The#218: noVeMBer 2016IndypendenT • IndypendenT.org peace, LoVe & droneS, p6 woMen & TrUMp, p17 reVerend BILLy'S heaLIng wordS, p22

The end IS eLecTIonnear SUrVIVaL gUIde STarTS p8 DAVID HOLLENBACH 2 reaDer'S The Value oF WaTeR, p10 | IndypendenT open The deBaTes! p14 | RoJaVa’s WaRRIoR Women, p18 The IndypendenT Voice #217: ocToBeR 2016 • IndypendenT.oRg

THE INDYPENDENT, INC. 388 Atlantic Avenue, 2nd Floor , NY 11217 212-904-1282 www.indypendent.org : @TheIndypendent AN APP OF OUR OWN INSANE CLOWN POSSE facebook.com/TheIndypendent I’m for unions creating apps and putting together their Not sure adding more clowns to the appedcircus will make To Be BOARD OF DIRECTORS: own businesses. They could tout them to customers the debates any more or less enjoyable. What I would as a services that provide workers economic justice. really like to see is some policy talk. Ellen Davidson, Anna Gold, hoWscReWed The gIg economy Is changIng Alina Mogilyanskaya, (“Apped to be Screwed,” Oct. Indypendent). The Way— WeFreya WoRk and M. lIVe Ann Schneider, John Tarleton By peTeR Rugh, p4

— Terry L. david hoLLenbaCh PEACE WITH JUSTICE EDITOR: John Tarleton CRUDE AWAKENING The Colombian government of Manuel Santos and Álvaro Uribe will continue, with the assistance of the ASSOCIATE EDITOR: I have signifi cant respect for Jeremy Brecher's work US, to carry on a program of exploitation and oppres- Peter Rugh (“DAPL and the Future of US Labor,” Indyblog). I re- sion against the majority of the people in Colombia member using his book Strike! as a basis for student (“After 50 Years of War, a Chance at Peace,” Oct. In- CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: teaching back in 1994. His scholarship and attention dypendent). People want peace with justice which is Ellen Davidson, to detail is on display in this article, which is as accu- a long way coming. The peace vote was defeated by Alina Mogilyanskaya, rate as anything I've seen on the Dakota Access pipe- the Right but the people of Colombia should not be Nicholas Powers, Steven Wishnia line. But I think here, as in many progressive corners blinded, the struggle continues! of the Internet, the case against the pipeline is more — Gustavo M. ILLUSTRATION DIRECTOR: assumed than proven. The pipeline will hardly play Frank Reynoso a role in expanding petroleum development. Bakken crude has had no problems fi nding its way to market LET IT SNOW DESIGN DIRECTOR: by rail — a more dangerous and carbon-producing mode of transportation. Excellent review, right to the point (“The Full Mikael Tarkela — Geoff H. Snowden,” Oct. Indypendent). I'd like to add that Oli- ver Stone’s fi lm was visually breathtaking. The color DESIGNERS: and set design were brilliantly executed. One of my Steven Arnerich, Anna Gold FROM SANDY TO MATTHEW favorite scenes was the aerial view of the forest where basic training was taking place. The shot of the indigo SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER: Really strong refl ection on the effects of climate and white trees from above was like nothing I'd ever Elia Gran change and Hurricane Sandy on his home by Liam seen on fi lm. Flynn-Jambeck (Hurricane Matthew, a Deadly Re- — Carol L. INTERN: minder of Climate Chaos to Come,” IndyBlog). Well Eliza Relman worth the read. — Raquel TELL US WHAT YOU ARE THINKING: GENERAL INQUIRIES: [email protected]. [email protected] WAKING UP FROM A NIGHTMARE SUBMISSIONS AND NEWS TIPS: [email protected] Trump is a byproduct of our corrupt corporate media ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION: that has given him billions of dollars in free air time [email protected] while censoring progressives like Bernie and now (“What Are They Afraid Of?,” Oct. Indypen- VOLUNTEER CONTRIBUTORS: dent). Both parties and their puppet candidates are Sam Alcoff, Linda Martín two sides of the same counterfeit coin. Time to reject Alcoff, Bennett Baumer, Devika the two-party nightmare and support real progressive Bilimoria, Duane Bruton, José champions of democracy, human rights, peace and environmental justice. That is why, after 29 years as Carmona, Shawn Carrié, Hye Jin a Democrat, I have awakened to reject both parties. Chung, Annette Elizabeth, Renée Feltz, Ersellia Ferron, Daniel — Dave E. Fishel, Bianca Fortis, Lynne Foster, Robert Gonyo, Michael Grant, Michael Hirsch, David Hollenbach, Rebeca Ibarra, Dondi J, Mamoudou Keita, Margarita Kruchinskaya, Rob LaQuinta, Beatrix Lockwood, Gary FoLLow The IndypendenT onLIne Martin, AnnMary Mathew, Erik www.IndypendenT.org McGregor, David Meadow, Mike Newton, Jackie O’Brien, Maya FaceBooK.coM/TheIndypendenT Peraza-Baker, Robert Pluma, Anna Polonyi, Andy Pugh, Conor Tomás TwITTer.coM/TheIndypendenT

November 2016 Reed, Jim Secula, Matt Shuham,

Andrew Stern, Gabriella Szpunt, InSTagraM.coM/The_IndypendenT Lisa Taylor, Leanne Tory-Murphy, Cindy Trinh, Solange Uwimana, Maria Vassileva, Matthew Wasserman, Beth Whitney, and To SIgn Up For oUr e-newSLeTTer, [email protected].

The IndypendenT Amy Wolf. 3 coMMUNitY caleNDar noVeMBer

THU OCT 27 takes over all four of Theater for the MON NOV 7 all over the world. Visit ImagineTh- GOPHANDSOFFME.ORG 7PM • FREE New City's performance spaces, 7PM–9:30PM • FREE isProds.com for tickets and more BOOK LAUNCH: DEMAND THE plus its lobby and the block of E FILM SCREENING: REFLECTING information. IMPOSSIBLE! WITH BILL AYERS 10th St. between 1st and 2nd Aves. HER Wythe Hotel AND DANNY KATCH Customarily over 1,500 wildly-clad This documentary on women’s re- 80 Wythe Ave In critiquing the world around us, celebrants gather for dancing, productive rights will be followed by Bill Ayers, an insurgent educator dining, showing off costumes and a panel discussion on why our presi- FRI NOV 18 and activist, uncovers cracks in our viewing acts from the cutting-edge dential candidates are so silent on 8PM–11PM • $20 online, $30 at the political system, raises horizons of cabaret and theater. More details women’s issues this election year. door radical change, and envisions at theaterforthenewcity.net. Bluestockings Books RECEPTION AND SILENT AUCTION strategies for building a movement 155 1st Ave 172 Allen St. • 212-777-6028 • blue- FOR INTERFERENCE ARCHIVE we need to make a world worth liv- stockings.com A fundraiser to support the riveting ing in. Ayers will be in conversation MON OCT 31 exhibitions, public programming with socialist comic Danny Katch 7PM–10:30PM • FREE WED NOV 9 and collections at Interference and signing copies of his new book, WEST VILLAGE HALLOWEEN 11AM • FREE Archive. Get your wallets ready Demand the Impossible!. PARADE The day after has for an amazing silent auction of Barnes & Noble — Upper West Side Hundreds of puppets, 53 bands, cemented himself forever in history social movement ephemera! Visit 2289 Broadway dancers, artists and thousands as a LOSER, Americans of all stripes interferencearchive.org to purchase New Yorkers in costumes of their and creeds will gather at his offi ce discounted tickets in advance. THU OCT 27 own creation will be on hand to point and laugh. NOTE: At the Verso Books 7:30PM • FREE for one of America’s most wildly time of this writing there is a 12.3 20 Jay St DISCUSSION: H.P. LOVECRAFT’S creative participatory events. This percent chance this event will be LIFE AND LEGACY year’s theme is reverie. More at canceled, according to election SUNDAYS NOV 20–DEC 18 With his latest work, In the Moun- halloween-nyc.com. forecasters at fi vethirtyeight.com. 1:30PM • $15 tains of Madness: The Life, Death, Btw Spring and 16th St. on 6th Ave Trump Tower HOLIDAY SHOW: REVEREND BILLY and Extraordinary Afterlife of H.P. 725 5th Ave AND THE STOP SHOPPING CHOIR Lovecraft, award winning historian SUN NOV 6 Earthalujah! Reverend Billy and the W. Scott Poole turns his attention 2PM–5PM THU NOV 10 Stop Shopping Choir, an NYC-based to the godfather of American horror. 5TH ANNUAL MOMO CRAWL IN 7PM–10PM • $0 - $50 radical performance community Poole interweaves the legendary JACKSON HEIGHTS PARTY FOR FARMWORKER JUS- that includes 50 performers and writer’s biography with an explora- A momo is a dumpling of Himalayan TICE a congregation in the thousands, tion of Lovecraft as a phenomenon, heritage. There are over 20 places This fundraiser for Rural & are back at Joe’s Pub. Join wild while challenging some of the views that provide momos in Jackson Migrant Ministry Inc. will feature anti-corporate gospel shouters and held by Lovecraft devotees. Poole Heights. Every momo vendor in the performances by Lady Quesa'Dilla Earth loving urban activists as they will discuss the life and legacy neighborhood will be offering their (Alejandro Rodríguez), a set by exorcise the demons of Consumer- of Lovecraft with Victor LaValle, version of the dish at the Momo DJ Beto, a silent auction, an open ism and Militarism from our city and whose most recent novella, The Crawl and participants will vote for beer and wine bar, local, small the planet this holiday season. More Ballad of Black Tom, is a reworking of the momo they like best. Momos are batch and sustainable foods, at RevBilly.com. Also, check out Lovecraft’s The Horror at Red Hook. $1 each. as well as other fun surprises! Reverend Billy’s new advice column Greenlight Bookstore Diversity Plaza Admission is $50, $20 for students on page 22. 686 Fulton St. 37 Ave and 74 St. and free for farmworkers. Joe’s Pub Mayday Space 425 Lafayette St. SAT OCT 29 SUN NOV 6 176 St Nicholas Ave laSt laUgHS: Trump

9AM–4:30PM • $5–$20 suggested 4PM–10PM • $5–$20, pay what you WED NOV 23 Tower in Midtown has been SLAFF JONATHAN donation can FRI NOV 11 6PM - 8PM • $12, 18+ the site of numerous protests NYC SOCIAL JUSTICE CURRICU- GET OVER HERE: A SCORPIO 7:30PM–9:30PM • $6–$15 THE REAL HISTORY OF THANKS- this election year, including LUM FAIR PARTY BOOK LAUNCH: ANTHROPOCENE GIVING this Oct. 12 “GOP Hands Off This event brings together Come celebrate the fi erce Scor- OR CAPITALOCENE? This talk from self-described “his- Me” rally. On Nov. 9, a day educators from across the city pios in your life. Show them some Jason W. Moore and Christian toric gastronomist” Sarah Lohman after the polls close, New who are presenting new ideas birthday love and support move- Parenti introduce a new essay will cover the whole history of the Yorkers will gather at Trump beyond test-centric lessons, ments for justice all at once! Special collection, Anthropocene or Capitalo- American holiday, from what really Tower once again. This time to creating spaces that respect guest Deejays. Food by Gabriela cene? Nature, History, and the Crisis happened in Plymouth to the rush of celebrate, or mourn. student identities and building Álvarez of Liberation Cuisine. All of Capitalism. The book challenges nostalgia that made Thanksgiving a community. Free childcare. Food proceeds support Mayday Space, a the theory and history offered by national holiday in the 19th century. served by Woke Foods, a woman Bushwick-based organizing hub and proponents of the “Anthropocene” Participants will explore how im- No reSt For tHe of color-led worker cooperative community resource dedicated to and stresses how climate change migrants and suburban housing WicKeD: Join Theater catering plant-based Dominican, all movements for justice. and related crises are rooted in the developments further changed the for the New City as it cel- 2016 November Caribbean, and Latinx cuisine. Starr Bar rise and domination of capital. More holiday in the 20th century. Sign-up ebrates the 40th anniversary City-As-School 214 Starr St. at marxedproject.org. at BrooklynBrainery.com. of its raucous costume ball 16 Clarkson St The Commons Brooklyn Threes Brewing on Oct. 31. SUN NOV 6 388 Atlantic Ave 333 Douglass Street MON OCT 31 6PM • FREE 4PM • $20, costume or formal wear TABOO POETS: TRASHING SHAME SAT NOV 12–SUN NOV 13 IndypendenT The required Stigma-busting poetry, perfor- $10–$45 40TH ANNUAL VILLAGE HALLOW- mance, and comedy about mental IMAGINE THIS: WOMEN INTERNA- EEN COSTUME BALL illness. TIONAL FILM FESTIVAL A grand coming-together for real Bowery Poetry Club This fi rst annual event showcases witches, everyday New Yorkers and 308 Bowery fi lms produced, directed and written artists alike, this one-night fi esta by women from all walks of life from 4 eNViroNMeNt

The pIpeLIne coMeTh acTIVISTS Up The anTe agaInST a -BaSed energy coMpany aS IT FInISheS a ‘pIpeBoMB on The hUdSon’

By Wendy Sol The four protesters were charged with misdemeanor take the White House, “has his criminal trespassing when they stepped out of the pipe- fi ngers on FERC’s purse strings.” cloggeD PiPeS: hey carried sleeping bags and backpacks line shortly before midnight. When Fraczek spoke with The In- Local activists (from left stuffed with apples, hummus, tuna fi sh and dypendent, Sane Energy was plan- to right) Rebecca Jeanne

bottles of water. If it were not for the PVC ning a rally at Schumer’s Midtown Berlin, Mackenzie ERIK MCGREGOR pipes and gallon-size buckets of cat litter PRESSURING THE POLITICIANS offi ce on Oct. 26, calling on him McDonald Wilkins and in their arms, Dave Publow, a longtime to protect his constituents’ safety. Janet Gonzalez joined anti-frackingT activist, and his three friends might have Others, meanwhile, are fi ghting on other fronts, lean- Direct actions against the pipe- Dave Publow inside a looked like hikers. ing on State’s elected leaders to come to their line will likely continue. “When segment of the AIM The pipes were part of a lockbox the quartet designed aid. Kim Fraczek, of the environmental watchdog group we exited the pipeline,” Dave pipeline on Oct. 10. to keep police from pulling them apart, a sort of Chi- Sane Energy, wants Senators Charles Schumer and Publow recounted, “our support- nese fi nger trap for their arms. The cat litter? Well, there , who have already come out against ers cheered us from the other side of the fence. The cops weren’t going to be any bathroom breaks during the AIM, to exert more political pressure on the Federal En- cuffed us and drove us away. But as we exited, we all long hours ahead. ergy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees kept looking around us, noticing where things were on Publow and his companions stepped into the 42-inch- interstate gas-pipeline developments. the construction site, to get ready for next time.” wide cylinder before them and crawled approximately Gov. Andrew Cuomo has stated his opposition to 200 feet through the industrial steel tubing slated to the pipeline, too, but is probably a lost cause, says Frac- comprise a segment of Spectra Energy’s AIM pipeline. zek. She notes that although Cuomo announced the It was Oct. 10, in Verplanck, New York, on the east state would conduct its own independent safety analysis side of the Hudson River, and the sun had just begun to of AIM in February, the study was not commissioned rise. They would not breathe fresh air again until well until July, and it is still underway, after dark. even as the project nears comple- AIM is short for Algonquin Incremental Market Proj- tion. HDR Inc, an engineering ect, one of a number of pipelines that are being built fi rm with ties to the oil and gas conspiracy charges for fi lming in the Northeast to transport natural gas from fracking industry, is conducting the risk as- targeted For climate activists on Oct. 18 as they fi elds in to New England and on to mar- sessment. Documents reviewed by coverIng FossIl manually shut down a pipeline kets abroad. If completed by Nov. 1, as planned, AIM the Public Accountability Initia- Fuel protests owned by TransCanada. The protest will carry approximately 342 million cubic feet of gas to tive (PAI) indicate that the pipe- was part of a coordinated effort in Boston and other ports in Connecticut, Rhode Island, line’s proximity to Indian Point is Minnesota, Montana, and . Spectra is also increasing capacity no longer within the scope of the A North Dakota judge dismissed and Washington state to cut off of by more than a third on an existing pipeline that runs review. riot charges brought by the Morton the ’s 2.8 million barrel- within about 100 feet of generators at the aging Indian A Spectra lobbyist, former Re- County state attorney’s offi ce per-day supply of carbon-intensive, Point plant on the Hudson in Westchester publican Sen. Al D’Amato, has against Democracy Now! anchor Canadian tar sands oil. County, about 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. donated heavily to Cuomo over (pictured to the right) The charges against Schlosberg While Publow and the three other protesters were the past year. D’Amato, PAI notes, on Oct. 17, citing a lack of evidence. carry a maximum of 45 years in hunkered down inside the pipeline, stopping construc- gave “$10,000 in December 2015, The charges stemmed from a prison. “For reference,” NSA- tion for the day, Spectra complained that they had as public calls for Cuomo to inter- Sept. 8 protest led by members of contractor-turned-whistleblower placed “themselves and fi rst responders at risk.” But the vene increased; $15,000 in April the Standing Rock against tweeted, coming risk posed by the pipeline itself, its opponents contend, 2016, a month after the study was the (DAPL). to the ’s defense, “I face a far outweighs any danger their act of protest entailed. announced; and another $5,000 Goodman and her team shot footage mere 30 years.” and public-health experts have contribution in July 2016.” The of private security guards attack- Meanwhile, protests against long warned about the danger and pollution risks of company has also hired lobbyist ing demonstrators with dogs that DAPL continue in North Dakota and fracked gas and nuclear power. Westchester locals and Mark Grossman, who worked for was viewed 14 million times on along its route through South Dakota environmentalists worry that an accident involving the Cuomo administration until Facebook. State prosecutor Ladd and Iowa and toward river ports in highly infl ammable gas beside a nuclear power plant in 2013 and before that, for Cuomo’s Erickson, who initially charged . The pipeline has become a America’s largest metropolitan area could create an un- father, Gov. Mario Cuomo. Spec- Goodman with trespassing, said his fl ashpoint in the effort to halt fossil paralleled environmental emergency. tra has had him on a $10,000 offi ce is still investigating the Polk fuel extraction given the threat “It’s a fucked-up idea to put what amounts to a pipe monthly retainer since March. Award winning journalist. posed by climate change. bomb next to a nuclear power plant,” said Publow. “Gov. Cuomo is being lobbied “I wasn’t trespassing,” Goodman With Spectra intending to have AIM ready by the by one of his personal friends said in a Facebook broadcast, after — INDYPENDENT STAFF beginning of November, groups that have opposed the to drag his feet on the indepen- the case was dismissed. “I wasn’t project since it was fi rst proposed to federal regulators dent risk assessment,” said Frac- rioting. The Democracy Now team in 2014 worry they are running out of time to halt the zek. “We’ll continue to keep the and I were there to report, to docu- November 2016 pipeline and are escalating their activism. drumbeat on him, but we believe ment what was happening on the “It is really important to get the people in the area Schumer and Gillibrand are much ground. These charges are simply more aware of what is going on,” Publow said. “And more strategic targets right now” a threat to all journalists around for the people that have been working to stop this thing — particularly Schumer, who, as the country: Do not come to North so far, to get them to the level where they can accept the the third-ranking Democrat in the Dakota.” idea of doing something they can get arrested for and Senate and a contender for major- Elsewhere in the state, fi lmmaker

The IndypendenT pause construction.” ity leader should Deia Schlosberg faces three felony DEMOCRACY NOW! Indypendent Ad 5x7 06-23-15.pdf 1 6/23/15 1:56 PM

BROADCAST ON MORE THAN 1,300 PUBLIC TV AND RADIO STATIONS WORLDWIDE 5 FirSt PerSoN A Daily Independent Global News Hour The IMpoSSIBLe LIFe with Amy Goodman oF a TaSKraBBIT and Juan González

By anonymous

EDITOR’S NOTE: In our previous issue, The Indypendent published an exposé on the gig economy. It detailed ways in which Silicon Valley is ex- ploiting gaps in our labor laws, our tax system, and the precarity of the labor market to deprive workers of basic human rights. After we published the piece, an employee with Taskrabbit — a gig economy start-up that con- nects workers with consumers and companies offering temporary jobs — reached out to us. What follows is a letter this tasker, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, wrote to us in which he further details the strain the gig economy puts on workers. DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG aving recently gotten an email warning that my account will be “paused” from Taskrabbit for not performing enough Tune In Live Every Weekday 8-9am ET tasks, I can testify to the strains the gig economy puts on a person. • Audio, Video, Transcripts, Podcasts Software and automation will continue to squeeze out the rightsH of workers and organized labor ad infi nitum in the search for greater • Los titulares de Hoy (headlines in Spanish) profi ts, more power and limited regulation. We workers and, by association, the consumer will experience more accidents, unsafe working conditions, • Find your local broadcast station and schedule less pay, limited rights and fewer opportunities. The major advantage of app-based freelance work is experienced by cus- • Subscribe to the Daily News Digest tomers. The ease of access, rating systems and lack of oversight allow for the commodifi cation of labor in ways Follow Us @ DEMOCRACYNOW that previous generations never had to bear the burden of. Al- measurIng up most all of the profi t, meanwhile, is reaped by the technology own- ers, with the software platform to the vague monitoring much of the commu- You've been warned. nication between consumer and and opaQue worker — cutting out the individ- uals who previously managed and standards oF negotiated this labor exchange. Taskrabbit’s hiring system es- the ratIng sentially forces us to accept tasks in order to promote the availabil- ity of taskers. Once we are hired system we have 30 minutes to contact the PARENTAL customer and are basically on call outweIghed until the task is complete. Negative reviews are impossible my own ADVISORY to have stricken from one’s user profi le and can verge on character saFety and defamation. I was frequently on EXPLICIT SOCIALISM the receiving end of job requests that were fl atout unsafe. Because I welFare. was at the mercy of the customers making the requests, I would have to perform them. Measuring up to the vague and opaque standards of the rating system outweighed my own safety NEW STUDIES and welfare. Failure to meet Taskrabbits impossible-to-live-up-to standards results in the total devaluation of the worker. This is to say nothing of the competition CRASHING THE PARTY its rating system engenders. It begs for oversight and review, since it essen- Democrats, Republicans, and the Crisis of U.S. Politics tially amounts to an arbitrary job evaluation. Yet, not all of the jobs that I did were terrible. I frequently worked for John Nichols companies that treated us taskers and their full-time employees with a great deal of respect, offered safe conditions and positive experiences. Often I left WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? those jobs longing to go back and have that extra security, instead of mov- 2016 November ing onto the next thing, looking at my phone and wondering when the next Ethan Young job will come.

This article has been lightly edited for concision and clarity. Stay tuned to our website and newsletter

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rosalux-nyc. org P UBLICATIONS | EVENTS | MULTIMEDIA 6 eXPortiNg War

InThaT’S The Land oF peace, noT LoVe and cooL MUSIc, a FacTory MaKeS FanS For droneS, BUT SoMe LocaLS wanT To KILL ITS BUZZ

By Jesse Rubin By 1958 Rotron had developed the industry stan- port further states. dard muffi n fan, a powerful but quiet electronic cool- F-16s are also the aircraft of choice for ’s WOODSTOCK, NY — On the 12th annual Wood- ing system. In tangent with his company’s success, Rijn U.S.-backed aggression in Yemen, where 10,000 peo- Volunteers Day, residents gather in the Andy Lee became known as an arts patron in Woodstock. He is ple have been killed and three million displaced since Field for home-cooked food, folk songs and recognition known for having contributed a heating plant to the March 2015 and half the population is on the brink of of “what is good about [their] community.” Hudson Valley Repertory Theater so the famous play- famine, according to a U.N. report. Recent U.S. retali- Two volunteers tabling for the environmental group house could operate all year long. ations on rebel-controlled areas of Yemen suggest the Scenic Hudson ask for signatures and email addresses He even “dedicated a statue of the buddha,” Wood- United States may be escalating its direct involvement in at the park entrance. stock Peace Economy activist, professor and longtime the war, beyond its current weapons sales, intelligence Tarak Kauff, a member of the antiwar group Vet- Woodstock resident Laurie Kirby told The Indypen- operations and refueling missions. erans For Peace, lends his name to the environmen- dent. “It’s the largest Buddha statue in North America.” The Predator Drone, likewise, has been widely talist cause. In 1961, the same year U.S. air and ground forces criticized for infl icting numerous indiscriminate When Kauff presents the volunteers with his own pe- offi cially became active in Vietnam, Rotron developed civilian deaths in countries across the Middle East tition, they hesitate. The petition, written by a group and released the Mil-B-23071 standard for AC fans — and North Africa. of local activists known as Woodstock Peace Economy, the company’s fi rst product strictly for military use. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism asks aerospace and military contractor Ametek Rotron The U.S. military uses an updated version of this fan — one of the few organizations that tracks casualties as to switch over all its production to civilian use. The to this day. a result of Obama administration’s covert drone war — 70-year-old company is the largest employer in this In the intervening years, as the United States has con- thousands of civilians in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and town of about 6,000 residents. solidated its position as arms merchant to the world, Afghanistan have been killed by drone strikes in just a The two volunteers seem to hide behind their table. Woodstock’s largest employer has steadily increased its few years. “Rotron?” one asks. “I thought they only made fans.” military business. Yet Rotron adamantly denies any involvement in for- Kauff tells them about the campaign and about the In 2015, Rotron secured 79 Pentagon contracts, its eign confl icts; divorcing its manufacture of parts from fans’ essential role in the functioning of F-16 fi ghter jets, highest number ever, and logged record profi ts. On the end systems those parts are used in. cluster bombs and predator drones. the whole, the U.S. armaments industry maintained “Rotron does not manufacture weapons,” Marie They decline and continue asking for signatures, its status as the largest in the world, accounting last Tynan, a Rotron spokesperson told The Indypen- some of which likely come from Rotron employees. year for 33 percent of global military exports, or dent. “Our fans and blowers cool electronics. We $455 billion, according to the Defense Finance and make air circulation and radar systems, both com- Accounting Service (DFAS), the fi nancial branch of mercial and military.” MILITARY CONTRACTS the Defense Department. But when pressed on specifi c military applications, Meanwhile, the company is reluctant to admit its Tynan declined to provide further explanation. In 2015 Ametek Rotron landed $2.6 million in Penta- weapons industry involvement, instead insisting that gon contracts. Compared to Lockheed Martin — one it is merely a supplier of nonlethal technology. But re- of the largest defense companies in the world with de- search conducted by The Indypendent and activists A DEBATE ERUPTS clared revenues of $46.1 billion the same year— this confi rms the inextricable link. number is negligible. According to public Pentagon contracts, Rotron pro- Rotron has historically been quiet about its Pentagon But for a town that came to prominence as a haven duces centrifugal fans for F-16s, Milstar satellite sys- contracts, but sustained pressure from activists seems for artists and later became synonymous with ’60s-era tems, CV-22 Osprey helicopters, long-range navy radar to have opened an indirect line of communication in the idealism and whose council declared it “drone free” in and M1A1 tanks. letters page of the local Woodstock Times. 2014 — any Pentagon dollars are incongruous. Ametek Rotron, in addition, is the main supplier of In a letter published July 21, 2016, Peter M. Stewart, So say activists affi liated with Woodstock Peace the fuel density probe, a critical component in the op- general manager of Ametek Rotron, sought to dispel Economy who have recently renewed a long-running eration of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) aircraft in- claims that Rotron is involved in human rights abuses campaign against Rotron’s manufacture of weapons cluding the Predator Drone. across the world. parts that dates back to the 1980s. A leaked contract dated October 1, 2009, con- “Since Rotron was founded here in Woodstock over “Located in buildings just out of sight, off Rte. 375, fi rms Rotron supplied 50 fans to the Israeli Air 60 years ago,” Stewart wrote emphatically, “to the best Ametek Rotron makes high-tech fans, balls bearings Force that year. of my knowledge, not a single individual has ever been and other essential parts for weapons used to terrorize The fi nal destination of the fans remains unclear, but killed by any of its products!” and kill people the world over,” reads the group’s latest it is likely they operate in F-16s. In addition, a recently Tarak Kauff responded in his own letter: “I guess by petition. “As most of us in Woodstock support peace published Pentagon contract shows that Rotron pro- [Stewart’s] reckoning, because Rotron makes only es- and not war, the signers below request that Ametek Ro- vides a $7,365 motor to the Israeli Defense Ministry, sential parts for drones, missiles and cluster bomb de- tron explore how to convert its manufacturing facilities confi rming the company’s ongoing direct business with livery systems and not the totality of these weapons, ‘no to support peace and not war.” that country’s government. one has ever been killed’ by one of their products.” Route 375 is a main road into Woodstock — but be- Because numerous human rights organizations crit- “The cold, hard and uncomfortable facts are, how- fore reaching the downtown, which trades on its image icize the Israeli military for using F-16s, especially in ever, that Rotron does make essential parts of drones, of a hippie haven — visitors must pass an inconspicuous consecutive assaults on the besieged Gaza Strip, activ- fi ghter planes, tanks and other weapons of destruction, white sign announcing the Rotron factory. While well ists insist Rotron is complicit. which have been responsible for many deaths, mainly November 2016

established, it is unknown outside of the nearby Hud- A 2015 report from the human rights group Amnesty civilians,” wrote Kauff. son Valley towns. International claims “there is strong evidence that Israe- Some Woodstock residents choose to emphasize the Founded in 1946 by Dutch engineer J. Constant van li forces committed war crimes” in the 2014 assault “in practical benefi ts of Rotron’s presence. Rijn, the Rotron Manufacturing Company patented their relentless and massive bombardment of residential “Rotron has all the things you want for a career: pen- and developed high-intensity electronics cooling fans, areas of Rafah,” a town in Gaza. sions, healthcare and benefi ts,” a Woodstock resident which soon became critical for the burgeoning aero- The Israeli Air Force used indiscriminate force named Sophia told The Indypendent.

The IndypendenT space market of the 1950s. against civilians, hospitals and fi rst responders, the re- Describing herself as a “typical Woodstocker,” So- 7

ThaT’S noT cooL phia, who declined to give her last name, added that Ro- Broadly, “I think it’s important to open up a conver- In The Land oF peace, LoVe and MUSIc, a FacTory MaKeS FanS For droneS, tron not only makes the “fans in ambulance engines,” but sation about the way the material bases of our tenuous it allows the local EMTs to park two ambulances and a prosperity are bound up with war, oppression and envi- fl y car for the paramedic on duty at its facilities. Eleven of ronmental devastation,” said Laurie Kirby. BUT SoMe LocaLS wanT To KILL ITS BUZZ the 35 members of the ambulance squad work at Rotron.” Kirby stressed that the weapons industry is so en- “Good-paying jobs are hard to fi nd,” said Sophia, who trenched in the American landscape, not even a place suggested that those who object to Rotron’s weapons steeped in the mythology of peace and love is immune. manufacturing must get a “dose of reality.” There is a military-contracted manufacturer in every Former vice president Stewart also addressed the jobs single one of the country’s 435 congressional districts. issue in his letter, warning that the jobs Rotron provides “It’s well known that the Pentagon makes sure that the could easily be offshored, should the company terminate largesse reaches all parts of the country,” Kirby said. its lucrative Pentagon contracts. “Woodstock is really not special — Woodstock is really “If Ametek Rotron no longer provided fans and blowers a microcosm of the world,” he lamented. “Despite what for military applications” Stewart wrote, “in all probabil- some people think about it being antithetical and what- ity, the company would be relocated to Mexico or offshore ever else, we’re just a typical community and every com- due to cost considerations; and, Woodstock would lose a munity has this.” signifi cant tax contributor, a good neighbor, a town sup- At $596 billion in 2015, the U.S. military budget is porter and hundreds of jobs.” larger than the next seven countries combined, meaning According to William Hartung, director of the Arms the profi t potential for private contractors like Rotron and Security Project, a nonprofi t that studies the effects of is immense. the armaments industry on human rights globally, “there In order to resist the Pentagon’s allure, “[Rotron] would is a general tendency within the defense industry to play need to see examples of peaceful production happening in the jobs card as a way to resist change.” other places because I feel like where they are now, they “Usually companies in this industry exaggerate the jobs are probably making a lot more money making parts for impact and exaggerate how dependent they are on con- weapons,” Sequoia Cohen, student and anti-drone activist tracts as a way to kind of maintain the status quo, keep the told The Indypendent. “So they need to see that they can contracts fl owing, divert criticism and so forth,” Hartung still be profi table making other things.” told The Indypendent.

BEING FOR PEACE RELUCTANT TO CRITICIZE William Hartung noted that there is already precedent for That resistance to criticism can be found in Woodstock’s lucrative defense contractors to convert their production. town council whose members, with one exception, are re- “There’s been big waves like after Vietnam, after the luctant to speak out against Rotron. On more than one Cold War, tens of thousands of companies had to re- occasion, members have said they would vote against any orient their business and some do and some don’t. But resolutions requesting that Rotron switch to production usually the ones who are successful think ahead a little

for civilian use. bit about what their options may be,” Hartung said. ROB LAQUINTA The only holdout is Jay Wenk, a poet, World War II “Not just dig their heels in and focus on getting more veteran and member of Veterans For Peace. He has long military contracts.” been part of the Woodstock Peace Economy campaign, In downtown Woodstock on a sunny August after- leveraging his position on the town board to this end. noon, Tarak Kauff continues asking locals and tourists “People don’t walk around the streets thinking and feel- for petition signatures. ing how it’s the center of making parts for drones that kill A man in his 20s, garbed in peace signs and colorful innocent children and so forth. It’s the town of peace and beads, politely declines the petition, but not before saying love — it’s more comfortable to be thinking that way,” he closely identifi es with the antiwar movement. Wenk told The Indypendent. “Because the other way puts This disparity between a peaceful lifestyle and actual us into the position of being complicit.” peace, Kauff later noted, is a familiar response. The current petition campaign is by no means the fi rst “You claim you’re for peace, so for peace we have to time activists have raised this issue. look at all the elements that go to- In 2009 they held the second ever “Woodstock Fo- wards destroying the peace,” Kauff rum” to expose Rotron’s involvement in the weapons in- said. “It’s one thing to know the these arms are not arms package follows a $1.3 billion deal in dustry — among other social and economic justice issues truth, it’s another thing to act on For huggIng November of 2015. Both are part a $22.2 — coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the famous what you know. billion sales bundle authorized with Riyadh Woodstock festival. “You can’t be for peace and do since the war began, most of which is still to Saudi airstrikes killed 140 mourners and Organizers brought antiwar activists, writers, profes- nothing to achieve it.” be delivered. wounded 500 more at a funeral in Sana’a, sors and artists such as Mary Beth Sullivan of the Global While Price says the White House is re- Yemen, on Oct. 8. With U.S. support, the Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; viewing its support for the Saudi campaign, kingdom is waging a bloody air campaign Jeff Cohen, author, professor and founder of Fairness and documents published by the Reuters news across its border against Iranian-backed Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR); and award-winning inves- organization this month show from the start 2016 November Houthi insurgents that began in March of tigative journalist Jeremy Scahill to speak at the forum. State Department attorneys fretted the U.S. last year. More than a third of the targets it could be considered a “co-belligerent” Activists, most of whom are still involved in the cam- has struck are civilian. actor in the confl ict and be held liable under paign today, printed and distributed a satirical newspaper “U.S. security cooperation with Saudi United Nations war crimes statutes. chronicling what an end to Rotron’s weapons manufac- Arabia is not a blank check,” said White Human rights organizations estimate turing might look like. House spokesman Ned Price, who 3,800 civilians have died as a result of Saudi IndypendenT The In the short term, members of Woodstock Peace Econ- expressed “serious concerns about the con- bombardments, so far. omy seek 600 signatures, the equivalent of a tenth of the fl ict in Yemen and how it has been waged.” town’s population, enough, they hope, to bring company But the latest massacre comes less than — INDYPENDENT STAFF executives to the table to discuss conversion. If company a month after the U.S. Senate rejected a offi cials won’t budge, however, activists will escalate their measure, 71 to 21, that would have blocked campaign, which could include engaging in civil resistance a $1.15 billion arms deal between the and other more militant tactics. Obama Administration and the Saudis. The 8 VotiNg For JUStice

payBacK TIMe IMMIgranT VoTerS prepare To ThUMp TrUMp

By Eliza Relman dents. “Not only do these individuals deserve their citizenship, their ab-

hen Mayra Aldás-Deckert moved to the U.S. from solute, indisputable right to live in this country, but they deserve the ELIZA RELMAN her home in Ecuador in 2005, she, along with the right to vote,” James said at a press conference on October 5. rest of her family, was undocumented. NYIC communications manager Thanu Yakupitiyage called the “We moved here, like everybody else, with a hope backlog “disheartening” and hypocritical, noting that the White that my sisters and I would have a better future, a House Task Force on New Americans has actively encouraged lawful Wbetter education…better economic opportunities,” she said. permanent residents to apply for citizenship. For seven years, Aldás-Deckert lived in the shadows. In 2012, she “USCIS has the power to hasten these applications,” Yakupitiyage married an American and got a card, which gave her permanent said. “The White House itself were the ones who called for immi- residency status. Last December, at the age of 31, she became a citizen. grants to become citizens, and so they really need to do something.” She cast her fi rst vote in an American election in the New York State Meanwhile, Trump has accused the federal government of fast- primaries in April. tracking citizenship applications before the election to get more im- “It was so empowering…because I come from a country that as migrants to the polls to vote for Democrats. In early October, he told soon as you turn 18, you have to vote. I’ve always wanted to do that... a meeting of the National Border Patrol Council, “They’re letting now I can,” Aldás-Deckert said. “I can do it for my sisters, I can do it people pour into the country so they can go and vote.” for my family, I can do it for the rest of the undocumented community that are still waiting for comprehensive immigration reform that will benefi t them.” POWER OUTSIDE OF VOTING Almost a million people have applied for U.S. citizenship since the beginning of 2016. This marks a 23 percent increase over the same While the majority of ’s three million foreign-born resi- period in 2015. Citizenship applications are historically higher in dents are citizens, about 500,000 are undocumented. Roksana Mun is election years, and this year, between October 2015 and June 2016, an organizer with Desis Rising Up and Moving, a group with almost applications were up 8 percent over the same period in 2012. Many 3,000 predominantly South Asian and Indo-Caribbean members, the

immigration advocates across the country tie Donald Trump’s anti- majority of whom either have green cards or are undocumented. Mun JOHN TARLETON immigrant policies and rhetoric to the rise in applications. says that much work remains to be done to help non-voting residents BUreaUcracY VS. Aldás-Deckert is now a community engagement coordinator at the play more active roles in shaping policy. DeMocracY: NYC Pub- New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an advocacy organization “Organizing becomes the way our communities are able to have a lic Advocate Leticia James that represents over 200 groups working with immigrants, refugees, voice and get their power, outside of being a voting bloc,” Mun said. (center) speaks as immigrant and asylees. She says that fear of a Trump presidency has motivated But she added that many, particularly undocumented individuals, do rights activists rally at City many of New York’s Latinx residents to become citizens and voters. not have the time or resources to be civically or politically engaged, Hall on Oct. 5 to demand the “I know personal stories of people who had the green card for 10, “Pretty much all of our members work ten, fourteen hour shifts, seven federal government speed up 15 years — they kept renewing it, thinking ‘I’m fi ne with the green days a week.” its processing of citizenship card, I’m afraid of the test, I don’t speak English, I don’t have the Mun noted that many struggle to see meaningful differences be- applications. money,’” Aldás-Deckert said. “This is pushing them, this immigrant tween candidates and political parties in their policies surrounding rhetoric is pushing them to become citizens, to say, ‘no, you don’t get immigration, racial justice, and workers’ rights. to talk about my community like that.’” “Regardless of Trump’s rhetoric and Clinton’s rhetoric, the practice No PaSarÁN: Almost A combination of her admiration for Hillary Clinton and her deep is that deportations are still continuing even under a progressive presi- four decades after immigrat- dislike of Donald Trump motivated Patricia Pavez to become a U.S. dent like Obama,” Mun said. “For them, rhetoric is one thing, but ing to the US, Patricia Pavez citizen and register to vote in this election. Pavez, who has lived in they understand the practice of that is already happening.” got her citizenship this year New York City since moving from her native Chile in 1978, said that Aber Kawas, the youth lead organizer at the Arab American Asso- so that she could vote against the stakes in this presidential election are higher than she’s ever seen ciation of New York, works with undocumented individuals to engage Donald Trump. them, both for the U.S. and the rest of the world. them in policy advocacy efforts. The Association holds workshops on “Everybody in Chile, everybody in Latin America has their eyes on the fi ght for the $15 minimum wage, immigrants’ rights while inter- the United States, the whole world is looking at this election,” Pavez acting with law enforcement, and how to be involved in the public said. “That is maybe why I’m motivated to participate. I feel my coun- education system. try and family is sitting there and watching.” “We don’t want voting to be the primary focus for people. We want to talk about the many ways that you can be politically engaged,” Kawas said. BACKLOG November 2016

Due to the spike in citizenship applications and a lack of preparedness LANGUAGE ACCESS at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), almost 500,000 residents nationwide are currently awaiting answers In July, Mayor Bill de Blasio expanded the number of languages that on their applications. voter registration forms are translated into from 11 to 16. Eighty per- New York City’s Public Advocate, , is calling on Presi- cent of citizens with limited English profi ciency should now have ac- dent Obama to provide emergency support to USCIS to speed the re-

The IndypendenT view of applications, 60,000 of which belong to New York City resi- Continued on page 15 9 Strategic BallotS

WBAI

NOT JUST YOUR DAD’S VoTe SwappIng (OR GRANDDAD’S) new app BrIngS TogeTher VoTerS acroSS STaTe LIneS RADIO STATION ANYMORE...

By Bianca Fortis

ote swapping is one method progressive voters are using to help ease their consciences this election. It allows them to be pragmatic without entirely surrendering their progres - sive principles. The idea of strategic vote swapping debuted during the 2000V election, when “Nader Trader” websites popped up on the internet. The legality of websites was challenged but the courts ruled that is protected as a form of free speech. The goal of the Nader Trader sites was to help , running on the line, secure the 5 percent of the popular vote required to be eligible for federal without pulling votes away from Al Gore in swing states. It didn’t work — but it’s worth trying again, according to John Stubbs and Ricardo Reyes, who are behind the #NeverTrump app. They’re also the brains behind Republicans for Clinton, a group whose sole goal is to defeat Donald Trump. Although they’ve been encouraging conservative voters, particularly those inclined to vote for , to use the app, Stubbs said PROGRESSIVE + INDEPENDENT they’re interested in “anyone and everyone who believes that Donald NEWS, ARTS + MUSIC @ 99.5 fm Trump should not be president” — including disillusioned millennials and Green Party supporters who favor Stein. Streaming online: wbai.org “It’s about recognizing that in an election when it’s going to come #wbai down to two people, voting for Stein or voting for Johnson. . . does the same thing — nothing,” he said. In Canada, vote swapping may actually have swung the vote last year in favor of now-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a hard-fought three- way race, Stubbs said. Voters don’t need to use the app or find a stranger to swap votes with, Stubbs added. If they connect with individuals they already know who happen to live in swing states, that works too. One of the main challenges It’s a way to vote to vote swapping is that it relies strategIcally wIthout on the honor system. In theo - compromIsIng your ry, a swapper could renege on a promise to vote for a certain Ideals, assumIng the candidate, or even trade votes other person Is beIng with multiple unsuspecting in- honest. dividuals, resulting in even more votes for his or her candidate of choice. New York City author and activist Gan Golan published a tongue- in-cheek article on the blog site medium.com that advocated for a more extreme version of vote pairing, which he coined the “VOTE-4-ACTION Swap,” and which requires liberals to actively protest in exchange for a Clinton vote cast by a radical. “To fulfill their oath, the Liberal has to actually get beaten and/or arrested while protesting so please be patient as it may take more than one try,” Golan writes. “To ensure the integrity of this agreement, the Radical gets their new Liberal BFF’s personal phone number, email and home address and is granted the full legal right to harass them until they show up in the streets.” Golan said the idea was borne of frustration when he saw Hillary vot - ers using the threat of a Trump presidency to blackmail supporters into supporting her — essentially asking progressives to vote for Hillary without giving anything in return. November 2016 November The Indypenden The T 10 PreSiDeNtial PoliticS

eLecTIon VIewS For many on the left, the upcoming presidential vote marks the grim conclusion to a once-promising election season that saw a self- support hIllary, then described socialist win the support FIght lIKe hell It’s hard to do, but It’s the rIght move of millions of Americans. The two remaining major party candidates By Ethan Young political instincts took him to the social movements that are a Wall Street-friendly corporatist had come together and promoted solutions for them. Ev-

ernie Sanders supporters got some bitter lessons ery one of those issues remains on the table. Now it’s MARY DORE who would be the fi rst woman to in Democratic Party politics in 2016. The fi rst our move. The left must grow up fast and get it together Bwas that the primaries could be used as a platform before the next extreme winter. This requires several im- sit in the Oval Offi ce and a man for left politics. Sanders’ amazing success in reaching provements in our approach to politics. millions of people with a strong left-populist message almost made political revolution look easy. • United fronts are necessary, but hard to build. who has been called “abhorrent”, Then we found out that concessions don’t get handed They mean more than just putting names on a out like goody bags. The Democratic National Com- leafl et or agreeing on a list of demands. Leaders “a malignant clown” and “utterly mittee leadership’s ties to big capital are strong. Even need to drop fi ghts over turf and funding or those assumed to be friendly, like Donna Brazile old scores, and fi gure out how they can work unqualifi ed” and that’s just by (strong black woman!) or Barney Frank (gay pioneer!) together for common goals. Activists have to preferred to bust our balloons than favor us over pow- share ideas, information, and skills with each members of his own party. To help erful corporate interests. other, and interact across lines of geographic But concessions were made, because we made it clear distance and area of work. Political and move- us make sense of the moment, we that we wouldn’t go away. Those concessions were ment leaders won’t automatically take this words on a party platform, barely promises. But for position. They must be won to it. invited several guest contributors to fresh-out-of-nowhere campaigners, even making the DNC blink was no little feat. • Having a united front means coordinated share their thoughts. Then came the bitterest drop of reality: Hillary Clin- political action by people involved in both ton was the nominee. That meant her election was all social movements and electoral campaigns. It’s that stood against Donald Trump. And THAT meant not about this or that candidate, but about the we would be forced to choose someone we didn’t want, real solutions that came forward during the even hated, to head off a result that would open the 2016 campaign. Sanders supporters are well fl oodgates of a fascist insurgency. acquainted with these. But we need to turn Some of us refused to accept that last drop. We to Clinton supporters, many of whom agreed pressed our mouths tightly shut and shook our heads. with Sanders’ positions but opposed him for No lesser evil. Vote for what you want, even if you won’t pragmatic reasons. They have no objection to get it. Show the two-party system we’re not quitters. single-payer health care, free higher education, Those parts of the left that have always been ideologi- a $15 minimum wage now, defending black cally committed to the view that real progressive politics lives, ending neoliberal free trade pacts, and only begins with rejecting all Democrats used this turn so on. After the election, Clinton supporters’ of events to feather their various political nests. attention can be shifted to joining the fi ght for Most of us have absorbed this reality, as nasty as it these demands. tastes. We will have a very hard time surviving if the Trump campaign becomes a government-backed armed • By building off public demand for these movement. We will not build a stronger left, and come reforms, united front action can pressure those out of our decades-long state of decrepitude, fragmen- in power and work to unseat Republicans and tation, and political incoherence, if things get radically corporate Democrats. This can be accomplished worse as a result of Trump taking over. More likely, we through independent campaigns or local Demo- will be reduced to long-term defensive action, as whole cratic clubs, depending on the circumstances. communities, labor unions, and religious assemblies come under physical attack. This is what happens when • We have to organize not as ideologues for our a party in crisis – the post-W Republicans – reverts to a favorite doctrine, but with outreach as our default mode of full-on white supremacy. number-one priority. Every street is full of The left is broader than revolutionaries and hardcore people who would welcome an honest alterna- activists. We also include liberals and pacifi sts, union tive. They don’t need missionaries, but small-d members and feminists, by spirit if not action. Some of democrats. This kind of organizing is already them supported Clinton from the start, either as the gen- happening every day, but not in the context of der groundbreaker or as the anti-Trump. The problem, a broad united front, and not with the shared November 2016

though, is that Clinton’s record shows a governing style goal of both pushing for change and electing that involves big favors for big money, and small carrots agents of change. and sticks for everyone else. Ignoring that reality, or per- fuming it for the sake of campaign spirit, leads to broken • We don’t have television, but thank the tech hearts and futility. gods for the Internet. We can utilize social The Sanders campaign raised basic, crucial issues and

The IndypendenT made them plain for everyone to consider. His excellent Continued on page 16 11

vote JIll steIn cat’s out oF For presIdent the bag and breaK wIth the two- I can’t support any oF the party system two-legged candIdates

By Ursula Rozum Party made Nader and the into By Steven Wishnia unprecedented prosperity to America. the scapegoats. He has a long record of stiffi ng people

hy should people vote for Jill Why vote for Stein and the Greens MARY HOUSE fter careful consideration, I who worked for him, from the undocu- MALIKA DUGGAN Stein for President instead of instead of a lesser-evil Clinton vote in have decided to write in my mented Polish laborers who erected the Wchoosing the “lesser evil,” order to stop the “fascists”? Because we Aniece’s cat for President. Trump Tower to the architects and con- and why is this an effective way for the must stop giving legitimacy to the polit- I would obviously act differently if I tractors who designed and built his ca- Left to build power? ical elites of the two corporate parties, lived in Ohio or North Carolina, but sinos. Thinking Trump will really help “It is better to vote for what you including the Democrats. Their policies Hillary Clinton will almost certainly working people is as stupid as believing want and not get it than to vote for have created the crises that surround us do next to nothing to fi x the biggest that not vaccinating your kids for diph- what you don’t want and get it,” as — the climate crisis, the jobs crisis, the problem facing the United States: The theria will make them healthier. Eugene Debs said. My vote for Stein, student debt crisis that has 43 million economy is broken, twisted in favor There are millions of people in the Green Party candidate, is a simple of us trapped in endless monthly pay- of the rich. For millions of Americans, America who are that fucking stupid. choice to support the candidate whose ments, and militarized policing instead there is no longer any relationship be- Not all of Trump’s supporters are values and positions overwhelmingly of anti-poverty policies. tween having the desire and skills to bigoted bullies, and it is usually un- represent my own. But I realize the While social change won’t happen work and being able to make a living. fair to judge a political cause by its choice isn’t so easy for those who are solely through elections, they serve as There is no longer any security that most extreme supporters. It is still weighing whether to vote for Stein or a measure of popular will, and can working will make you able to afford highly unlikely that an obvious het- choose the lesser evil of Hillary Clinton be a tool for bringing issues and solu- a place to live. erosexual showing up at an “LGBT in order to defeat Donald Trump, the tions into the public discourse. Though Clinton offers only vague, token for Hillary” rally would get punched boorish incarnation of society’s most third parties in the U.S. face a political solutions to those problems—mostly in the face by someone screaming, disgusting and violent attitudes. Mount Everest, competing under con- initiatives to give a few more people “Fuck you, breeder!” A Pew poll taken in mid-September ditions and rules designed to exclude the chance to enter the upper-middle The only reason to vote for Trump found that overwhelmingly, voters on them, the Green Party has learned to class, and a slightly higher fl oor under would be out of a nihilistic-hedonist both sides of the aisle are choosing the navigate and challenge the undemo- the lower-working class. The $12-an- fantasy, like that if a nuclear mis- lesser evil. The main reason respon- cratic nature of the electoral system. hour minimum wage she supports sile were headed for New York, you dents cited for supporting Trump or The Sanders campaign demonstrated might reduce the number of hours of could load up on an LSD-OxyCon- Clinton was dislike of the other major- that there is a mass base for progressive work needed to afford a one-room tin cocktail and watch the fi reworks party candidate. Given the high level of policies. The higher the vote for Stein apartment in New York’s poorest with an appropriately don’t-give-a- dissatisfaction with the choices put for- and the Green Party, the more lever- neighborhoods from 120 to 100. She toss attitude. ward by the corporate duopoly, 2016 age progressive movements can have represents the “responsible” wing of Speaking of drugs, Libertarian Gary could be the year that independent against the political establishment, be- the 1%. The main argument to vote Johnson is one of the few American parties, in particular the Green Party, cause it will not be able to take our sup- for her is the traditional “if you don’t, politicians with an honest stance on make strides. port for granted. the horrible evil Republicans will pack the issue. He doesn’t talk evasive rub- Voters are increasingly sick of the The Greens’ infrastructure needs to the Supreme Court!” bish about having “experimented” policies of war and Wall Street em- catch up with the public demand for Donald Trump really is that hor- with marijuana; he says, “I smoked it.” braced by corporate Democrats like a progressive alternative. If Stein wins rible and evil, though. He represents Getting drunk in a bar is legal, he ar- , and Hillary and Bill 5% of the vote, the party would qualify the irresponsible wing of the 1%. His gues, but driving drunk isn’t—so why Clinton. Yet there is tremendous pro- for general election public funding in wife-beater style of debate, indiscrimi- shouldn’t the law be the same for pot? paganda pressuring leftists to swallow 2020 that will be worth over $10 mil- nately spraying accusations, insults, On the other hand, the Libertarian their pride and vote for Hillary Clin- lion, which would signifi cantly boost and politically slanted lies like a man party platform is like a Yiddish curse ton, despite her political record. its organizing capacity. In 37 states, the with a piece of lint stuck in his ure- for aging potheads. Yes, you’ll be able The most belabored meme is that results will also determine whether the thra, is so ignorant and obnoxious to buy weed legally, but you won’t be Green Ralph Nader cost Democrat Greens get an automatic ballot line for that it actually makes me want to vote able to afford it, not without Social Se- Al Gore the 2000 election, electing the next two or four years, though in for Clinton. Yes, I would rather drink curity you won’t. (Johnson personally George W. Bush and leading to the Iraq New York the ballot line is determined corporate-Democrat urine than the advocates just shrinking Social Secu-

War. This scare tactic ignores many by the results of the governor’s race toxic waste of a racist blowhard con rity, by converting it from a universal 2016 November important factors: A media review a which will next be held in 2018. Those artist’s personality cult. entitlement to a means-tested welfare year after the election found that a full lines would enable the independent left Trump taps into the anger of people program and raising the retirement recount would have resulted in a Gore to run competitive and winnable races screwed by the economy of the last age.) And when you get pneumonia win, but the Gore campaign demanded at the local level, which is how it can generation, such as those told by the from sleeping outside (no rent controls only a partial recount; that the Supreme develop into a national electoral force. Clinton Democrats of the ’90s, ‘your or subsidized housing either) and go Court stopped the recount by a 5-4 de- What will it mean if the only third jobs being shipped to low-wage coun- to the emergency room without Medi- IndypendenT The cision along party lines; that Bush is es- party that wins 5% is the Libertarian tries is the price of progress, but we’ll care, all you’ll get is a lecture on “per- timated to have won the votes of more Party? If popular discontent with the bring you into the future by giving you sonal responsibility.” than 300,000 Florida Democrats; and status quo of corporate rule is consoli- an eight-week class in Microsoft Excel.’ Green Party candidate Jill Stein that half of all registered Democrats dated in the growth of a party that be- But his few actual policy proposals are has one brilliant idea: A “Green New did not even bother voting. As it does the well-worn scam that cutting taxes with Jill Stein today, the Democratic Continued on page 16 and regulations on the rich will bring Continued on page 16 12 13

TRUMP’SDRIFTING BEST CHANCE OF TO AN UPSET DONALD VICTORY LIES WITH WORKING CLASS COMMUNITIES LIKE THIS ONE

Text & Photos by Peter Rugh in Colombia recently. Pollsters misread cues from a situation where someone like Trump could carry cuts. Dozens of neighborhood schools have REPACKAGING THE STATUS QUO conservative-minded voters too embarrassed to admit Ohio, Iowa, , maybe Pennsylvania. That been shut down, replaced by charters or sold — “I cannot possibly support Hill- publicly which way they planned to cast their ballots. would put a real dent in the Democratic coalition.” off as real estate. Granted, moderation isn’t as dramatic or ary Clinton,” said Kimberly Martin. The barking of A litany of behaviors exhibited by the Donald Trump’s support in Port Richmond and nationally Yet, for Philadelphia to have a say in how sexy as revolution. It’s also code for the sta- her numerous pit bulls, perhaps sensing that there was fl y in the face of what most consider common de- among blue-collar whites also illustrates the chal- its children are educated it will have to change tus quo, which hasn’t been too kind to the one of those depraved journalists about, alerted her cency — racism, bragging of sexual assault, insult- lenges Berniecrats, heeding Sanders’ call to “trans- who’s in the state capital by electing legisla- people of Port Richmond or the working to my presence. When she stepped out of her front ing disabled people and former POWs. Nonetheless, form our country from the bottom up” face. Before tors who will dissolve the SRC. class in the United States at large in the last door to fi gure out why I was taking photographs of Trump’s economic populism has resonated in Port they can transform the country they’ll have to trans- A Republican and charter school advocate, several decades. her Donald Trump posters, we got to talking. Richmond, with its long blocks of row housing. Here form their party, which, since the fi rst Clinton ad- John Taylor, has represented Port Richmond In large part that’s thanks to policies Bill Martin was forced to close her construction com- oil trains roll by down the road from playgrounds ministration has taken a turn toward what Stein de- in Harrisburg since 1984. Despite some shady Clinton’s administration championed — pany in 2014 “because of all the hardships the gov- and the windows of the local Charles Carroll High scribes as “ with a human face,” away and unpopular backroom dealings, like slip- NAFTA, the dismantling of welfare, harsher ernment puts on small businesses” and has been un- School are covered in plywood. Amid the American from the politics that appeal to the work- ping a provision that expands charter schools penalties for nonviolent drug offenses, Wall employed since. “Trump’s a businessman,” she said, fl ags, shamrocks and crucifi xes that adorn front ing-class electorate Sanders represented a return to. in Philadelphia into a cigarette tax bill two Street deregulation and the promulgation expressing fi delity with the Republican presidential porches, “Make America Great Again” posters have Rather than change minds for Clinton, the activ- years ago, he’s held onto his seat through a of charter schools. These days the path to candidate. “I like his economic package.” If she were cropped up. In one car window, someone took one ists I shadowed in Philadelphia, members of the na- mixture of old-school patronage — offering a college education for America’s poor and still operating her company, Martin would “go down of the “love trumps hate” placards that littered the scent 215 People’s Alliance, are appealing to voters Port Richmond’s struggling residents jobs working-class is narrower than ever. Wages and put a bid on that wall” Trump has proposed con- city when the Democrats hosted their national con- on issues closer to home. (215 is a reference to the with the city’s parking authority — and by have stagnated and there are fewer jobs to go structing along the U.S./Mexico border. “I hope he vention in Philadelphia in July and folded it to read, city’s area code.) They’re seeking to wrest control of performing genuinely helpful constituent ser- around, particularly in manufacturing, once builds it 20 feet high. It’s not because I’m a racist or “love trump.” their public schools from the widely-loathed School vices. Resident after resident who I spoke with a boon to places like Port Richmond, where a bigot, and it’s not because I don’t like Mexicans. I Walter Benjamin’s famous bon mot, “Behind every Reform Commission (SRC), established to run Phila- in Port Richmond praised Taylor for halting there are more than six million fewer manu- have friends of every color, creed and sexuality. But fascism is a failed revolution,” comes to mind, given delphia’s school district by the state in 2001. industrial rezoning on their block or helping facturing jobs available than in the 1980s. All if you are going to immigrate, do it right.” that the white working class also composed a large “There’s a lot of things wrong in the neighborhood them boot drug dealers (opioid addiction is this has put a strain on the social fabric of Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street, her use of a pri- segment of Bernie Sanders’ political revolution. that need work and this is a good way to get things widespread in the area) from their corners. working-class communities and created am- vate email server while Secretary of State, NAFTA “You have to understand, when people vote they started,” 25-year-old Shane Razzi told me. Like Thus the neighborhood, while traditionally ple ground for a prescription drug epidemic and Bill Clinton’s evasion of prosecution after re- don’t just examine platforms independently of the in- many of the canvassers I spoke with, most of whom voting Democrat at the top of the ballot, has and Trump’s populism to take root. peated allegations of sexual misconduct were among stitutions that mediate their lives,” said Judith Stein, were former Bernie staffers or volunteers, Sanders’ supported Taylor in election after election. Ironically, much of Trump’s support in the additional reasons Martin cited for turning to a labor historian at the City College of New York. message of economic justice got Razzi involved in The 215 People’s Alliance is asking vot- Port Richmond is non-ideological. Kimberly Trump. These might seem like disparate complaints, “The black working class’s view of the world is me- politics. He even drove out West to volunteer for ers who sign their petition to dismantle the Martin, for instance, said she “absolutely” but each underscored her perception that the Clin- diated through political operatives who have been Sanders ahead of the primary in June. But SRC to support Taylor’s Democratic rival, supports local control of schools. While we tons are part of the global elite and have given fodder linked to the Democratic Party for the past 30 or when I asked if he was supporting Clinton, Razzi de- Joe Hohenstein. were on the subject of education, she added to Trump’s anti-establishment message. 40 years — church leaders, nonprofi t leaders, black murred. He’s not a Trump supporter, like his neigh- “With Trump being such a divisive fi gure, that her daughter recently graduated college. Martin is hardly an outlier in the white, working- politicians.” By contrast, white workers are, in many bors, and he wasn’t making any political calculation: we’re working to have a strong local cam- “I just watched a rally of Hillary’s where she class enclaves of Philadelphia, including Port Rich- respects, institutionally unmoored. That’s long been Razzi just can’t muster the same enthusiasm for Clin- paign that shores up the Democratic base so talked about free college tuition for families mond, where we met. Many in this Polish and Irish the case in the southern United States but is a rela- ton that he had for the democratic socialist. “I’m fo- that there isn’t any ticket splitting,” Hohen- making under a $125,000 a year. Let me tell neighborhood see a Trump vote as a big, whopping, tively new phenomena in the North where traditions cusing on the local stuff,” he said. stein, who stopped by to glad-hand the can- you, we are deep in debt. I support that.” necessary “fuck you” to politicians on both sides of of trade unionism have tied blue-collar whites to the Razzi’s grandfather was born in 1926 just around vassers in Powers Park, told me. the aisle who they feel have abandoned them. Democratic Party, at least until now. “I heard from the corner from Powers Park, where Razzi and a doz- Yet, Hohenstein isn’t exactly a paragon of steel union leaders that at locals in Ohio they were en other 215 Alliance organizers met up to canvass Sanders’ political revolution that was the in- debating between Sanders and Trump,” Stein said. Port Richmond with a petition that calls for disman- spiration for many of the people going door- A TRADITIONALLY DEMOCRATIC But Sanders is out of the picture. tling the SRC. Razzi was raised in the neighborhood, to-door for him. He supported Clinton in the NEIGHBORHOOD On one hand, narratives that demonize, cheer or too. “It was pretty rough,” he told me. “Our science Democratic primaries and is in favor of char- patronize the white working class for Trump’s ascent class was just our teacher handing us a piece of paper ter schools, with the caveat that they are held Port Richmond has traditionally voted Democratic are oversimplifi cations, given research from the Gal- to draw on from kindergarten until fi fth grade.” accountable and don’t come at the expense of UNDECIDED: A voter listens to Lev Hirschhorn of the 215 People’s in national elections, but touring the area in early lup polling organization that indicates Trump has an public schools. Basically, he considers himself Alliance in Port Richmond, Oct. 8. October with local education activists, it was appar- even higher number of supporters among the mid- a moderate.

ent that that is about to change. Though the activists dle class. And whites overall are a shrinking voting FAILING SCHOOLS “Being drawn to someone who says, ‘I want 2016 November knocked on doors of registered Democrats, the most block. They will account for 69 percent of the vote in something different,’ we have to be careful,” STARS, STRIPES AND PIT BULLS: Kimberly Martin on her stoop. frequent response I received when I asked which way this election, down from 87 percent in 1992. Whites A democratically elected school board would offer Hohenstein said. “This goes to Bernie’s vi- Those are the names of police offi cers killed in , Texas on July 8 taped voters were leaning in the national election was either as a percentage of the working class have also shrunk locals a chance to have a say in how their children sion of populism as well as Trump’s. If you to her front door. “Trump” or “I don’t know” — code, explained one of as America’s demographics have shifted. are educated. Board members held accountable to go down the alphabet, you can’t go from A to the group’s lead organizers, Lev Hirschhorn, for “I’m Nevertheless, 2014 census data indicates that 44.4 voters would be less likely to close neighborhood B to K. You have to take your steps through. November 2016 INDYPENDENT THE voting for Trump but don’t want to admit it.” percent of whites earn less than $50,000 a year and schools or demand givebacks from the teachers There’s always been people who say, ‘Oh WHAT NEXT?: 215 Canvassers Hirschhorn and Shane Razzi take a The ambiguity of such responses from these deni- those blue-collar votes will still have a signifi cant im- union. Since taking over the district in 2001, when yeah, we need a revolution.’ But if you are go- break inside a Port Richmond convenience store. zens of the white working class just might spell a sur- pact on the election. As political demographer Ruy the city faced a $216.7 million defi cit in its educa- ing to overthrow a system, where essentially prise victory for Trump in Pennsylvania, where the Teixeira put it to the New Yorker earlier this year: “If tion budget thanks to decades of underfunding, the you create a new alphabet, there are going to state’s 20 electoral college votes will play a pivotal [Trump’s] populist message boosts turnout and mar- SRC has put Philadelphia schools under an austerity be steps that get lost.” SCHOOL’S OUT FOREVER: This property, formerly a high school, role in deciding our next president. Think of the re- gins with working-class white voters high enough regime that has only exacerbated pre-existing prob- can be purchased at PHLschoolsales.com.

THE INDYPENDENT sults of the Brexit referendum or the peace plebiscite in the Rust Belt and Upper Midwest, you could see lems — overcrowding, understaffi ng and program 14 PoVertY 2016

paIn IS paIn

By Nicholas Powers ing to get liquor from the store. By noon, they were piled up, unfi nished. Everything was rushing by. CHARLYNE ALEXIS passed out on the sidewalk like thrown-away dolls. I We kept talking about politics, how Trump was caus- ou’re not listening to me.” He gripped the stepped over them when opening the door. Drug dealers ing a feminist reaction, how it would clean America of “ steering wheel. stood nervously at corners. Prostitutes waved at passing some of its sexism. After he crashed, I stayed up think- “What the hell am I not hearing?” I cars. Everyone was black. Terrence was one of the few ing of what I needed to be cleansed of and thought of stared at my friend Terrence, who stared whites in the neighborhood. They watched him as he Mark the waiter and another white man I met who slept at the road as we drove in silence. He walked to the store, always asked him for money and in a tent in Central Park. Or the white woman who I blurted,Y “White guys feel like they’re always wrong. sometimes heckled him. talked with on a bus who was sexually harassed at work I’m white. Listen to me. I know. We’re being yelled at “I get it, I really do,” Terrence said, “Everyone thinks and quit. Or the white cab driver I met in upstate New by everyone.” I’m the problem. Out here, I’m seen as part of the sys- York who juggled four jobs and never saw his family. I drew a line down my cheek, “White tears.” The tem that ruined their lives. They don’t know me. They On and on. quiet in the van grew like a gasoline bubble. Just one just see white. They don’t know I’m struggling too. And What if I didn’t think — white? What if I just thought spark. He parked, looked at me and said, “Boo hoo,” I am. But it’s not the same. I have things they never had. human? We’re all human and we’re trapped in a history mock crying. We laughed. But our epic talks on race You know, one of the ladies out there said to me, ‘you we can’t see and trapped in a system we can’t stop? Af- and politics took a turn when Trump went on a winning must have really disappointed your family to end up ter growing up around whites who didn’t see their privi- streak. I began to listen to his warning. A huge swath of here with us.’ I was really hurt.” lege, I was grateful that whiteness was becoming easier White America was scared, cornered, cheated, insulted “Damn bro,” I shook my head. “Damn.” to call out. But I didn’t like how it was now so bright for and left behind. When they looked in the mirror, they I looked at my friend. I’d known him almost 20 years. me that I was objectifying it, unable to feel the human saw white as the new black. He knew me when I had 4-foot-long dreads. He has being locked inside its burning visibility. these large feel-your-soul eyes and endless energy. He And I wasn’t alone. Poor whites were an intellec- was a metal worker and his hands were often dark from tual fad. Books about the white working class line THE STRONGMAN soldering metal at his shop. He drummed, live looped the shelves, like Strangers in Their Own Land, White and deejayed at parties. He protested Republicans. To- Trash, Hillbilly’s Eulogy, and Evicted. Now that a large The Strongman cometh. He’s Rodrigo Duterte in the tal Bay Area man. slice of poor and working-class white America nearly Philippines. He’s Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Vladi- He was like a brother to me. We’d go on road trips, made Trump president, the elites were scrambling to mir Putin in and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt. opening our lives up like origami, revealing new understand them. He’s lurking in the ranks of the nationalist parties rising shapes and meanings to our lives. I trusted him. And I Poor and working-class whites are scared and want- in France and Austria. Here, he is Donald Trump: the knew he was being ground down by the hateful stares ed a strongman to rescue them. But Trump has already Cinnamon Hitler, the Groper. on the street. lost. The election will be a wave, immense and fast. Terrence and I watched him on TV. His puckered “You know, there’s this white man, Mark, a waiter When it hits, liberals will yell and do mock touchdown face and excuse-me-waitress forefi ngers. Trump soaked at this restaurant I eat at on the way to Burning Man. dances. And the next day, capitalism will keep grind- himself in the rage of Whitest America, lighting it on Sweetest guy. We talk once a year. He’s old and works ing along and more people will slip, slip some more and fi re and spewing it from his lips like a circus fi re-breath- way too much. I wonder, what’s going to happen to then fall into the streets. er. He was a joke, until he wasn’t. him.” I sighed. “My whole life I’ve been taught to be I was safer than most. Safer than my friend. A month Today’s strongmen are not militarized goons like loyal to black pain and be indifferent to white pain. It ago, he was evicted. He was allowed time to get every- Uganda’s Idi Amin but Armani-wearing, fascist clowns feels small though. There’s something larger than all of thing cleaned out. This morning, I got a text from him like Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi. They mock liberal, middle- us that’s causing this…” saying that he had left his home. He sent me photos of class sensibilities on behalf of a betrayed working class. Two homeless men began cursing right below the the open road. I didn’t know where my brother was go- The more they insult the establishment and are insulted window. It got loud. “Oh God.” I rubbed my temples. ing but he was on his way. back, the stronger they grow. “I’m tired of feeling guilt. It’s like someone took a ship I didn’t see it. My leftist politics values the suffering from the Middle Passage and cracked it like an egg over Nicholas Powers is a professor of African American lit- of the poor and their redemption as class warriors, not the street.” erature at SUNY-Old Westbury. as people who want to identify with leaders, who want “That’s intense,” he said. power, who want to be the heroes of their national my- “Can I be white,” I asked him, “So I don’t feel this thology. It struck me while watching Superman v Bat- black middle-class guilt?” man. In it, the villain Doomsday is a monster who gets “Oh that won’t help,” he laughed. “Believe me.” stronger the more you hit it. Afterwards I called Terrence. “I think Trump is from outer space. I think he’s an alien who gets stronger the FALLING more you insult him.” “You may have it backwards,” he said. “Trump lov- When I visited Oakland again, Terrence and I drank ers think he’s saving them from you. For his supporters, and laughed at how Trump was thrashing in contro- you’re the monster.” versy. I glanced at the large stack of empty beer bottles in his kitchen. Later, he told me he was behind on his November 2016

rent and fi ghting depression. CRACK PARK “Sorry for unloading all this on you,” he said. “No, no,” I said. “It’s all good.” “White people are really conscious about being white,” It was like the bottom fell out of his life and he was he said as we stood in his apartment, which overlooked falling, falling, falling. I wanted to help but didn’t know a tiny patch of green called “Crack Park” where home- how. Life was rushing by, too fast to catch. His former

The IndypendenT less people slept in tents. They stumbled out each morn- partner had given birth to a baby. His work projects 15

just because the number of languages that are available South Asian immigrants, than ever coMMUNal ELIZA RELMAN IMMIgranT VoTIng has increased,” Mun said. “To me, the question is: is before in the organization’s 14-year SelF- Continued from page 8 there active outreach on the ground that goes out to history. DeFeNSe: community members, day to day, informing them? It James Hong, who directs the MinK- Mayra Aldás- cess to registration forms in their native language, ac- takes way more steps than just registering somebody won Center for Community Action, Deckert, a cording to the Mayor’s offi ce. City polling places will to vote.” said that his coalition is knocking on community also be required to have ballots translated into these Kawas says that many individuals in the communi- thousands of doors and calling tens of engagement 16 languages. ties she works with have never participated in the po- thousands of people. The 19 organiza- coordinator at While this is a step towards greater enfranchisement litical process before, either in the U.S. or their home tions that the MinKwon Center works the New York — and legally mandated under the Voting Rights Act — countries. with expect to collectively contact over Immigration many advocates say it is not enough to get immigrant “A lot of times, immigrants who are coming in are 100,000 Asian-American voters by Coalition, says citizens actively engaged in the political process. coming in as refugees,” Kawas said. “They might not November 8. fear of a Trump “We need to ensure that the voter materials that are believe in the political system [or] they may have lived “We’ve been training other organi- presidency has mailed to people, the voter guides, are in those lan- under a political system that didn’t work for them. I zations, refi ning a message that will motivated many guages,” Murad Awawdeh, NYIC’s director of political think that population of people are people we need to speak to our communities,” Hong said. of New York’s engagement, said. “We need to ensure that when people have conversations with.” Latinx residents to get to the polls, they can speak to someone who speaks become citizens their language.” and voters. But Awawdeh thinks the most signifi cant barrier to GETTING OUT THE VOTE political engagement in immigrant communities is a lack of civic education. “This is all about education, if Immigration advocacy and organizing groups have you can’t educate people about why this is super impor- worked hard throughout the fall to register and educate tant for them to do, then you’re failing,” he said. as many new voters as possible and are planning aggres- Mun doubts the expansion of language access will sive get-out-the-vote efforts leading up to Election Day. make a substantial difference in voter engagement Mohammad Razvi, executive director the Council this fall. of Peoples Organization, told The Indypendent that “I wouldn’t imagine voting would necessarily change his team has registered more voters, most of whom are SUBScrIBe Today! geT eVery ISSUe oF The IndypendenT deLIVered STraIghT To yoUr hoMe each MonTh. 12 ISSUeS / $25 • 24 ISSUeS / $48 pUrchaSe yoUr SUBScrIpTIon onLIne aT www.IndypendenT.org/SUBScrIBe or, Send a checK or Money order To The IndypendenT 388 aTLanTIc aVe., 2nd FL.

BrooKLyn, ny 11217 2016 November The IndypendenT The 16 adVerTISe

SUpporT cLInTon • The most daunting task will be Continued from page 10 rebuilding the peace movement. The question of war was the weakest media in ways that go beyond this point in Sanders’ politics and the In The election, just as its use in this one most ominous one in Clinton’s. Ten- surpassed that of past years. That sions with Russia are already rising. made all the difference in mobiliz- We’ve seen the like before — with ing the Sanders campaign, record Vietnam, Central America, Iran, numbers in record time. Iraq, and so on. The rhetoric and rationales change, but the tobog- • We will also have to use all these gan ride to hell is always the same. IndypendenT means to protect our sisters and Clinton is already moving policy to brothers from backlash by the dregs the right in this area. It will be harder UnIQUe aUdIence of the Trump campaign. This is to get broad unity for peace, but we already happening: physical violence have to fi gure it out and do it. and an atmosphere of xenophobic aFFordaBLe raTeS terror. It involves armed fascists. Ethan Young is a Brooklyn writer/editor. He They have allies in police depart- works with Left Labor Project, People for ments and the armed forces. We Bernie, and Portside.org. perSonaL aTTenTIon would be mistaken to assume that the authorities will protect us. Self- defense is only effective if it is collec- tive and wins broad mass support. For More InForMaTIon, eMaIL

tion. The Green door is open to disciplined [email protected] or caLL VoTe JILL STeIn leftists and organizers who want to grow an Continued from Page 11 independent grass-roots party that can com- pete and win while developing a clear vision 212-982-1204. lieves in the gospel of Ayn Rand and that fi re of the world we want to live in. departments should be privatized? Election A vote for Jill Stein is a vote to assert our Day will be a test of how much progressive political power and our political aspirations. voters are willing to break with the two- It’s a vote to end extractivism and militarism, corporate-party system. Supporting Jill Stein and in favor of a political platform that pri- and could be the next step in oritizes health and human rights, and puts building a mass-membership party of the left, people, the planet, and peace before corpo- and the next step for Sanders supporters who rate profi ts. want the “political revolution” to continue. The Green Party has weathered 30 years Ursula Rozum is the Secretary of the and elected hundreds of progressive candi- . She is also on dates at the local level. In Richmond, Cali- the Steering Committee of the Syracuse fornia, Gayle McLaughlin served two terms Peace Council. as a Green mayor, where she held the local I design the Indy. Chevron oil refi nery accountable for environ- mental violations and enraged big banks by I design for change. saving residents facing foreclosure from evic- I can design for you.

LaFollette’s Progressives in 1924. The last caT’S oUT oF The Bag third party to win one was the Republicans Continued from Page 11 in 1860, when the Democrats split into fac- tions over slavery and Abraham Lincoln won Deal,” a massive public-works project that a four-way race. would convert the U.S. to solar and wind Therefore, I am going to cast my ballot for energy, creating thousands of jobs in the Nebulon Wishnia-Peña, a black female about process. The problem I have is that her run- 5 years old (that’s arguably 35 in cat years, ning mate, Ajamu Baraka, called the “Je suis OK?) from the great state of Rhode Island. Charlie” march in Paris after the Charlie I will do this even though her aversion to al- Hebdo massacre of 2015 a “White Power most all humans, not to mention her inability rally,” arguing that it was a self-centered, ar- to speak English, Spanish, or any human lan- rogant defense of a racist magazine. That at- guage, would make her a terrible campaigner. titude was far too common on the U.S. left. It I know this is an absurdist and utterly im- represents a Twitter-post-level understanding potent protest, an act of invisible symbolism of both the nature of satire and French poli- fueled by despair. But given the alternatives tics, and came a half-step away from condon- available in the current system, it’s the most ing the cartoonists’ murder. I can do. Third parties can be a valid electoral strat- On the other hand, if I lived in Pennsylva- egy, but they have had much more success in nia, I’d vote for Clinton. local elections, where they actually have a November 2016

reasonable chance of winning. In a national Steven Wishnia is a longtime writer and vote, it would take a phenomenal organiz- editor for The Indypendent and has covered ing effort and rare political circumstances campaigning, conventions, and protests in for one to be more than a fringe or a spoiler. fi ve presidential elections. In the last 100 years, only one left-of-center third party has garnered more than 10% of

The IndypendenT M T   .@ . . /  .   .  . / the vote in a presidential election: Robert 17 geNDer whaT’S a woMan To do? TrUMp IS TerrIBLe BUT cLInTon LeaVeS Me coLd GARY MARTIN By Maria Muentes cused in the Central Park Jogger rape case—and continues These facts are painful to admit. I had recently graduated to insist that they were guilty, even though their convictions high school when I voted for Bill Clinton, the fi rst time I uring the second presidential debate between were overturned after another man’s confession to the crime cast a ballot in a presidential election. I actually believed the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Re- was confi rmed by DNA evidence, and they received a $41 Democrats to be the party of the people. What I know now publican nominee lurked menacingly behind million legal settlement from the city. is that Republicans and Democrats are both just the enforce- Clinton, his orange face scrunching up in ha- It’s very painful to see poor whites embrace Trump for one ment arm of corporations and banks. Both parties protect tred as she calmly answered questions from simple reason: He makes it acceptable for them to express the interests of the very wealthy. These are the tragic circum- audienceD members. white nationalism openly. He will not help the white work- stances we fi nd ourselves in. I cringed. ing class. He is anti-union. He has made it very clear that he New York is a safe state for Hillary Clinton, so I’m voting As women, we’ve all been there — forced to deal with is only interested in his own personal profi t. Believing that for the Green Party. If I lived in one of the handful of hotly terrifying jerks who feel entitled to infl ict themselves on you he will help the white working class is as ludicrous as believ- contested swing states that will determine which candidate just because they can. This was happening on national tele- ing in the Easter Bunny, yet his base has not abandoned him, wins 270 electoral votes, I would certainly vote for Clinton, vision in front of 67 million people. For the fi rst time in this because he has made it okay to be racist again. out of a very credible fear. seemingly endless campaign, I felt a sense of commonality Nonetheless, Hillary Clinton’s claim to be a scrappy I have never had to make such a dismal choice in any with Clinton. champion of progressive ideals still rings false to me. She was election before. We as a country should be deeply ashamed. Trump has run a campaign of racial and gender-based an active partner in her husband’s presidency. In that role, When this is all over, we need to ask ourselves how we came hatred, making turning on the television or going online a she helped pave the way for mass incarceration, more deten- to such a sorry place. mental-health hazard for people of color and women. I fear tion and deportation of immigrants, trade deals that disem- what he inspires in his supporters. I fear that my two school- powered workers, and a sacking of the safety net that turned Maria Muentes is a native New Yorker of Dominican and aged children will be the targets of actual violence. I fear that poverty into destitution for millions of women and children. Ecuadorian descent. She has been involved in the immigrant they will internalize the message of Trump’s hate-propagan- More recently, she has made millions of dollars speaking to rights, educational equality, and housing justice move- da campaign. Wall Street fi rms for six-fi gure fees. And who are the people ments. This is a man who has publicly lusted after his own daugh- most likely to suffer from the regime-change wars and coups ter and a 10-year-old girl he met in an elevator. In 1989 he she has helped to fan across the Middle East, North Africa, called for the death penalty for the fi ve black teenagers ac- and Latin America? Women and children, of course. SoMe PlaceS YoU caN FiND The IndypendenT

BELOW TO 125 STREET LIBRARY KEY FOODS 107 NORMAN AVE. COURT SQUARE LIBRARY 14TH 224 E. 125TH ST. 130 7TH AVE. 2501 JACKSON AVE. 14TH ST 96TH ST KAISA’S CAFÉ GEORGE BRUCE LIBRARY COMMUNITY BOOK STORE 146 BEDFORD AVE. LONG ISLAND CITY LIBRARY SEWARD PARK LIBRARY EPIPHANY LIBRARY 518 W. 125TH ST. 143 7TH AVE. 37-44 21ST ST. 192 EAST BROADWAY 228 E. 23RD ST. BEDFORD LIBRARY PICTURE THE HOMELESS ROOTS CAFÉ 496 FRANKLIN AVE. QUEENS DIVERSITY CENTER HAMILTON FISH LIBRARY MUHLENBERG LIBRARY 104 E 126TH ST. 639 5TH AVE. 76-11 37TH AVE. SUITE 206 415 E. HOUSTON ST. 209 W. 23RD ST. CROWN HEIGHTS LIBRARY MAYSLES CINEMA PACIFIC STREET LIBRARY 560 NEW YORK AVE. @ MAPLE JACKSON HEIGHTS LIBRARY LES PEOPLE’S FEDERAL GRISTEDES 343 LENOX AVE. 25 FOURTH AVE. 35-51 81ST ST. CREDIT UNION 307 W. 26TH ST. FLATBUSH LIBRARY 39 AVENUE B COUNTEE CULLEN LIBRARY BROOKLYN WORKS@159 22 LINDEN BLVD. @ FLATBUSH TACO BANDITO 104 W. 136TH ST. 159 20TH ST. TOMPKINS SQUARE LIBRARY 325 8TH AVE. TUGBOAT TEA COMPANY BRONX 331 E. 10TH ST. HAMILTON GRANGE LIBRARY SUNSET PARK LIBRARY 546 FLATBUSH AVE. COLUMBUS LIBRARY 503 W. 145TH ST. 4TH AVE. @ 51ST ST. MOTT HAVEN LIBRARY KEY FOOD 942 TENTH AVE. OUTPOST CAFE 321 E. 140TH ST. 52 AVENUE A UPTOWN SISTER’S BOOKS CONNECTICUT MUFFIN 1014 FULTON ST. MANHATTAN W. 156TH ST. & AMSTERDAM 429 MYRTLE AVE. BROOK PARK BLUESTOCKINGS NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORK RED HOOK LIBRARY E 140TH ST. @ BROOK 172 ALLEN ST. 537 W. 59TH ST. FORT WASHINGTON LIBRARY DEKALB LIBRARY 7 WOLCOTT ST. 535 W. 179TH ST. 790 BUSHWICK AVE. HUNT’S POINT LIBRARY THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY YORKVILLE BRANCH LIBRARY HOPE & ANCHOR 877 SOUTHERN BLVD. 155 FIRST AVE. 222 E 79TH ST. MAYDAY SPACE 347 VAN BRUNT 176 ST. NICHOLAS AVE. THE POINT MCNALLY JACKSON BOOKS ST. AGNES LIBRARY BROOKLYN JALOPY CAFÉ 940 GARRISON AVE. 52 PRINCE ST. 444 AMSTERDAM AVE. WYCKOFF STARR COFFEE 317 COLUMBIA ST. BROOKLYN BOROUGH HALL SHOP HIGH BRIDGE LIBRARY 4TH STREET CO-OP 96TH ST. LIBRARY 209 JORALEMON ST. 30 WYCKOFF AVE. BRIDGEVIEW DINER 78 W. 168TH ST. 58 E. 4TH ST. 112 E. 96TH ST. 9011 THIRD AVE. BROOKLYN LIBRARY BUSHWICK LIBRARY LATINO PASTORAL ACTION THINK COFFEE 1044 EASTERN PKWY. 340 BUSHWICK AVE. @ SIEGAL BAY RIDGE LIBRARY CENTER 248 MERCER ST. 2016 November ABOVE 7223 RIDGE BLVD. 14 W. 170TH ST. BROOKLYN COMMONS SWALLOW CAFÉ FILM FORUM 96TH ST. . 388 ATLANTIC AVE. 49 BOGART ST. MCKINLEY PARK LIBRARY NEW SETTLEMENT 209 W. HOUSTON ST. 6802 FORT HAMILTON PKWY. COMMUNITY CENTER SAVOY BAKERY TIMES PLAZA POST OFFICE LITTLE SKIPS 1501 JEROME AVE. HUDSON PARK LIBRARY 170 E. 110TH ST. 542 ATLANTIC AVE. 941 WILLOUGHBY AVE. GALAXY COMICS 66 LEROY ST. 6823 5TH AVE. WANT TO HELP

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echoeS oF TrUMp Donald Trump’s rise to political prominence has surprised and unsettled many Americans. But the But the far right has not benefi ted from the result. we have Support for Farage’s UKIP party has dropped slightly, United States is not alone in seeing according to an ICM poll released Oct. 10. Rather become a than ram home the horror of the Conservatives’ di- an upsurge in far right political sastrous decision to hold the Brexit referendum, the meaner, left has been busy ripping itself apart with internecine struggles over ’s leadership of the La- fi gures who espouse a toxic mix poorer place bour party. It has been the Conservatives who have somehow risen like a phoenix, victorious, from the bigotry and authoritarianism. By Hazel Healy Brexit mess that they created. New Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May t was the stuff of nightmares (mine, anyway). The is now deftly easing her party into the populist space sight last August of Donald Trump and Nigel Far- crystallized by Brexit. She is attempting to draw a line Iage together on a platform, pleased as punch. between herself and the elitist Eton-educated cabal that “What the Brexit campaign did,” said Farage, whose proceeded her, recasting the Tories as a party for the nationalist UKIP party campaigned hard for Britain to common people. Party leaders have fl oated such pleas- exit the last June, “is we reached the ant ideas such as Home Secretary Amber Rudd advo- people who’d been let down by modern corporatism.” cating that companies should be forced to declare how Trump looked on, smiling and nodding approvingly. many foreign workers they have. (Rudd backtracked The crowd whooped. after her idea was compared to Adolf Hitler’s.) There are clear parallels between Trump and Far- How has all this gone down with the people? The age. Both men hail from the elites but have cast them- ICM poll put the Conservatives 17 points ahead of La- selves in a populist mold, claiming to speak for the bour. But at the same time, Jeremy Corbyn, re-elected working classes who have lost out to globalization. as leader at his party’s conference in September, now The craven, spotlight-hungry Farage has even stooped fi nds himself at the head of the largest political party in to defending Trump’s gloating about sexually assault- Western Europe, with a membership of over 500,000. ing women as “alpha male boasting.” That drew criti- Corbyn contends that he will bring out new voters, cism from his own party, which is not known for its inspired by his honest, pro-worker approach to politics. defense of women’s rights. Is he right? We’ll see if the Labour party can stay in one The “Brexit” referendum freaked out Wall Street piece. But it may be that the Brexit buzz will wear off commentators who thought it indicated that Trump quickly when people discover that leaving the EU or might ride a similar wave of populism to victory. While limiting immigration will not improve their lot. I honestly doubt that little Britain’s decision to leave the Corbyn’s anti-austerity message may be getting European Union has much impact on how Americans through. Meanwhile, “movement people,” those who will vote, there are some similarities in the reckless might have described themselves as anarchists just a “fuck you all” attitudes of those who would vote for few years back, are joining Labour. these men or support their causes. These are people as tired of out-of-touch elites as Ber- The motivations of the Brexiteers were widely var- nie Sanders supporters in the U.S. Maybe a new genera- ied. Hyped-up fears of immigration, a harking back to tion will be invigorated to take their country back, not a sense of England-lost (the elderly were much more from Europe, but from a xenophobic tide that sits ill in likely to vote to leave), and people who had nothing to a nation whose capital is more diverse than New York. lose. What was the EU to them? They didn’t speak for- What have we learned from this – apart from not eign languages and were strangers to an elite world of giving up our seats for old people on , university exchanges, research, cultural exchange, and as one young person wrote on Twitter? It’s time to re- exploratory travel. There were also those in the “Lexit” engage with politics. We need to come back stronger camp, who voted Leave in protest against a neoliberal with the anti-austerity message to focus discontent on Europe—a tragic miscalculation. the true drivers of inequality and fi nd better, stronger So as America teeters on the edge of a possible ways to challenge the scapegoating of immigrants. Trump election, what can progressives share from across ? Hazel Healy is a co-editor of the U.K.-based New In- Post-Brexit Britain was recently characterized by The ternationalist. Economist as a meaner, poorer place. Whether those that voted Leave were racist or not (I tend to think yes), the result emboldened racists who felt legitimized by a campaign that scapegoated immigrants. Flyers reading “No more Polish vermin” were stuffed into immigrant families’ mailboxes, and in late August, a Polish man, November 2016

Arek Jozwik, was beaten to death by a mob of teen- agers in a London suburb, apparently after they heard

NEW INTERNATIONALIST/NEWINT.ORG NEW him speaking Polish. Reported homophobic attacks more than doubled in the three months after the vote. A group of men marched in London with the slogan “First we’ll get the Poles out, then the gays. The IndypendenT 19

the lesser-evIl smoKescreen JÉRÔME VABRE echoeS oF TrUMp By Farah Belaggoune n the spring of 2002, progressive French voters like myself were confronted with an awful choice in the fi nal round of that year’s presidential election. I The incumbent, Jacques Chirac, was a slippery career politician who had been a prominent fi gure in France for 30 years. He supported conservative economic policies and would play on voter hostility toward immigrants when it suited his purpose. His opponent was Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder and leader of the far-right Front National (National Front) and a notorious racist and Holocaust minimizer. The candidate of the Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party) had unexpectedly come in third in the fi rst round, leaving those of us on the left with nowhere to go. Since having a far rightist come to power would be unacceptable, leftists were urged to cast a vote utile, a “useful vote,” despite our misgivings. So we rallied in support of Chirac. One popular slogan was “vote for the crook, not the fascist,” and another was “vote with a clothespin on your nose.” Does this sound familiar? When Election Day came, the French people voted overwhelmingly against Le Pen, re-electing Chirac with 82% of the vote. The National Front had been overwhelming-

DAWN LLANERA seeKIng shelter In ly repudiated and once again relegated to the fringes of public life. Or so we thought. Fourteen years later, the National Front is in a stronger position than ever. It won a terrIFyIng Father regional elections across the country last December. According to recent polls, the party’s immigrant-bashing leader, Marine Le Pen (Jean-Marie’s daughter), would win FIgure by a landslide if next year’s presidential election were held today. The roots of how this came about go back to the 1980s, when the Socialists saw the By Tracy Llanera birth of the National Front as an opportunity to drain the votes of the traditional right and keep it out of power. This worked for a while, but then the worm got into the fruit. hilippines President Rodrigo Duterte makes Donald Trump look like a Over the past 30 years, the extreme right has managed to hijack the French politi- spineless brat. On Sept. 30, Duterte said he would be “happy to slaugh- cal discourse on issues like immigration, government spending, social issues, high Pter” ’s estimated 3 million drug users, much like Adolf Hitler taxes, national security, and the decline of France’s sovereignty in a globalized world. exterminated Jews. Since he took offi ce in June, more than 3,500 alleged addicts Instead of building a proper response to the National Front or just ignoring it, the (and a few innocent bystanders) have been killed by police, vigilante groups, or Socialists and the traditional conservatives decided to follow the its sheet music and unknown assailants. That number doesn’t include the more than 1,400 people allow the LePenization of minds to deepen. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy, before slain by the Davao Death Squad, a vigilante group linked to Duterte during the he was defeated for re-election by Socialist François Hollande in 2012, offered a 22 years he was mayor of Davao City, the nation’s largest city outside the Manila somewhat milder version of the extreme right’s anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric. metropolitan area. He is now running again, with the same strategy. His idea is now that to be consid- Like Trump, Duterte has a reputation for being crude with women, bragging ered French, one’s ancestors must be Gauls. On the contrary, Marine Le Pen’s new about his two wives and two girlfriends. After Australian missionary Jacqueline slogan is “a pacifipacifi eded France,”France,” puttingputting aa veilveil onon FN’sFN’s racistracist origins.origins. France’sFrance’s politicalpolitical Hamill was raped and murdered during a 1989 prison riot, he joked that he “was system is upside down. mad she was raped,” but that he, the mayor, “should have been fi rst.” He got Both sides failed to comprehend that in a context of brutal economic insecurity, away with it. people were desperate for a shelter. Many found it in the National Front’s moral uni- Despite this, recent polls show Duterte enjoying an unprecedented 91% “trust” verse, with its simplistic appeal to old and idealized values wrapped in “law and or- rating and a “very good” net satisfaction rating in this nation of 102 million der” populist rhetoric. people. His militant machismo is what makes people either worship or despise To many French, far-right activists were the only ones who even pretended to be him. But unlike Trump, Duterte has a long record in local politics. In 1988, concerned about improving peoples' lives before going on to secure a comfortable when he became mayor of Davao, a city of 1.6 million on the southern island of seat in offi ce. They knew the population and its fears. They gave people a sense of Mindanao, it was one of the nation’s most violent places. He transformed the city belonging and didn’t deny their diffi culties. Many of the discontented are seeking into a peaceful, prosperous commercial and tourist hub by becoming as ruthless something new, observing that their living conditions keep getting worse while the and as frightening as the criminal forces that plagued it, with hundreds of petty two major parties—the Socialists and Sarkozy’s Républicains (Republicans, changed criminals liquidated. He has denied ties to the Davao Death Squad, but said in in 2015 from the Union for a Movement of the People)—alternate in power without 2005 that the best way to deal with criminals was “summary execution.” changing anything. As president, Duterte promises the Philippines the same discipline and secu- Both major parties have been blinkered by their never-ending race to the next local rity. These are clear and simple successes that Filipinos, their lives long beset by or national election. All that has mattered to them was the short-term strategy for gar- injustice, poverty, and crime, are happy to welcome. He has also said the United nering more votes. They were unwilling to take the time to analyze the deeper reasons States is hypocritical to complain about human rights violations when its army for the National Front’s growing success. massacred more than 250,000 Filipinos in Mindanao during the 1899-1902 war The more politicians and journalists comment on and take on the Front’s issues and that made the nation a U.S. colony. grievances, the more legitimized those ideas become. Voting for “lesser evils” that are Duterte and Trump are the politicians you get when governments are run by always ready to abandon their principles and move further to the right only makes the an oligarchic elite and the dissatisfi ed public seeks a messiah. Prior to Duterte,

situation worse. Philippine national elections were marred by vote-buying and distrust of the tra- 2016 November On November 8, don’t waste your energy on the lesser-evil smokescreen. Step back ditional political families. Duterte ran as an outsider, a fi gure unblemished by the and see the whole picture. It is not too late to stop the Trumpization of American “cacique democracy” of Manila and its debilitating corruption. For many, this minds and media. Your salvation might come from your left, which appears to be on makes him the best candidate for ushering in real change, even if it means swal- the upsurge, unlike ours in France. Continue organizing and mobilizing for the kind lowing his death squads and his exaggerating the nation’s drug crisis to justify of world you want, and you just may get it. them. (Filipinos use “shabu,” methamphetamine, at rates similar to Americans, and cocaine and heroin use are negligible.) IndypendenT The Farah Belaggoune is a Paris-based educator and Fulbright Scholar who is studying While their messianic roles indicate why they enjoy strong and often uncritical the U.S. Left and independent media. support, remaining generally immune from the consequences of their words and actions, Trump and Duterte play different versions of strongman politics. Trump

Continued on page 23 20 FilM

BIrTh pangS oF a naTIon

Birth of a Nation The Turners are shown to be “good masters” are in any way equal. It is to say, however, that one’s

Directed by Nate Parker throughout most of the fi lm. They are kinder and more personal freedom is bound up with the freedom of oth- FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES/20TH CENTURY FOX 120 minutes, Rated R generous to their slaves than most, allowing a degree ers. Despite his power and position, Samuel cannot be Theaters Citywide of dignity and autonomy that appears to make life as truly free, because Nat is not free. a slave bearable, at least for Nat. Nat and Samuel are Neither, it seems, can Samuel Turner or his family shown playing together as small children. Mrs. Turn- be redeemed, so long as the institution of slavery per- By Mark Read er is the classic compassionate slave-owning missus, sists. The kindness and good intentions of the Turners teaching Nat to read, protecting him from the hard cannot save them from the violent consequences of a s there anything redeemable about the movie?” I labor of the fi elds, and even allowing him to read the violent system from which they benefi t. The Turners “ was asked about Nate Parker’s new fi lm,Birth of Bible before her all-white congregation. Later, when and the people that they represent — decent and well- a Nation. The question struck me as ironic: The they’ve grown up, we witness Samuel Turner risk his meaning whites — cannot or will not imagine a life for fi lm’s central themes revolve around the question social position to defend Nat from attack by a white themselves without slavery. For this reason, they can- of redemption. Add to this Parker’s real-life ef- man. These two men are depicted as close compan- not be redeemed, and that is a tragedy. fortsI to redeem himself in the public eye after recent ions capable of mutual respect, connected through old This is a powerful lesson for white people today. revelations of his 1999 arrest for sexual assault and bonds of friendship. Parker is setting the audience up We are not free until everyone is free. Looking away rape (he was acquitted, while his codefendant and co- to feel some affection for Samuel: He isn’t such a bad from the fundamental and institutional ways that writer, Jean Celestin, was found guilty but later had guy after all. He didn’t create slavery, and he’s doing black people are kept down and simply trying to the conviction overturned), and the theme of redemp- his best to be decent within an indecent system upon demonstrate good intentions will not redeem us. If tion begins to feel omnipresent within and around the which his entire way of life relies. we are not fi ghting for universal emancipation, we world of this fi lm. Nat’s evolution from contented slave to revolution- are ensuring the continued bondage and oppression Redemption is defi ned in the dictionary as “the ac- ary prophet parallels Samuel’s de- tion of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.” scent from apparent decency into The sin here is chattel slavery in the United States. alcoholism and cruelty. These nat turner’s evolutIon Salvation from this evil is the central struggle for all evolutions transpire during a tour the characters in Birth of a Nation, as told through of slave plantations, after Samuel the eyes of its protagonist, Nat Turner, the famed agrees to rent out Nat’s gifts as From contented slave leader of the 1831 slave revolt that was the bloodiest an itinerant preacher. They travel in U.S. history. But the fi lm “explains” Turner’s deci- from one horror show to another, to revolutIonary sion to lead the revolt as a direct response to the rape witnessing increasingly brutal of his wife. This unmoors the rebellion from its his- and terrifying conditions. This prophet parallels hIs torical reality as an uprising based on moral opposi- tour feels reminiscent of Quen- tion against the institution of slavery itself. Somehow, tin Tarantino’s fi lm Django Un- enslaver’s descent that motivation wasn’t deemed suffi ciently dramatic, chained, but instead of the glee- so the rebellion is transformed into a revenge narra- ful satisfaction of seeing a former From apparent decency tive, a vehicle to redeem black masculinity from the slave punish evil slave owners humiliations of slavery. with the aid of his white ally, we Into alcoholIsm and In telling this story, rather than the actually true witness a slave forced to mollify and more politically powerful story of slaves rising up and pacify other slaves through against slavery as a path towards redeeming black hu- sermons that encourage loyalty cruelty. manity, Parker has diminished the power of this im- and deference to authority. portant history. Furthermore, by characterizing the As the fundamental and irredeemable brutality of of our brothers and sisters. women primarily as victims whose violations serve slavery is laid bare, these two men inexorably grow Despite Birth of a Nation’s signifi cant fl aws and solely to motivate male action, he has effectively side- estranged. We see slavery driving one towards mad- problems, the fi lm powerfully communicates these lined Black women, silencing the historical echoes of ness and the other towards destruction. Samuel is con- messages. While I can’t strongly recommend it, neither women like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. It is stantly drunk, growing ever more callous and cruel, can I dismiss it so easily. for those reasons that black historian Leslie Alexander enabling rape and demanding torture. Nat grows more dismissed the fi lm as an “epic fail” in her review for the fi erce and prophetic, enlisting followers and demand- Nation magazine. ing bloodshed in return. Their fates are inseparable.

REDEEMING QUALITIES UNTIL WE ARE ALL FREE November 2016

The fi lm is not entirely without redeeming qualities, Watching this drove home for me the centrality of the however. The depiction of the relationship between concept of interdependence, as articulated within mor- Nat Turner and his owners, the Turner family, particu- al philosophy, particularly by Christian moral philoso- larly the relationship between Nat and their son Sam- phers from Reinhold Niebuhr to James Cohn to Cor- uel, functions as a powerful metaphor through which nel West. Parker has animated the fundamental truth Parker addresses a modern audience about the condi- that oppression degrades both the oppressed and the

The IndypendenT tions that allow white supremacy to continue. oppressor. This is never to say that these degradations 21 BooKS

ScrUTInIZIng whITeneSS

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America Nancy Isenberg Viking, 2016 in Carol Anderson’s White Rage: The chies works under cover of law: it mani- Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. fests itself in underfunded urban schools, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth Black men, in the American collective criminal courtrooms full of black men in of Our Racial Divide unconscious, are deeply intertwined with shackles, and citizens not allowed to vote. Carol Anderson violence and criminality. We saw this Much of Anderson’s survey of how Bloomsbury, 2016 when Dylann Roof told the parishioners white rage has shaped the United States at Emanuel AME church in Charleston, since the Civil War will likely be already South Carolina, before opening fi re: “you familiar to readers of The Indypendent. By Matt Wasserman rape our women and are killing our coun- If you know of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ work try.” When Jesse Jackson expressed his on racist housing policy, Bryan Stevenson t is hard to explain Donald Trump’s fear of black men walking behind him late and the Equal Justice Initiative’s efforts rise to Republican presidential at night. And every time Donald Trump to commemorate the victims of lynchings nominee without making reference lays out a vision of black communities as or Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim to white trash. We use euphemisms, battlefi elds that seems drawn from repeat Crow, you’ll recognize many of the sign- of course, because we’re aware that viewings of New Jack City rather than posts on the road Anderson travels. What Ithe term is impolite. Hillary Clinton refers trips uptown. is most novel here is her claim that white to Trump supporters as a racist “basket of This racialized presumption of violence rage is not just a leitmotif of American deplorables.” Journalists from the coasts and inherent danger is so strong, it is dif- history since the Civil War, but a central profi le formerly Democratic-voting, fi cult for many to see the countless black explanatory variable. She links disparate downwardly mobile whites in the Trump men killed by police offi cers as victims. moments and issues to demonstrate how Country of Appalachia and the Rust Belt Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Alton Ster- white rage has shaped — and continues to without ever using that term. But we all ling and so on: With each death, there was shape — every facet of our lives. bluestockings radical bookstore | activist center | fair trade cafe know who they’re talking about, even a rush to paint the fallen as thugs, or to If we believe that black lives should 172 ALLEN ST • 212-777-6028 if the words “redneck,” “hillbilly” or suggest the deceased had just committed matter, understanding the ways they cur- bluestockings.com “cracker” never cross their lips. And we a crime or to claim he was agree that they’re one of the few groups resisting. For one reason that are an appropriate target of derision, or another, they always two authors whether in the form of the Beverly Hillbil- had it coming. lies or Honey Boo Boo. When people react to In White Trash, Nancy Isenberg paints these tragedies with in- eXplore a picture of poor whites that I found dignation or protest, oth- ers take it as a symptom surprisingly sympathetic, ranging from dIFFerent ways FRI. AUG 12 • 7–9:30PM the Jamestown colony to TV depictions of irrational black rage. BOOK RELEASE: Chinaka Hodge reads of poor whites. In her telling, a strata of But, as Anderson, a pro- race and class and performs poems from her new despised poor whites has existed in this fessor at Emory Univer- book, Dated Emcees, published by country from the very earliest European sity, argued in a Washing- have shaped u.s. City Lights Books. Form blends with settlements. In fact, that was one of the ton Post op-ed that was content in Dated Emcees as Hodge function of the colonies: to absorb the so- the precursor to this cur- hIstory. examines her love life through the called scum of England. Isenberg compel- rent book, media cover- lens of hip-hop’s best known orators, lingly argues that this permanent under- age focused of black rage characters, archetypes and songs. class of poor whites shows the hollowness in the wake of Ferguson ignored the far rently do not seems like an essential fi rst of the American mantra of meritocracy more potent white rage that shapes where step. Anderson’s compact book serves this FRI. AUG 19 • 7–9:30PM and the lie of the American claim to being we live, where we go to school, and where purpose well. But her target audience is BOOK RELEASE: Kick off Flame Con a classless society. we work. unclear to me. Those who agree with her with a release party celebrating the However, I couldn’t help feeling that It was white rage that ended Recon- central thesis may fi nd that she offers little debut of the critically-acclaimed there is a hole in the center of this book: struction and enforced racial domina- new; those who do not know this history anthology, Fresh Romance, an Isenberg is immensely attuned to how tion under Jim Crow. It was white rage may be put off her polemic tone. exciting collection of romance comics class works, but devotes scant discussion that kept African-Americans from reap- What I most missed in Anderson’s ac- from some of comics’ most talented to how it interacts with race. She shows ing the full benefi ts of the New Deal and count was some explanation for the force creators! only in passing how poor whites have in- limited them to a few red-lined neigh- and tenacity of white rage. Is it simply teracted with non-whites. But while other borhoods. And it was white backlash a matter of racial animus and prejudice? THU. SEP 1 • 7–9:30PM white people may mock them or repress against the civil rights movement that Of trying to hold on to the unearned PERFORMANCE: Comedy Cunt 2016 November them, the identity of poor whites is built led to the on-the-ground nullifi cation of privileges and perquisites of white skin? Collective hosts an evening featuring marginalized comedians from various around being white, not black. court-ordered school desegregation — in Something else entirely? If we are to dis- communities each performing and Nonetheless, White Trash is an impor- the South and the North — as well as the mantle racial hierarchy, we need a theory sharing their own life experiences tant contribution to understanding how rise of mass incarceration. of the material and psychic benefi ts it using comedy as a medium. class works in the United States—and the White rage — or opposition to black provides to the white masses, including rot at the heart of our polity. And it is also advancement — is not limited to spectac- those poor whites chronicled by Isenberg IndypendenT The a good read. Despite displaying the chops ular acts like lynchings, of course. In An- — and, thus, how they can be won to of an academic historian, Isenberg is an derson’s words, “White rage is not about true racial equality. engaging writer. visible violence, but rather it works its Hand-in-hand with society’s trash- way through the courts, the legislatures, ing of poor whites is the demonization and a range of government bureaucra- of blacks — a topic heavily discussed cies.” This enforcement of racial hierar- 22 ASK REVEREND BILLY Demand Impossible! a Radical manifesto the bill Ayers

“For Bill Ayers, it is the freedom of our collective imagination that links the contemporary world—

ensconced as it is in pervasive I feel anxiety from the election. I’m Dear Pastor Bill, QUILTY JOHN having trouble sleeping. I fi nd my I was an activist like you for many militarism, racist violence, and focus is shot. I hate to admit that the years but I’ve gotten very involved in environmental devastation—to the election matters this much, but it’s supporting my family and building a getting under my skin. home for us since I reached my 30’s. flourishing of our planet. This is a manifesto I spend time on pipes and roof leaks, — Daryl, Ditmas Park I have a long-term mortgage, etc. Re- that should be read by everyone who wants cently, a homeless shelter moved onto to believe that “another world is possible.” Dear Presidentially Anxious in my quiet street. I hear a lot of shout- Brooklyn, ing and music from them. There are Anxiety is the landscape of the Land cigarette butts everywhere now. My —Angela Y. Davis, of the Free. Our society is based on old days of activism seem a long way hand-wringing, gnashing of teeth. away. I don’t seem to have patience author of Abolition Democracy and Multinational corporations, the mili- with these people. I feel invaded. I Freedom is a Constant Struggle tary, sports, porn, Hollywood — all can’t move. I’m stuck here. the big institutions of American life have discovered fear makes money. — Frank in the Bronx They’ve known that since the inven- Order online at tion of advertising. Trump is showing Dear Frank, the big boys they can be much more You can use the activism of your youth brazen about it. to good effect. Activism is going out haymarketbooks.org Let’s arrange the candidates in or- into public space, into the public mind, der of ascending murderousness. The and introducing new ideas there. 3rd party candidates taunt us. They See if you can muster that old moxie are the human candidates we could from your activist days. Go have a 35 years of celebrating music have had. Clinton smiles in our face smoke the shelter folks. Go into this like the Wal-Mart logo, where she surprise subculture that showed up on of peace and resistance! was on the board destroying commu- your street and get to know some of nities and hiding an empire of sweat- the people by their fi rst name. Think shops. Trump is a blithering psycho- of it as fi xing the pipes beyond the path who would shoot refugees on property line. the beach. (Testify, Miss Universe!) I’m not a Christian, but I like the There is a reason the Saturday golden rule, “Do unto your neighbors Night Live caricatures of the candi- as you would have them do unto you.” dates are so lame. They will never Imagine you are a homeless person, catch up the weirdness of the actual have been for years, and you fi nally candidates. But if we think that the fi nd a shelter on a safe street. It isn’t a E=MC² of everything is these would- warehouse or an armory. It’s human- be presidents, then we’re sucked far- size, family-size. You move in there October 29 ther into their bizarre fear-generates- and you feel happy and secure. You Martin Daly profi ts world. can just be yourself, have a smoke Clinton and Trump are essentially outside and laugh, because some of Carrie & Michael Kline New Yorkers. So, let’s change this your housemates are good people. town. And you remember, there’s this other Go Local. There is nothing as radi- guy who joins you sometimes. He November 5 cal as a healthy neighborhood. lives a couple doors down, a work- Hawaiian Music & Dance Night If a landlord slaps an eviction no- ing stiff with kids. He hangs out, too. tice on your neighbor’s door, treat Nice guy. Name is Frank. You say that as more important than a Putin to your buddies, “We gotta be care- November 12 fl yby in the Crimea. That landlord ful not to be too loud, cause it keeps Pam Parker is your Putin. Better yet, break into Frank’s fam awake and his kids gotta buildings that are empty for invest- go to school in the morning.” Judy Gorman ment purposes — break in and give See what I’m sayin’? New Yorkers homes. If they are spraying herbicides in — Reverend Billy Talen your neighborhood park, go warn your neighbors. Reverend Billy is an activist and Saturdays at 8 p.m. A Local Power Movement starts political shouter, a post-religious Community Church of New York Unitarian-Universalist from your insides out, the opposite preacher of the streets and bank lob- 40 E. 35th St. (Madison/Park) of the outside-in hypnosis of iPhones, bies. He's been in New York forever New York, NY 10016 televisions and this election. It calls with the activist performance group for embarrassment, long hours, the Church of Stop Shopping. Got November 2016 doors open 7:30; wheelchair accessible chutzpah, and sometimes jail. a question for Reverend Billy? Just 212-787-3903 Anxiety is cured by activism. email [email protected] www.peoplesvoicecafe.org and unburden your soul. Suggested Donation: $18, $10 PVC subscribers More if you choose; less if you can’t; no one turned away THE INDYPENDENT 23 HAUNTED HISTORY

HALLOWEEN TALES YOUR MAMA NEVER TOLD YOU

By Indypendent Staff old English folksong has it: demanding edible plunder by the word “trick GARY MARTIN or treat” to which the inmates gladly responded Mythic Origins Down into the cellar, and sent the robbers away rejoicing. Like the night itself, the origins of Halloween are And see what you can fi nd, shrouded in mystery. Many folklorists, however, If the barrels are not empty, Monsters of the World Unite trace its roots to the Celtic festival Samhain, which We hope you will prove kind. Halloween today occupies a unique place in America’s marked the end of the harvest season. Samhain was We hope you will prove kind, never-ending culture wars. The holiday is demonized a time when the veil between this world and the oth- With your apples and strong beer, by Evangelical Christians for its satanic overtones erworld was lifted. The souls of the dead could arise And we'll come no more a-souling and praised by libertarians as a rite of consumerism. from beyond the grave. To ward off misfortune, the Till this time next year. Mounting a socialist defense of Halloween, English Gaels would set a place at their tables for spirits to fantasy writer China Mieville has characterized dread come and have a bit to eat and drink. They lit bonfi res Early Irish immigrants are thought to have brought is an innate component of human rationality, central and carved sinister faces into turnips — precursors to guising to North America, customs that eventually to our ability to imagine, play with and prepare for modern-day jack-o-lanterns — to ward off evil spirits. morphed into trick-or-treating as we know it today. alternative realities, such as a time when billionaires no longer walk the earth. Evil Manners Fork up the Candy, or Else. . . With the spread of Christianity, Samhain was folded Trick-or-treat was no empty threat in the early 20th into the Catholic tradition of Allhallowtide. Nov. 2 Century. Many an outhouse was overturned, a cow became All Souls Day; Nov. 1, All Hallows Day or tipped and a mansion egged. All Saints Day; and Oct. 31, All Hallows Eve. The Drawing on the work of British cultural anthro- Celtic tribes of Ireland were some of the last pagan pologist Victor Turner, the novelist and prankmaster holdouts. In 1154, Pope Adrian IV ordered fellow Chuck Palahniuk has described Halloween as a “cul- Englishman King Henry II to “check the torrent of tural inversion liminal event”: wickedness” and reform “evil manners” on the isle. [D]ispossessed people, people with no power Cross-Dressing — usually children, but not always — would On Samhain, the Celts wore white and shrouded their go door-to-door and demand tribute. If you faces in an effort to blend in with the spirits roving the didn't pay them tribute, your property would be earth. Their descendants continued to play dress-up. destroyed. . . There was a big movement in the “There is a long tradition of costuming of sorts that 1920s. So much damage was being done at Hal- goes back to Hallow Mass when people prayed for the loween that candy manufacturers got together dead,” according to historian Nicholas Rogers of York with newspapers and they started to promote University. “But they also prayed for fertile marriages, the idea of candy as tribute. Trick-or-treat and the boy choristers in the churches dressed up as became what we know of it today, instead of a virgins. So there was a certain degree of cross dressing social power inversion ritual. in the actual ceremony of All Hallow’s Eve.” The earliest known reference to the phrase “trick or Down in the Cellar treat” comes from appears in the Nov. 4 1927 edition The medieval practice of mumming or guising, when of a newspaper Alberta, Canada, where, apparently, the poor, often children, dressed-up in straw-woven masqueraders were still keeping things light: costumes and went door-to-door performing songs and skits in exchange for food, is also thought to be Hallowe’en provided an opportunity for real related to Samhain. During Allhallowtide the poor strenuous fun. No real damage was done except knocked on doors dressed as demons, saints and an- to the temper of some who had to hunt for wag- gels and offered prayers to the dead in exchange for on wheels, gates, wagons, barrels, etc., much of soul cakes, sweet pastries topped with a cross. Beer which decorated the front street. The youth- and apples were also acceptable forms of alms, as one ful tormentors were at back door and front November 2016 November care of them and to make sure their house is dinand Marcos, ousted in 1986, remains Filipinos want to get rid of Rodrigo Duterte, FATHER FIGURE safe. This explains why Duterte’s violence is widely known as Apo Marcos in his home it won’t be easy to disown their imagined kin. Continued from Page 19 being condoned, and why the collateral dam- region of Northern Ilocos (Apo is a title of age of his drug war — the killings of a fi ve- respect used to address a superior or an elder, Tracy Llanera is a Filipino academic based projects the image of the brash, shining year-old girl and the many cases of mistaken or God). Ex-President Benigno “Noynoy” in Sydney. She teaches philosophy at Mac- American capitalist, his supporters aspiring identity — has not been enough to generate Aquino III is often evaluated in terms of how quarie University and for Open Universi- INDYPENDENT THE to be as rich and powerful as him. deep public condemnation. The need for a much he stands up to the legacy of his father, ties Australia. It is more fi tting to think of Duterte as the strict but loving leader to fi x the broken roof Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., a national hero ominous father of the Filipino people, a savior is more important than the lives of the errant who was imprisoned and exiled by Marcos born of an infantile necessity. Filipinos do not and the petty others. and assassinated upon his return in 1983. want to become Duterte. Instead, they want Referring to leaders as family is not new It’s election time, and the American people their Tatay Digong (Father Digong) to take to Philippine politics. The late dictator Fer- still have the chance to “fi re” Trump. If the