary to grow the Nazi bourgeois democracies. Leon Trotsky workers’ republic. During the Spanish party and eventually secure the elec- understood this perfectly and diag- Civil War, which historians like Eric toral victory of September 1930. Hitler nosed what was going on at the time Hobsbawm have characterized as a would later reminisce, in a speech on with remarkable insight: miniature version of the great mid-

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 17 century war between fascism and com- media as an undeniable indication that fer of their property into “Aryan” munism, Western liberal democracies the Nazis and communists were some- hands), as well as from the German did not officially support the left-lean- how allies. rearmament program. According to ing government that had been elected. Christopher Simpson’s masterful Instead, they stood idly by while the study, “a half-dozen key U.S. compa- Axis powers provided massive support ...the real, fundamental nies—International Harvester, Ford, to General Francisco Franco as he General Motors, Standard Oil of New oversaw a military coup d’état. It is dividing line is not Jersey, and du Pont—had become highly revealing that Franco, a self- between two different deeply involved in German weapons declared fascist who is often sidelined modes of capitalist production.” In fact, American invest- in discussions of European fascism, ment in Germany sharply increased understood with remarkable clarity governance, but between after Hitler came to power. “Commerce why the epiphenomenal characteristics capitalists and Department reports show,” writes of fascism would differ considerably Simpson, “that U.S. investment in based on the precise conjuncture: anti-capitalists... Germany increased some 48.5 percent “Fascism, since that is the word that is between 1929 and 1940, while declin- used, fascism presents, wherever it ing sharply everywhere else in conti- manifests itself, characteristics which International capitalism and fascism nental Europe.” The German subsid- are varied to the extent that countries It was not only large industrialists iaries of U.S. companies like Ford and and national temperaments vary.” It and bankers, as well as landowners, General Motors, as well as several oil was the U.S.S.R. that came to the aid of within Italy and Germany that sup- companies, made wide use of forced the Republicans battling fascism in ported and profited from the fascist labor in concentration camps. Spain, sending both soldiers and mate- rise to power. This was equally true of Buchenwald, for instance, provided rials. Franco would later return the many of the major corporations and concentration camp labor for GM’s favor, so to speak, by deploying a vol- banks whose headquarters were in enormous Russelsheim plant, as well as unteer military force to fight godless Western bourgeois democracies. Henry for the Ford truck plant located in communism alongside the Nazis. Ford was perhaps the most notorious Cologne, and Ford’s German managers Franco would also, of course, become example since in 1938 he was awarded made extensive use of Russian POWs one of the great postwar allies of the the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order for war production work (a war crime United States in its fight against the of the German Eagle, which was the according to the Geneva Conventions.) Red Menace. highest honor that could be bestowed John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, In 1934, the United Kingdom, upon any non-German (Mussolini had who would later respectively become France and Italy signed the Munich received one earlier the same year.) the Secretary of State and the head of Agreement, in which they agreed to Ford had not only funneled ample the CIA, ran Sullivan & Cromwell, allow Hitler to invade and colonize the funding into the Nazi Party, he had which some consider to have been the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. “The provided it with much of its anti- largest Wall Street law firm at the time. sheer reluctance of Western govern- Semitic and anti-Bolshevik ideology. They played a very important role in ments to enter into effective negotia- Ford’s conviction that “Communism overseeing, advising and managing tions with the Red state,” wrote Eric was a completely Jewish creation,” to global investment in Germany, which Hobsbawm, “even in 1938-39 when quote James and Suzanne Pool, was had become one of the most important the urgency of an anti-Hitler alliance shared by Hitler, and some have sug- international markets—particularly was no longer denied by anyone, is gested that the latter was so close ideo- for American investors—during the only too patent. Indeed, it was the fear logically to Ford that certain passages second half of the 1920s. Sullivan & of being left to confront Hitler alone from Mein Kampf were directly copied Cromwell worked with nearly all of the which eventually drove Stalin, since from Ford’s anti-Semitic publication major U.S. banks, and they oversaw 1934 the unswerving champion of an The International Jew. investments in Germany in excess of a alliance with the West against him, Ford was only one of the American billion dollars. They also worked with into the Stalin-Ribbentrop Pact of companies invested in Germany, and dozens of companies and governments August 1939, by which he hoped to many other U.S. banks, firms and all over the world, but John Foster keep the U.S.S.R. out of the war.” This investors profited handsomely from Dulles, according to Simpson, “clearly non-aggression pact was then disin- Aryanizations (the expulsion of Jews emphasized projects for Germany, for genuously presented in the Western from business life and the forced trans- the military junta in Poland, and for

18 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Mussolini’s fascist state in Italy.” In the American soldiers died in the war ism. By replacing this opposition by postwar era, Allen Dulles worked tire- (which amounts to approximately 1.5 the one between liberalism and fas- lessly to protect his business partners, percent of the Soviet death toll.) It was, cism, the ideology of false antagonisms and he was remarkably successful in above all, the Red Army that defeated aims at making the fight of the century securing their assets and helping them fascism in WWII, and it is commu- into a capitalist spectacle rather than a avoid prosecution. nism—not liberalism—that consti- communist revolution. Whereas most liberal accounts of tutes the last bulwark against fascism. Gabriel Rockhill is a Franco- fascism focus on its political theater The historical lesson should be clear: American philosopher, cultural critic and epiphenomenal eccentricities, one cannot be truly antifascist without and activist. being anti-capitalist. thereby avoiding a systemic and radical —CounterPunch, October 14, 2020 analysis, it is essential to recognize that The ideology of false antagonisms if liberalism allowed for the growth of https://www.counterpunch. European fascism, it is capitalism that The ideological construction of false org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism- drove this growth. antagonisms, in the case of liberalism partners-in-crime/ and fascism, serves multiple purposes: Who defeated fascism? • It establishes the primary front of It is not surprising that the bour- 1 “The United Front for Defense, A letter to struggle as one between rival posi- geois democracies of the West were a Social Democratic Worker,” February 1933, by tions within the capitalist camp. Leon Trotsky extremely slow to open the Western • It channels people’s energy into https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/ger- front, allowing their erstwhile enemy, many/1933/330223.htm the U.S.S.R., to be bled by the pro- fighting over the best methods capitalist Nazi war machine (which for managing capitalist rule rath- received ample funding from White er than abolishing it. For what fascism and Russians.) In fact, the day after Nazi • It eradicates the true lines of demar- Germany invaded the Soviet Union, cation of global class struggle. liberalism share is Harry Truman flatly declared: “If we • It attempts to simply take the com- their undying devotion see that Germany is winning, we ought munist option off the table (by to help Russia, and if Russia is winning, to the capitalist world removing it entirely from the field of we ought to help Germany, and that struggle, or disingenuously present- way let them kill as many as possible, order. Although one although I don’t want to see Hitler vic- ing it as a form of “totalitarianism.”) prefers the velvet glove torious in any circumstances.” After Not unlike sporting events, which are the U.S. entered the war, powerful offi- very important ideological rituals in the of hegemonic and cials like Allen Dulles worked behind contemporary world, the logic of false consensual rule, and the scenes to try and broker a peace antagonisms amps up and overinflates deal with Germany that would allow all of the idiosyncratic differences and the other relies more the Nazis to focus all of their attention personal rivalries between two opposing readily on the iron fist on eradicating the U.S.S.R. teams to such an extent that the frenzied of repressive violence, The widespread idea, at least within fans come to forget that they are ulti- the U.S., that fascism was ultimately mately playing the same game. they are both intent on defeated by liberalism in WWII, due In the reactionary political culture primarily to the U.S. intervention in of the U.S., which has attempted to maintaining and the war, is a baseless canard. As Peter redefine the Left as liberal, it is of the developing capitalist Kuznick, Max Blumenthal and Ben utmost importance to recognize that Norton reminded listeners in a recent the primary opposition that has struc- social relations, and discussion, 80 percent of the Nazis who tured, and continues to organize, the they have worked died in the war were killed on the modern world is the one between capi- Eastern Front with the U.S.S.R., where talism—which is imposed and main- together throughout Germany had deployed 200 divisions tained through liberal ideology and modern history in (versus only ten in the West.) Twenty- institutions, as well as fascist repres- seven-million Soviets gave their lives sion, depending on the time, place and order to do so. fighting fascism, whereas 400,000 population in question—and social-

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 19 Jim Crow Joe Biden’s record on race By Jack Delaney

It was the days of purple haze and Through 1972 until the end of fed- measure failed but Biden introduced a the post-civil rights movement that erally mandated busing, Biden would similar and more bipartisan amend- President-elect Joe Biden cemented his join staunch segregationists—Senators ment that barred funding for local political legacy, yet he was rarely on the Strom Thurmond, James O. Eastland, governments assigning teachers to right side of history. The era was Herman E. Talmadge, and others— schools based on race. Later that year, marked by assassinations of political backing bills that would prevent the Biden issued a statement on busing in leaders, spurred a coalition opposing federal government from enforcing an interview, calling the policy, “[an] the Vietnam war, and produced police school integration. asinine concept, the utility of which violence carried out on demonstrators. After the 1975 white anti-busing has never been proven to me.” The unrest set the stage for Richard riots in Boston, Biden joined with for- The New York Times notes that Nixon and advisor Lee Atwater’s mer Dixiecrat—North Carolina Biden proposed a 1976 measure that southern strategy. Republican Jesse Helms—to introduce would block the Department of Justice Nixon’s ’68 campaign strategy relied an anti-busing amendment a year later. (DOJ) from treating busing as a form on polished racist dog whistles and The proposal’s aim was to handcuff the of desegregation. A year later the rhetoric promising law and order, enforcement of school desegregation Senator cosponsored an amendment which delivered the southern vote by limiting the federal government that limited federal funding from bus- along with the White House. With a from collecting data on integration. As ing oversight while leading legislation political realignment—where segrega- reported by NPR, Biden later said in a that would limit court-ordered busing tionist southern Democrats found ref- 1975 interview he supported a enforcement. uge within the GOP—political new- Constitutional amendment to end the A year later, in 1977, Biden remarked comer, Joe Biden found opportunity. busing mandate. that some federal desegregation poli- Delaware’s Dixiecrat In support of Helms’s amendment, cies would “cause his children to grow Biden would rise on the Senate floor up in a racialized jungle.” Biden con- Before the 1972 elections, then a city stating, “I have become convinced that tinued with rhetoric that echoed government official, Biden launched a busing is a bankrupt concept.” Helms’s Congress’s segregationists, haranguing bid for the U.S. Senate. In his campaign against Delaware’s Republican incumbent, J. Caleb Boggs, Biden set himself apart from his opponent and supported the integration of schools through federally mandated busing. Yet in a few years following his first Senatorial win, he would reverse his stance and sharpen his words. After a deciding vote that nixed a 1974 anti-busing amendment, the freshman Senator faced backlash and pressure from constituents. Biden’s vote against the ’74 amendment would stand as his sole exception of supporting school desegregation through federally mandated busing. After his controversial vote, constituent outrage ensued. Parents began to heckle the Senator at a town hall meeting, and he would promptly change his position to match his base’s sentiments. Photograph Source: Chuck Kennedy – CC BY 2.0

20 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 against “forced busing” and arguing included a civil asset forfeiture clause. penalties, 100,000 more cops, and for states’ rights. By 1986 and 1988 he would support 125,000 new prison cells. The Senator By 1982, Biden joined former and partly author two Anti-Drug continued the next year, standing in Dixiecrats to vote for a DOJ appropria- Abuse Acts that imposed stricter sen- support of the bill, “We have predators tions amendment that included a sec- tencing on crack compared to powder on our streets who are beyond the tion labeled “the toughest anti-busing cocaine and bolstered prison sentences pale…. We have no other choice but to rider ever approved by either chamber for drug offenders. take them out of society.” of Congress.” He then voted in favor of During Biden’s first bid for the White The bill passed and was signed into an amendment that granted DOJ the House, a 1987 Philadelphia Inquirer law by Clinton, imposing mandatory ability “to remove or reduce the piece reports that he gloated about minimum sentences, the “three strikes requirement of busing in existing court receiving an award from Alabama’s for- you’re out rule,” and increased federal decrees or judgments.” mer segregationist governor George spending for newly militarized law A 1991 Supreme Court decision Wallace in 1973. Shortly thereafter, enforcement and prisons nationwide. would lead to a series of cases that Biden delivered a stump speech in As the policies took shape, the war would ultimately end federally man- Alabama, stating, “we [Delawareans] on drugs and mass incarceration dated busing. Almost 30 years later, a were on the south’s side in the Civil exploded, delivering the U.S. the world’s 2019 report released by Penn State and War.” Continuing on the campaign largest prison population. No secret— UCLA showed that classrooms are trail, he further remarked that he par- by the 2000s, with only five percent of overly segregated today. ticipated as a civil rights activist in the the globe’s population, the U.S. had 25 ’60s, yet the claim was unfounded. percent of the world’s prison popula- New Jim Crow Joe tion. Data from the U.S. Census shows From the early 1980s up until pres- that Black people are five times more ent day, racialized mass incarceration As reported by the likely to face incarceration than white took hold—sponsored by the war on Bureau of Investigative people, while a study published in the drugs, heightened sentencing, and American Journal of Preventive Medicine through the empowerment of prosecu- Journalism, at least 380 showed police murders skew excessively tors and law enforcement. The New Jim to 801 civilians in the towards people of color. 1 Crow author Michelle Alexander Middle East and Africa writes, “Ninety percent of those admit- Late Senate and Obama years ted to prison for drug offenses in many were killed by drone Towards the twilight of Biden’s Senate states were Black or Latino, yet the strikes during Obama career, he pursued neoliberal economic mass incarceration of communities of and Biden’s tenure. reforms and championed financial color was explained in race-neutral deregulations. For over 40 years—from terms, an adaptation to the needs and 1984 until 2018—Biden would support demands of the current political cli- After the Reagan-era, a 1991 peak in proposed freezes and cuts to Social mate. The New Jim Crow was born.” national crime escalated calls for law Security spending, while people of color Biden’s role in the genesis of the and order and was followed by a media are disproportionately served by Social New Jim Crow began during the frenzy. In the ’92 Presidential cam- Security income benefits. Reagan years. As reported by The paign, Bill Clinton rebranded the He continued with deregulation Intercept, Biden lobbied the Reagan Democratic Party as tough on crime, through the ’90s and ’00s. In 1999, the administration to beef up law enforce- which paid off and delivered the White Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was intro- ment and adopt harsher sentences. House. Shortly after the Clinton victo- duced and proposed to eliminate Great While courting Reagan, the Senator ry, Biden introduced The Violent Depression-era financial regulations reached across the aisle to find com- Crime Control and Law Enforcement formed through the Glass-Steagall Act mon ground with an old friend. Act, also known as the ’94 crime bill. of 1933. The sweeping deregulatory bill Biden teamed up with Strom Biden was a substantial contributor paved the way and further incentivized Thurmond to introduce the to the legislation and shepherded it finance capital to pursue predatory Comprehensive Control Act of 1984. through, rising on the Senate floor lending, redlining, and fiscal trickery The bill expanded penalties for mari- boasting that the liberal wing of the which disproportionately disadvan- juana production and trafficking, per- Democratic Party was responsible for taged people of color. Biden supported mitted punitive legal strategies, and 60 new death penalties, 70 enhanced and voted for the bill.

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 21 Following the erasure of Glass- succinctly summed up the Obama- South Africa. He would also state in an Steagall, the Bankruptcy Abuse Biden years. “The system cannot reform interview, “If you have a problem fig- Prevention and Consumer Protection itself. We’ve tried Black faces in high uring out whether you’re for me or Act of 2005 (BAPCPA), known as the places. Too often our Black politicians, Trump, then you ain’t Black,” for bankruptcy bill, was introduced. Through professional class, middle class become which he later apologized. BAPCPA’s time in the legislative process, too accommodated to the capitalist Peculiar phrases and malarkey aside, Biden would offer three amendments economy.” West continued, “The Black it didn’t matter for the Biden coalition. that hallowed existing statutes. The law Lives Matter movement emerged under The centrist candidates dropped out would unequally impact people of color, a Black President, a Black Attorney and consolidated to crush an insurgent and down the road, exacerbated the stu- General, and a Black Homeland Bernie Sanders challenge, delivering dent debt crisis, impacting people of Security, and they couldn’t deliver.” Biden key wins and the nomination. color at more costly levels. On the campaign trail Surrounding his primary victory During the Obama-Biden years, Biden didn’t launch his campaign were potentially the largest uprisings videos and reports of police murders of with much backing from the and movement in U.S. history. Black people would surface. Ferguson Democratic base, bundlers, or much of Following the police murders of George and Baltimore became centers of the a vision. The core of Biden’s messaging Floyd and Breonna Taylor, mass rebel- uprisings that ensued in 2014 and 2015, appealed to white suburbanites, offer- lions stormed nationwide—continuing respectively, and were precursors to ing nothing more than a return to ever since. The majority of Americans the current Black Lives Matter (BLM) normalcy and an alternative to Trump. support the Black Lives Matter move- movement. Yet the two-term adminis- Top Democrats, much like the base ment and the rebellions against U.S. tration didn’t deliver the change that and donors, were also initially skeptical institutions. was promised in the ’08 campaign. of Biden’s path to victory. With popular support behind BLM, Abroad it was also business as usual Biden didn’t seize the moment like for the Obama-Biden White House. during the post-civil rights political The foreign policy apparatus during the Biden’s career has been realignment. Nonetheless, the Black administration actively destabilized vote turned out to deliver him the regions, causing crises in Yemen, built on working for White House. With that said, recent Honduras, Syria, Somalia, and Libya, white supremacy. indications show a Biden administra- while continuing W. Bush-era operation will take the Black vote and the tions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. energy around BLM for granted. The drone program would also According to Politico, Biden’s for- Following the police murder of surge under Biden’s White House mer running mate Barack Obama Walter Wallace Jr.—a young Black man years. Since the drone warfare-era, the allegedly remarked, “Don’t underesti- experiencing a mental health episode in administration amassed the highest mate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.” Philadelphia—the then Presidential number of civilian drone strike casual- Obama then supposedly told one nominee condemned the uprisings. ties. As reported by the Bureau of Democratic candidate in Iowa, “And Biden would then appear for remarks Investigative Journalism, at least 380 to you know who really doesn’t have it? on the campaign trail to address the 801 civilians in the Middle East and Joe Biden.” hopelessly frustrated crowds, “There is Africa were killed by drone strikes dur- Before Biden was thrust into the no excuse whatsoever for the looting ing Obama and Biden’s tenure. Democratic front runner spotlight, the and the violence. None whatsoever.” For Latin Americans, the White former Vice President clashed with The campaign also issued a written House also managed one of the largest future running mate, Kamala Harris, statement in response, adding in a deportation efforts in U.S. history, regarding his record on busing during qualifying “but at the same time....” while mass graves of Latin American the debates. While Vice President-elect The President-elect previously migrants went unchecked by the Harris has her own controversial record denounced demonstrators in Portland, administration. Over two and half mil- on criminal justice, the Biden camp Oregon and elsewhere. Prior to issuing lion migrants were deported, and the deflected and muddied the waters. statements, Biden has also called for infrastructure was left for Trump to During the campaign, Biden would police to “shoot ’em in the leg” and inherit and bolster. falsely and repeatedly claim that he was doubled down on that remark during a A May 2020 CNN interview with arrested after meeting with Nelson town hall when asked about police de- Harvard professor, Dr. Cornel West, Mandela while protesting apartheid in escalation techniques.

22 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 The Biden transition team was also develop bipartisan favor. The racist Jack Delaney is a former policy ana- considering former Chicago Mayor war on drugs, mass incarceration, ram- lyst. He worked on issues relating to Rahm Emanuel for a top cabinet slot pant disenfranchisement, the prison healthcare, disability, and labor policy, but walked his appointment back after industrial complex, exploited labor, and is a member of the National Writers criticism. In 2014, Emanuel attempted and militarized police forces didn’t Union. to cover up the police killing of Black magically appear. —CounterPunch, December 6, 2020 Chicagoan, Laquan McDonald, along Austerity and financial deregulation with gutting the city’s social infrastruc- https://www.counterpunch. further empowered conservatives and org/2020/12/06/jim-crow-joe/ ture for vulnerable communities. incentivized debt profiteers to prey on Biden’s “Tranquilizing Drug of vulnerable people. The continuation of 1 The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in Gradualism” endless wars and coups d’états, building a mass deportation system, and failing to the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander Two years before Malcolm X was leverage power to yield change had some- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_ assassinated, he delivered a speech Crow one behind those policies and inactions. skewering white liberals, “The white liberal differs from the white conserva- The policy failures that have per- tive only in one way: the liberal is more petuated a white supremacist society deceitful than the conservative. The weren’t just lazily passed and imple- “The white liberal liberal is more hypocritical than the mented—they were championed and differs from the white conservative. Both want power, but the safe-guarded. Biden’s career has been white liberal is the one who has per- built on working for white supremacy. conservative only in one fected the art of posing as the Negro’s While securing the election by pla- way: the liberal is more friend and benefactor; and by winning cating voters of color and appealing to deceitful than the the friendship, allegiance, and support comfortable white suburbanites—like of the Negro, the white liberal is able to his strategy in the early throes of his conservative. The liberal use the Negro as a pawn or tool in this career—has proven he will not build is more hypocritical political ‘football game’ that is con- long-overdue and necessary systematic than the conservative. stantly raging between the white liber- justice. Rather than championing a als and white conservatives.” popular and righteous cause, he has Both want power, but Martin Luther King Jr. would share gone out of his way to support and pay the white liberal is the similar sentiments on white centrists in homage to countless white supremacist one who has perfected his letter from the Birmingham jail- notions and institutions, twisting his house, writing, “I must confess that record to the public. Though Biden’s the art of posing as the over the past few years I have been record and words are clear, “nothing Negro’s friend and gravely disappointed with the white will fundamentally change.” benefactor; and by moderate. I have almost reached the Like Biden, the U.S. has yet to repent regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s for its past and present. For any signifi- winning the friendship, great stumbling block in his stride cant change to occur in the Biden years allegiance, and support toward freedom is not the White and beyond, it will take a sustained mass of the Negro, the white Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux movement constantly agitating institu- Klanner, but the white moderate, who tions. During the Biden years and liberal is able to use the is more devoted to ‘order’ than to jus- throughout Democratic strongholds, Negro as a pawn or tool tice; who prefers a negative peace which there will still be brutality, police mur- in this political ‘football is the absence of tension to a positive ders, and white supremacy. The only peace which is the presence of justice.” possible way for meaningful change to game’ that is constantly The warnings issued by X and King occur—not symbolic victories—is for raging between the white ring true today. all decent people to continuously take liberals and white Opposing full school integration to the streets and, by any means neces- and using rhetorical pitches reminis- sary, demand justice and freedom. conservatives.” cent of Atwater’s southern strategy As put by Martin Luther King Jr., gave Biden the political capital he “this is no time to take the tranquiliz- needed to rise through the ranks and ing drug of gradualism.”

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 23 Biden, the Emcee at the Billionaires’ Ball By Glen Ford

The Orange Era of racist rants will these periods to devour the less-rich demonize anybody who has made soon be over—just a few hundred mad and reshape the political economy to money,” Biden assured a group of 100 tweets to go till January 20th, when the their further advantage, deepening rich people in Manhattan. head flunky for the real rulers of the their dominance of society so that the Black voters may have put Biden in the USA will take over the levers of govern- Joe Bidens of the world jump higher Oval Office, but the former “Senator from ment. Joe Biden made only one cam- and come quicker when summoned. Mastercard” has always taken his orders paign promise that counts—to the only from the oligarchy. The oligarch-in- people that matter to corporate charge at the Democratic National Democrats—when he assured the par- ...the combined wealth Committee is Michael Bloomberg, who ty’s rich funders that “No one’s stan- of the 647 U.S. billion- has fronted much of the DNC’s bills this dard of living will change, nothing year. The coronavirus has been very good would fundamentally change” under aires increased by almost to Bloomberg: he added $10.5 billion to his presidency. But even as he spoke, a trillion dollars, and 33 his mega-fortune—a 22 percent back in June, the greatest change in increase—in just the two months between wealth and power relationships in U.S. new billionaires were March 18 and May 15. Such sums can buy history was in full roar, as the billionaire created, during the same every important politician in the class feasted on the COVID economy. Democratic half of the corporate duopoly. As detailed in a November 12 report by period that 22 million the Institute for Policy Studies and other Americans lost their For the Lords of Capital, control of the Democrats is critical, since they are leftish outfits, the combined wealth of jobs, many of which will the 647 U.S. billionaires increased by the party that claims to represent the almost a trillion dollars, and 33 new bil- not return when the people hardest hit by capitalist crises. lionaires were created, during the same virus has receded... (The Republican “base,” although full of period that 22 million Americans lost people in economic straits, demands only their jobs, many of which will not return that white supremacy be championed.) It when the virus has receded. The Pew The oligarchs are so obscenely rich, is the Democratic Party’s job to beat back Research Center found that “one-in- they bend all social and political institu- popular demands for social and eco- four adults have had trouble paying tions to their will. “Democracy” cannot nomic justice, because the peoples and their bills since the coronavirus out- possibly exist alongside oligarchy. It is, classes that make these demands are break started, a third have dipped into therefore, necessary that politicians like Democrats. As the crises become deeper savings or retirement accounts to make Biden pretend that the oligarchs are just and more frequent under late-stage capi- ends meet, and about one-in-six have regular folks, like the rest of us. “You talism, the oligarchy’s hold on the borrowed money from friends or family know what I’ve found is rich people are Democratic Party tightens, accordingly. or gotten food from a food bank.” just as patriotic as poor people. Not a The Black vote is key, because Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos, owner of joke. I mean, we may not want to African Americans are the most left Amazon and the Washington Post and the guy that runs the cloud where the CIA keeps its secrets, grew richer by $70 billion during the COVID crisis—a $2 billion per week increase in wealth. As a group, U.S. billionaires are one-third richer than before the coronavirus struck. What ordinary people experience as disaster is manna from heaven for the Lords of Capital. “Disaster capitalism” is only disastrous for those without capital. Every catastrophe consolidates the power of the billionaires, who use

24 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 leaning constituency in the nation, the tions that have facilitated corporate Race to the Bottom that immiserates group most in favor of income redistri- governance, for the chance to rewrite the working class and disperses Black bution—the oligarch’s nightmare— the national narrative. From now on, communities, is also responsible for and a range of other measures that the United States is on a permanent the exponential, fantastical growth of would provide working people with national security emergency footing, oligarchic wealth. The Race to the some degree of security in this cut- requiring censorship of social media, Bottom is a global phenomenon of throat capitalist economy. Therefore, draconian punishment of protesters, late-stage imperial capitalism, which the trick for keeping the austerity and 24/7 witch hunts for Russians, funnels ever-increasing proportions of regime (Race to the Bottom) on track Chinese, Venezuelans and their home- wealth upward by forcing all the is to make Blacks and their allies more grown “dupes.” world’s workers to compete against afraid of Republican racists than of rule each other. War must be endless, to by oligarch-controlled Democrats. enforce the terms of the Race on as That’s why Hillary Clinton’s campaign The coronavirus has much of the planet as possible. was so determined to run against Government social, health and income- Donald Trump, the most outrageously been very good to supports that allow workers to refuse racist Republican, in 2016, as revealed Bloomberg: he added “gig” and less-than-living wage work, by Wikileaks. $10.5 billion to his spoil the Race. But the straw-man refused to be mega-fortune—a 22 per- Biden is the oligarchs’ pick to keep knocked down. For the next four years the Race to the Bottom accelerating the Democrats, the bulk of the corpo- cent increase—in just and the profits skyrocketing. On the rate media, and the national security the two months between other side of the duopoly, the state waged the most furious and dan- Amerikkaner hordes plot vengeance gerous campaign of demonization March 18 and May 15. for their perceived loss of what W.E.B. since Lincoln was elected in 1860. Such sums can buy every Du Bois called the “public and psycho- (Trump was correct in making that important politician in logical” wages of whiteness. There is analogy but, like everything else from nothing lesser about either of these his mouth, it came out stupid.) It was a the Democratic half of evils—which is why the only real four-year, non-stop shock to the sys- the corporate duopoly. option for Black and working people is tem, administered by the bulk of the an independent politics of struggle. ruling class and their media—the big- —Black Agenda Report, November gest beneficiaries of the system. They The Lords of Capital know, better 26, 2020 risked delegitimizing the very institu- than most of the rest of us, that the https://www.blackagendareport.com/ biden-emcee-billionaires-ball

The Race to the Bottom is a global phenomenon of late-stage imperial capitalism, which funnels ever-increasing proportions of wealth upward by forcing all the world’s workers to compete against each other.

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 25 Socialists Shouldn’t Vote for the “Lesser Evil” By Robert Belano

“Pragmatism, empiricism is the pharmaceutical and banking industries. the United States, no intellectual force greatest curse of American thought. You A vote not cast for Biden is a vote for has spread more successfully than must inoculate younger comrades against Trump, say these “pragmatic” social- pragmatism, achieving a status akin to its infection.” —Leon Trotsky ists. Others on the left, such as Tithi dogma. The philosophy dominates As Joe Biden says, if he wins the Bhattacharya stopped short of calling every sphere of politics and business. election, “nothing will fundamentally socialists to vote against the two parties Even the Left, by and large, has not change.” Like all establishment of capital, instead saying that it is broken from a pragmatic outlook. Democrats, Biden represents the con- acceptable for socialists to vote for Pragmatism, put simply, is the theo- tinuation of the status quo ante Trump. Biden, as long as we vow to fight against ry of expediency. In the words of Lenin, 1 Outside of election season, Biden does his policies for the next four years. pragmatism “ridicules the metaphysics not even claim to stand on the side of both of idealism and materialism, working people. But the catastrophic acclaims experience and only experi- possibility of a second Trump term Only exceptional ence, [and] recognizes practice as the demands a “pragmatic” approach to strategic clarity and only criterion…” Any proposition, the elections November 3, say many says pragmatism, is useful only if it self-described “progressives” and more determination will build results immediately in a desired out- than a few “socialists.” the material force come. Theory and principles are tossed The common sense for progressives capable of liquidating aside as soon as they’re no longer needed to achieve an objective. and much of the U.S. Left says that, capitalism—a party of while Biden may have flaws, these flaws We don’t need to look far for prag- pale in comparison to another four the working class. matism’s influence on U.S. politics. years of Trump. Therefore, those con- American politicians, especially cerned with fighting oppression and Democrats, will rarely put forward leg- climate catastrophe are told we have Pragmatism’s importance to islation they view as unpassable in only one option—vote the lesser evil. American ideology Congress. For all the attention it has Of course, these same progressives Marx famously wrote in The German gotten, a Green New Deal has still not admit that Biden is a fierce defender of Ideology that the “The ideas of the rul- been put forward for a vote by corporate interests. He has a reaction- ing class are in every epoch the ruling Democrats. Both Republicans and ary record as a Senator and as Vice ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling Democrats tout their ability to “reach President on immigration, policing, material force of society, is at the same across the aisle” and make compro- and climate. He refuses to back free, time its ruling intellectual force.” In mises with political opponents. universal healthcare, even in the face of the largest public health crisis in a century. But his agenda differs from that of Trump. Biden would not appoint anti-choice Christian fundamentalists to the Supreme Court and does not court the fascist right. Some on the Left, like Jacobin’s Eric Blanc or New Politics’s Dan LaBotz even recognize that workers need a party of their own, a party independent of the two parties of big capital. But such a party is years (or more!) away, they say, so we must support the best candidate we have now—even if that candidate happens to be a friend of the fossil fuel,

26 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Candidates for office flip positions Blanc, they should also “get out the In the 19th century, American prag- overnight depending on what constitu- vote for Biden” in every way possible. matism’s most notable figures includ- ency needs to be won. Kamala Harris, Any principles of class independence ed William James and Charles Pierce; for example, unequivocally declared and anti-imperialism should be tem- in the first half of the 20th, John Dewey her intention to ban fracking during porarily put aside in order to win a was progressive pragmatism’s theoreti- the Democratic primaries, and Joe more favorable terrain for the left. cal leader. Dewey was perhaps the most Biden suggested he’d do the same. In September, an open letter enti- well-known educator and public phi- Now, however, the Biden-Harris ticket tled “Dump Trump, Then Battle losopher in the United States. He vigorously defends fracking, given the Biden” was published and signed by chaired the philosophy department at importance of winning Pennsylvania dozens of progressive figures like the University of Chicago, which and reassuring the fossil fuel industry. Noam Chomsky and Barbara included both psychology and peda- And nowhere is pragmatism more Ehrenreich and even some who iden- gogy. He helped found New York’s evident than in business. Capitalism’s tify themselves as Marxists like Dan New School. His work continues to emphasis on short-term profit man- LaBotz and Victor Wallis. Biden, the influence models for public education dates pragmatic decisions rather than authors admit, is “beholden to corpo- across the country. During the Moscow overarching theories. Trial-and-error is rate interests.” However, “ending the Trials, Dewey’s progressivism led to his its modus operandi. Quarterly profit Trump presidency is, by far, the most leadership of the Commission of reports, rather than long-term strate- important goal that can be achieved Inquiry, which came to be known as gies, guide the actions of corporations. between now and January.” Chomsky the Dewey Commission, to investigate In this way, despite lofty “mission state- described Trump as “the worst crimi- the charges brought against Leon ments” and humanitarian “core val- nal in history, undeniably.” (We will Trotsky by the Stalinist regime in the ues,” businesses will throw ten thou- ignore for that moment that Chomsky Soviet Union. In a major defeat for sand workers in the streets from one and other progressives described Bush Stalinism internationally, the Dewey day to the next if the situation demands II in similar terms, justifying their Commission would go on to clear it. Exxon, Shell, and BP will continue to appeal for a lesser evil vote in 2004.) Trotsky’s name, although on a prag- extract and burn fossil fuels even as The only “pragmatic” response, given matic rather than a Marxist basis. carbon emissions threaten the very these circumstances, is to support Dewey’s philosophy rejected grand existence of human society. The phar- Biden in the upcoming elections. theories as a means to obtaining knowledge. Truth is determined by practical maceutical giants will not share trade Unfortunately, Biden’s own prag- activity above all. Dewey, therefore, secrets with each other even though matism allows him to shift further and stood in opposition to both fascism and cooperation would mean the faster further to the right, courting conserva- Marxism. “For in spite of itself any development of vaccines and life-saving tives, Wall Street, and big capital, with movement that thinks and acts in terms medicines, because any shared knowl- the conviction that he has the “pro- of an ’ism becomes so involved in reac- edge would threaten their bottom line. gressive vote” already locked up. So, tion against other ’isms that it is unwit- Biden can declare, without much hesi- tingly controlled by them. For it then The pragmatic Left tation, his support for the repressive forms its principles by reaction against This logic of pragmatism has regret- and racist police forces around the them instead of by a comprehensive, tably contaminated the discourse with- country even in the face of an uprising constructive survey of actual needs, in the U.S. Left too. This manifestation against police violence. “Shoot them in problems, and possibilities,” he wrote. of “left” pragmatism can be seen most the leg,” says the Democratic candi- clearly in the campaign to vote for the date. Having earned the high praise of The political expression of progres- lesser evil. Neal Meyer and Eric Blanc progressives for his climate plan, Biden sive pragmatism in the late 19th and from the Bread and Roses caucus of the can quickly change course to appeal to early 20th century was populism, with DSA (Democratic Socialists of the oil and gas executives, stating parties like the People’s Party, the America,) in their unironically titled openly that “we’re not getting rid of Progressive Party, and the Farmer- “This Time It’s Different,” call Biden a fossil fuels for a long time.” Labor Party which sought to temper “hardened neoliberal,” and “not a capitalism’s worst impulses but with- friend of the working class,” but are Pragmatism’s historical roots out seeking to overturn it. Populism, a ready to back him until November 3 To understand how the logic of prag- movement of the small farmers and the because of the “unprecedented threat” matism rose to such prominence in the middle class, needed pragmatism. posed by Trump. And not only should United States, we must take a brief look Why? The idealism of Kant or Hegel socialists vote for Biden, say Meyer and at its historical theorists and expressions. taught that freedom could be achieved

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 27 in the mind. But the struggling middle rial production, their thinkers turned support today. They ignore, however, classes needed practical activity to pro- away from theories which justified pur- that it was the logic of lesser evilism tect themselves against big capitalist suits not immediately productive or that has been largely responsible for monopolies. Hence, pragmatism was a gainful.” The self-made man, pragma- the absence of such a party. A party of reflection of their class interests. tism’s highest ideal, has no use for the working class does not drop out of Pragmatism vs. Marxism dogma. He overcomes the obstacles in the sky. It requires years of dedicated front of him through his own ingenuity. work by revolutionaries who reject all In understanding the conflict cooperation with the capitalist class. It between pragmatism and revolution- Pragmatism also drew heavily from the influence of Darwin, whose theory requires exposing the Democrats at ary Marxist theory, an instructive text every opportunity as defenders of is George Novack’s book Pragmatism of natural selection challenged the church and the feudal order. Though imperialism, mass incarceration, vs. Marxism: An Appraisal of John deportations, and fossil fuel extraction. Dewey’s Philosophy. In his introduc- revolutionary for the sciences at the time, Darwin’s evolutionary ideas were Such work necessarily precludes the tion, Novack says he undertook the strategy of “lesser evilism,” which tells work as a fulfillment of Trotsky’s wish still a product of his bourgeois world- view. Unlike Marx and Engels, the us every four years that the working to see a “thorough critique of pragma- class needs to line up behind the liberal tism from a Marxist standpoint.” great English naturalist excluded the possibility of sudden and rapid chang- wing of the ruling class. When Novack visited Trotsky in es. Evolution, in Darwin’s view, could Pragmatism is fundamentally inca- Mexico, the old Bolshevik said “Upon only take place gradually. It was an pable of putting forward a strategy for going back to the United States, you outlook that fit perfectly with pragma- liberation of the working class and the comrades must at once take up the tism since pragmatists never proposed oppressed. It substitutes shortcuts, like struggle against [Max] Eastman’s dis- the overthrow of the existing order, but voting for the lesser evil, for the resolu- tortion and repudiation of dialectical rather its continual improvement tion of the strategic problems that arise materialism. There is nothing more through reforms. It was clear to the in revolutionary struggle. Winning important than this. Pragmatism, pragmatists that capitalism had created socialism requires a rejection of prag- empiricism is the greatest curse of immense wealth for a small minority matic logic. Only exceptional strategic American thought. You must inoculate while the majority suffered. But they clarity and determination will build the younger comrades against its infection.” clung to the belief that by tinkering material force capable of liquidating Novack’s contribution came 30 around the edges, a just and demo- capitalism—a party of the working class. years after the murder of the Russian cratic capitalist society could be built. —Left Voice, November 2, 2020 revolutionary leader at the hands of a Yet despite these progressive begin- https://www.leftvoice.org/against- Stalinist agent in Mexico. Novack notes nings, says Novack, “pragmatism was that pragmatism originated among the pragmatism-socialists-shouldnt-vote- to be sucked under by the ebb tide of for-the-lesser-evil middle class of the newly-formed capitalist reaction as the twentieth cen- United States, a nation generally unen- tury unfolded.” Pragmatism is the cumbered by the old pre-capitalist guiding philosophy behind imperial- 1 Correction: This article previously stated institutions of Europe such as the ism’s conquest of the globe. Allies and that Spectre editor Tithi Bhattacharya said that church or the aristocracy. There was socialists must support Joe Biden. The article enemies are determined not by their has been amended to reflect her position. no reverence either for the divine right level of “democracy” or “human of kings. The United States “became a rights” but rather their willingness to happy hunting ground for adventurers, carry out U.S. objectives. Calculations innovators, enterprising individuals on about whether or not to launch new the move and on the make. The spirit military interventions are made over of initiative, the willingness to disre- the public support and impact on the gard routine and try something new to deficit, not any respect for sovereignty see what comes out of it is a deep trait or human life. of the American character.” This need to innovate and to toss A workers’ party requires a break aside long-held beliefs was therefore the from pragmatism basis of American pragmatism. As The pragmatic Left is correct when Novack says, “Just as the bourgeoisie they point out that there is no workers’ repudiated unproductive labor in mate- party in the United States that we can

28 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop By Officer A. Cab

Why am I writing this nage of recycling. When homeless peo- As someone who went through the ple “stole” that recycling from the training, hiring, and socialization of a waste management company, they career in law enforcement, I wanted to give were putting that cheaper contract in a first-hand account of why I believe police peril. So, we were to arrest as many officers are the way they are. Not to excuse recyclers as we could find. their behavior, but to explain it and to Even for me, this was a stupid policy indict the structures that perpetuate it. and I promptly blew Sarge off. But a I believe that if everyone understood few hours later, Sarge called me over to how we’re trained and brought up in the assist him. He was detaining a 70-year- profession, it would inform the demands old immigrant who spoke no English, our communities should be making of a who he’d seen picking a coke can out new way of community safety. If I tell of a trash bin. He ordered me to arrest Officer A. Cab you how we were made, I hope it will her for stealing trash. I said, “Sarge, empower you to unmake us. c’mon, she’s an old lady.” He said, “I I was a police officer for nearly ten One of the other reasons I’ve struggled don’t give a shit. Hook her up, that’s an years and I was a bastard. We all were. to write this essay is that I don’t want to order.” And…I did. She cried the entire center the conversation on myself and way to the station and all through the This essay has been kicking around in booking process. I couldn’t even com- my head for years now and I’ve never felt my big salty boo-hoo feelings about my bad choices. It’s a toxic white impulse to fort her because I didn’t speak Spanish. confident enough to write it. It’s a time I felt disgusting but I was ordered to in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time see atrocities and think “How can I make this about me?” So, I hope you’ll take me make this arrest and I wasn’t willing to that I hurt people and, through inaction, lose my job for her. allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that at my word that this account isn’t meant I acted as a violent agent of capitalism to highlight me, but rather the hundred- If you’re tempted to feel sympathy for and white supremacy. Under the guise of thousand of me in every city in the coun- me, don’t. I used to happily hassle the public safety, I personally ruined people’s try. It’s about the structure that made homeless under other circumstances. I lives but in so doing, made the public no me (that I chose to pollute myself with) researched obscure penal codes so I safer…so did the family members and and it’s my meager contribution to the could arrest people in homeless encamp- close friends of mine who also bore the cause of radical justice. ments for lesser known crimes like “remaining too close to railroad proper- badge alongside me. Yes, all cops are bastards ty” (369i of the California Penal Code.) I But enough is enough. I was a police officer in a major met- used to call it “planting warrant seeds” The reforms aren’t working. ropolitan area in California with a since I knew they wouldn’t make their Incrementalism isn’t happening. predominantly poor, non-white popu- court dates and we could arrest them Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people lation (with a large proportion of first- again and again for warrant violations. of color are being killed by cops in the generation immigrants.) One night during briefing, our watch commander We used to have informal contests streets and the police are savagely attack- for who could cite or arrest someone for ing the people protesting these murders. told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. the weirdest law. DUI on a bicycle, non- American policing is a thick blue Against murderers, drug dealers, or regulation number of brooms on your tumor strangling the life from our com- child predators? tow truck (27700(a)(1) of the California munities and if you don’t believe it when Vehicle Code…shit like that. For me, the poor and the marginalized say it, if No, against homeless people collect- police work was a logic puzzle for arrest- you don’t believe it when you see cops ing cans from recycling bins. ing people, regardless of their actual across the country shooting journalists See, the city had some kickback deal threat to the community. As ashamed as with less-lethal bullets and caustic chem- with the waste management company I am to admit it, it needs to be said: icals, maybe you’ll believe it when you where waste management got paid by stripping people of their freedom felt hear it straight from the pig’s mouth. the government for our expected ton- like a game to me for many years.

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 29 I know what you’re going to ask: did could claim they were assaulted. I was protecting yourself more than anyone I ever plant drugs? Did I ever plant a particularly good at winding people up else. The majority of my time in the gun on someone? Did I ever make a verbally until they lashed out so I could academy was spent doing aggressive false arrest or file a false report? Believe fight them. Nobody spoke out. Nobody physical training and watching video it or not, the answer is no. Cheating was stood up. Nobody betrayed the code. after video after video of police officers no fun, I liked to get my stats the “legit- None of us protected the people being murdered on duty. imate” way. But I knew officers who (you) from bad cops. I want to highlight this: nearly kept a little baggie of whatever or maybe everyone coming into law enforcement a pocket knife that was a little too big in This is why “All cops are bastards.” Even your uncle, even your cousin, is bombarded with dash cam footage of their war bags (yeah, we called our police officers being ambushed and dufflebags “war bags….) Did I ever tell even your mom, even your brother, even your best friend, even your killed. Over and over and over. anybody about it? No, I did not. Did I Colorless VHS mortality plays, cops ever confess my suspicions when spouse, even me. Because even if they wouldn’t Do The Thing themselves, screaming for help over their radios, cocaine suddenly showed up in a gang their bodies going limp as a pair of tail- member’s jacket? No, I did not. they will almost never rat out another officer who Does The Thing, much less lights speed away into a grainy black In fact, let me tell you about an stop it from happening. horizon. In my case, with commentary extremely formative experience: in my from an old racist cop who used to police academy class, we had a clique brag about assaulting Black Panthers. of around six trainees who routinely Understand: To understand why all cops are bas- bullied and harassed other students: tards, you need to understand one of intentionally scuffing another trainee’s Police officers are part the things almost every training officer shoes to get them in trouble during of the state monopoly told me when it came to using force: inspection, sexually harassing female “I’d rather be judged by 12 than car- trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on violence and all ried by six.” on. Every quarter, we were to write police training anonymous evaluations of our squad- reinforces this Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in mates. I wrote scathing accounts of court rather than risk getting hurt.” their behavior, thinking I was helping monopoly as a We’re able to think that way because keep bad apples out of law enforce- cornerstone of police police unions are extremely overpower- ing and because of the generous concept ment and believing I would be pro- work, a source of tected. Instead, the academy staff read of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory my complaints to them out loud and honor and pride. which says a cop generally can’t be held outed me to them and never punished personally liable for mistakes they make them, causing me to get harassed for doing their job in an official capacity. the rest of my academy class. That’s Bastard 101 When you look at the actions of the how I learned that even police leader- I could write an entire book of the officers who killed George Floyd, ship hates rats. That’s why no one is awful things I’ve done, seen done, and Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike “changing things from the inside.” heard others bragging about doing. Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, They can’t, the structure won’t allow it. But, to me, the bigger question is Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember And that’s the point of what I’m “How did it get this way?” While I was that they, like me, were trained to recite telling you. Whether you were my ser- a police officer in a city 30 miles from “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. geant, legally harassing an old woman, where I lived, many of my fellow offi- Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city me, legally harassing our residents, my cers were from the community and (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) fellow trainees bullying the rest of us, treated their neighbors just as badly as pays the settlement, not the officer. or “the bad apples” illegally harassing I did. While every cop’s individual Once police training has—through “shitbags,” we were all in it together. I biases come into play, it’s the profes- repetition, indoctrination, and violent knew cops that pulled women over to sion itself that is toxic, and it starts spectacle—promised officers that flirt with them. I knew cops who would from day-one of training. everyone in the world is out to kill pepper spray sleeping bags so that Every police academy is different them, the next lesson is that your part- homeless people would have to throw but all of them share certain features— ners are the only people protecting them away. I knew cops that intention- taught by old cops, run like a paramili- you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve ally provoked anger in suspects so they tary bootcamp, strong emphasis on had encounters turn on me rapidly to

30 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 the point I legitimately thought I was all police training reinforces this the DA.” The police will never going to die, only to have other officers monopoly as a cornerstone of police help you look good in court. come and turn the tables. work, a source of honor and pride. • Police officers will lie about what One of the most important thought Many cops fantasize about getting to they see and hear to access pri- leaders in law enforcement is Colonel kill someone in the line of duty, egged vate property to conduct unlaw- on by others that have. One of my Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who ful searches. training officers told me about the time wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, • Police officers will lie and say and Sheepdogs.” Cops are the sheep- he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He your friend already ratted you dogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the out, so you might as well rat citizens are the sheep (!). Colonel bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you them back out. This is almost Grossman makes sure to mention that never true. to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more how to be violent effectively and when • like wolves than sheep, and that’s why you’re legally allowed to deploy that Police officers will lie and say they dislike you. violence, but “unofficial training” you’re not in trouble in order to teaches you to desire violence, to get you to exit a location or oth- This “they hate you for protecting expand the breadth of your violence erwise make an arrest more con- them and only I love you, only I can without getting caught, and to erode venient for them. protect you” tactic is familiar to stu- your own compassion for desperate • dents of abuse. It’s what abusers do to Police officers will lie and say people so you can justify punitive vio- that they won’t arrest you if you’ll coerce their victims into isolation, lence against them. pulling them away from friends and just “be honest with them” so family and ensnaring them in the abus- they know what really happened. er’s toxic web. Law enforcement does Under no circumstances • Police officers will lie about their this too, pitting the officer against civil- ability to seize the property of ians. “They don’t understand what you assume any police friends and family members to do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, officer is acting in coerce a confession. they just want to get away with crimes. good faith. • Police officers will write obvi- You’re only safe with us.” ously bullshit tickets so that they I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs get time-and-a-half overtime dynamic is one of the most important How to be a bastard fighting them in court. elements as to why officers behave the I have participated in some of these • Police officers will search places way they do. Every single second of my activities personally, others are ones I and containers you didn’t con- training, I was told that criminals were either witnessed personally or heard offi- sent to and later claim they were not a legitimate part of their commu- cers brag about openly. Very, very occa- open or “smelled like marijuana.” nity, that they were individual bad sionally, I knew an officer who was disci- • Police officers will threaten you actors, and that their bad actions were plined or fired for one of these things. with a more serious crime they solely the result of their inherent crim- • can’t prove in order to convince inality. Any concept of systemic trau- Police officers will lie about the you to confess to the lesser crime ma, generational poverty, or white law, about what’s illegal, or about they really want you for. supremacist oppression was either what they can legally do to you in order to manipulate you into never mentioned or simply dismissed. • Police officers will employ zero doing what they want. After all, most people don’t steal, so tolerance on races and ethnici- anyone who does isn’t “most people,” • Police officers will lie about feel- ties they dislike and show favor right? To us, anyone committing a ing afraid for their life to justify a and lenience to members of their crime deserved anything that hap- use of force after the fact. own group. pened to them because they broke the • Police officers will lie and tell • Police officers will use intention- “social contract.” And yet, it was never you they’ll file a police report ally extra-painful maneuvers and even a question as to whether the just to get you off their back. holds during an arrest to provoke power structure above them was hon- • Police officers will lie that your “resistance” so they can further oring any sort of contract back. cooperation will “look good for assault the suspect. Understand: Police officers are part you” in court, or that they will • Some police officers will plant of the state monopoly on violence and “put in a good word for you with drugs and weapons on you,

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 31 sometimes to teach you a lesson, anything good. And the answer is, sure, sional, a conflict negotiator, a social sometimes if they kill you some- sometimes. In fact, most officers I worker, a child advocate, a traffic safety where away from public view. worked with thought they were usually expert, a sexual assault specialist, and, • Some police officers will assault helping the helpless and protecting the every once in awhile, a public safety you to intimidate you and threat- safety of innocent people. officer authorized to use force, all after en to arrest you if you tell anyone. During my tenure in law enforce- only a 1000 hours of training at a police academy. Does the person we send to • A non-trivial number of police ment, I protected women from domestic abusers, arrested cold-blooded mur- catch a robber also need to be the per- officers will steal from your son we send to interview a rape victim house or vehicle during a search. derers and child molesters, and com- forted families who lost children to car or document a fender bender? Should • A non-trivial number of police accidents and other tragedies. I helped one profession be expected to do all officers commit intimate partner connect struggling people in my com- that important community care (with violence and use their status to munity with local resources for food, very little training) all at the same time? get away with it. shelter, and counseling. I deescalated To put this another way: I made • A non-trivial number of police situations that could have turned vio- double the salary most social workers officers use their position to lent and talked a lot of people down made to do a fraction of what they could entice, coerce, or force sexual from making the biggest mistake of do to mitigate the causes of crimes and favors from vulnerable people. their lives. I worked with plenty of offi- desperation. I can count very few times If you take nothing else away from cers who were individually kind, bought my monopoly on state violence actually this essay, I want you to tattoo this food for homeless residents, or other- made our citizens safer, and even then, onto your brain forever: if a police offi- wise showed care for their community. it’s hard to say better-funded social cer is telling you something, it is prob- The question is this: did I need a safety nets and dozens of other commu- ably a lie designed to gain your compli- gun and sweeping police powers to nity care specialists wouldn’t have pre- ance. help the average person on the average vented a problem before it started. Do not talk to cops and never, ever night? The answer is no. When I was Armed, indoctrinated (and dare I believe them. Do not “try to be help- doing my best work as a cop, I was say, traumatized) cops do not make ful” with cops. Do not assume they are doing mediocre work as a therapist or you safer; community mutual aid net- trying to catch someone else instead of a social worker. My good deeds were works who can unite other people with you. Do not assume what they are listening to people failed by the system the resources they need to stay fed, doing is “important” or even legal. and trying to unite them with any clothed, and housed make you safer. I Under no circumstances assume any crumbs of resources the structure was really want to hammer this home: police officer is acting in good faith. currently denying them. every cop in your neighborhood is damaged by their training, embold- Also, and this is important, do not It’s also important to note that well ened by their immunity, and they have talk to cops. over 90 percent of the calls for service I handled were reactive, showing up well a gun and the ability to take your life I just remembered something, do after a crime had taken place. We with near-impunity. This does not not talk to cops. would arrive, take a statement, collect make you safer, even if you’re white. Checking my notes real quick, evidence (if any), file the report, and something jumped out at me: onto the next caper. Most “active” How do you solve a problem Do not fucking talk to cops. Ever. crimes we stopped were someone like a bastard? harmless possessing or selling a small So, what do we do about it? Even Say, “I don’t answer questions,” and amount of drugs. Very, very rarely though I’m an expert on bastardism, I ask if you’re free to leave; if so, leave. If would we stop something dangerous in am not a public policy expert nor an not, tell them you want your lawyer progress or stop something from hap- expert in organizing a post-police soci- and that, per the Supreme Court, they pening entirely. The closest we could ety. So, before I give some suggestions, must terminate questioning. If they usually get was seeing someone run- let me tell you what probably won’t don’t, file a complaint and collect some ning away from the scene of a crime, solve the problem of bastard cops: badges for your mantle. but the damage was still done. • Increased “bias” training. A Do the bastards ever help? And consider this: my job as a police quarterly or even monthly train- Reading the above, you may be officer required me to be a marriage ing session is not capable of cov- tempted to ask whether cops ever do counselor, a mental health crisis profes- ering over years of trauma-based

32 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 camaraderie in police forces. I impossible to fire bad cops and I know what you’re thinking, “What? can tell you from experience, we incentivize protecting them to We need the police! They protect us!” don’t take it seriously, the proc- protect the power of the union. A As someone who did it for nearly a tors let us cheat on whatever police union is not a labor union; decade, I need you to understand that “tests” there are, and we all made police officers are powerful state by and large, police protection is mar- fun of it later over coffee. agents, not exploited workers. ginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created • Tougher laws. I hope you under- by decades of copaganda designed to stand by now, cops do not follow fool you into thinking these brave men the law and will not hold each Armed, indoctrinated and women are holding back the bar- barians at the gates. other accountable to the law. (and dare I say, trauma- Tougher laws are all the more I alluded to this above: the vast reason to circle the wagons and tized) cops do not make majority of calls for service I handled protect your brothers and sisters. you safer; community were theft reports, burglary reports, • More community policing pro- mutual aid networks domestic arguments that hadn’t escalated into violence, loud parties, grams. Yes, there is a marginal who can unite other peo- effect when a few cops get to (houseless) people loitering, traffic col- know members of the communi- ple with the resources lisions, very minor drug possession, ty, but look at the protests of 2020: they need to stay fed, and arguments between neighbors. many of the cops pepper-spraying Mostly the mundane ups and downs of journalists were probably the nice clothed, and housed life in the community, with little inher- school cop a month ago. make you safer. ent danger. And, like I mentioned, the vast majority of crimes I responded to Police officers do not protect and (even violent ones) had already hap- serve people, they protect and serve the pened; my unaccountable license to status quo, “polite society,” and private • Require malpractice insurance. kill was irrelevant. property. Using the incremental mech- Doctors must pay for insurance anisms of the status quo will never in case they botch a surgery, What I mainly provided was an reform the police because the status police officers should do the “objective” third party with the author- quo relies on police violence to exist. same for botching a police raid ity to document property damage, ask Capitalism requires a permanent or other use of force. If human people to chill out or disperse, or underclass to exploit for cheap labor decency won’t motivate police to counsel people not to beat each other and it requires the cops to bring that respect human life, perhaps hit- up. A trained counselor or conflict underclass to heel. ting their wallet might. resolution specialist would be ten- times more effective than someone Instead of wasting time with minor • Defund, demilitarize, and dis- with a gun strapped to his hip wonder- tweaks, I recommend exploring the arm cops. Thousands of police following ideas: departments own assault rifles, ing if anyone would try to kill him armored personnel carriers, and when he showed up. There are many • No more qualified immunity. stuff you’d see in a warzone. models for community safety that can Police officers should be person- Police officers have grants and be explored if we get away from the ally liable for all decisions they huge budgets to spend on guns, idea that the only way to be safe is to make in the line of duty. ammo, body armor, and combat have a man with a M4 rifle prowling • No more civil asset forfeiture. Did training. 99 percent of calls for your neighborhood ready at a you know that every year, citizens service require no armed moment’s notice to write down your like you lose more cash and prop- response, yet when all you have name and birthday after you’ve been erty to unaccountable civil asset is a gun, every problem feels like robbed and beaten. forfeiture than to all burglaries target practice. Cities are not You might be asking, “What about combined? The police can steal safer when unaccountable bullies the armed robbers, the gangsters, the your stuff without charging you have a monopoly on state vio- drug dealers, the serial killers?” And with a crime and it makes some lence and the equipment to exe- yes, in the city I worked, I regularly police departments very rich. cute that monopoly. broke up gang parties, found gang • Break the power of police unions. One final idea: consider abolishing members carrying guns, and handled Police unions make it nearly the police. homicides. I’ve seen some tragic things,

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 33 from a reformed gangster shot in the asking. I’ll tell you what: generational social and ideological landscapes of head with his brains oozing out to a poverty, food insecurity, houselessness, our society. In other words, we would fifteen-year-old boy taking his last and for-profit medical care are all prob- not be looking for prisonlike substi- breath in his screaming mother’s arms lems that can be solved in our lifetimes tutes for the prison, such as house thanks to a gang member’s bullet. I by rejecting the dehumanizing meat arrest safeguarded by electronic sur- know the wages of violence. grinder of capitalism and white suprem- veillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching acy. Once that’s done, we can work on This is where we have to have the strategy, we would try to envision a courage to ask: why do people rob? the edge cases together, with clearer continuum of alternatives to impris- Why do they join gangs? Why do they hearts not clouded by a corrupt system. onment—demilitarization of schools, get addicted to drugs or sell them? It’s revitalization of education at all lev- not because they are inherently evil. I els, a health system that provides free submit to you that these are the results Police officers do not physical and mental care to all, and a of living in a capitalist system that justice system based on reparation protect and serve people, and reconciliation rather than retri- grinds people down and denies them bution and vengeance.” (Are Prisons housing, medical care, human dignity, they protect and serve Obsolete, pg. 107) and a say in their government. These the status quo, “polite I’m not telling you I have the blue- are the results of white supremacy society,” and private pushing people to the margins, exclud- print for a beautiful new world. What ing them, disrespecting them, and property. I’m telling you is that the system we treating their bodies as disposable. have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways Equally important to remember— Police abolition is closely related to of doing community together. Those disabled and mentally ill people are the idea of prison abolition and the new ways need to be negotiated by frequently killed by police officers not entire concept of banishing the carceral members of those communities, par- trained to recognize and react to dis- state, meaning, creating a society ticularly Black, indigenous, disabled, abilities or mental health crises. Some focused on reconciliation and restor- houseless, and citizens of color histori- of the people we picture as “violent ative justice instead of punishment, cally shoved into the margins of soci- offenders” are often people struggling pain, and suffering—a system that sees ety. Instead of letting Fox News fill your with untreated mental illness, often people in crisis as humans, not mon- head with nightmares about Hispanic due to economic hardships. Very fre- sters. People who want to abolish the gangs, ask the Hispanic community quently, the officers sent to “protect police typically also want to abolish what they need to thrive. Instead of let- the community” escalate this crisis and prisons, and the same questions get ting racist politicians scaremonger ultimately wound or kill the person. asked: “What about the bad guys? about pro-Black demonstrators, ask Your community was not made safer Where do we put them?” I bring this up the Black community what they need by police violence; a sick member of because abolitionists don’t want to sim- to meet the needs of the most vulnera- your community was killed because it ply replace cops with armed social ble. If you truly desire safety, ask not was cheaper than treating them. Are workers or prisons with casual deten- what your most vulnerable can do for you extremely confident you’ll never tion centers full of puffy leather couch- the community, ask what the commu- get sick one day too? es and Playstations. We imagine a world nity can do for the most vulnerable. Wrestle with this for a minute: if all not divided into good guys and bad of someone’s material needs were met guys, but rather a world where people’s A world with fewer bastards is and all the members of their commu- needs are met and those in crisis receive possible nity were fed, clothed, housed, and care, not dehumanization. If you take only one thing away from dignified, why would they need to join Here’s legendary activist and think- this essay, I hope it’s this: do not talk to a gang? Why would they need to risk er Angela Y. Davis putting it better cops. But if you only take two things their lives selling drugs or breaking than I ever could: away, I hope the second one is that it’s into buildings? If mental healthcare possible to imagine a different world “An abolitionist approach that was free and was not stigmatized, how where unarmed Black people, indige- many lives would that save? seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a nous people, poor people, disabled Would there still be a few bad actors constellation of alternative strategies people, and people of color are not in the world? Sure, probably. What’s and institutions, with the ultimate routinely gunned down by unaccount- my solution for them, you’re no doubt aim of removing the prison from the able police officers. It doesn’t have to be

34 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 this way. Yes, this requires a leap of faith into community models that might feel unfamiliar, but I ask you: When you see a man dying in the street begging for breath, don’t you want to leap away from that world? When you see a mother or a daughter shot to death sleeping in their beds, don’t you want to leap away from that world? When you see a twelve-year-old boy executed in a public park for the crime of playing with a toy, Jesus fucking Christ, can you really just stand there and think “This is normal?” And to any cops who made it this far down, is this really the world you want to live in? Aren’t you tired of the trauma? Aren’t you tired of the soul sickness inherent to the badge? Aren’t you tired of looking the other way when your partners break the law? Are Look, I wouldn’t have been able to line with the fear of death, or can you you really willing to kill the next George hear any of this for much of my life. picture a world where, as a communi- Floyd, the next Breonna Taylor, the You, reading this now, may not be able ty, we embrace our most vulnerable, next Tamir Rice? How confident are to hear this yet either. But do me this meet their needs, heal their wounds, you that your next use of force will be one favor: just think about it. Just turn honor their dignity, and make them something you’re proud of? I’m writ- it over in your mind for a couple min- family instead of desperate outsiders? ing this for you too: it’s wrong what utes. “Yes, And” me for a minute. Look If you take only three things away our training did to us, it’s wrong that around you and think about the kind from this essay, I hope the third is this: they hardened our hearts to our com- of world you want to live in. Is it one you and your community don’t need munities, and it’s wrong to pretend where an all-powerful stranger with a bastards to thrive. this is normal. gun keeps you and your neighbors in —Medium, June 6, 2020 https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/ confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop- bb14d17bc759

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 35 U.S. Government has Blood of Millions on its Hands By Dr. Nayvin Gordon

Trump has repeatedly said that the There is still no science-based https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/politics/ cure can’t be worse than the disease— national policy to crush and eliminate scott-atlas-resigns-trump-administration-coro- crushing the COVID-19 pandemic is not the disease. All we hear about is control- navirus-task-force/index.html worth the cost. Congress, on a nearly ling the spread to prevent hospitals 2 https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/12/ stanford-doctors-take-aim-at-former-colleague- unanimous basis, passed the CARES Act from being overwhelmed. The news scott-atlas-trumps-new-adviser-on-the-covid- which transferred trillions of dollars to media is filled with reports about the 19-pandemic/ Wall Street and Corporate America, but it need to slow, control, contain, and 3 https://gbdeclaration.org/ is “too costly” to eradicate the disease and manage—no mention of stopping, 4 https://www.washingtonpost.com/out- protect the lives of millions. Trump’s eradicating or eliminating COVID-19 look/2020/10/14/herd-immunity-barrington- favorite advisor Dr. Atlas1, a member of through basic scientific public health declaration/ the right-wing conservative Hoover practice which requires tens-of-millions 5 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/ Institute, advocates an anti-scientific, of tests, tracking, and isolation of the NEJMe2029812 deadly “herd immunity”—deliberately infected. The editors of the respected allowing the disease to spread through the New England Journal of Medicine main- Continued from page 15 population. Dr. Atlas was publicly tain that the standard public health ties,” Chuck Collins, a senior scholar at 2 denounced by many Stanford doctors. practices have large effects and are not the Institute for Policy Studies and one All reputable health authorities know being followed or enforced. Strict quar- of the authors of the report, wrote in a that the science of “herd immunity” is antine, aggressive tracing and isolation Common Dreams op-ed published achieved by mass vaccination to protect were effective in China, Singapore, Wednesday. the population from disease. South Korea and New Zealand have succeeded in eliminating the disease.5 “The contrast between billionaires The White House supports the sci- making no sacrifice while their essen- ence deniers at the right wing think The rich, the one percent, and poli- tial workers make the ultimate sacri- tank, the American Institute for ticians in many countries, have fice, risking their health, their families, Economic Research, that recently pub- demanded that business open and we and their livelihoods is both unethical lished the Great Barrington get back to work while they take no and corrupt,” Collins added. 3 responsibility for economic suffering, Declaration. This document advo- The report was produced by cates allowing widespread infections, illness and death. They have failed their United Nations responsibility to pro- Bargaining for the Common Good, the illness and death through an anti-sci- Institute for Policy Studies, and United entific policy of “herd immunity.” The tect, and are committing crimes against humanity defined as: Other inhumane for Respect and published in partner- Washington Post writes, “The plan of ship with Action Center on Race and The Great Barrington Declaration is acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious inju- the Economy, Americans for Financial endorsing what the president’s policy Reform, Jobs With Justice, New York has been for months.”4 This criminally ry to body or to mental or physical health. The blood of millions is on Communities for Change, Step Up homicidal policy has already resulted Louisiana, and Working Washington. in over 317 thousand U.S. deaths as of their hands. December 20, 2020. Demand life and social needs before —Common Dreams, November 18, 2020 profits—protection at work, health https://www.commondreams.org/ coverage, and economic support while news/2020/11/18/billionaire-bonanza- isolated and unable to work. Demand continues-workers-pounded-pandemic- millions of tests daily, an army of recession-and-gop-relief?cd- trackers, and safe isolation units. We must eradicate this disease to prevent 1 “The Latest: U.S. reaches nearly quarter the catastrophe of millions more infec- million daily cases” tions and deaths. The Associated Press, December 19, 2020 https://apnews.com/article/turkey-coronavirus-pandemic-china-coronavirus-vaccine- 1 “Dr. Scott Atlas resigns November 30, 202 michael-pence-1c4be49acc0fd69f4b9248f- from Trump administration” 53cb8491e

36 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 COVID Economy: A Deliberate Disaster By Bruce Lesnick

With nearly 12 million cases and a The question for now is this: in the sal care during a pandemic is quarter million deaths in the U.S. so far midst of a raging pandemic, was self-defeating. (over 55 million cases and 1.3 million immense economic hardship and dis- 2. Provide a significant monthly deaths world-wide), the COVID 19 ruption necessary? payment ($1,000 or greater) to pandemic is ravaging civilization. The The answer is a resounding no. each adult and child while the disease is on track to be the deadliest pandemic lasts. Among other epidemic since 1918. things, the success of any quar- The economic fallout for the work- China, with more than antine depends on people being ing class has been severe. In the U.S., four times the U.S. pop- financially able to stay at home. unemployment has skyrocketed, with For efficiency, there should be no 45.4 million new unemployment claims ulation has had 1/50th as means testing. Later, reclaim since March 14. At least 1/6 of those many fatalities... some of this income from those with jobs before the pandemic are now at the top through a special tax out of work. According to the New York on the wealthiest. Five basic measures could have pre- Times, “The economic downturn is 3. Institute a moratorium on all vented—and still could greatly miti- shaping up to be particularly devastat- loan, rent and mortgage pay- gate—the COVID economic night- ing for renters, who are more likely to ments. This is not a deferral of mare in the U.S.: be lower-income and work hourly jobs payments that accumulate dur- cut during the pandemic.” As many as 1. Full, no-cost healthcare for ing the pandemic but the com- 40 million, or up to 43 percent of rent- everyone while the pandemic plete suspension of those charges ers, may be facing eviction by the end of lasts. This should cover all until the pandemic ends. At the the year. Breadlines not seen for gener- healthcare needs, not just end of the pandemic, payments ations now stretch for miles. Tens-of- COVID 19 related care. No one would resume as if no payments thousands of small businesses have should need to delay seeking had been missed; no additional closed; millions more are threatened care for any reason during a pan- back payments would be owed. and may not survive. demic. Arguably, such universal (To include credit card payments care is a right that ought to be in the moratorium, there would Strikingly, all of this was completely available whether or not there’s a need to be a suspension in the avoidable. global health emergency, but that use of credit cards for new pur- To begin with, the atrocious COVID broader debate can be deferred. chases. Debit cards and cash 19 infection and death totals in the Meanwhile denying free, univer- could continue to be used.) U.S. could have been orders of magni- tude smaller. How do we know? Because China, with more than four times the U.S. population has had 1/50th as many fatalities! (86,398 cases and 4,634 deaths.) Blame for the failed U.S. response is shared by the President, Congress, both political parties and many corporate conglomerates. How China spectacularly outdid the U.S. and Europe in controlling their COVID outbreak—allowing Chinese citizens to attend work and school and enjoy restaurants, theaters, sporting events and pool parties while the U.S. continues to languish under lockdown—is a story for another time.

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 37 4. No corporate bailouts. Period. Show me the money Wuhan outbreak in December 2019, Leaving aside the irresponsible The question “How will we pay for the Democrats prioritized their behavior of big business leading it?” is meant as a showstopper, but it’s doomed impeachment initiative in up to the pandemic, corporate really a red herring. The U.S. govern- January over mobilizing a healthcare titans should be able to live on ment, as a sovereign currency issuer, response. Both corporate parties were the special monthly government can print money whenever it wishes. asleep at the wheel when it came to payments like everyone else for That’s exactly how the government early COVID mitigation. the duration of the crisis. funded the $6 trillion CARES Act But as we’ve seen, even with infec- 5. Most small businesses would be which was touted as COVID relief but tion rates raging throughout the coun- able to survive on the money peo- was actually a humongous transfer of try, the required health response did ple spend from their monthly gov- wealth to those at the top. No new not necessitate piling economic suffer- ernment payments. Small business taxes were announced to fund this ing on top of illness for working peo- owners would not be burdened by bipartisan deception. The Treasury just ple, farmers and small business own- rent and loan payments during the authorized the electronic distribution ers. It’s always been possible to fix this crisis, and they and all their employ- of additional money. problem without the cure being worse ees would receive their own month- Not convinced? Still believe that the than the disease. Choosing a different, ly government stipend. Any small federal government can only spend more onerous course was a deliberate business for which this doesn’t what it has previously collected in taxes? decision by the powers that be. work could apply for hardship Fine. Paying for serious COVID relief is Going forward, there’s every indica- grants. But any big business having still not a problem. We could take tion that the incoming Biden adminis- trouble surviving should either be funds from the bloated, pugnacious tration will offer nothing close to the allowed to fail or be nationalized “defense” budget. Or tax Wall Street measures required to ameliorate the and run as a public utility. and the richest one percent to generate COVID economic crisis. As an outspo- new funds. Either way, political will, Rent creates no value ken opponent of Medicare for All and not money, is the limiting factor. government spending, Biden will be fac- Unlike the production of needed ing the healthcare emergency having They’re just not that into you commodities and useful services, mort- discarded our most potent weapons in gage, insurance, interest and rent pay- The failed U.S. response to the advance. The Democrats and Republicans ments produce no new value. These COVID 19 pandemic has led to unnec- will give us nothing; we have to organize payments (collectively referred to as essary death and suffering. Comparing and fight for what’s needed. As Frederick “rent”) merely transfer existing wealth U.S. results with China, Vietnam, New Douglass warned, “Power concedes from one person to another or one Zealand, South Korea and Singapore nothing without a demand.” class of people to another. So, suspend- makes this clear. China has experi- ing rent during the pandemic has no enced 0.34 deaths per 100,000 people, Bruce Lesnick is a long-time political harmful effect on the real economy. while the figure for the U.S. (77.19) is activist who lives and writes in Washington Such a suspension only temporarily 227 time greater! State. He blogs at blogspot.com. halts the upward transfer of wealth. The resultant economic hardship —CounterPunch, November 25, 2020 After the pandemic, the country as a was also completely avoidable. The https://www.counterpunch. whole would not be one cent poorer best way to ameliorate COVID- for having implemented a rent holiday. org/2020/11/25/covid-economy-a-delib- triggered economic fallout would have erate-disaster/ By contrast, reduced production of been to address the pandemic in a sci- real goods and services—from restau- entific, efficient manner, as some rants, factories, businesses and farms countries demonstrated was possible. whose employees and customers must Trump and the Republicans failed to shelter during the pandemic—does provide national leadership. But the negatively affect the economy. The Democrats are hardly blameless. monthly government payments can off- Despite previous disease-driven wake- set some of this. Beyond that, the best up calls, health funding decreased for that can be done is to defeat the pan- most years under the Obama adminis- demic as quickly as possible in order to tration. Though China first notified return to economic “normality.” the World Health Organization of the

38 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Their “Global Security” is Fueling Our Revolt! Editorial of Convergences Revolutionnaires published by the Etincelle fraction of the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) in France—November 29, 2020 Since mid-November, demonstra- This violence that is on top of the prefect of Paris Lallement, and, while tions have been surging throughout violence that many of us know, and we’re at it, why not the withdrawal of a France against the so-called “global that we sometimes experience our- whole series of policies that are unbear- security” bill and its Article 24, which selves, a violence that, just recently, able for the working classes? seeks to penalize the dissemination of 14- and 15-year-old high school stu- images of law enforcement officers in dents suffered while they were simply Let us impose our right to the exercise of their duties. On Saturday, fighting for minimal health measures democratic freedoms November 28th, there was a tidal wave in their school system. This bill comes in the context of an in most cities: marches of trade unions, intensification of repression in recent associations and political groups, but Yes, shame on them! years. Those who govern us are wield- also and above all many young people They’d better back off! ing weapons—especially in the area of and not so young people taking to the Today President Macron, Prime policing—in anticipation of the streets out of indignation, due to their Minister Castex, Minister of the increased sacrifices they would like to conscience and their fear of being sub- Interior Darmanin and all their boot- impose on us, particularly to make us jected to an increasingly authoritarian licker deputies don’t know how to get pay for their inability to manage the system. These several-hundred-thou- out of this mess. Macron says he is health crisis without economic dam- sand people in the streets have spread ashamed! Castex is trying to invent age. They are preparing to crack down unrest, even within the ranks of the pro- some trick, a commission of experts in the event that, tomorrow, the poor president-Macron majority, and there is that would reframe the famous Article and the exploited raise their heads as no doubt that a political crisis is open- 24 of the “security” bill. Even some they did around the world. ing up for Macron and his government. pro-Macron deputies quibbled about It is therefore not only a question of it. It should be noted that, in the Too much was too much defending our freedoms, but also and Assembly, it was above all with the full above all of snatching up better ones First of all, this bill dares to propose force of the voices of the right and the and going further by posing the prob- that, in practice, neither journalists nor extreme right that the Global Security lem of real freedoms in a society where any other person can film or show Bill was approved. But the popular money is king and provides those who police violence, based on the pretext mobilization, which is far from over, have money with means that are inac- that this would be “malicious!” And can and must force all of them to back cessible to the majority. The stakes in right on the tail of this come the hid- down, to repackage their project and this arm-wrestling match go far beyond eous images of cops beating up young many other things, perhaps. The dem- one simple bill. migrants and their supporters in a onstrators demand the withdrawal of migrant camp in Place de la République this one article in the bill, but why not —Speak Out Now, December 1, 2020 in Paris—kicking and bludgeoning the withdrawal of the whole bill, and https://speakoutsocialists.org/their- young Afghans who have nothing left the resignation of Darmanin, of the global-security-is-fueling-our-revolt/ but their tents with which to survive. Finally, we’ve seen the images of a Black music producer being attacked by the cops in his studio, with the use of tear gas. Thanks to a surveillance camera at the studio door there were images! These show police officers continuing to beat him even though he was on the floor. And they even continued to punch him outside of his home—where fortunately a neighbor was filming. These cops even called for police reinforcements, lying about the reality of the facts. Photo Credit: Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA-EFE (source)

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 39 Israeli Racism in Palestine By Ramzy Baroud

The discussion on institutional But is this really about financial aid The contingency plan was formu- Israeli racism against its own Palestinian for prisoners? Particularly since the PA lated by Israel’s Housing Ministry as a Arab population has all but ceased fol- is nearly bankrupt, and its financial swift response to an internal docu- lowing the final approval of the dis- contributions to the families of ment, which projects that, by the year criminatory Nation-State Law in July Palestinian prisoners, even within the 2050, Palestinian Arabs will constitute 2018. Indeed, the latest addition to Occupied Territories—West Bank, 51 percent of that region’s population Israel’s Basic Law is a mere start of a East Jerusalem and Gaza—is symbolic? of 700,000 residents. new government-espoused agenda that These are just two examples of recent is designed to further marginalize over actions taken within two days, damning a fifth of Israel’s population. Israeli racism is not evidence that, indeed, the Nation-State On Wednesday, October 28, eigh- random and cannot be law was the mere preface of a long period teen members of the Israeli Parliament of institutional racism, which ultimately (Knesset) conjured up yet another ploy simply classified as yet aims at winning a one-sided demograph- to target Israeli Arab citizens. They another human rights ic war that was launched by Israel against proposed a bill that would revoke violation. the Palestinian people many years ago. Israeli citizenship for any Palestinian Since outright ethnic cleansing— Arab prisoner in Israel who, directly or which Israel practiced during and after indirectly, receives any financial aid Here is an alternative context. On the wars of 1948 and 1967—is not an from the Palestinian Authority (PA). Thursday, October 29, the Israeli news- option, at least not for now, Israel is find- Worthy of mention is that these paper, Haaretz, revealed that the Israeli ing other ways to ensure a Jewish major- MKs not only represent right-wing, government of right-wing Prime ity in Israel itself, in Jerusalem, in Area C ultra-right and religious parties, but Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, plans to within the occupied West Bank and, by also the Blue and White (Kahol Lavan) expand the jurisdiction of the Jewish extension, everywhere else in Palestine. “centrist” party. Namely, the proposed town of Harish in northern Israel by 50 Israeli dissident historian, Professor bill already has the support of Israel’s percent. The aim is to prevent Palestinians Ilan Pappe, refers to this as “incremen- parliamentary majority. from becoming the majority in that area. tal genocide.” This slow-paced ethnic cleansing includes the expansion of the illegal Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the proposed annexation of nearly a third of the Occupied Territories. The besieged Gaza Strip is a different story. Winning a demographic war in a densely populated but small region of two million inhabitants living within 365 square kilameters (140.927 square miles), was never feasible. The so- called “redeployment” out of Gaza by late Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, in 2005 was a strategic decision, which aimed at cutting Israel’s losses in Gaza in favor of expediting the colonization process in the West Bank and the Naqab Desert. Indeed, most of Gaza’s illegal Jewish settlers were eventually relocated to these Photograph Source: International Solidarity Movement, Palestine demographically-contested regions.

40 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 But how is Israel to deal with its to speak out in defense of the rights of tion under international law, further own Palestinian Arab population, the Palestinian people,” Amnesty stated. accentuates Israel’s relentless war on its which now constitutes a sizeable demo- These revelations were communi- Arab minority. graphic minority and an influential, cated by Amnesty just prior to the Moreover, “the definition of Israel often united, political bloc? September 27 elections. The targeting of as ‘the Jewish State’ or ‘the State of the In the Israeli general elections of Palestinian citizens of Israel is reminis- Jewish People’ makes inequality a prac- March 2020, united Arab Palestinian cent of similar harassment and targeting tical, political and ideological reality political parties contesting under the of Palestinian officials and parties in the for Palestinian citizens of Israel,” umbrella group, The Joint List, Occupied Territories, especially prior to according to Adalah. achieved their greatest electoral success local or general elections. Namely, Israel Israeli racism is not random and yet, as they emerged as Israel’s third- views its own Palestinian Arab popula- cannot be simply classified as yet anoth- largest political party. This success rang tion through the same prism that it er human rights violation. It is the core alarm bells among Israel’s Jewish rul- views its militarily occupied Palestinians. of a sophisticated plan that aims at the ing elites, leading to the formation of Since its establishment on the ruins political marginalization and economic Israel’s current “unity government.” of historic Palestine, and until 1979, strangulation of Israel’s Palestinian Israel’s two major political parties, Israel governed its Palestinian popula- Arab minority within a constitutional, Likud and Kahol Lavan, made it clear tion through the Defense (Emergency) thus “legal,” framework. that no Arab parties would be included Regulations. The arbitrary legal system in any government coalition. Without fully appreciating the end imposed numerous restrictions on goal of this Israeli strategy, Palestinians A strong Arab political constituency those Palestinians who were allowed to and their allies will not have the chance represents a nightmare scenario for remain in Israel following the 1948 to properly combat it, as they certainly Israel’s government planners, who are Nakba, or ethnic cleansing of Palestine. should. obsessed with demographics and the In practice, however, the emergency marginalization of Palestinian Arabs in Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the rule was lifted in name only. It was Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. every possible arena. Hence, the very merely redefined, and replaced— representatives of the Palestinian Arab according to the Israel-based Adalah —CounterPunch, November 10, 2020 community in Israel become a target rights group—by over 65 laws that for political repression. directly target the Palestinian Arab https://www.counterpunch. In a report published in September minority of Israel. The Nation-State org/2020/11/10/escalating-the-demo- 2019, the rights group, Amnesty Law, which denies Israel’s Arab minor- graphic-war-the-strategic-goal-of-israe- International, revealed that “Palestinian ity their legal status, therefore, protec- li-racism-in-palestine-2/ members of the Knesset in Israel are increasingly facing discriminatory attacks.” “Despite being democratically elected like their Jewish Israeli counterparts, Palestinian MKs are the target of deep- rooted discrimination and undue restrictions that hamstring their ability

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 41

Incarceration Nation INCARCERATION NATION Incarcerated Women Punished for Their Trauma By Elizabeth Hawes

At Minnesota’s Shakopee Correctional anced while we are here. This balance is cough three times. A pillow pack (a pil- Facility for women, where I am incarcer- upended when we are taken to solitary lowcase containing two flat sheets, two ated, solitude is something we seldom confinement, or as most people in towels and a washcloth) and clothes have a chance to experience. Loud, muf- prison call it, segregation. (plastic sandals, two socks, one pair of fled over-head announcements begin In Shakopee, the segregation unit is underwear and a pair of orange scrubs) every morning at 5:30 and continue until separate from the other living units. are given out. People can wear their 9:30 P.M. when we are counted for the There are 33 segregation beds in 33 own bra. They are allowed an inhaler, a last time of the day. There is little priva- cells. Each cell is ten-by-12-feet and personal phone book, glasses, hair- cy; everyone can hear each other’s busi- contains a narrow bed with a thin foam brush and up to ten envelopes. They ness when we talk on the phone. Every pad, two blankets and a pillow covered are also given a small bag of generic aspect of our life is micromanaged, from with a water-resistant material. Bolted toiletries, five sheets of paper, a cup when our blinds have to be raised and to the wall is a metal sink with buttons and a small rubber pen. lowered, and how many books we can to push for water and a metal toilet. They are allowed to change their put on a shelf in our room, to the date There is a light switch, an outside- clothes every day and shower every we have to wear our winter coats regard- looking window, and a “mirror” made other day. less of the outside temperature. Prison is of a reflective metal. The door to the manila-walled, grey-clothed and full of But worse than the physical auster- cell is wood and has a narrow four-by- ity of solitary, is the severe psychologi- blue plastic chairs. Any prisoner could 20-inch window and slit to push tell you what’s for breakfast on a cal harm it delivers. The boredom and through a tray of food, change of loneliness is extreme and often ampli- Wednesday or what’s on TV on a clothes, or medicine. The mail is slid Monday night because our lives are a fies mental illness, psychosis and sui- under the door. There is a small desk cidal tendencies. study in monotony. All of us are called and a stool attached to the wall. Some “Offender” all day long. cells have a camera in them, or a cam- People are led to believe that segre- By its very nature, prison is isolat- era pointed at them. gation is used to contain extremely dangerous, violent people. In a wom- ing. Stripped of our personal physical The most common response when identifiers—wedding rings, contact en’s prison at least, this is hardly the asked about segregation conditions case. While women can be and are sent lenses, clothing and makeup, we are was that it was cold. away from our homes, family, pets, to solitary for fighting, the truth is employment, favorite activities, foods, I see people taken to segregation women are more often there because of computers and green spaces. Our lives nearly every day—often several times a mental health issues and for a wide are condensed. To survive, we cling to day. range of petty infractions that have what comforts us—small rituals that When people are brought to solitary nothing to do with violence. Between give us a sense of normalcy and help us in this prison, they are handcuffed April and July 2019, I interviewed 51 retain our dignity. For some, this unless they are pregnant. Two female people who had gone to segregation means going to the gym or walking officers stand at the open door of the and discovered that regardless of age, outside in the courtyard. For others it cell and like any strip search, have a race, or sexual orientation, the com- means calling their mom or child every prisoner take off their clothes piece by mon denominator was not a tendency morning. Some people eat a lot, some piece and hand them to the correc- for violence, but a history of trauma. church a lot, some read a lot, some play tional officers (CO) who pat the items The demographics of the prison cards with their friends every day. The down and shake them. Once naked, population at Shakopee, where I am communities built in prison, as unlike- prisoners are asked to bend at the waist incarcerated, break down like this: 59 ly as they appear, are vital. Whether we and run their fingers through their percent are white, 20 percent are have one good friend or a larger group hair. They are asked to show behind American Indian/Alaskan Native, 16 of friends, our community relation- their ears, open their mouth, show the percent are Black, four percent are ships help us navigate and stay bal- bottoms of their feet, and squat and Asian/Pacific Islander, and five percent

42 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 are Hispanic. The youngest prisoner is others. It should only be used in Many of the mental health issues for 19. The oldest is 87. The average age is extreme cases.” which people are placed in solitary 37. Eighty-five percent are mothers. If anyone in the prison’s general confinement are based on trauma. I Fifty eight percent are here on drug- population says they are having sui- met with a young Spanish-speaking related offences. cidal thoughts, the protocol is to take woman in her 20s who had been to The lack of mental healthcare was them to segregation and put them on solitary five times because of her inabil- the most prevalent topic during the COS (Constant Observational Status,) ity to urinate for drug tests. Testing for interviews. The consensus was that seg- constantly watched by guards. They are drug use is done randomly at the pris- regation made mental health issues usually there for ten days. A white on. When pulled for a UA (Urine worse. People often felt suicidal or very woman in her mid-40s said, “I was told Analysis), a prisoner is stripped in depressed while isolated, and felt they front of two female COs who then were not given the help they needed stand over the prisoner as they urinate before, during or after their segrega- As of late November into a cup. This woman is unable to urinate because of past sexual trauma. tion. As of late November 2020, there is 2020, there is only one only one psychiatrist for the 407 people She was sexually abused for 14 years. in this prison, most of whom have psychiatrist for the 407 There is no reason that the door could PTSD and backgrounds of abuse. not be shut and a person could do their people in this prison, business in private. The water is turned Solitary confinement is often used most of whom have off in the room; a prisoner would not as a quarantine for mental health. Jayde be able to alter their urine sample. Moon, a white woman in her late 20s, PTSD and backgrounds has been to segregation six times. of abuse. To speak with women about their solitary narrative, I would go to the “Now they say that seg is not courtyard and ask people if they had ‘punishment,’ …but there is a girl I know there who bangs her head ’til by a CO that the only way I could get been to segregation and if they had, it bleeds just to get out of her cell. help for my mental illness was to tell could I ask them a few questions about They isolate people so they don’t them [staff] I had suicidal thoughts their experience. Soon I didn’t have to have to deal with them. Why don’t and be put in segregation. This was ask. Once women understood what I they just chop off a body part? It is true. Medical staff had taken me off all was doing they approached me. “When just as outdated. As a society, don’t my Seroquel—all at once, which put you have a minute, I would like to talk we have a better way to deal with me in a state of psychosis. I needed to you.” I soon learned that more peo- mental illness? Let’s look at the why. help. I wasn’t getting help.” ple had been to segregation than I had The root cause. Let’s look at passive women who have been repeatedly exposed to trauma and help them.” Patti Becht, a white woman in her 50s who has always struggled with mental illness, said, “Mentally ill people should not be locked in seg. They should be safe, not condemned. I hear voices all the time. Christmas music all the time. Seg amplifies this.” A Native woman in her mid-30s said, “Seg feels normal to me. When I was young, I would often hide in small spaces to feel safe. Being hidden feels safe to me. I am often lost within the outside world.” Darcy Drobec, a white person in her mid-40s who has been to segregation 45 times, said, “Isolation makes everything worse. It makes peo- A woman places a rose in front of the Hall of Justice in Los Angeles, California, on June 5, 2020 in ple want to hurt themselves or hurt solidarity with victims of state violence inside and outside of LA County’s jail system, one of the largest in the world.

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 43 thought, and everyone seemed to want down…we can’t just stuff our emotions I heard how people were often taken to share their story. every day and expect not to explode.” to segregation for small infractions. If Over and over, I heard comments She is the mother of five sons, now all people were put in solitary for some- about how segregation amplified peo- adopted out. Like many of the women thing like fighting, they understood it. ple’s depression. A Black woman in her here, her depression stems from being If people were put in for loitering or 50s told me, stripped of her children. other small nonviolent offenses, they felt insulted and picked on. They no “Seg takes me back. It means In 1997, a law was passed called the longer cared about the rules and said failure to me. I’m let down. I fight Adoption and Safe Families Act, which for what I want, for what is right. I states that if a parent does not have they were inclined to behave worse in heard, ‘You’ll never be nothing’ all physical custody of their children for 15 the future. my life. Seg gives me sad feelings.” out of the last 22 months, they can lose “[We go for] petty reasons,” said a Sabrina Flowers is an African custody. For an incarcerated parent, white woman in her mid-30s. “We American woman in her early 20s who this means that even if they are a great shouldn’t be sent for a bad day. And leaves prison in a month. She has been parent and are doing everything they once people go to seg, or go to seg a lot, to solitary 35 times. She told me, “I’m can to fix the problem that landed them if they get in trouble it’s immediate seg often suicidal up there. I survive by in prison, they can lose their child to as a first response rather than having thinking about my daughter. I act out the system. A recurring statement in them go to Holding or talking to them. when I’m locked in. Seg makes me act many of my interviews was, “I have no We are taken for small, petty things.” worse. It gets worse every time.” Like reason to live without my children.” I began to ask people about their everyone I interviewed, Sabrina felt most trivial reason for going to segre- once you went to segregation you were ...the population of gation. I talked with people who had marked; an easy target to go back gone to solitary for singing during again. Staff now sees her as a problem women in prison has count, singing in the lunchroom, put- and is ready to send her to segregation increased by 730 percent ting someone’s bag lunch on the floor, for the smallest infraction. A Native braiding someone’s hair, walking back- woman in her mid-30s said, over the last 40 years... wards on the sidewalk in the courtyard, “Staff has me marked. ‘Hey Trouble- having talcum powder in their shoes, maker!’ Especially the new ones. My Another piece of the mental health loitering, passing food, and for eating pockets are constantly searched. My issue and segregation is the difficulty someone’s piece of cake in the lunchroom is searched repeatedly.” people had when they were released room when it was offered to them. The I spoke with a Native woman in her from solitary and put back into general reasons seem insignificant but most early 30s about mental healthcare. She population. They are taken from a rela- every time people go to segregation had been to segregation 16 times; 13 tively quiet, isolated environment and they lose. They lose their room place- times for cutting herself with a razor, abruptly moved to a noisy atmosphere— ment, their job, their programming, spending 15 days in solitary for every surrounded by people and constant and are taken away from their commu- incident. I asked her why she cut her- over-head announcements. A woman of nity and moved to another living unit. self. “Shame. Guilt. It’s how I cope.” Puerto Rican/Native descent told me, When people’s belongings are packed up, whatever does not fit into two bins (She didn’t cut herself before she came “I have severe mental health to prison.) When she writes to Mental issues. I have a hard time being (equivalent space as two milk crates) Health Services for help, she gets no alone. Walls breathe, I see things, has to be thrown out or shipped out. response, cuts herself and then is sent to and I talk to myself. When I’m Very few people can fit all their belong- solitary. I asked her if she received any released, I have a hard time; I’m ings into two bins. help once she was there. “They [mental messed up. I talk weird. I stutter.” The more I researched women’s seg- health workers] come through, but A 24-year-old Black woman said, regation, the more I realized there was a don’t stay and help. They say, ‘try some “I feel that putting someone in pattern of discipline that extended deep breathing,’ or ‘send a kite [paper seg makes mental illness. Especially beyond the walls of Shakopee. A report communication between prisoner and when we are put there for stupid released by the U.S. Commission on staff] to your mental health worker.’ I things instead of talking to us [and] Civil Rights in 2020 confirmed what do. No response. Mental Health working through the issues. Seg NPR (National Public Radio) found; [Services] is a joke. They cut off medi- leaves us more institutionalized, women prisoners are disciplined more cation randomly. I emotionally shut makes us worse.” often than male prisoners—two to three

44 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 times more—and often receive harsher Staff’s view of touch seems extreme. 2019, an assistant warden came to the punishments. The commission states A Native woman in her mid-30s told living units and read off the “new that the population of women in prison me, “In 2018, I went to seg for a ‘sexual’ appropriate touch policy.” The new has increased by 730 percent over the because our feet were touching under touch guidelines include “fist-bumps, last 40 years. Data shows that women the table in the dayroom. We both got handshakes, high-fives, or a pat on the prisoners consistently got in more trou- 15 days.” I was told a similar story by shoulder/shoulder blade…. Physical ble more often than their male counter- several people. Every person I asked, contact should be brief, lasting only a parts. More disruptive? No. regardless of sexual orientation, thought few seconds.” The majority of women prisoners that there was homophobia within staff. Before I came to prison, I assumed have histories of sexual and physical A 28-year-old white woman said, “I am prisoners were just bad people. The trauma that cause them to react in a cer- targeted [for] my sexual orientation. truth is, I’ve met some wonderful peo- tain way to male guards. Women in pris- Verbal harassment is constant. They ple, many of whom suffer from addic- ons are more likely to have a history of use intimidation, always threatening to tion. The December 2020 Minnesota substance abuse, mental illness, and to be take me to segregation.” Department of Corrections Shakopee the primary caregivers of minor children. I spoke with a white woman in her Inmate Profile states that 235 prisoners Moreover, what soon became mid-30s with a very long sentence. She are here because of drug charges. Two apparent was there was a culture of said, “I need human contact, it doesn’t thirds of the population of this prison staff homophobia in Shakopee. matter how much. I’m here for a long suffers with addiction. Many began Homophobia, or the appearance of time. I need to do what I need to do to their addiction by self-medicating a homophobia, is linked with the pris- survive. If that means I need a hug, I’m mental health issue or to cope with a on’s long-standing policy on touch. going to hug someone.” When asked if major crisis or tragic loss. As a popula- segregation made her more or less like- tion, they are far more wounded than On September 4, 2003, a federal law ly to follow the rules, she admitted it violent. Their fight is not against the was enacted called PREA, the Prison made her more likely to break the rules. world but for sobriety. Rape Elimination Act. Since then, “If I can go for the smallest of things, throughout the state of Minnesota, Solitary confinement is not just there is a zero-tolerance policy against (she got 15 days for hugging someone ineffective; it is destructive. Based on sexual harassment and sexual abuse. and one day and an overnight—but not everything I’ve experienced and every- Next to the prison hallway phones are charged—for holding someone’s hand) thing I’ve learned, it makes people act posters in both English and Spanish if I get in trouble for holding someone’s worse within the community and feel with a number to report any abuse, as hand, why not just hug them? What’s a worse about themselves. well as a list of victim advocate services. reason not to go bigger? I know it’s bad Traumatized people need more People feel this is good, but that to hit someone; I’m not going to do care, not increased isolation. that. But hug someone?” Shakopee had failed them in the assess- —Truthout, December 12, 2020 ment of appropriate touch. Last June, there was an article writ- From its establishment until last ten about the no-touch policy in the year, the Shakopee Women’s Prison Minneapolis Star Tribune, where https://truthout.org/articles/incarcer- had a no-touch rule in place. Prisoners Shakopee’s Warden Tracy Beltz (now ated-women-are-punished-for-their- were not able to help someone up the Warden of Faribault Prison) “denied trauma-with-solitary-confinement/?eTy when they fell, hug them when a parent inmate claims that they are sometimes pe=EmailBlastContent&eId=8235d76f- died, or shake their hand when they punished for minor touch offenses.” ab45-4d61-bebb-bce418902f84 earned their GED. All these gestures Beltz said, “There aren’t women going were considered “sexual.” All touch to segregation for doing one another’s was considered sexual. A prisoner at hair, they’re going to discipline because Shakopee who did not get visits— they’re engaging in inappropriate sexual where an outside visitor can give a brief activity.” I talked with several people hug and a kiss on the cheek when they this summer who had gone to segrega- arrive or leave—would not have had tion for minor touch infractions, human touch in a long time. Some including braiding hair. people had literally not been touched Because of outside pressure by for years. This draconian policy had advocacy groups like the ACLU, this been strictly enforced. no-touch policy changed. On July 10,

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 45 Julian Assange’s Farcical Hearing By Joshua Cho

U.S. corporate media have buried the Ecuadorian embassy—where he impartial investigations whenever coverage of WikiLeaks founder Julian sought asylum for seven years—in a there are reasonable grounds to believe Assange’s extradition hearing in the partisan way, presenting it as a charge someone has been and is being tor- UK, despite its being the media “Trial of his “supporters” rather than the tured. In Assange’s case, these viola- of the Century” (FAIR.org, September judgment of professionals: tions have been downplayed or even 25, 2020.) But even in the scarce cover- “Supporters say the ordeal has celebrated by U.S. and British media age that does exist of this unprecedent- harmed Assange’s physical and (FAIR.org, April 18, 2019.) AP ed case with immense implications for mental health, leaving him with (September 22,, 2020) reported on psy- freedom of expression, one would depression, dental problems and a chiatric expert Michael Kopelman of hardly get the impression that the U.S. serious shoulder ailment.” King’s College London testifying to and British governments are involved In fact, Melzer’s assessment is cor- Assange’s “intense suicidal preoccupa- in an illegal conspiracy—in violation roborated by other experts. The Lancet tion” and “auditory hallucinations,” of their own laws—to punish Assange (February 17, 2020) published an open without once noting the obvious con- for the “crime” of journalism. letter by 117 doctors and psychologists nection to psychological torture. Coverage before and at the start of calling for the end to what they called Another human right enshrined in the trial by establishment media outlets the “torture and medical neglect of international conventions and in U.S. like the New York Times (September 7, Julian Assange.” Dr. Sondra Crosby, and British domestic law is the right to 2020,) Wall Street Journal (September 7, one of the first doctors to indepen- a fair trial, which is precisely what has 2020,) USA Today (September 6, 2020) dently examine Guantánamo captives, been and is currently being denied to and the Associated Press (September 6, who possesses extensive experience Assange, although one wouldn’t know 2020) largely omitted simple facts, like treating torture victims around the this from corporate media coverage. Assange displaying signs of abuse. Of world, later testified at Assange’s hear- Establishment media omitted, for these reports, only USA Today cited ing that he met “all of criteria for major example, that Assange was sent to these Nils Melzer, a UN special rapporteur on depression,” and is at “high risk of hearings by a judge who ruled on his torture, who observed that when he completing suicide if he were to be case despite having several undisclosed visited him last year, Assange displayed extradited” to the U.S. (Shadowproof, conflicts of interest. symptoms of “psychological torture,” September 24, 2020.) Before the hearing, journalists Matt likely caused by extreme stress, chronic Torture and arbitrary detention are Kennard and Mark Curtis of anxiety and isolation. human rights violations of interna- Declassified UK published several AP framed Assange’s visible and tional conventions that both the U.S. damning reports revealing that Emma prolonged abuse at the Belmarsh maxi- and Britain have signed, which obli- Arbuthnot—the chief magistrate who mum security prison in London and gates them to conduct prompt and had previously overseen Assange’s extradition proceedings before infor- mally stepping aside in December, 2019 for “perception of bias”—had failed to disclose several conflicts of interest before delivering two rulings that prevented Assange from taking up asylum in Ecuador. Kennard and Curtis (November 14, 2019) reported that Arbuthnot had been receiving gifts and hospitality from Bechtel, a U.S. military and cybersecurity company that had been exposed by WikiLeaks. She has also taken part in junkets, along with her husband, paid for by two partner organizations of the British

46 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Foreign Office, which has long taken on the first day of the hearing (New erage from outlets like Shadowproof, an anti-Assange position (Declassified York Times, September 16 2020; Consortium News and former UK UK, February 21, 2020.) (Her husband, Washington Post, September 7, 2020,) ambassador Craig Murray’s blog James Arbuthnot, is a former the media blackout from establishment updates, one wouldn’t know that the Conservative Defense minister who outlets like the Times, Post, Journal, prosecution had shifted its arguments has also worked closely with the neo- USA Today and CNN has largely forced from the claim that Assange isn’t a conservative Henry Jackson Society— U.S. audiences to rely on reprinted AP journalist—making a specious distinc- Declassified UK, September 4, 2020.) reports to get any idea of what was tion between his behavior and those of One of the junkets involved a meeting going on during the trial. other media professionals—to assert- between James Arbuthnot and Turkish To AP’s credit, it has covered impor- ing the U.S. government’s “right” to Energy Minister Berat Albayrak—the tant topics that other U.S. outlets have prosecute, under the 1917 Espionage son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip ignored, such as U.S. whistleblower Act, all journalists around the world Erdoğan—whose personal emails were Daniel Ellsberg’s defense of Assange who publish classified U.S. informa- published by WikiLeaks. (September 16, 2020,) and testimony tion. These new U.S. government Arbuthnot’s son, Alexander confirming that the U.S. prosecution charges could criminalize even receiv- Arbuthnot, is the vice president of was lying when it claimed Assange ing classified information, which is Vitruvian Partners, a private equity wouldn’t be held in solitary confine- standard practice in journalism. firm heavily invested in Darktrace—a ment if he were to be extradited The prosecution was forced to do company founded by GCHQ and MI5 (September 29, 2020.) It also covered this because their unsubstantiated to stop data leaks, which is staffed by crucial testimony from whistleblowers arguments collapsed under their own veterans of the NSA and CIA, intelli- at the Spanish security firm UC Global, lies, such as when they falsely charged gence agencies behind the U.S. govern- revealing that for their “American Assange with aiding whistleblower ment’s persecution of Assange friends,” the firm had covertly installed Chelsea Manning in a “conspiracy to (Declassified UK, November 15, 2019.) in the Ecuadorian embassy micro- commit computer intrusion,” or that Although UK legal guidance phones, cameras and special stickers WikiLeaks disclosures resulted in mate- requires British judges to declare any that disrupt white noise machines rial harm, in order to dodge claims that conflicts of interest before the courts, (September 30, 2020.) the trial is politically motivated Arbuthnot has a history of stepping As British media watchdog Media (Shadowproof, September 26, 2020; aside from adjudicating cases only after Lens (October 7, 2020) pointed out in Independent, October 5, 2020.) media investigations expose them. its critique of the British media black- At other times, AP reports focused Because she refused to disclose her out, the mere fact that Assange’s confi- on relatively trivial matters compared to conflicts of interest and only infor- dential conversations with his lawyers reports by other observers at the extra- mally stepped away from Assange’s had been violated under the auspices of dition hearings. For example, AP case, her previous rulings in February the CIA “should have been sufficient to (September 8, 2020) published an arti- 2018 and June 2019—which brought throw out any court case against cle focusing on Judge Baraitser instruct- Assange to his extradition hearings in Assange.” Journalist Kevin Gosztola ing Assange to stop interrupting wit- 2020—couldn’t be revisited by his (Shadowproof, October 3, 2020) later nesses. On that same day, Craig Murray defense. Although she is no longer per- reported that in the UK, the FBI had (September 8, 2020) reported on sonally hearing Assange’s extradition enlisted the Ecuadorian government’s Baraitser’s blatantly inappropriate prac- proceedings, she remains the chief help in stealing legally privileged mate- tice of reciting pre-written judgments magistrate, and is still responsible for rial from Assange’s lawyers, which supporting and guiding the junior made it more difficult for his lawyers to judges in her jurisdiction, like Judge prepare a defense for his extradition Vanessa Baraitser, who presided over hearing. Assange’s extradition hearings and is However, when it came to the sub- FREE responsible for delivering her verdict stance of what was actually argued by on January 4, 2021. both the defense and prosecution, and But can any of this scandalous infor- the case’s evolving implications for the JULIAN mation make it through the filters of future of journalism, even the AP U.S. media? Aside from trivial report- joined in the atrocious U.S. media ing that focused on technical “glitches” blackout. Without indispensable cov- ASSANGE

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 47 prepared before she heard any lawyers New Push to Free Leonard Peltier argue their case in front of her, and preventing the defense from having ade- By Nate Rau quate time to prepare for superseding indictments and present their case in Prominent Nashville attorney Kevin Although Peltier was initially con- court. Eyewitnesses to the trial, like Sharp is leading the push to grant clem- victed of first-degree murder, that con- Australian journalist John Pilger (Arena, ency to Leonard Peltier, whose convic- viction was later vacated, but his prison October 2, 2020,) described it less as tion 43-years-ago has been criticized by sentence upheld for aiding and abetting due process and more as “due revenge.” politicians, prison reform activists, reli- a murder. AP, and corporate U.S. news outlets gious leaders, celebrities and even some The assistant United States Attorney more generally, never followed up on of the government officials who helped who helped uphold Peltier’s conviction Consortium News’ revelation (September put him behind bars. and the federal Appeals Court judge who 28,2020) that the U.S. government’s Peltier’s case is renowned in the crim- rejected his earlier appeals have since lawyers had been relying not on actual inal justice world. Peltier admits to being called for his release, as has a cascade of witnesses but on a 2011 book by two involved in a shootout at the Pine Ridge celebrities, religious leaders and politi- Guardian journalists, Luke Harding and Indian Reservation in 1975. The shoot- cians including Pope Francis, The Dalai David Leigh, who are known to be hos- out took place after two plain-clothed Lama, Mother Teresa, Archbishop tile to Assange. Neither of them has been FBI agents pulled over a truck while Desmond Tutu, Floyd Red Crow called to give evidence under oath about investigating a pair of stolen boots. Westerman, Nelson Mandela, the contents of their book, which would How the shooting began and who Muhammad Ali, Robert Redford, Wes require them to be cross-examined by fired the first shot is unclear, but there’s Studi, Tantoo Cardinal, Willie Nelson, Assange’s lawyers. Yet when the defense agreement that tensions were high on the Kris Kristofferson, and Marlon Brando, called former Der Spiegel journalist John reservation at the time because of a feud among many others. Goetz to give evidence under oath refut- between the activist group, the American ing the book’s claim that Assange had Now, 76, Peltier remains incarcerat- Indian Movement, of which Peltier was remarked that informants deserved to ed at a federal prison in Florida. His a member, and the Guardians Of the die—a comment supposedly made at a appeals have been exhausted and his Oglala Nation (GOON) Squad led by dinner Goetz attended—Baraitser sided only hope for life outside of prison is a tribal chairperson Dick Wilson. The FBI with the prosecution to prevent Goetz clemency request that has been sent to supplied information, weapons and from giving firsthand testimony about President Donald Trump. ammunition to the GOON Squad, the allegation (Consortium News, The attorney pushing for Peltier’s which was accused at the time of carry- September 16, 2020.) clemency is Kevin Sharp, the former fed- ing out spectacular acts of violence eral judge who left the bench in part From top to bottom, the trial itself against AIM members. There were about because he disagreed with mandatory is a farce, since no one should be pros- 60 murders, many of them never investi- minimum sentencing. ecuted for working with a whistleblow- gated, in the area around the time of the er to expose war crimes, yet there are incident, Sharp said. The Pine Ridge Although Trump and his political few reports questioning its legitimacy Indian Reservation was a powder keg. supporters continue to contest the elec- (FAIR.org, April 4, 2019.) On the con- tion results, there is every reason to So, when the shootout began, Peltier trary, it appears that major U.S. news believe President-elect Joe Biden will be and others descended on the scene and organizations have buried all the ways inaugurated next month. That leaves fired back at the two young FBI agents, that the U.S. and UK governments precious little time, Sharp says, for who were killed. have already stacked the deck against Trump to grant Peltier clemency. It’s a Assange, in order to give the illusion Peltier fled the country to Canada, race against time because Peltier is in that he’s receiving a fair trial. but was arrested there after FBI investi- poor health, and the clemency process gators secured his extradition thanks —FAIR, November 13, 2020 restarts when a new president takes office. largely to sworn statements that were https://fair.org/home/farcical-coverage- later recanted. At the trial, the conduct The Tennessee Lookout conducted an of-julian-assanges-farcical-hearing/ of the FBI agents and their ties to the interview with Sharp about the state of GOON Squad were blocked from being the case as it reaches its 11th hour. EXPOSING CRIMES introduced, and a bullet ballistics test Tennessee Lookout: Is clemency that would have exonerated Peltier was Leonard Peltier’s only hope for release IS NOT A CRIME not introduced. at this point in the process?

48 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Kevin Sharp: Essentially yes. His sees this and sends me, out of the blue, this history of Leonard Peltier’s case. sentence was life, but with parole. You a packet of information. It’s trial transcripts, newspaper clip- can’t do that anymore in the federal So, I get this thick packet. Normally pings, photographs, case opinions. I system, they got rid of parole in the late what happens is I get lots of letters, end up spending my day going through ’80s. But, because of the time of his mostly from men and family members this thing. I look up and the sun’s gone sentence, he is eligible for parole. He of men who are incarcerated. These are down. I became engrossed in this case. keeps getting denied, and practically kind of help-me letters. For a while, I At first, I was just kind of shocked at speaking, clemency is his only option was getting so many of them that I what happened, and then angry at because they are not going to parole would let them stack up and then I’d what happened. The gist of it was, him for the same political reasons that get into them once a week or so. would you please help Leonard? So, I make clemency difficult. end up having a couple of phone con- One day I get this thick manilla versations with Leonard and then flew Tennessee Lookout: When and how envelope and I recognize it as one of down to Florida to meet with him and did you get involved in his clemency these letters. I pause and turn back to said, “Yeah. I’ll do it.” request? the person in my office and said, “Put Kevin Sharp: After I left the bench, it with the others, I’ll read it later in the Tennessee Lookout: What did you I became involved in the clemency week.” Then I’m walking back to my find compelling about the case? petition for Chris Young. That was one office and I say, “You know what, let Kevin Sharp: It was this travesty of of the defendants I had to sentence to a me have that one.” I come into my the criminal justice system and what mandatory life sentence as part of a office and I open this thing up and it’s happened to Leonard, and just the drug conspiracy conviction. In that case, Kim Kardashian got involved, because the lawyer who represented Chris was also the lawyer who represented Alice Johnson. She was the African American woman from Memphis who Trump initially commuted her sentence, and then earlier this year pardoned her. So, when the same lawyer, her name is Brittney Barnett, comes in, I was involved working in clemency for Chris, as was Kim Kardashian. That ultimately results in me being invited to the White House as part of a clemency roundtable discussion. It also results in a personal conversation with President Trump about clemency issues and about criminal justice reform issues. When that meeting happens, it becomes its own story. Kardashian, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and a group of leading experts on reform issues were all there that day. We were discussing clemency issues, how to clean it up, how to fix this broken system we all have. Because of that there’s this lawyer in Texas named Logan Ross, who reads this and has been trying to work to 1975 mug shot of Leonard Peltier from FBI Most Wanted list. (Photo: FBI.gov) Leonard has been in help with Leonard’s case for years. He prison for over 43 years since this photo was taken.

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 49 mountain of constitutional violations. came up, and the judge said even if the Kevin Sharp: Well, all of those Ultimately, Leonard was convicted of jury was aware of these issues, I can’t things you just mentioned are right. murdering two FBI agents, but the say for certain they wouldn’t have con- And that’s why I think that President government dropped that because victed Leonard of aiding and abetting. Trump will seriously consider it, and years later, through a FOIA (Freedom Tennessee Lookout: Is the problem ultimately should grant clemency for Of Information Act) request, it turned for any president considering clemency those reasons you just said. We now all out they had withheld some pretty that it appears you are going against recognize, the FBI and the Department damning exculpatory evidence, which the FBI? of Justice are not always the guys with was a ballistics test that showed it was the white hats. And they have to be not his gun. Kevin Sharp: Correct. When subordinate to the constitution. We Clinton was considering this—you They knew that when they tried him saw it with General Flynn. I get why have to go back to the politics of and their whole case was based on there reasons not to be happy with Clinton. Can he come out and do another ballistics test. The expert says General Flynn. But, if you’re withhold- something the FBI opposes? He had at trial, “Because the weapon we believe ing exculpatory evidence, you have got just survived his own impeachment was his was destroyed in a fire, we to let him go. hearings. He was not wanting to step couldn’t do a firing pin test.” That out in front of this one. Through So, when he was filing his appeal would have been the most accurate another FOIA request, I saw a letter after the government said we are going test. But all they did was a shell casing that Louis Freeh, the head of the FBI, to drop this, all of the exculpatory evi- test. The expert says, “We could only wrote to Janet Reno, then-Attorney dence came out and the DOJ do a shell casing test, and the test tells General, saying we know Clinton is (Department Of Justice) said we’re me this casing was tied to the weapon considering this, here is why he going to drop the case. And, they were we believe belonged to Leonard shouldn’t do it. I read it in 2019, and absolutely right. Not my politics in Peltier.” And that really was their whole realized Louis Freeh knew it wasn’t terms of the people involved. But, the case because they had some eye-wit- true. He knows about the intimidation constitution is the constitution. nesses that came out during the inves- and threatening of witnesses. He knows They’re right about Flynn for the tigation, but through the course of this about Myrtle Poor Bear (the witness same reasons I’m right about Peltier. as it got closer to trial, they all fell apart who said she saw Leonard shoot the because they all ultimately said, “Our —Tennessee Lookout, December 11, agents, but later recanted.) He knows prior testimony is not true. We were 2020 about the hidden exculpatory ballistics threatened by the FBI. So, we said we test. So, when he’s writing to Janet https://tennesseelookout. saw things that we did not see.” So, Reno saying we have witnesses who com/2020/12/11/nashville-attorney- they had nothing except that he was saw it, he knows it isn’t true. So, kevin-sharp-leads-push-to-free-leonard- there, and he did fire a weapon along Clinton doesn’t do it. peltier/ with about 40 other Native Americans. But, a ballistics test showing that the Then, Obama has the same issue. It casing was not from Leonard’s weapon comes back to politics. Do I want to Write to: was deliberately concealed and not oppose the FBI? As a matter of fact, Leonard Peltier 89637-132 introduced at trial. when Clinton was considering it, there USP Coleman 1 were 500 agents who picketed the P.O. Box 1033 That was the biggest one that hit me, White House. Coleman, FL 33521 and then as I got into it there were lay- ers of violations. On appeal these issues Tennessee Lookout: You now have a president who has railed against the Deep State, and has been openly critical of the FBI and its director. And you have the political point of this being a case of government overreach in terms FREE of its collaboration with the GOON Squad. There’s a lot of reasons why a conservative would look at this case LEONARD and think clemency was fair. So, what is your opinion about where things PELTIER stand with the Trump administration?

50 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Torment in Indiana Prisons The abuse, the lawsuit, the death of Phillip Littler By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

Wrap your mind around this story Although guards deliberately block the Also, the shooting didn’t end with if you will...or rather, if you can. camera from filming Phillip, the audio the round to Phillip’s face. By the guards’ captures him asking the nurse for help own admissions, he was shot in rapid Defenseless, shot in the face and telling her he was shot in the face succession in the head a total of ten and beaten and beaten. times, until the gun stopped working. A prisoner, a small-framed man I should add that before being shot, about 150 pounds and around 5’6” is Phillip was repeatedly sprayed with The lawsuit, the lies, inside a locked shower, and, according to extensive amounts of tear gas inside the the outraged judge prison officials, he refuses to submit to a locked shower—I have written exten- But Phillip, a determined and intel- strip search. His name is Phillip Littler. sively about the deadly nature and rou- ligent man, didn’t cave-in to his abus- The assistant warden, Frank tine abuse of tear gas on U.S. prisoners.1 ers. Instead, he fought his way through Littlejohn, tells the ranking guard to shoot Phillip in the face at point-blank range with a pepper ball gun. The guard laughs and says she loves the idea. Phillip is then shot in the face in this exact fashion, shattering his nose, and only by a lucky near-miss, not losing his eyes. The camera, which is sup- posed to film all such uses of force, is turned off during this assault. A team of at least ten guards in full body armor is then sent into the shower to “extract” the already downed prisoner. They beat him brutally, resulting in a possible broken shoulder blade and extensive additional facial injuries. The camera is activated during this phase of the assault, but it is deliberately trained on another guard’s body to block filming Phillip being beaten. After the attack, a medical “examination” is staged by a nurse, which is required procedure following any use of force by guards. Phillip, who is bleed- ing profusely from the face, tells the nurse he was shot in the face and beaten—punched and kicked repeatedly— by guards. She ignores him, pats away a little of the blood that is running profusely from his nose, then gives up and sends him on his way, refusing him any further care or examination. On the record, she lies and claims he refused treatment and responded, “go to hell,” Wabash Valley Correctional Facility Assistant Warden, Frank Littlejohn, pictured with his wife, Teresa when she claimed she offered him care. Littlejohn, who serves as Public Information Officer at the facility.

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 51 the prison system’s obstructions and $150,000 settlement and judgment in abuses of their captors and have no representing himself filed a federal law- 2020. But this was by no means a voice nor right to resist. suit the next year. happy ending. As the judge in Phillip’s case 2 His case, Littler v. Martinez , came The tortured death of Phillip observed, most prisoners who manage before Chief Judge Jane E. Magnus- Littler to file a lawsuit challenging incidents of Stinson, who proved unusually fair. abuse, are quickly booted out of court What came to light as the case unfolded, Several outside people who know of by defenses made by the state’s highest prompted her to bring down the mallet Phillip’s ordeal and legal battle didn’t and most powerful law office; using on Phillip’s abusers and their lawyers. know about the tragedy that followed lying defenses just like were tried almost immediately. In response to the lawsuit, the pris- against Phillip. And lawsuits are no on officials, medical staff, and their At just the time that he prevailed in remedy. The few that are “won” are attorneys—including the state’s his lawsuit, Phillip developed cancer in settled—and I’ve previously revealed Attorney General’s office—closed his mouth and throat. Witnessing pris- how settlements actually uphold and ranks to produce a huge record of oners like Kristopher Kanable described preserve the culture of murder and 4 sworn affidavits in which they told a his tongue as having swollen so large abuse by police and guards. litany of lies to cover up what they did that it protruded from his mouth—he What’s needed is a broad inside-to- and try and get the case dismissed. couldn’t talk or close his mouth. It also outside mass support network orga- impaired his ability to eat. His weight nized to expose and challenge prison Judge Stinson was having none of it. fell to around 100 pounds. As she noted in orders sanctioning the abuses. We need to link our captives on defendants and attorneys for perjury Initially, prison officials refused him the inside with the oppressed commu- and facilitating these lies, “only due to any care, until his cancer progressed to nities they come from in a movement the ‘perfect storm’ of Mr. Littler’s liti- stage-four. His final months were bla- to build dual power and revolutionary gation skills and the existence of video tant torture as the cancer quickly con- change against the capitalist-imperialist evidence was the most egregious mis- sumed his face. police state that has us all under siege. conduct in this case uncovered expos- Phillip died around June 2020. —November 22, 2020 ing a litany of false evidence.” Many prisoners who witnessed and The judge expressed a total loss of followed Phillip’s struggle believe offi- 1 Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Chemical Weap- trust in the state’s highest law office and cials caused his death, both the onset of ons Used in U.S. Prisons” (2017) http://rashid- prison system. She found Assistant war- his cancer and its rapid progression mod.com/?p=2580 den Littlejohn lied claiming he had without care. 2 Littler v. Martinez, et al., Case no: 2:16-cv- nothing to do with the use of force on 00472-JMS-DLP, U.S. District Court for the What tops off this tragedy and Southern District of Indiana, Terre Haute Division Phillip. But emails were produced exposes the true face of this American showing his exchange with the supervis- 3 See, Olivia Covington, “Judge Sanctions fascist system, is Frank Littlejohn, the Lawyer of ex-DOC Nurse in Inmate Abuse ing guard, where he prompted the man who initiated the sadistic attack C a s e ,” Indiana Lawyer, March 6, 2019; Littler v. shooting of Phillip at point-blank range. on Phillip and was caught and sanc- Martinez, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155868 (2018); The nurse and guards all lied about tioned in federal court for lying to jus- Littler v. Martinez, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163985 tify and cover up the abuse and his (2018); Littler v. Martinez, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS their roles, which were also contra- 34735 (2019); Littler v. Martinez, 2020 U.S. Dist. dicted by video records. role, is still the assistant warden of the LEXIS 1850 (2020) These findings and rulings came out in prison where this abuse occurred. 4 Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Selling Out in a series of published reports and orders.3 Indeed, it’s the very same Wabash Court: How Settlements Protect Police Abusers” Valley Correctional (sic) Facility where (2020) http://rashidmod.com/?p=2822 The penalty against P. Hagmeier, I’m now confined. the nurse who refused Phillip medical care after he was shot and beaten, was Not just this, but Frank Littlejohn’s an entry of default judgment, which wife, Teresa Littlejohn, is the prison’s meant she was found guilty of the public relations officer. wrongdoing that she was charged with What to do? within the lawsuit. On information Across Amerika, prisons operate in and belief, Phillip also prevailed against this fashion as overt fascistic fiefs with- all the other defendants, and after a in an imperialist empire, where their four-year court battle, he won a Kevin “Rashid” Johnson captives are subjected to the arbitrary

52 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Gas Abuses in Indiana Prisons The cases of Marshawn Weems By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

Tear gas, inside the confined spaces now 22, and still has the energy and Several minutes later, and without of prisons, takes on a particularly abu- instinctive tendency to question so- warning or explanation, Thompson sive effect and lethality. It chokes off called “authority” that his youthfulness came to Marshawn’s cell with another the air and lingers for hours if no suggests. Pigs don’t like Black males, or guard named Arnold and proceeded to exhaust system is used to remove it. It any prisoners for that matter, who repeatedly spray him with tear gas as he clings to surfaces for days if sprayed question them. lay in bed. areas aren’t decontaminated. To top it Both assaults on Marshawn happened Taken completely by surprise off, the weapon is lethal in itself. inside Wabash Valley’s solitary confine- Marshawn, blinded and enraged, asked, As I’ve written before1, this weapon, ment unit, which has long been notorious between choking and gasping, why he along with its sister chemical weapons for its abusive and torturous conditions2. was being gassed. Thompson only like mustard gas, chlorine gas, and oth- The first attack took place on laughed and kept spraying him. When a ers, was designed and used during World November 16, 2019. It was breakfast time ranking guard was finally called to the War l, and subsequently banned from and a guard, J. Thompson, was passing area, Marshawn not knowing what was battlefields. It then became a common out meal trays and beverages by unlock- amiss ended up being gassed several weapon of torture in colonizing Third ing the hinged slots on the cell doors and more times because he wouldn’t come World peoples and then U.S. prisons. handing in the food and beverages. to the door and be cuffed from behind, As its use became more common, rendering himself even more defense- Thompson repeatedly bypassed less to unprovoked attack. it’s been refined by manufacturers with Marshawn without serving him his few to no regulations, to enhance its beverages, while serving everyone else Thompson subsequently wrote painful effects and make it more diffi- theirs. Marshawn asked Thompson Marshawn a disciplinary report (DR) cult to flush from the skin. Which has several times why he was being claiming falsely that he came to also increased its lethality. bypassed and was ignored. Finally, Marshawn’s cell and ordered him to In prisons across Amerika gas is used Marshawn admittedly cursed at come to the cell door and back up to be to torture and murder prisoners so Thompson, stating it was disrespectful handcuffed, and Marshawn refused to casually and routinely, that most people to ignore him and finally, “fuck you comply. (DR case #WVS 19-11-0025) who’ve been confined expect to be or and that juice and coffee.” He then left The surveillance camera video have been victims of its abuse, either his cell door and got back into bed. record was narrated for the DR process directly or as bystanders. And guards commonly make a game of inventing pretexts and outright lying to speciously justify gas assaults on prisoners. I’d like to give two examples, both involving a prisoner at Indiana’s Wabash Valley prison where I’m pres- ently confined. In one case the guards’ own documentation and surveillance video footage demonstrate they lied to justify assaulting a completely defenseless man. In the other case, surveillance camera footage was erased by adminis- trators to cover up the assault. Two strikes Marshawn Weems is a young Black man who’s been imprisoned since he was 16 in adult Indiana prisons. He’s Self-portrait by Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 53 and states what happened at Words were passed and without Marshawn doesn’t matter. It wasn’t used Marshawn’s cell. Everything is warning, Smith repeatedly gassed him to take action against them for unjustifi- described except the period between from behind. In response to being gassed ably assaulting him; and it didn’t help to 7:00:41 A.M. and 7:01:19 A.M., during Marshawn instinctively pulled away— acquit him of the blatantly fabricated which the document says, “Camera he was held by a nylon leash connected DR—he was found guilty and punished freezes.” At just the time when to the handcuffs—and was pulled back on top of having been assaulted. Thompson repeatedly gasses toward the guards and gassed again. Unlike in society, videos of prisoners Marshawn, the camera is reported as Yet again a DR was fabricated to being abused, beaten, and killed by having malfunctioned. portray Marshawn as having done guards aren’t readily uploadable to I have the “Report of disciplinary something to justify the assault. In the social media to allow the world to bear hearing video evidence review” right in DR, Phillips outright lied claiming he witness to the outrages we suffer every front of me. It is clearly no coincidence was ordered to hand over his hat and day, and at rates much higher than that the camera supposedly “freezes” refused, and further refused to allow those “out there.” We live under the just when Marshawn is assaulted. And himself to be handcuffed. In a witness direct and total occupation of these this at a prison where the still reigning statement, Smith added to the lies, armed enforcers of this fascist system, assistant warden, Frank Littlejohn, and claiming Marshawn tried to pull the where every aspect of our lives is under other officials and their attorneys were nylon leash out of their hands and was their control and their acts of abuse and punished by a federal judge earlier this warned to stop or he’d be gassed. (DR opportunities to abuse us are constant. year for setting another prisoner up to case #WVS 20-08-0010) We need the unity and support of be repeatedly gassed and shot point- This time the surveillance camera the outside movement that’s been blank in the face with a gas gun, while video was not tampered with and awakened to the reality of police abuse, he was locked inside a shower, and and not for mere reforms, but to build lying in court to cover up the assault.3 showed the guards lied. The report narrating the video states before he was a struggle to end this decadent and The next attack on Marshawn hap- ever gassed, Marshawn “gives his incorrigible capitalist-imperialist sys- pened on August 11, 2020, on the solitary orange hat to Sargent Smith.” And tem that sustains itself through institu- exercise yard, while he was handcuffed. only after “Sergeant Smith sprays his tionalized violence against the poor, On this occasion, he’d just been chemical agent at offender Weems,” workers, and people of color. “escorted” in handcuffs to the yard, does he begin, “aggressively pulling on —November 30, 2020 which consists of a dog kennel type cage, the security lead.” and was locked inside by a guard M. What to do? 1 Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Amerika Uses Phillips and sergeant M. Smith. Phillips Military Grade Chemical Weapons on Prisoners ordered him to give them a hat Marshawn But of course, that the surveillance That it Bombs Syria for Using in Civil War” had in his hand, which he did. video shows these guards lied on (2018) http://rashidmod.com/?p=2580 See also: “Faces Full of Gas” http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/marapr_20/ marapr_20_22.html 2 Cold Storage: Super-Maximum Security Confinement in Indiana, Human Rights Watch (1997) http://hrw.org/reports/1997/usind/ 3 Torment In Indiana Prisons: The Abuse, The Lawsuit, The Death of Phillip Littler (2020)—In this issue of Socialist Viewpoint. rashidmod.com/?=2887: See, Littler v. Martinez https://casetext.com/case/littler-v-martinez-2

Write to Kevin “Rashid” Johnson: Kevin Johnson #264847 Wabash Valley Correctional Facility 6908 S. Old U.S. HWY 41, P.O. Box 500 Carlisle, IN 47838 www.rashidmod.com

54 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 The Untold Story of Jerod Fralerson By Peter Kamau Mukuria

“Black men born in the U.S. and for- confinement. As we were talking, he months on the low end, and nine years, tunate enough to live past the age of eigh- disclosed to me the amount of time he five months on the high end. The teen are conditioned to accept the inevita- is serving. Surely there must be more to Commonwealth prosecutor recom- bility of prison. For most of us it simply this story was my initial thought and I mended a ten-year prison sentence looms as the next sequence of humilia- instantly made a presumptive assump- which lands on the high end of the sen- tions. Being born a slave in a captive state tion that he was most likely incarcerat- tencing guidelines, but Judge Thomas and never experiencing any objective basis ed for a violent crime. However, even B. Hoover disregarded those established for expectation had the effect of preparing after explaining his case with legal doc- guidelines and recommendations and me for the progressively traumatic misfor- uments to corroborate, I still found it arbitrarily sentenced him to an astound- tunes that lead so many Black men to the inconceivable and mind boggling that a ing 30 year prison term, three times prison gate. I was prepared for prison. It life would be so nonchalantly discarded harsher than what the sentencing guide- required only minor psychic adjust- and condemned to decades in prison lines along with the Commonwealth ments.” —George Jackson over such an iota amount of drugs, a prosecutor recommended. non-violent offense when there are a In a country in which African Mr. Fralerson has been incarcerated plethora of people who get convicted Americans are a minority, ironically, since May 2009. He has missed out on daily of actual violent crimes and sen- they constitute the majority in state his two sons’ growing up, family events, tenced to drastically lighter sentences. and federal prisons. This isn’t an impli- graduations, and weddings. He recently cation that they commit most crimes, During Mr. Fralerson’s sentencing suffered the tragic loss of his mother to quite the contrary. It is the by-product the presiding judge issued much lighter Covid-19. Her one wish before passing of a system which disproportionately sentences to other defendants who were away was to see her son doing great target and effects African Americans indicted and found guilty on felony things with his life, but that wish did more than any other racial group. drug distribution, crimes far worse not come to fruition as he is still unjust- than Mr. Fralerson’s. One defendant ly incarcerated. His niece was merely a So, who is Jerod Fralerson? He is an was issued a work release program, kid at the time of his arrest. Now she’s African American man incarcerated in the another was sentenced to a mere six a young woman fighting for the release state of Virginia, serving a 30-year prison months in jail, whereas another received of her uncle. His brother continues to term. Given such a lengthy imposed dra- a little over a year in jail. The conspicu- fight for his pardon. His wife has stood conian sentence one would assume that ous difference between these other by his side fighting and advocating on he was convicted of a heinous violent defendants and Mr. Fralerson was their his behalf. When Judge Hoover con- crime of some sort. However, that isn’t skin color; they, being white, whereas demned Mr. Fralerson to 30-years in the case. Mr. Fralerson is from Richmond, Mr. Fralerson is Black. The disparity prison for a non-violent crime, he not Virginia. He was arrested in New Kent between the sentences is a vivid illustra- only utterly destroyed his life and County for possession of 1.777 grams of tion of how race is a determining factor future, but also destroyed his family, cocaine. At the trial proceeding he was in how justice is administered. for they too suffer daily with the unjust found guilty by an all-white jury who, A letter authored May 17, 1993 by incarceration of their loved one. along with the Commonwealth prosecu- the Judicial Sentencing Guidelines I hate to mention the obvious, but tor, recommended a ten-year prison term Committee provides an historical had Mr. Frlerson been a Caucasian but ultimately, the decision was up to the framework for appropriate sentencing male, chances are astronomical that he presiding Judge Thomas B. Hoover, who in which it stated verbatim, “The single would not have been sentenced to such rendered a 30-year prison sentence. As purpose of Virginia’s sentencing guide- a draconian prison term. What we have though that wasn’t enough, he mockingly lines is the establishment of rational and learned through the pseudo “War on suggested to Mr. Fralerson “I’d appeal if I consistent sentencing standards Drugs” and mass incarceration is that were you.” Prior to this case, Mr. Fralerson which…reduce unwarranted sentenc- in every state African Americans—par- had only one previous drug conviction ing disparity.” Clearly, this established ticularly in the poorest neighbor- and minor traffic violations. guideline was not applied in Mr. hoods—are subject to tactics and prac- I met Mr. Fralerson in the unit I’m Fralerson’s case. Additionally, these tices that would result in public out- currently housed in after recently being sentencing guidelines recommended an rage if committed in white neighbor- released from eight years in solitary active sentence of five years, nine hoods. Another lesson procured is that

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 55 justice is unambiguously administered COVID-19 in Jails and Prisons unequally. By Ella Fassler Mr. Fralerson was a teenager at the time of his arrest and has expressed deep regret for the decisions he made U.S jails and prisons, already death Perilous’s analysis found that peo- which landed him in prison. As human traps, have been completely ravaged by ple rose up inside federal and state beings none of us are perfect. We all COVID-19. Crowded quarters, a lack of prisons, jails, juvenile carceral centers, have failed to live up to our highest Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and Immigration Detention Centers in ideals and values and certain decisions inadequate medical care, an aging pop- 39 states. Immigrant Detention Centers we make as teenagers, particularly non- ulation, and unsanitary conditions have rebelled most frequently, with 45 sepa- violent ones, shouldn’t condemn any- contributed to an infection rate 5.5- rate events. Thirty-two rebellions took one to decades in prison. times higher than the already ballooned place in private prisons (25 of which average in the U.S. As of this writing had contracts with Immigration and We all deserve a second chance. [November 13, 2020], over 252,000 Customs Enforcement), a dispropor- Many of us even deserve a third and people in jails and prisons have been tionate response as less than nine per- fourth chance. Had Mr. Fralerson per- infected and at least 1,450 incarcerated cent of prisons in the United States are haps received a second chance he right- people and officers have died from the privately operated. Louisiana, with a fully deserved; he could have graduated novel coronavirus. Evidence suggests rich history of work stoppages, rebel- college rather than languish in prison. these figures are underreported, how- lions and an indefatigable support He could have been doing great things ever. (The entire state of Wisconsin, for infrastructure, was the state with the with his life which was his mother’s last example, isn’t releasing any informa- highest frequency of COVID-19- wish, and been a productive member tion to the public.) related prison rebellions. California of society had he been given a chance. In response, incarcerated people and Washington were the second and His case warrants close and broad have shown strong solidarity, coming third most rebellious respectively. public attention for his story and expe- together to demand baseline safety Common demands have included riences with the criminal injustice sys- measures and advocating for their that guards wear masks and that tem is a microcosm of the stories and release, only to be met with brutal departments provide individuals with experiences of a myriad of other repression and punishment. protective items like soap, masks, and African Americans men and women hand sanitizer. whose lives have been deemed dispos- According to a new report released able and buried in these dark places. If by the archival group Perilous: A In early April, an estimated 120 to Black lives truly matter, then even Chronicle of Prisoner Unrest on 180 detainees inside GEO Group’s those discarded and condemned to November 13, incarcerated people in Adelanto ICE “Processing Center” in decades in these human warehouses the U.S. collectively organized at least California went on hunger strike after should also be included in this nation- 106 COVID-19 related rebellions from two individuals exhibiting COVID-19 wide discussion. I’m more than privi- March 17 to June 15. Perilous, a volun- symptoms were sent to the hospital. leged to shed any light on this case for teer collective project that tracks infor- Striker Marcos Duran told Perilous it speaks volumes into the functionality mation on all prison uprisings, riots, that the private prison’s guards weren’t of the criminal injustice system. protests, strikes and other unrest with- wearing masks. Detainees did not have in carceral facilities, described this access to soap or shampoo, were forced activity as “clearly one of the most to eat alongside 50-60 other detainees, Write to Mr. Fralerson: massive waves of prisoner resistance in and slept in the same room as seven Jerod Fralerson #1119041 the past decade.” others, Duran said. As of October 7, Red Onion State Prison Duncan Tarr, a researcher at Perilous, according to Desert Sun, nearly 20 per- P.O. Box 1800 cent of detainees at Adelanto had con- Pound, VA 24279 tells Truthout, “Since corrections departments and ICE contractors are unwill- tracted COVID-19. Peter Kamau Mukuria #1197165 ing to prevent the spread of the virus, Beyond hunger strikes, Perilous Red Onion State Prison prisoners and detainees have been tak- documented 21 “uprisings” in P.O. Box 1800 ing action themselves to draw attention American prisons, defined as collective Pound, VA 24279 to the dangerous situation they find acts of rebellion that exceed the usual Instagram@PittPanther_art themselves in and to resist the system of scope of a protest through unpredict- Jpay.com/email incarceration that is killing them.” able or chaotic means.

56 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 In Monroe, Washington, after six But, despite early resistance, Cook Prison, filed a lawsuit in May against the incarcerated people and five staff mem- County Jail’s population has crept up California Department of Corrections bers were diagnosed with COVID-19, again to nearly pre-pandemic levels. and Rehabilitation alleging “deliberate an estimated 100 to 200 incarcerated COVID-19 flareups behind bars indifference to the risk of substantial people staged a protest over inadequate have undoubtedly contributed to the harm to inmates by failing to immedi- protective measures and a downplay- United States’ abysmal failure to con- ately reduce the prison population of San ing of the virus in the recreation yard at trol the virus. Despite urgent calls for Quentin by releasing or transferring at Monroe Correctional Complex on action from public health scientists in least 50 percent of the population of the April 8. Joshua Vermaat, an incarcer- The Lancet, the ACLU and countless prison.” After the filing, San Quentin suf- ated person at MCC, described his other organizations, Democratic and fered an outbreak of at least 2,500 cases concerns in a letter to a friend, excerpts Republican politicians alike, from New and at least 29 deaths. On October 20, the of which were published in KUOW, York Governor Andrew Cuomo to First District Court of Appeal in California NPR. He said the Department of Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, have ruled in Von Staich’s favor, ordering the Corrections was transferring uninfect- largely refused to reduce prison popu- release or transfer of nearly 1,500 incar- ed incarcerated people into contami- lations by any meaningful margin. In cerated people. The court wrote, “If nec- nated tiers. He wrote, “We’ve been safe the ACLU’s evaluation of state efforts essary to achieve this reduction, respon- until now, but because of their lack of to prevent COVID-19 deaths behind dents are ordered to revise their expedited foresight and proper planning, now bars, Colorado, Kentucky, Maine, release programs to include inmates over they need rooms for more vulnerable Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, 60, who have served at least 25 years of inmates and they want us to go into the Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia their sentences and are eligible for parole, ‘hot zone’ to make room for them.” received the best scores, all with a “D-”. such as life prisoners eligible for parole “They tried to bribe us with After sustained activism and a mount- and second or third strike prisoners, even McDonald’s food. Are you flipping ing death toll, on November 4, New if such prisoners are serving a sentence kidding … if you would do anything I Jersey released more than 2,000 incar- for a violent offense.” ask you to tell this to the news and to cerated people who were already near- Incarcerated people and public the governor, this isn’t right.” ing the end of their sentences. health experts warn, however, that Some people refused orders to In the face of negligence, Ivan Von transfers increase the spread of COVID- move. Their grievances were met with Staich, an incarcerated person at the 19. San Quentin’s massive outbreak chemical weapons, rubber bullets and notoriously brutal San Quentin State resulted from transfers. “The best way sting balls, according to the Department of Corrections. Demonstrators were ultimately forced to surrender. The next day Vermaat said the resistance led to a change in tone from the DOC, but that the facility went on lock down. “No one here wants violence, NO ONE, but at the same time you’ve got 400-plus … who are now being backed into corners.” One month later, a guard at Monroe Correctional died from COVID-19. Cook County Jail in Chicago, a site with the largest outbreak of any location in the state of Illinois, rebelled on six separate occasions including one uprising and several hunger strikes. On at least one occasion some detainees attempted or threatened to attempt suicide. Over the course of April, the jail had released nearly a fourth of its popula- Lauren Walker/Truthout tion, decreasing it from 5,604 to 4,301.

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 57 to help keep prisoners from contracting Colin Kaepernick: Free Mumia! the virus would be mass releases,” Christopher Blackwell, an incarcerated man at Monroe previously told Truthout. “Absent those, it is essential When I was invited to speak on oppressive steel and brick umbrella to cease transfers and provide incarcer- behalf of Mumia, one of the first things that transforms seconds into hours, ated people with adequate supplies.” that came to mind was how long he’s and hours into days. He has had to Instead of mass releases, as the U.S. been in prison. How many years of his endure this second-by-second assault enters its third wave, many depart- life had been stolen away from him, his on his soul for 38 years. ments’ chosen preventative measures community, and his loved ones. He’s He had no record before he was continue to be “lockdowns,” or confin- been incarcerated for 38 years. Mumia arrested and framed for the death of a ing people in their cells for 21 to 23 has been in prison longer than I’ve Philadelphia police officer. Since 1981, hours a day. It’s estimated that 300,000 been alive. Mumia has maintained his innocence. people incarcerated in state and federal When I first spoke with Mumia on His story has not changed. Mumia was prisons are in lockdown or solitary con- the phone, I did very little talking. I shot, brutalized, arrested, and chained finement conditions. Many incarcerat- just listened. Hearing him speak was a to a hospital bed. The first police offi- ed people have lost phone privileges reminder of why we must continue to cer assigned to him wrote in a report and (already scant) programming. As fight. Earlier this year, The United that the “Negro male made no com- budgets are slashed without comple- Nations Human Rights Office of the ment” as cited in Philly Mag. Yet 64 mentary mass releases, healthcare ser- High Commissioner issued a state- days into the investigation, another vices behind bars will continue to dete- ment, noting that prolonged solitary officer testified that Mumia had con- riorate, according to Perilous’ report. confinement, the precise type often fessed to the killing. Mumia’s story has Prior to COVID-19, experts considered used in the United States, amounts to not changed, but we’re talking about U.S. prisons to be “ticking time bombs.” psychological torture. Mumia Abu- the same Philadelphia Police Baseline volatile conditions remain and Jamal has spent roughly 30 out of his Department whose behavior “shocks the virus is an accelerant. Some people 38 years in solitary confinement. the conscience,” according to a 1979 hope that the virus will be better managed In his book Live From Death Row, DOJ (Department of Justice) report. once Biden and Harris take power, Mumia wrote that prison is a second- Behaviors like shooting nonviolent although they have not yet released a plan by-second assault on the soul, a day- suspects, abusing handcuffed prison- that puts people over profit. to-day degradation of the self, an ers, and tampering with evidence. Tarr hopes that the Perilous report will bring some attention to the struggle behind bars during this chaotic time. “As the national political crisis continues to play out over the next few months, it is important that some of the most vulnerable to COVID-19—those locked up by our government—are not forgot- ten and that their cries for help and freedom do not go unheard,” he said. “And a close look at the first few months of their resistance to the pandemic can shed some light on how we might move forward in preventing more unneeded deaths inside prison walls.” —Truthout. November 13, 2020 https://truthout.org/articles/report- finds-over-100-rebellions-in-jails-and- prisons-over-covid-conditions/?eType=E mailBlastContent&eId=772fc9d9-d705- A sign with an image of sports icon Colin Kaepernick asking “Get It Yet?” —June 2, 2020: Black 472b-8b36-dbfadee37de4 Lives Matter Protest at Clifton City Hall - Clifton, NJ, (Shutterstock)

58 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Found in December 2018, in an Philadelphia Police Department’s 26th inaccessible storage room of the DA’s district headquarters, and yet a politi- office, six boxes of documents for cal prisoner who has since the age of 14 Mumia’s case reveal previously undis- dedicated his life to fighting against FREE closed and highly significant evidence racism, continues to be caged and lives showing that Mumia’s trial was tainted his life on a slow death row. We’re in by a failure to disclose material evi- the midst of a movement that says MUMIA dence in violation of the United States Black Lives Matter. And if that’s truly and Pennsylvania Constitutions. In the case, then it means that Mumia’s ABU-JAMAL November 2019, the Fraternal Order of life and legacy must matter. And the Police filed a King’s Bench Petition ask- causes that he sacrifices life and free- ing the court to allow the state attorney dom for must matter as well. It should therefore come as little general, not the Philadelphia DA’s Through all of the torture Mumia surprise that, according to Dr. Johanna office, to handle the upcoming appeals. has suffered over the past 38 years, his Fernandez, over one-third of the 35 principles have never wavered. These officers involved in Mumia’s case, were principles have manifested themselves subsequently convicted of rank cor- Well, Mumia is 66 years in his writing countless books while ruption, extortion, and tampering with old. He is a grandfather. incarcerated, in his successful radio evidence to obtain convictions in unre- show, and the time and energy he has lated cases. This is the same Philadelphia He is an elder with poured into his mentorship of younger Police Department where officers ran ailments. He is a human incarcerated folks and the continued racial profiling sweeps, like Operation being that deserves concern for the people suffering out- Cold Turkey in March 1985, targeting side of the walls. Even while living in Black and Brown folks; and bombed to be free. the hells of the prison system, Mumia the MOVE house in May of that year, still fights for our human rights. We killing 11 people, including five chil- As the FOP president John McNesby must continue to fight for him and his dren and destroying 61 homes. said just last year, “Mumia should human rights. The same Philadelphia police remain in prison for the rest of his life.” Well, Mumia is 66 years old. He is a department, whose officers eight days And a King’s Bench order provides the grandfather. He is an elder with ail- before the 2020 presidential election, legal angle for the Commonwealth of ments. He is a human being that shot Walter Wallace Jr. dead in the Pennsylvania to uphold Judge Sabo’s deserves to be free. streets in front of his crying mother. original wish, which was for Mumia Free Mumia. The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of ultimately to die in prison. —PrisonRadio.org, November 20, 2020 Police has unrelentingly campaigned Today we’re living through a for Mumia’s execution. During their moment where it’s acceptable to paint https://www.prisonradio.org/news/ August 1999, national meeting, a “end racism now” in front of the colin-kaepernick-free-mumia spokesperson for the organization stated that they will not rest until Abu- Jamal burns in hell. The former Philadelphia president of the Fraternal A New Development in the Case Order of Police, Richard Castello, went of Mumia Abu-Jamal as far as to say that if you disagree with their views of Mumia, you can join him In a ruling helpful to Mumia, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled in the electric chair and that they will against the case brought by The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police make it an electric couch. Lodge Five and Maureen Faulkner, the widow of the police officer that The trial judge on Mumia’s case in Mumia was accused of killing. They sought to remove Philadelphia District 1981, Albert Sabo was a former member Attorney Larry Krassner from the case because of his record of correcting of the Fraternal Order of Police. Court some of the past abuses by Philadelphia police against Black defendants. The reporter Terry Maurer Carter even effect of this frivolous lawsuit was to delay Mumia’s efforts to get his case heard Judge Sabo telling a colleague back into court to examine and rule on copious amounts of evidence of “I’m going to help them fry the nigger.” Mumia’s innocence that was suppressed for years.

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 59 “Accelerate Our Efforts” to Free Mumia By Angela Davis

Professor Angela Davis, herself once a Philadelphia Magazine had applauded Black Panther Party. His declassified political prisoner, is a founding member of Anthony Smith’s community service 500-page FBI file shows that the Critical Resistance, a national organiza- and his exceptional leadership. And all Philadelphia police, in consultation tion dedicated to dismantling the prison around the world we have followed the with COINTELPRO, for many years industrial complex. On November 16, work of Anthony Smith’s organization, had tried to peg a crime on Mumia. We Davis delivered the following remarks dur- the Black Philadelphia Radical Collective, also know that at least one third of the ing the virtual press conference “Freedom and many of us passionately support the police involved in his case were jailed and Abolition: A critical moment in the 13 demands1 they have submitted. after it was discovered that they had fight to free Mumia Abu-Jamal.” systematically tampered with evidence Mumia Abu-Jamal has played such in large numbers of cases across the a pivotal role in the processes of popu- ...now is the time to city of Philadelphia. lar education that have led us to this accelerate our campaign COINTELPRO’s role critical juncture and what one might call the century-and-a-half-year-old to bring Mumia home... in Mumia’s frameup effort to acknowledge the structural I think that few people know that and systemic character of racism and We know also that the City Council the investigation of the killing of Daniel to take seriously the demands for abo- in Philadelphia recently offered an Faulkner, the policeman whom Mumia lition. Abolition of the death penalty, apology, an official apology, for the is accused of killing, that this investiga- of prisons, of the police. And so, it is 1985 bombing which killed 11 MOVE tion was conducted not by the homi- right and just that we should accelerate members, including five children, and cide unit of the Philadelphia police our efforts, on this new terrain, to completely destroyed 61 homes. department but by its “Civil Defense finally free our brother-comrade. Unit,” which was the local police arm So, I’ve been asked to briefly describe of [former FBI Director] J. Edgar Much attention has been focused on Mumia’s case in the context of the long Hoover’s COINTELPRO. Philadelphia recently from the elections, history of political repression in this to the police killing of Walter Wallace country and in the context of the utili- In 1981, Mumia was sentenced to who was experiencing a mental health zation of the criminal legal system to death. And from death row [he] pro- crisis, to the arrest by federal agents of produce pretext for incarcerating peo- duced brilliant critiques of the prison the teacher and community activist ple who have chosen to develop radical industrial complex, mass incarcera- Anthony Smith. And we know that resistance strategies in relation to racist tion, capital punishment, and other barely a week before his arrest, state violence. institutional consequences of racial capitalism. Many of us are aware of the Mumia is a relatively younger mem- fact that his widely circulated writings ber of a generation of Black radical activ- have helped to humanize people in ists and intellectuals who have challenged the structural and systemic char- prison and people on death row. acter of racism long before this recogni- Like many others of my age, I’ve tion helped to accelerate efforts to rei- been an active supporter of Mumia for magine some of our society’s fundamen- many decades. And I’ve had the honor tal institutions. Because of our radical of speaking on his behalf at United stances we were targeted by the state. In Nations conferences and other interna- many instances the state demonized and tional venues where Mumia, for exam- railroaded countless numbers of Black ple, was declared an honorary citizen of radicals, some of us who were freed, but Paris. (The last person before him to many of whom have been imprisoned receive that distinction was Pablo for as many as five or six decades. Picasso [in 1971].) I participated in that Mumia was targeted by the ceremony in Paris as his surrogate. Angela Davis speaking at press conference for Philadelphia police and COINTELPRO, Leonard Peltier, Mutulu Shakur, Mumia, November 16, 2020. Credit: Joe Piette. beginning with his membership in the Russell Maroon Shoatz, Ed Poindexter,

60 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Mumia’s case and the abolition Janeiro to Johannesburg, to London, to movement Paris. Here in the U.S., mass incarceration especially affects Indigenous peo- As you’ve heard from Johanna ple and Black and Latinx communities. BRING [Fernandez] and others—Linn Washington for example—his case is And I think we need to emphasize riddled with violations. Especially the the fact that the very same forces that MUMIA concealing of exculpatory evidence and have driven the creation of the prison the presence of Kenneth Freeman at industrial complex are responsible for the scene of the killing of Daniel the fact that many people in other HOME Faulkner although the prosecutor was countries, in countries of the Global aware of the fact that Freeman had South, have seen their whole econo- mies destroyed by capitalist incursions. Veronza Bowers, Romaine “Chip” been identified as the shooter by four They have no other choice than to flee. Fitzgerald, David Gilbert, and my for- witnesses. And [on May 13th, 1985] Thus, the borders and the walls and mer co-defendant Ruchell Magee are the same night of the MOVE bombing, immigrant detention facilities are inte- just a few of the U.S. political prisoners Kenneth Freeman was found dead in a grally linked to racist policing and the who have spent the vast majority of parking lot, gagged and handcuffed. prison industrial complex. their lives behind bars and, as we know, We know that there were clear vio- are currently the most vulnerable with lations in relation to the selection of I should point out that abolitionist respect to COVID-19. We’ve already the jury. Eleven out of the prosecu- strategies emphasize the connections of heard about Russell Maroon Shoatz’s tion’s 14 peremptory challenges were all of these institutions. At a time when condition. And we’ve heard [Yale pro- used to eliminate Black jurors. Of structural critiques of racism are gain- fessor and global health activist] Gregg course, this in itself, as it’s already been ing traction, and specifically its central- Gonsalves emphasize the need for pointed out, supports the call for a new ity to policing, we gather here to demand compassionate decarceration, an aboli- trial. The Supreme Court has ruled the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal and tionist strategy. that the elimination of jurors on the other political prisoners whose trials and sentences were irreparably influ- Thanks to international organizing basis of race is a major violation. And enced by their political beliefs and by efforts, Mumia is perhaps the most as Johanna and others have pointed their challenges to this very system. well-known political prisoner in the out, newly discovered file boxes in the world. And these international efforts DA’s office, which were there for 37 —Workers World, November 19, 2020 years or so, contained a list of potential saved his life when he came danger- https://www.workers.org/2020/11/52580/ ously close to execution in 1995. jurors highlighting their race. Mumia’s case exemplifies the length to And perhaps even more egregious which the state will go to silence those are the instructional tapes that were 1 Black Philly Radical Collective: Thirteen who speak truth to power. And this is produced by Assistant District Attorney Demands: why the Fraternal Order of Police has Jack McMahon, who pointed out that 1. We Demand an Authentic Defunding of the been unrelenting in its attempt to educated Black people should not be Police Budget; 2. Immediately Cease the Crimi- silence him and his supporters. selected to serve on the jury. But also, as nalization of Black Resistance; 3. Immediately & Permanently Remove All Symbols of State Vio- But now that structures of policing he said, “Blacks from the low-income area are less likely to convict” and, as a lence; 4. Immediate Permanent Release of have finally been exposed for their sys- Mumia Abu Jamal, Major Tillery, Arthur Cet- temic racism, and as we call for justice in result, “I don’t want these people on awayo Johnson, Russell “Maroon” Shoatz, Omar the names of Breonna Taylor, and your jury.” As he said: “It may appear Askia, Joseph “Jo-Jo” Bowen, and all Black George Floyd, and Walter Wallace, and that you’re being racist or whatnot but Political Prisoners; 5. Immediate Release of All Vulnerable Individuals in Prison; 6. Swift Firing so many others, and now that the city of again you’re just being realistic. You’re just trying to win the case.” of Killer Cops and Community Response; 7. Philadelphia has issued an official apol- Abolish the Fraternal Order of Police and the ogy to MOVE, now is the time to accel- So finally, the framing of Mumia Police Advisory Committee; 8. End the Military erate our campaign to bring Mumia and his incarceration are part of a Occupation of the Black Community; 9. Protec- home. Let’s not forget that Mumia’s larger story of structural racism and tion for Black Philadelphia; 10. End All Carceral repression linked to global capitalism, Systems; 11. Disband All Private Police Depart- identification with MOVE and his empa- ments; 12. Fund Communities, Not Cops; 13. thetic reporting on the city’s repression linked to racial capitalism. Racism Economic Justice NOW! of MOVE rendered him a major target of drives incarceration and infects polic- https://blackphillyradicalcollective.com/our- the Rizzo administration. ing all over the world, from Rio de 13-demands

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 61 You Cannot Decarcerate by Using Tools of Incarceration Maresi Starzmann Interviews Mumia Abu-Jamal

The somber baritone of Mumia Abu- gressive prosecutors like Krasner, the really has no substantive prison reform Jamal is unmistakable. Before we can current administration is actively rolling programs at all. But he takes a thimble exchange greetings, one of several auto- back reforms. Most notably, Donald and makes a bucket out of it. I’ve heard mated announcements interrupts the Trump has lifted the 17-year moratori- him in debates talking about prison call, reminding us that our conversation um on federal executions and reinstated reform, but that’s not really what he will be subject to recording and monitor- Department of Justice contracts with supports. It is a political tool meant to ing. Abu-Jamal is phoning from State private prisons. For Abu-Jamal, with pry people away from other candidates Correctional Institution Mahanoy, a whom I spoke about abolition, the his- in support of his reelection. While it is medium-security prison in Pennsylvania. tory of slavery and racialized state vio- true that some people have gotten out Convicted in 1982 for the alleged killing lence in the United States, this fraught on the First Step program, Trump has of white Philadelphia Police Officer political moment requires an entirely also supported the reinstitution of some Daniel Faulkner in a racially charged different mindset that allows us to think of the most repressive institutions in trial that, according to Amnesty about decarceration in new ways. the carceral state—private prisons. This International, failed to meet interna- Maresi Starzmann: Donald Trump takes us far back to post-Civil War tra- tional standards, Abu-Jamal’s death claims to have instituted prison reforms, ditions in American life when the state sentence was commuted to life imprison- because he introduced the First Step sublet its function to private corporate ment in 2011. In April 2019, a new path Act, a bipartisan federal sentencing and entities and Black people were forced for Abu-Jamal to appeal his life sentence reform bill, and granted clemency to into slavery by another name. was opened by reform-leaning several select, high-profile or celebrity Maresi Starzmann: Can you explain Philadelphia District Attorney Larry prisoners. What do you make of this? this term, “slavery by another name?” Krasner, who withdrew his initial opposition for a new appeal to go forward in Mumia Abu-Jamal: Trump is a Mumia Abu-Jamal: I refer to the the courts. Yet, 64-year-old Abu-Jamal wolf. He does not understand the post-Civil War era of the 1870s and the remains skeptical when it comes to crim- meaning, much less the function of the period after Reconstruction that result- inal legal reform in the United States. word “empathy.” One cannot seek to ed in the eruption of what can only be Despite calls to defund the police and a help the people who are caged in this called a fascist state—openly at first in string of electoral victories for more pro- carceral state without empathy. Trump the Southern half of the United States, then suddenly and quietly in the rest of the country. Against Black life, Black freedom, Black liberty and ostensibly Reconstruction. The people, who were formerly enslaved, were now submitted to Black Codes—laws that only applied to Black people. It was a form of legalized bondage of African Americans under the power of the state. This continued throughout the beginning of the 20th century, which was itself marked by pogroms and race riots in major American cities against Blacks. At the time, white workers were mobilized, both north and south, because Black people were considered threats to their jobs. It was absurd and it was patently unconstitutional. Maresi Starzmann: Can we still see Riot police arrest protesters in Louisville, Kentucky, on September 23, 2020, after a judge announced remnants of this today? the charges brought by a grand jury against Detective Brett Hankison, one of three police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in March.

62 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 Mumia Abu-Jamal: Many Americans calling for his mother. The cop kneel- has created mass incarceration. You think that the 13th, 14th and 15th ing on his neck could not be more cannot decarcerate by using the tools Amendments were introduced to grant nonchalant, more comfortable, more of incarceration, because they have a freedom and equal rights to Black peo- arrogant, because he is doing his job. specific function. Decarceration calls ple. In fact, however, they did nothing Maresi Starzmann: And yet, we also for a completely different mindset. I of the kind. We are living in a period see reform movements in the criminal prefer the term adopted by Dr. Angela where Black people are attacked by legal system, like the election of pro- Y. Davis: abolition. We must move for forces and agents of the state, like the gressive prosecutors, many of whom what we want, not for what we think police, with very little control or come- are Black women who ran on platforms the system can produce, because the back. This is the kind of unspoken, to reduce racial disparities in prosecu- system is the problem, not the solution unwritten impunity that targets Black tion. Isn’t that a positive development? to the problem. people in the North, in the South, in the Maresi Starzmann: Given your East, in the West, in their homes, in own experiences with the system, do their cars, on the streets, at the job, any- We will never heal the you at all believe that deep, systemic where…. Black people speak openly change is possible? about driving while Black, walking social wound of mass while Black and breathing while Black. incarceration by Mumia Abu-Jamal: I obviously think all things are possible. The question is, is Maresi Starzmann: Could you talk changing the it probable? That’s an open political more about the historical roots of this prosecutors. question, because freedom has always system, in particular with regards to been contested in the land that claims to American policing, and what this means be the land of the free. This is also the for the present political moment? Mumia Abu-Jamal: Reform move- land of the incarcerated. There is a rea- Mumia Abu-Jamal: American ments are playing around the edges of son we speak of “prison nation,” because policing really differs from the police the problem. It is interesting that people the numbers in the millions are an systems that emerged in European think progressive prosecutors could American phenomenon. And mass states. There is no co-referent to these mend this broken system, because, in the incarceration is a direct response to free- systems, they are distinct. Most people end, they are still prosecutors. Their job dom movements in the United States. lazily believe that American policing is to put people in prison. And why are Change is contested. But where there is emerged as an offspring of Scotland we not talking about changing judges or struggle, there is progress. That’s the les- Yard in London. Nothing could be fur- legislators, who are also engines in this son of Frederick Douglass, and we do ther from the truth. The American system? Or the media? The media play a well to listen to the original abolitionists police system emerged from the slave remarkable role in driving mass incar- to get a sense of what is necessary for this system and from a perpetual war ceration in America. When people work moment. It is relentless, continuous against the freedom, movement and their way out of the system after 20, 25, struggle wherever it’s possible—and liberation of Black people from the 30 or 35 years, it is the media making sometimes even in places where one land of their oppressors. It was designed money by selling stories about the pris- may think it to be impossible. to terrorize, humiliate and often oners’ redemption. When you look at the —Truthout, October 25, 2020 destroy Black people as a message to scope of the problem—the fact that mil- https://truthout.org/articles/you-cannot- other Black people, who dared to run lions of people are incarcerated and that decarcerate-by-using-the-tools-of-incarcera- away from slavery. Forces known as the the prison system has become a generation-says-mumia-abu-jamal/?eType=Email Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White tional employer for the white rural work- BlastContent&eId=70360aab-2132-48a7- Camelia, and similar organizations ing class—then you see the kind of eco- aec1-4c5cdae6b383 performed a super-policing of Black nomic and political impediment to the people through terrorism. This was abolition of this system. We will never fascism in every sense. Fascism is not heal the social wound of mass incarcera- Write to Mumia at: [only] an Italian or even a German tion by changing the prosecutors. Smart Communications/PADOC thing; in many ways, it’s an American Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335 Maresi Starzmann: Can you elaborate? thing. And we saw what that means SCI Mahanoy when we looked at that video of George Mumia Abu-Jamal: Reforms allow P.O. Box 33028 Floyd dying, begging for his life and us to ignore the structural element that St. Petersburg, FL 33733

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 63

Book Review BOOK REVIEW

Thoughts on Socialism By Comrade Pitt

tice and disparities continue, as well as ments presented to be an indispensable irreversible damage to the climate, abject contribution to social justice and social poverty, etc. The year 2020 has unequivo- change. It draws historical lessons from cally been a year full of chaos, uncertainty a Marxist perspective and applies them and devastation; however, in the midst of to the present times in ways that serve this crisis the curtains have been pulled as a blueprint to expedite qualitative back on the diabolical functions of capi- and quantitative social change for all of talism. Consequently, calls for an alterna- humanity and the environment. tive system echo louder than before. Socialist Practice builds upon arguments presented by the author in his other books, Democracy Denied and ...the oppressor has an Red-Green Revolution. The author’s outsized role in the life research derives from his own direct experiences as an activist and scholar. of the oppressed, which Being of the lumpen proletariat class makes understanding and a prisoner, what I truly appreciate the oppressor’s modus most is how eloquently the arguments are presented in ways which are easily operandi a matter of grasped by the readers but also even great importance— more importantly, I find this book to be Socialist Practice: Histories and Theories sometimes a matter of quite empowering. I fully fathomed By Victor Wallis Victor Wallis’s point when he men- life and death—to the tioned that, verbatim, “The oppressed “The real purpose of socialism is pre- knows the oppressor better than vice cisely to overcome and advance beyond the oppressed... versa. This is because the oppressor has predatory phase of human development.” an outsized role in the life of the —Albert Einstein In this brief essay I want to focus on oppressed, which makes understanding Since Capitalism toppled feudalism it the recently published book titled the oppressor’s modus operandi a matter has illustrated for centuries that it is inca- Socialist Practice: Histories and Theories of great importance—sometimes a mat- pable of solving the social issues it creat- by Victor Wallis. Subsequent to reading ter of life and death—to the oppressed.” ed. The gap between rich and poor is this book and circulating it in my study At the core of Socialist Practice, it steadily widening, systemic racial injus- group, I find the perspective and argu- provides a blueprint for the current and future generations for ways to fight for a better and radically different world, and I believe this is a book worth a read by anyone.

Write to: Minister of Education-New Afrikan Black Panther Party/United Panther Movement, Comrade Pitt at: Peter Kamau Mukuria #1197165 Red Onion state prison P.O. Box 1900 Pound, VA 24279 Instagram@Pittpanther_art

64 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1

Letter to the Editors LETTER TO THE EDITORS

Dear Editors, realize that in order to live as a species on Com: together Some thoughts on communism, i.e., this planet, we need to remember what it Uni: the unit for measurement of living together as one. We once lived as is to live with the earth and together as the number one one. Let’s balance our collective priorities one with the earth and universe. We Ism: a practice system or philosophy weren’t somehow separate or above other so our grandchildren’s grandchildren Communism: The practice system forms of life. We just were people—ani- don’t have to live in a space station. It’s about facing facts and accepting the real- and philosophy of living together as one. mals among the animals. Then we devel- ity that the capitalist way of life has out- oped civilization, and began drawing Leaders of revolutions are leaders of lived its usefulness in human history and lines and creating categories and set evolution. evolution. It’s not easy, like growing up in judgments based off of these designs. We And we need as many as we can get. a dysfunctional home thinking that it’s began to live separately from those who normal until something devastating hap- Let’s us, the masses of people, join weren’t in our category. We started to pens. Well it’s happening, we are in a state hands and arms to build sustainable peace. mine the earth for ore for weapons. We of collective suicide, but we can change —Johnny Gould, November 12, 2020 no longer viewed earth as the giver of life the trajectory of humanity—life on Mars and began to see it as property, and let is NOT a solution. The theory, practice greed and pride overtake and drive and system based on living together as Follow @tandino415 on Instagram human relationships and society. one in solidarity, is the solution. United We have gotten to the point where the by our essential commonalities let’s live evidence is clear and we are beginning to in celebration of our diversity.

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 65 S o c i a l i s t V i e w p o i n t Where to find us: www.socialistviewpoint.org [email protected] (415) 824-8730

EDITORS Carole Seligman, Bonnie Weinstein

GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGN BUSINESS MANAGER Mykael Carole Seligman

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

66 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 21, No. 1 MOVE Family Says: Free Mumia! MOVE family statement regarding the “apology” by Philadelphia officials for the 1985 bombing of their home.

December 7, 2020—ONA MOVE would release our brother, Mumia they should be offering apologies to the Everybody! Abu-Jamal immediately! They can’t families of Walter Wallace, Winston This is a statement from the MOVE give us back our 11 family members Hood, William Green and the families family to let y’all know that the MOVE they murdered in 1985, but they can of the countless other victims of police family ain’t interested in no apology give us back our brother, Mumia Abu- brutality and murder in the city of so- from any officials in Philadelphia for Jamal, who has been in prison 39 years called “Brotherly Love.” the 1985 bombing of our family, caus- for a crime he didn’t commit, and We’re saying an apology without ing the murder of 11 of our MOVE everybody knows this—including the action is meaningless! family members (five of our children mouthpiece for the Fraternal Order of Release Mumia Abu-Jamal! and six of our adult sisters and broth- Police—Maureen Faulkner. MOVE is Long Live John Africa! ers.) If city officials are sincere about saying that if Philadelphia officials rectifying the debacle of 1985, they think offering an apology is the answer, —The MOVE Family

Remember MOVE: Bombed from Above, Persecuted, Mass Murdered, Politically Imprisoned! Artwork by Kevin “Rashid” Johnson: http://rashidmod.com/?p=1207

Vol. 21, No. 1 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 67 $4 at Newsstands and Bookstores SocialistViewpoint

H The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. —Karl Marx H JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 VOL. 21 NO. 1

June 2, 2020: Black Lives Matter Protest at Clifton City Hall - Clifton, NJ, (Shutterstock)Read Colin Kaepernick: Free Mumia on page 58.

On the Front Cover: s June 07 2020: Peaceful protest against racism and recent U.S. police brutality—Palma de Mallorca, Spain (Shutter- stock). Read Finding the Road to Utopia on page 2.