November 2011 Cover_November 2005 Cover (UPC) 10/5/11 9:46 AM Page 1

AN INTERVIEW WITH CODE PINK’S JODIE EVANS THE GROUP BEHIND THE GOP TAKEOVER

November 2011

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LISA HANEY $4.95 US www.progressive.org GregPalast Ad.11.2011_Layout 1 10/5/11 9:38 AM Page 2 TOC 11.2011_TOC 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:37 PM Page 3 COVER COVER BY LISA HANEY

November  Volume , Number  16 Cover

4 Editor’s Note 5 No Comment 6 Letters 7 Comment Class Warfare, Anyone?

9 On the Line

Columns 12 Terry Tempest Williams enjoys watching her religion on stage. 12 14 Michael Feldman comes up with a quick solution to our budgetary woes.

Cover 16 Overdue Notice Antonino D’Ambrosio As cities close libraries or slash their budgets, we must defend this democratic institution.

20 A Derrick by Your Campsite Anne-Marie Cusac In Ohio, thanks to John Kasich, state parks now welcome oil and gas companies.

Features 26 The Group Behind the Republican Takeover Elizabeth 26 DiNovella The Republican State Leadership Committee has played a key role in the party’s recent successes.

31 Media Activist Runs for Congress Dennis Bernstein Norman Solomon puts down his pen and throws his hat in the ring.

Interview 33 Jodie Evans David Barsamian “We’re always trying to find ways that we can disturb power,” says the co-founder of Code Pink. 33 Culture 39 Poem Eliot Khalil Wilson 41 Kate Clinton finds a reason to laugh. 42 Dave Zirin explains why tennis pros need a union.

43 Books Ruth Conniff reviews Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America’s Schools, by Steven Brill.

46 Jim Hightower dispels some Perry tales. 46 Editors Note 11.2011_Editors Note 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:26 AM Page 4

Editor’s Note Matthew Rothschild EDITOR Matthew Rothschild POLITICAL EDITOR Ruth Conniff MANAGING EDITOR For the Commons Amitabh Pal CULTURE EDITOR ere at The Progressive, we were avid Barsamian has another Elizabeth DiNovella all taken aback by the news that great interview for us this CONTRIBUTING WRITERS H D David Barsamian, Kate Clinton, Anne-Marie Cusac, Wangari Maathai died on September month. It’s with Jodie Evans of Code Edwidge Danticat, Susan J. Douglas, Will Durst, Barbara Ehrenreich, Eduardo Galeano, Jim Hightower, 25. She was one of our heroes. Pink. His interview with Chris Fred McKissack Jr., John Nichols, Adolph Reed Jr., Luis J. Rodríguez, Terry Tempest Williams, Dave Zirin Our colleague Amitabh Pal had the Hedges in August brought a lot of PROOFREADERS pleasure of interviewing her for the positive response from readers, and I Diana Cook, Jodi Vander Molen cover story of our May 2005 issue, a hope this one will, too. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Ben H. Bagdikian, Barbara Ehrenreich, Martín Espada, year after she won the Nobel Peace Barsamian found himself in the news Richard Falk, Colman McCarthy, Robert W. McChesney, Jane Slaughter, Urvashi Vaid, Roger Wilkins Prize, the first African woman ever to on September 23 when the government have such an honor bestowed on her. of India would not let him enter the ART DIRECTOR Nick Jehlen She was most famous for launching country. Immigration officers said he ART ASSOCIATE the Green Belt movement in Kenya, was on the banned list. For a nation that Phuong Luu where she was born. prides itself on being the world’s largest PUBLISHER Matthew Rothschild “Nobody would have bothered me democracy, that is a disgrace. CIRCULATION DIRECTOR if all I did was encourage women to Barsamian has interviewed several Maribeth Batcha plant trees,” she told Pal. “But I start- Indian intellectuals for The Progres- CIRCULATION MANAGER Erin Grunze ed seeing the linkages between the sive, including Amartya Sen, Van- CONTROLLER problems we were dealing with and dana Shiva, and Arundhati Roy Carolyn Eschmeyer MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR the root causes.” twice, most recently in March 2009. Jodi Vander Molen One of those root causes was cor- That interview may have gotten ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Erika Baer ruption. under the skin of the Indian authori- WEB MASTER Another was sexism. ties. In the introduction, he gave some Tamara Tsurkan And another was what she called background on India’s repression in WEB ADMINISTRATOR Scot Vee Gamble the privatization of common goods. Kashmir. “Tens of thousands of Kash- She had an expansive field of vision, miris have been killed, thousands have PROGRESSIVE MEDIA PROJECT Matthew Rothschild and Amitabh Pal, Co-editors which allowed her to see how inter- been disappeared,” he wrote. Andrea Potter, Development Director connected everything is. And when she When he asked Roy about Kashmir, VOLUNTEERS accepted her Nobel Prize, she issued a she denounced India’s crackdown. Judy Adrian, Pat DiBiase, Carol Lobes, Richard Russell, Ian Welsh warning: “The extreme global in - “There isn’t any possibility of

BOARD OF DIRECTORS equities and prevailing consumption India managing to continue to bull- Matthew Rothschild, Chairman. patterns continue at the expense of the doze this population in Kashmir,” Gina Carter, Ruth Conniff, James Friedman, Stacey Herzing, Barb Kneer environment and peaceful co-exis- she said. “Eventually all that can This issue of The Progressive, Volume 75, Number 11, went to press on October 4. tence. The choice is ours.” It still is. come out of it is destruction.” Editorial correspondence should be addressed to The Progressive, 409 East Main Street, Madison, WI 53703, or to [email protected]. Unsolicited manuscripts The Indian government is intensely will be returned only if accompanied by sufficient postage. his month, we explore the priva- sensitive on the issue of Kashmir. That Subscription rates: U.S.- One year $32; Two years $52; Canadian- One year $42; Two tization of the commons here in may be why it gave the boot to Barsami- years $72; Foreign- One year $47, Two years $82; Students- $21 a year. Libraries and T institutions- One year (Domestic) $50; (Canadian) $60; (Foreign) $65. Send all sub- the United States. Anne-Marie Cusac an, who has been outspoken on Kash- scription orders and correspondence to: The Progressive, P.O. Box 433033, Palm Coast, FL 32143. For problems with subscriptions, call toll-free 1-800-827-0555. investigates what it means for state mir. But you can’t call yourself a democ- The Progressive is published monthly. Copyright ©2011 by The Progressive, Inc., 409 East Main Street, Madison, WI 53703. Telephone: (608) 257-4626. Publication parks in Ohio and, by extension, racy while suppressing free speech and number (ISSN 0033-0736). Periodicals postage paid at Madison, WI, and additional other public lands elsewhere in the clamping down on criticism. mailing offices. Printed in U.S.A. The Progressive is indexed in the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, Magazine Index, Alternative Press Index, Book Review Index, United States. And Antonino D’Am- Please contact the Indian Embassy Environmental Periodicals Bibliography, Media Review Index, Academic Abstracts, Magazine Article Summaries, and Social Science Source. The Progressive is available brosio visits public libraries and in Washington, D.C., and let the on microfilm from University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106, and on compact discs and other optical, magnetic, or electronic media from the H.W. warns of the cutbacks that many of ambassador know how you feel about Wilson Company, 950 University Avenue, Bronx, NY 10452. For permission to photo- them face. We are in an age where India’s treatment of this outstanding copy material from The Progressive, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Customer Service, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923; (978) 750-8400. conservatives claim that everything progressive journalist. Write to: Donations: The Progressive survives on donations from readers. Contributions are tax-exempt when you itemize. Mail checks to The Progressive, 409 E. Main St., public is suspect and everything pri- Ambassador Nirupama Rao, The Madison, WI 53703. vate is sacred. The entire concept of Indian Embassy, 2107 Mass. Ave., Postmaster: Send address changes to: The Progressive, 409 E. Main St., Madison, WI 53703. “public goods” or “the commons” or NW, Washington, DC 20008, or e- www.progressive.org “the commonweal” is under assault. mail her at [email protected]. We need to defend it. We cannot let this stand. u

4 u November 2011 No Comment 11.2011_No Comment 12.2005 10/5/11 9:47 AM Page 5

No Comment

Executive Excess Positive State of Mind Some companies pay their CEOs more than what South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has they pay in taxes, according to a new report by the ordered all state employees under her Institute for Policy Studies. For example, the control to say, “It’s a great day in South International Paper Company’s CEO John Faraci Carolina” when answering the phone, received a 75 percent pay hike in 2010, pocketing reports Wonkette. Haley said the change $12.3 million, while the company got $249 million would boost the morale of state work- in what amounted to a tax refund. ers. “It’s part of who I am,” Haley said. “As hokey as some people may think it is, I’m selling South Carolina as this great, new, positive Middle Class Mitt state that everybody needs to look at.” At a town hall meeting, millionaire Mitt Romney said he favors a tax policy that will help the middle class, “the 80 to 90 percent of us in this country.” Jesus or Jail? Local judges in Bay Minette, Alabama, will give those found Of Free Markets and Famines guilty of misdemeanors the Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul says that option of serving out their time in famines in Africa are the result of a lack of “free mar- jail, paying a fine, or attending ket systems,” notes CrooksandLiars.com. “The coun- church each Sunday for a year, tries that are more socialistic have more famines,” reports CNN. Those who go to Paul told CNN’s T. J. Holmes. “If you look at Africa, church will have to check in with a they don’t have any free market systems and property pastor and the police department each rights and they have famines and no medical care. So week. the freer the system, the better the health care.” Tea Party Poser This Land Is Not Your Land Representative Chip Cravaack of Minnesota, a tea Incidents of vigilantes destroying public lands are on party Congressman, went after big government dur- the rise in New Mexico after Representative Steve ing his 2010 run for Congress, even though he was Pearce, a tea party Republican there, urged counties cashing disability checks at the time. Minnesota to take control of federal public lands, reports com- Public Radio reports: “Cravaack’s earned income for mondreams.org. Pearce has proposed exempting log- fiscal year 2010 topped out at $92,273; the cash ging in national forests from all environmental laws. comes in the form of disability payments for sleep apnea, which ended his flying career with Northwest Airlines, now Delta Airlines, in 2007.” Crazy Censorship at Willie Nelson Concert A woman at a Willie Nelson concert at the Nebraska A Couple Hundred Thousand Ain’t State Fair was told she couldn’t wear her T-shirt because Much it had cannabis leaves on the front and back, reports Representative John Fleming, Republican the Lincoln Journal-Star. State Fair executive director of Louisiana, attacked President Obama’s Joseph McDermott said the state fair is a “family proposal to tax the wealthy, and said he, event” and that “we don’t permit the promotion of ille- as a businessman, cannot afford another gal activity.” McDermott also said he wasn’t familiar tax increase, reports Think Progress. with Nelson’s pro-pot platform. “To be honest, I’m not Fleming, whose businesses made $6.3 much of a Willie Nelson fan,” he said. million last year, said that his profits are “a mere fraction of that” and that “by the Readers are invited to submit No Comment items. Please time I feed my family, I have maybe send original clippings or photocopies and give name and $400,000 left over.” The median U.S. date of publication. Submissions cannot be acknowl- household income in 2010 was just under edged or returned. $50,000. STUART GOLDENBERG

The Progressive u 5 Letter 11.2011_Letter 12.2005 10/5/11 9:34 AM Page 6

Letters to the Editor

Public Education Not for All While I disagree with the idea of using vouchers to send disabled kids to substandard, for-profit warehous- es, I also disagree with the assump- tion that every disabled kid can and should be mainstreamed into the public school system (“The GOP Attack on Special Ed,” by Ruth Con- niff, September issue). I have seen the warehousing of severely disabled kids in the back row of public schools. My sister is a teacher’s aide for the disabled in a rural New Hampshire school district. She has had to take special courses in how to defend her- self and not harm her charges with- out hurting any of them. She has been bit and hit and has had objects thrown at her. As she has told me on numerous occasions over the years, most of her kids need more special- ized care than the school can provide. I also saw this, as my grown chil- dren are a product of the Wisconsin public school system. At the time, our district was the poorest, lowest spend- ing per pupil district in the state. For a couple of years, the disabled kids had to have class time in an expanded janitor’s workroom. The severely handicapped, mostly with cerebral not all of us are equal when it comes that cost billions of dollars and a mil- palsy, were lined up and strapped into to our ability to learn. lion lost lives, can all escape prosecu- their wheelchairs at the back of the Debra Augustyn tion. Yet a young man who is “fighting room. At recess, the aides walked Northport, New York for a livable future” so the human race them around the playground. If the can survive on this planet is sent to weather was nice, they were taken on Justice for Sale prison by a kangaroo court. long walks around town. They could Tim DeChristopher’s message res- We live in a country that has lost not feed themselves and needed per- onates loud and clear (“Tim its moral and legal compass. sonal care. DeChristopher’s Message” by Terry Dennis M. Clausen If the government wants to give Tempest Williams, September issue). Escondido, California out vouchers, maybe they should be We don’t have a legal system in this for specialized classes and programs country anymore. We have a corpo- The editors welcome correspondence such as speech and physical and rate-controlled travesty that poses as from readers on all topics, but prefer to occupational therapy that parents’ a legal system while promoting and publish letters that comment directly insurance does not cover. I don’t want protecting business interests at all lev- on material previously published in these kids to be warehoused at public els of our society. The Progressive. All letters may be edit- school expense any more than at the Bankers and Wall Street executives ed for clarity and conciseness, and may hands of greedy private for-profit who steal billions of dollars from appear either in the magazine or on its business owners. It is our public duty retirement funds and drive this nation web page. Letters may be and responsibility to educate all of to the edge of bankruptcy, and politi- e-mailed to: [email protected]. our citizens, but we must remember, cians who lie us into unnecessary wars Please include your city and state.

u November 2011 Comment 11.2011_Comment 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:32 AM Page 7

Comment

Class Warfare, Anyone? f you live in Washington, D.C., for any time at all, the rigged nature of our system becomes blatantly Iobvious. So dominant is the power of money, so subservient are politicians to the corporations and the wealthy that finance them, so unresponsive is the supposedly democratic system to the needs of the people that there can be no denying the class bias of our government. For decades now, with one policy after another, “our” government has been systematically redistribut- ing income and wealth to a tiny elite at the top. Yet the mere mention by President Obama of making the millionaires and billionaires pay a little more in taxes elicits screams of “class warfare” from Republicans. They and their wealthy backers have been waging class warfare mercilessly over the last four decades, and they’ve been taking no prisoners. During this period, the top 0.1 percent of the country—those 152,000 people who make more than $5.6 million a year—have seen their income level jump up an astonishing 385 percent, according to The Washington Post. Meanwhile, those in the bot- tom 90 percent of earners have seen their incomes fall over the same period.

“The wealthiest in this country have never had it DAVID G KLEIN so good,” said Senator Bernie Sanders at Fighting Twenty million Americans were actually living at Bob Fest in Madison, Wisconsin, on September 17. least 50 percent below the poverty line, if you can “They want more and more and more and more, and imagine that. they don’t care how many children they step on to And—get this—more than one out of every five get it.” children in America is living in poverty. In the last ten years, the median household income The rise of poverty in America represents a moral fell 7.1 percent, and African Americans’ household indictment of our economy and our priorities. income fell by more than twice that amount. Incomes Politicians talk all day about helping the middle for most Americans continue to fall. Last year, medi- class, and yes, the middle class does need help—lots an household income dropped 2 percent to $49,445. of help, especially today. But so, too, These statistics demonstrate that the middle class do the poor. is under siege. Republicans don’t talk about the “Class warfare is Meanwhile, the lower class is under water. poor much, except to say they can be being waged in Last year, a record number of Americans—forty- saved by capitalism. In one of the America, and the six million people—were living below the official Republican Presidential debates, Rick wrong side is win- poverty line, which is set at just over $11,000 for Santorum bragged about eliminating ning.” individuals and just over $22,000 for a family of four. welfare, saying it created a “culture of —Bernie Sanders

The Progressive u 7 Comment 11.2011_Comment 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:32 AM Page 8

dependency,” and he vowed to put time limits on labor coalition Strengthen Social Security points out. food stamps, as well, an idea that Rick Perry echoed. “Corporations are already sitting on substantial cash And Ron Paul famously responded to a question reserves; an employer payroll tax cut will increase about what to do about a man who chose not to buy these cash holdings without any guarantee of addi- health insurance and ends up in a coma. “That’s what tional hiring,” the group notes. “They made a record freedom’s all about: taking your own risks,” Paul said, $3.8 trillion in profits in the second quarter of as members of the tea party crowd yelled that the 2011. Most companies are not using their cash to hire man should die. new employees now. A tax cut will just fatten their The Democrats haven’t showered themselves with bottom line.” glory when it comes to dealing with poverty, either. What’s more, by reducing Social Security taxes, To an embarrassing degree, Democrats have stopped Obama would be draining more money from that talking about the poor. I think I can count on one program at a time when Republicans already are say- hand the number of times Obama has mentioned ing it’s going bankrupt (which it isn’t). the issue. Obama is also pushing ahead with George W. But silence is not an anti-poverty program. It only Bush’s trade policies. He is urging Congress to pass makes it worse. free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, claiming they would help bring jobs ow, Obama is at least waving at the jobs cri- here. But NAFTA and other free trade agreements sis and the unfairness of our tax system. He’s have taken jobs from America and mostly helped Nright to ask the super-rich to pay more. U.S. multinationals. The top marginal rate in the 1970s was 70 per- Overall, while Obama’s rhetoric has improved in cent, and in Eisenhower’s Administration it was as recent months and while some of his proposals on high as 92 percent. Now it’s 35 percent. Obama is jobs make sense, the entire package comes nowhere proposing to hike it back up to 39.6 percent, where it close to what is necessary, given the magnitude of the stood when Clinton was President. By the reaction crisis. Even if every one of his new proposals were from Republicans, you’d have thought Obama was enacted right away, chances are they wouldn’t bring calling for out-and-out expropriation. the unemployment rate under 8 percent. Obama is also right to propose repairing our And there is no way Republicans are going to give infrastructure and funding our schools. And he’s right him everything he asks for because they don’t want to demand the extension of unemployment benefits, the economy to recover at all. They want it to be just which would stimulate the economy faster than as bad as possible come Election Day. almost any other measure, in addition to being a moral imperative. here’s always been class warfare in the United And Obama is right to defend regulations against States. Sometimes it’s masked. Sometimes it’s dangerous corporate products and workplaces. “I Tnaked. It’s naked today. reject the idea that we need to ask people to choose And it’s one-sided. between their jobs and their safety,” he said when he The wealthiest Americans and the largest corpora- announced his new economic stimulus program. tions here have been winning battle after battle. They But the payroll tax cut that Obama proposes for are extremely class conscious and highly mobilized, individuals is actually pretty regressive. Those in the and they obviously have enormous resources at their top 1 percent would get a tax break of more than disposal—never more so than now, after the Citizens $4,000 while those in the bottom 20 percent would United case. get $255 and those in the next 20 per- Our side sure doesn’t have the funds. And working cent would get $651, according to the Americans are only now beginning to regain and “If anyone’s Tax Policy Center that Brookings and reassert a sense of class consciousness, especially in declared class war- the Urban Institute run. places like Ohio and Wisconsin. Creative protests, fare it’s the people The payroll tax cut is also a mediocre like the “Occupy Wall Street” campaign that began in who inhabit the way to stimulate the economy. Tax cuts late September, may also herald a new resistance. top rungs of big “targeted toward low- and middle- I should hope so. It’s been a long time in coming. corporations and income people would be most effec- While I’m not crazy about “warfare” as a metaphor, Wall Street. . . . tive,” says Citizens for Tax Justice, we do need to work as hard as we can, nonviolently, They’ve declared it because these are the people most likely for some semblance of economic justice. on average work- to spend the money the fastest. And when people accuse us of engaging in class ers.” Giving big companies a payroll tax warfare, tell them to open their eyes. u —Robert Reich holiday is even worse, as the progressive —Matthew Rothschild

8 u November 2011 OTL 11.2011_iPad_OTL 12.2005 10/5/11 11:18 AM Page 9

Sydney TARUN CHARLES/350.ORG On the Line Time for Climate Action

Nisab, Yemen 350.ORG

On September 24, people in 175 countries got moving for bold climate action. People biked, skated, marched, swam, and kayaked to show the need for reducing reliance upon fossil fuels. The day of action was organized by 350.org, a global grassroots movement. Tuvalu 350.ORG For more information, go to 350.org.

Aracaju, Brazil 350.ORG

MATHIEU SOETE/350.ORG Mollina, Spain

350.ORG Haridwar, India The Progressive u 9 OTL 11.2011_iPad_OTL 12.2005 10/5/11 11:18 AM Page 10

On the Line

PAUL WEISKEL PAUL Occupy Wall Street

New York City JIM KIERNAN Inspired by the pro-democracy uprisings in Egypt and Spain, protesters created an encampment in the financial district of New York City. It began on September 17 and was called for by Adbusters magazine. The goal: Put an end to the “monied corruption of our democracy.”

For more information, go to www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet. OCCUPY WALL STREET

Education, Not Deportation Detroit Families in Detroit marched against harassment and racial profiling by the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the beginning of the school year. The immigration agency came under fire this April for targeting a school where immigrant parents were dropping off and picking up their children.

For more information, go to 1michigan.org. © JIM WEST (JIMWESTPHOTO.COM) 10 u November 2011 OTL 11.2011_iPad_OTL 12.2005 10/5/11 11:18 AM Page 11

Janesville, Wisconsin On the Line

Heal America National Nurses United organized a day of action on September 1, calling for elected officials to save Main Street and to stop kowtowing to Wall Street. Events were held in sixty cities throughout the country.

For more information, go to www.nationalnursesunited.org.

San Francisco

Janesville, Wisconsin PHOTOS BY NATIONAL NURSES UNITED

Tar Heel Bigotry Raleigh, North Carolina On September 12, the North Carolina state senate passed SB 106, a state constitutional amendment banning any legal recognition of same-sex couples. On the day of the vote, thousands gathered on the grounds of the legislature. The proposed amendment will now be on the state ballot for the May 2012 primary election.

For more information, go to equalitync.org. PHOTOS WILL BY PADGETT PHOTOS

The Progressive u 11 Williams 11.2011_Conniff 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:48 AM Page 12

Open Space Terry Tempest Williams A Musical on My Faith t can’t be that good, I the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- to be two months), not three months Ithought to myself. Day Saints is banking on. The Mor- as they say in the musical. And I have No doubt, they will mon Church has just launched a $1 never heard a Mormon say, “Praise have gotten some million ad campaign focusing on the Christ.” things wrong. Who Big Apple, with a very large loop- knows, I might even be video directly in view of those entering uring the first act, I sat in real offended. and exiting the Eugene O’Neill The- Ddiscomfort, not because I was I’m talking about The Book of atre to catch the attention of theater- offended but because I was haunted. Mormon, the award-winning musical going crowds in Times Square. The What was humor to Parker and Stone written by Trey Parker and Matt tried and true adage, “What do you was my faith. I grew up in a tradi- Stone, creators of television’s South know about the Mormon Church and tional Mormon household. There is Park, with composer much to praise in the name Robert Lopez of Avenue Q, of community. If you ever now playing at the Eugene doubt who you are, you O’Neill Theatre in New simply go to a family York City. reunion. You see yourself As a Mormon, albeit an replicated over four genera- unorthodox one, I was tions. I knew five of my skeptical. The Church of great-grandparents. It is a Jesus Christ of Latter-Day living history predicated not Saints seems to be an easy just on belief but land. We target these days, with its call it Zion. We have our polygamist past associated own Jordan River. with the prurient trials of In 1847, when Brigham Warren Jeffs or the popu- Young looked over the vast larity of Big Love. But with- salt desert with a shimmer- in two minutes of the ing Great Salt Lake on the musical’s first number— horizon, he said, “This is the “Hello!” with Mormon place.” My family still be - missionaries ringing door- lieves this. Six generations of bells—I became its biggest mine have settled in Salt fan. My husband, Brooke, Lake City. My grandmother who is Brigham Young’s Lettie Romney Dixon and great-great-grandson, was George Romney (Mitt’s also charmed. Immediately, father) were cousins. Both we saw our brothers, our were born in Colonia cousins, friends, and neigh- Dublán, the Mormon bors who did exactly colonies in Mexico, where that—rang doorbells and members of the faith could KEVIN SOMERS proselytized from Florida to Brazil to practice polygamy without persecu- New Zealand to Japan. would you like to know more?” is now tion. Because of the Mexican Revolu- I can’t wait to see the play again. newly relevant, as the church is ready tion, my family was forced back to And evidently, this is exactly what to cash in on the runaway success of the United States. That makes Mitt this “miracle” musical. Romney and me cousins once Terry Tempest Williams is the author of The only things Parker and Stone removed. “The Open Space of Democracy” and, got wrong from my perspective are The prologue opens with a descrip- most recently, “Finding Beauty in a pretty mundane compared to all they tion of the theological foundations of Broken World.” She is the recipient of got right. Mormon missionaries now the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- the 2010 David R. Brower Conserva- go to the Mission Training Center in Day Saints being based on “the golden tion Award for activism. Provo, Utah, for two weeks (it used plates” written by an ancient prophet

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named Mormon and unearthed by an of the theology, be it children or through story as to how we might live eighteen-year-old named Joseph future worlds. within a moral framework and take Smith. When it mentioned that these It was literary critic and religious care of one another in community. sacred texts were buried in a hillside in scholar Harold Bloom who called I left the Eugene O’Neill Theatre upstate New York, the audience guf- Mormonism “an American religion.” feeling I had been fed by a coyote. fawed with laughter. I recognized this He said, “Whatever his lapses, Joseph Trickster Theater. I was proud of my statement as the truth of my people. Smith was an authentic religious cultural heritage, embarrassed by it, It was a bittersweet experience. genius, unique in our national histo- heartbroken and inspired by our Jesus Christ coming to America did ry.” hunger to not only be told a story but not seem odd to me as I sat in my seat I remember hearing Bloom speak be transformed by it. This is where I at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. Yet, it to a standing-room-only crowd in place my faith—the power of a story appeared as fantasy to the rest of the Salt Lake City discussing his book well told lies in empathy. We are not theatergoers around me. And when, The American Religion. He spoke alone. the song “Turn It Off” became an all- about Smith’s charismatic leadership. I wonder if Mitt Romney has seen manle revue reminiscent of a Busby He said Smith was destined to this musical? He should. Because on Berkeley production, I was struck by become either President of the Unit- so many levels, the Mormon Church how true the lyrics were to the ethos ed States or prophet of a new reli- is a stand-in for conservative Ameri- of my LDS community, even within gion. He chose the latter. ca, a colonizing America, an America myself. The second act of the musical was naïve as do-gooders, and at the same Elder McKinley, one of the mis- hysterical because it cut so close to time, aggressive in its fundamentalist sionaries in the play, sings: the bloody bone of satire. When the religion of capitalism at all costs. In I’ve got a feeling character Nabulungi, brilliantly the musical, Mormon missionaries That you could be feeling played by Nikki M. James (who won head to Uganda. In America, we are A whole lot better than you feel a Tony Award for best actress in a proselytizing democracy in the midst today. musical), is singing from her hut in of wars in the Middle East and You say you’ve got a problem Uganda, “I’m on my way—Soon life Afghanistan. In the musical, violence well that’s no problem won’t be so shitty—Now salvation has a occurs when there is no listening. In It’s supereasy not to feel that way! name: Salt Lake City,” I thought I was America’s foreign policy, violence is When you start to get confused going to die. Having spent a fair also occurring because there is little because of thoughts in your head amount of time in Africa, the laugh- listening. Why are we are surprised Don’t feel those feelings! ter came with an edge. when our motives and mission are Hold them in instead! For readers who have not yet seen not only misunderstood but misin- Turn it off like a light switch The Book of Mormon on Broadway, I terpreted with disastrous results? just go click! will not spoil the delights that are to More than fourteen million Mor- It’s a cool little Mormon trick! come. But it really is remarkable how mons accept The Book of Mormon as We do it all the time Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt truth. More than fourteen million When you’re feeling certain feelings Stone—along with the extraordinary Americans may one day see The Book that just don’t feel right cast and entire collaborative team— of Mormon, the musical, and recog- Treat those pesky feelings like a create such a bright and biting, nize this story as the truth of our reading light sword-slicing, soul-reviving, and times, as our increasingly conserva- and turn ’em off. humane piece of art that in the end tive nation confronts and combats a I appreciated the lens I was being celebrates our humanity. It is a tran- global consciousness. given to view my religious culture— scendent piece of theater, and this Great art is transformative because even my own conditioned psyche— review comes from a member of the it inspires us to be our highest and by two very astute social critics. very culture it’s satirizing. deepest selves. It reminds us what it I knew I came from a religion with means to be human. We are both a rich and imaginative history. e are storytelling creatures. We shadow and light. Visions are not just reserved for Ware told a story and then we Great art becomes spiritual when teenage prophets. The Mormon God tell our own. it reminds us what binds us together is a personal god and a responsive Truth has little to do with it. What rather than what separates us. The one. And we are told when we are matters is that the great mysteries are Book of Mormon, the musical, is tran- married with our partner for “time explained to us through myth and scendent because at a time when pol- and all eternity” that we will become metaphor. “The only book that mat- itics divides us so clearly, we see how gods and goddesses of our own plan- ters” is the one we adhere to as sacred powerfully art can bring us together ets. Creation is a foundational tenet text. We are given a cultural template in the midst of political violence. u

The Progressive u 13 Feldman 11.2011_Hentoff 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:24 AM Page 14

Not Much, You? Michael Feldman Tough Love aybe we need a Certainly the greatest generation easily fundraised around. Click, I MSuper-Duper deserves cost of living, but peg it to know, will do fine without Clack, Committee. Super may 1969 when they last made one. One and if Ira Glass can’t pull off This For- not cut it. Look, your thing is clear: Older Americans want mer American Life, no one can. Gar- average Congressional to do their part to stop sucking at the rison’s retiring, anyway, so at least committee couldn’t withered public teat. Cost cutting we’ll be spared The Where’s Gary even nail Roger Clemens. The easy can make short work of dicey social Home Companion. It might work out peasy trillion and a half initial issues—funding Unplanned Parent- that Toll Brothers, “America’s Luxury onslaught will barely lay open the fas- hood, for example, or extending the Home Builder®,” will generously cia of the body politic; the patient waiting period on abortions to nine support Whad’Ya Know? along with could easily survive and require mas- months. the Met, even if we have to work the sive heroic measures. Can’t have that, Public schools, while not the Ring Cycle into our leitmotif. On a can we? clear day, all things con- I’m not a blamer, but sidered, you will still pull did older Americans real- in As It Happens from the ly think “Spending Our CBC pretty much every- Grandkids Inheritance” where north of a line stickers on the back of from Norfolk to Eureka, the Winnebago would courtesy of Canadian engender no resentment socialism. to those stuck behind Today, we’re overex- them on 141 all the way tended in pretty much to Eagle River? the same pattern the Personally, I don’t Romans were in 44 B.C. want to retire anyway, so when the Senate was the specter of tough love forced to take needed in lieu of Obama’s health cuts directly to Julius care reform or entitle- Caesar. Scaling the mili- ments transmuted into tary back to an expedi- privilegements hardly tionary force should not, stirs my thinning hair. then, be cause for alarm True, seventy-six million since it’ll get us into a baby boomers will soon heck of a lot less trouble be going boom simulta- that way. Perpetual war, neously, but by then our while it worked for severely pruned econo- ROBERT GROSSMAN Oceania, does not come my should be sprouting legions of demons to me they are to many tea cheap, even in 1984 dollars. suckers and much shade will be had party educational philosophers, are The only downside I can see in for all. easily reformed by taking the English cutting to, and in some cases Yes, I have concerns for those peri- approach and calling private schools through, the bone, besides hitting the stolting ahead down the demographic public. Voila, problem solved, and occasional artery, is the shock and anaconda. Might not global warming without vouchers. awe to the struggling recovery caused curtail the number of ice floes avail- Public broadcasting, too long an by precipitously yanking out able to the elderly? Has the time for employer of last resort for people like petroleum and gas subsidies. Exxon’s Vonnegut’s Ethical Suicide Parlors, myself, needs to face the fact that it’s $11 billion first quarter profit, while adjacent to HoJo’s, come at long last? been living beyond its misnomer ( Z- good on paper, can hardly be called 105 country hits is public radio). The incentive. Michael Feldman is creator and host of proposal to cut NPR back to R is not For $11 billion, I don’t do any Public Radio International’s “Whad’Ya necessarily a bad thing since “no more than I have to, let alone explore Know?” national, no public, just radio” can be and drill. u

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By Antonino D’Ambrosio Illustration by Christophe Vorlet

Overdue Notice: Defend Our Libraries

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.—Cicero

WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD WHEN I got my first library card. I remember Ithe day as clearly as any early memory I equate with being free. The card was like a golden key that unlocked the doors of the past, present, and future. In the library, I felt alive in every corner of the world. It provided opportunities otherwise denied my hamlet of working class immigrants, caulking the gaps left by an inadequate education and narrow possibilities. It’s where I learned to dream of alternatives. It was my personal workshop where I could craft my own ideas about life. And my experience was by no means unique.

Antonino D’Ambrosio is the founder/director of the media and production nonprofit La Lutta NMC (www.lalutta.org), the author of “A Heartbeat and a Guitar: Johnny Cash and the Making of Bitter Tears,” and director/writer/producer of the upcoming feature film “Let Fury Have the Hour” (www.letfuryhavethe- hour.com).

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Edward Paulino, a professor of history public libraries, many by more than ince I love going to new at John Jay College in New York, grew 10 percent. New York City, which libraries, I take a trip to Queens up in the cramped, economically boasts one of the most extensive pub- Sand visit branch libraries, depressed, largely immigrant neigh- lic library systems in the country, including those in Jackson Heights, borhood of the Lower East Side. “I recently closed fourteen branches, and Forest Hills, and Far Rockaway. found refuge in my local public 300 people lost their jobs. At the Jackson Heights branch, I library,” he says. “Public libraries are These cuts will disproportionately meet parent Gail Montemayor. the urban equivalent of public parks. punish poor and working class people. “Public libraries provide one of the Just as tracts of land were designated “The public library represents the only free learning activities,” she tells for use by everyday folks and not the most powerful and cost-effective me. “They facilitate a type of social elite, the public library represents the wealth-transfer mechanism ever invent- interaction that is healthy and virtual- same function. It’s so free and demo- ed,” writes T. J. Stiles, the Pulitzer ly obsolete in this wireless age. I take cratic. It’s a kind of club where every- Prize-winning biographer. “As genera- my twenty-two-month-old daughter one can be a member and you don’t tions have learned, the aisle between to the library regularly. The library is a need any kind of security clearance.” the shelves is a corridor out of poverty, cost-effective way of finding books The public library is a wholly a bypass around inadequate schools, an that she will enjoy many times over.” American invention advocating self- expressway that adds momentum to And Montemayor makes the point determination. While Europeans even a first-rate education.” that “libraries bridge the gap between established subscription libraries a cen- In this age of the Internet and households that cannot afford a pri- tury before the formation of the Unit- social media, some question the rele- vate collection of children’s books in ed States, the people of Peterborough, vance of libraries, even declaring their homes and those that can.” New Hampshire, established the first them obsolete. In reality, they are Johnita Anthony, another Jackson public library in April 1833 (the more important than ever. Heights parent, talks about the role Boston Public Library, America’s first “Libraries, especially for working libraries played in her life. “The large public library, was not legally people, remain intellectual and cul- libraries were my study hall teaching established until 1852). Everyone had tural lifelines,” says musician and me responsibility, respecting and access to the town’s collective knowl- educator Martin Perna. “Given the enjoying the art of others, learning edge, regardless of income. The only vast discrepancies in net access for the Dewey Decimal system, learning requirement: Return the materials in poor, rural, and working class com- how to research, taking out books on good condition and on time so that munities of color, libraries now serve my own and returning them on others may benefit. Since then, the as primary points for youth to use the time,” she says. Anthony now fears library has become a key pillar in a free Internet with a broadband connec- her young daughter will miss out on people’s participation in democracy. tion on something other than a tiny these life lessons. “I like to refer to public libraries as phone screen.” “Four Nobel Prize winners, the most democratic of the institu- Raphael adds, “Sixty-five percent of including physicist Richard Feyn- tions government has created,” says public libraries report that they are the man, came out of the Far Rockaway Molly Raphael, the president of the only place in the community where neighborhood,” Michael Spudic tells American Library Association. In there is free access to the Internet.” me. He used to live in Far Rockaway fact, Benjamin Franklin, considered This service becomes even more but now resides in Forest Hills. He the father of libraries, saw them as vital during an economic downturn. praises the neighborhood public “social libraries” where all people Many job applications are available library for offering “a world of books were free to participate and share. only online. Raphael cites what is a and knowledge that is demonstrably Yet today, in the wake of an inex- now a common example: Someone is colorblind” and “a place to find haustible economic crisis and the reac- directed to the library to use the com- solace, comfort, and truth in a com- tionary assault on everything public, puters to search and apply for work; munity space uniquely to be had.” the public library is under attack. the person has never used a computer When I spoke with some of the Local governments across the Unit- before, but with the library staff’s help, laid-off employees of the New York ed States—from New York City to the person applies for a job and gets it. City library system, it’s this loss of a Detroit, and from Denver to Seattle— Detroit resident Erin Carter looks respected community space that they are slashing library budgets and clos- for jobs using computers at the Chase mentioned to me above all. Losing a ing libraries. This threatens to wall off branch in northwest Detroit, which branch library, they said, cost so knowledge, restrict access to the Inter- is under threat of closure. “There is much more than a place to borrow net, and shutter a valuable communal so much stuff closing down,” says books. Also at stake is the disappear- meeting place. This year, nineteen Carter, twenty-two. “I don’t know ance of a town square, a free space states are cutting some funding for where to go.” open to all, regardless of race, class, or

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any other social barrier. al exchange. Confounding this is a Another key aspect of the public Public libraries also serve to peculiar confinement of curiosity: At library mission is to defend free speech counter a broad campaign of intense the library, you have physical interac- and intellectual freedom. With pro- consumer marketing that tricks us tion with the library staff, meet new grams like “Banned Books Week,” into believing we are more empow- people in the community, and scan libraries are on the front lines of defend- ered because we can individually con- the stacks looking for one thing yet ing the rights of people to examine nect anytime, anywhere. But with the discovering something else—the unpopular points of view so they can demise of bookstores, social service hard-to-find book, the obscure title, a make their own informed decisions. institutions, and other physical new idea. This stands in stark con- Librarians also have performed a spaces where people gather and trast to the passive interaction with a brave role in regards to the Patriot Act, search out information, news, and computer and the algorithm’s spitting drawing attention to Section 215, media in whatever form, there is a out suggestions based on what people which permits the FBI to order librar- social breakdown and a loss of cultur- similar to you purchased. ians and bookstore owners to disclose titles borrowed or bought. And when the FBI imposed a gag order, librari- ans protested that as well.

espite the assaults, libraries remain popular with the DAmerican public. Thirty-one percent of adults rank the library at the top of their list of tax-supported services, according to the American Library Association. Ninety-three per- cent believe that library services need to remain free. And two-thirds of Americans carry a library card, accord- ing to a recent report the group issued. Still, the report concludes that libraries are easy targets for many state and local budget-cutters, ranking sec- ond only to cutting maintenance and services at parks and gardens. One argument library proponents might want to employ with those fix- ated on cost-benefit analysis is this one: Libraries yield a sizeable return. In “The Economic Value of the Free Library of Philadelphia,” the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Insti- tute of Government proved their eco- nomic worth. According to the study, the library in Philadelphia alone cre- ated more than $30 million worth of economic value to the city in fiscal 2010 and had a particularly strong impact on business development and employment. The study found that an “estimated 8,600 businesses could not have been started, sustained, or grown without the resources respon- dents acquired at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Direct economic im - pact: Almost $4 million.” The current crisis presents a great

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opportunity for libraries to creatively Around the country, communities knowledge stored inside. It’s where respond and find new ways to con- both small and large have pushed back the most brilliant thinkers, most nect with people. Libraries across the against the cuts and closures. Take inspiring teachers, and most daring country are doing just that, as they Oakland, California. When it became artists reside, rousing us to stake our continue to build a compelling case clear that the city’s favored budgetary own claim on history. that they provide a public service as scenario called for mass library clos- The library remains a transcen- essential as any other. ings, a coalition came together called dent example of democracy at work. The Loft at a public library in Save Oakland Libraries. The group Open to all, the only entrance fee is Charlotte, North Carolina, offers cre- devised clever and engaging ways that curiosity. Like the marble lions, ative spaces designed for collaborative showed elected officials just how Patience and Fortitude, that stand activity, such as recording and anima- important their branch libraries were. before the Beaux-Arts building in tion studios. Supporters engaged in a mock funeral midtown Manhattan that houses the The Palm Beach County library procession, sponsored a fourteen-hour main branch of the New York Public system in Florida provides special- read-in outside of City Hall, held a Library, libraries capture our imagi- ized “Government Research Ser- zombie walk, and organized a bike nation while liberating our aspira- vices” information via a library-creat- ride for the libraries. The result was tions. It’s imperative for us all who ed Web portal that more than that local elected officials this summer benefit from this wellspring of histo- 45,000 patrons use. agreed to keep open all of Oakland’s ry and knowledge to defend it as an Librarian Nate Hill at the Brooklyn fourteen libraries. indispensable public resource, our Public Library envisions “urban library diary of the human race. outposts and storefront library service hroughout my life I’ve repeat- “The health of our civilization, the points.” And he sees the library’s open edly tapped the public library. depth of our awareness about the space as “easily transformable: one TIt nourishes my creativity and underpinnings of our culture, and our moment a silent reading room, anoth- always leads me to unexpected dis- concern for the future can all be tested er moment a performance art space, coveries. I can’t envision my life with- by how well we support our libraries,” another moment a forum for a com- out it. The library unites me with my Carl Sagan writes in Cosmos, a book I munity group meeting.” fellow citizens through the collective just borrowed from my local library. u

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Text and Photos by Anne-Marie Cusac

A Derrick by Your Campsite

’M HIKING THE WINDING PATHS and footbridges toward Cedar Falls at IHocking Hills State Park in Ohio. I’m feeling a damp, soothing coolness on my face and forearms. It is ten degrees cooler in the gorges of Hocking Hills than out- side the park. Cedar Falls pours like smooth cream from the rock. A crowd stands, staring with the fascination humans so often have for falling water. There’s a stairwell to the right of the falls, and I climb it. Above the falls is silence. I wander through the trees, and they open into a patch of sun. White gravel chunks begin to show under the grass. It’s a road. Grass has grown over the stones. In the middle of the grass sits a bright orange gas pipeline. “Cau- tion,” warns a sign on the pipe. The Progressive sent me to see this Ohio state park. And it did so for two reasons: 1) It’s beautiful and beloved; 2) it could soon be an oil and gas drill site. In late June, Ohio Republican Governor (and for-

Anne-Marie Cusac is a contributing writer for The Progressive, a professor of journalism at Roosevelt Uni- versity, and the author of “Cruel and Unusual: The Culture of Punishment in America” (Yale, 2009; paperback 2010).

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mer prominent U.S. Republican seen between 1,000 and 3,000 leases. Six restored 1840s log cabins are Representative) John Kasich signed While those leases are on private available as rentals. “We did it all into law House Bill 133. The bill lands, Kasich and the Ohio legisla- green—reused lumber,” she says. allows for leasing of state-owned land ture have now opened public lands, Grinsfelder points to the dark wood for oil and gas drilling. While a late as well. floor in the room where we are sit- amendment exempted nature pre- The Ohio Department of Natural ting. Those are boards from old pal- serves and natural areas, drills could Resources sounds uncertain about lets, she says. “We collect the rainwa- soon bite into Ohio’s state forests, opening Hocking Hills to oil and gas ter and use it for flushing the toilets,” wilderness areas, and state parks. drilling. “You’re talking about an she adds. The Inn at Cedar Falls also What Kasich is doing to the envi- awful lot of sensitive habitat to con- ronment in Ohio is in line with other sider” and a lot of visitors using the assaults on the environment by park, says Laura Jones, spokesperson rightwing Republican governors. (See for the agency. “We really do strive sidebar on page 23.) for a balance between wise use and In Ohio, the drilling could include protection and conservation of the traditional oil and gas wells, but also resources. That is our mission.” the horizontal and deep-shale extrac- Just how the Ohio DNR will be tion process called hydrofracking. able to regulate oil and gas leasing in Hydrofracking propels large state parks is also in question. Bill amounts of water and chemicals 133 set up a special committee to under high pressure to force gas handle leasing. It will be composed of deposits from deep rock. two members “recommended by a “Fracking fluid kills everything statewide organization representing when it gets out into the environ- the oil and gas industry,” one envi- ment,” says Cheryl Johncox, executive ronmentalist, the state geologist, and director of the Buckeye Forest Coun- “one member of the public with cil, an environmental organization expertise in finance or real estate.” In that opposes drilling in the Ohio state its testimony on the bill, the Ohio parks. And there are concerns about DNR asked to maintain control over air quality near the wells. “Off-gassing the leasing. But the legislature gave is huge,” she says. She mentions the that power to the committee instead. volatile organic compounds and the polycarbonates in the air emissions, sk people around here how such as benzene and toluene. they feel toward Hocking The drilling process requires “just AHills State Park, and they’ll a phenomenal number of support tell you about their lives. vehicles,” says Bob Shields, head of Ellen Grinsfelder’s mother started has four beehives. the Ohio chapter of the Sierra Club. an inn here in 1987 on property sur- The commitment to sustainability “We’re talking about sending casings rounded on three sides by the state was part of her mother’s vision from down up to a mile. Those casings park. “She decided that Hocking the beginning, says Grinsfelder. “She have to be trucked in.” Hydrofrack- Hills was really as pretty as any place believed you had to give back to the ing also swallows water—“six million she had ever been,” says Grinsfelder. land, not just take away.” gallons per well. That has to be “A lot of people would say that she Tourism in Hocking Hills is trucked in. That’s an awful lot of was the pioneer of travel and tourism “thriving,” she says. “We have guests trucks.” in the area. Her friends said she was that come three, four, five times a Ron Prosek, the vice president of crazy.” year just to get revived and energized the Network for Oil and Gas Grinsfelder’s mother lived only by walking the state parks and us Accountability and Protection, says four years after starting the Inn at feeding their souls good food. They fracking may soon be big in Ohio. Cedar Falls. She had cancer. “One of say they sleep better here than at The companies are “buying up leases her last wishes was to go for a walk on home. It’s the natural environment like crazy here,” he says. A while ago, top of Cedar Falls,” says Grinsfelder. that allows that to happen.” there were only seventy-two permits “We accomplished that.” Grinsfelder employs forty-five for the process, he says, but in the last Grinsfelder now runs the inn. She local people in this area of north eighteen months almost every county and her husband have expanded the Appalachia. Many have worked at the with significant shale deposits has place from the original nine rooms. Inn for more than five years.

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More than 200 businesses in the era for the low, shifting light photog- sleep upstairs,” says Bud Myers, Phil’s Hocking Hills area offer rental cabins raphers prize. Trained as a naturalist, father. “It was shaking the windows. and cottages. Other businesses he points out the best place to photo- Out here in the country, it is so quiet, include gift shops, restaurants, gas graph the waterfalls, a 300-year-old a little bit of noise drives you nuts.” stations, pharmacies, banks, horse- Canadian cypress, and an endangered Bear Run Inn, listed in Inn Travelers back riding stables, and zip-line red flower called the royal catchfly that Magazine as the “Best for Most Priva- establishments. clings to a ripple in the sandstone. cy” in 2005, ordinarily offers some- Nor does it include weddings. I’m As we walk the winding paths near thing visitors prize—quiet. “We have walking down the paved path to Ash Old Man’s Cave, Hoffman talks about people walking on our place, and they Cave, preoccupied with the Canadi- a storm a week earlier that caused the experience something they’ve never an cypress trees and falling shadows. I park streams to flood violently. He experienced before, which is the sound look up when I hear a sentence points to an exposed sandstone wall. of the snow falling,” says Bud Myers. unusual for a state park. “Now, resist “That was not here a few weeks ago,” Bud Myers has seen oil spills on the urge to rub that mud into your he says. A little later, he nods toward a his property, and he points out the dress,” a woman with an up-do is say- large pile of gravel in the river and blackened soil as he gives me a tour. ing to a woman in white. “When you explains that it is also a result of the “Hopefully, they won’t have a get back, hang it up right away.” So recent storm. “Just looking at that, spill,” he says of the oil and gas com- the women are making a valiant you can imagine what might happen panies. “If they do have some kind of effort. The bride teeters, clutching a with some of the runoff from the spill, it could do a lot of damage.” fistful of dress. Two other women in wells,” he says. The oil and gas com- Myers says the oil pumps on his long, slim black gowns trot to keep panies are “coming into a fragile habi- property came from a Zanesville, up with her and assist with the bou- tat. As much as they say it’s not going Ohio, company called Oxford Oil. quet. Ahead of them, a few men in to have an effect, it is. No one knows “Most likely, the few wells we have vests and white shirts sling their jack- what it’s going to be.” left in the Hocking Hills area are very ets over their shoulders and saunter When I ask Hoffman what he old,” says John Straker, president of along with a good deal less trouble. most loves about Hocking Hills, he Oxford Oil. It’s like having a car. Hocking Hills is the wedding cap- selects a sound: “To listen from a Once in a while, you have the possi- ital of Ohio, with an active industry porch at night and hear two barred bility of having an accident.” If the to support it. Some local businesses owls calling back and forth between owner contacts the Ohio DNR about offer wooded ceremony sites, com- hills with absolutely no noise in the it, “the regulator is very responsive to plete with cakes, flowers, music, and background is the most amazing landowner concerns.” Straker says honeymoon cabins. Others promise noise you’ll ever hear.” the company is “in good standing” to make eloping tons of fun. Damaged silence preoccupies those with the Ohio DNR, and that “we’re Ash Cave, 700 feet wide, with a who want to keep oil and gas drilling pretty aggressive about cleaning up if pool below a trembling, sheer water- out of Hocking Hills State Park. “The we know about them.” fall, is the favorite location for such noise in the background from the When House Bill 133 first ceremonies. I notice a crushed red machinery—it’s a constant twenty- appeared in March, lots of ordinary petal on the path. Then the grandeur four hours a day,” says Hoffman. Ohio citizens started traveling to of the cavern claims my attention. Columbus and talking to legislators The humans wandering in its recess- he Myers family knows a and representatives from the oil and es look tiny under the high rock arc. thing or two about noise in a gas industry. Bud Myers’s daughter, Tquiet place. They own 600 Gwen Corbett, made repeated trips to ric Hoffman, a professional acres in Hocking County, where they Columbus. Her dad and brother photographer and owner of the operate Bear Run Inn Cabins and went, too. Corbett runs a small nature EOld Bear’s Den Workshop Cottages. They also have twelve oil and wellness retreat on her family’s Center, depends on Hocking Hills wells, many now inactive. “Most of property called Bear’s Den Cottage. for his livelihood. The state park’s these have been drilled prior to us “They wanted it to go through stunning beauty serves as a backdrop purchasing the property,” says Phil fast, right away, without any obstruc- for his wedding photos. Myers. In the 1980s, “my parents, tions. That’s what I felt and what I I get in touch with Hoffman when they first purchased some of saw,” says Corbett. “I told them, I because I hear he’s upset about Bill the property, they had several wells feel you made your minds up a long, 133 and its potential to bring drilling drilled.” long time ago.” to Hocking Hills. He agrees to show “When they were drilling oil Her county depends on tourism, me around the park. across the road here, the noise and says Corbett. “One in seven of our Hoffman helps me adjust my cam- the vibration was so bad we couldn’t jobs rely on that state park, and now

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we’re like, we only have that one small thing, and you’re going to potentially muck it up for us.” Other Republican

n his testimony before the Ohio legislature, Thomas Stewart, exec- Governors Trash the Iutive vice president of the 1,500- member Ohio Oil and Gas Associa- Environment tion, spoke specifically about the Hocking Hills State Park. “I feel it is il and gas drilling in Ohio’s state parks offers a close look at one small important to note that despite claims Opart of a much larger state-level assault on the environment waged by by anti-oil and gas groups, nobody is other Republican governors. advocating drilling oil and gas wells on properties that offer a unique New Jersey Governor Chris Christie experience of nature, long treasured by Ohio citizens,” he said. “An exam- nvironment New Jersey gave Christie a D+ rating in 2010. The group’s ple would be the Hocking Hills State Esummary of the reasons: “Late last year, Governor Christie terminated Park—the Old Man’s Cave area.” funding for a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River that would allow The bow to the power of Old more people to take public transit, rather than drive, to New York City. Man’s Cave did not mean the whole Around that same time, the governor proclaimed skepticism that humans park would be free of drilling, how- were contributing to climate change. Then, just a week later, he signaled his ever. “On the other hand, their sug- desire to unravel protections for water reservoirs that serve half the state, and gestion that having oil and gas devel- allow more development on previously protected land.” The governor also opment in proximity to these special “cut more than $400 million from state clean energy programs.” areas is somehow a shocking new threat that, if allowed, would dese- Florida Governor Rick Scott crate the sanctity of the public trust is, at best, disingenuous,” Stewart cott vetoed $305 million for land conservation funds and wants to cut said. “A map of the Hocking Hills Sfunding for restoring the Everglades. He also appointed a former power State Parks clearly shows that these company executive to the board of the South Florida Water Management beautiful and pristine parks have long District, even though the executive’s company had been fined $640,000 for coexisted with substantive oil and gas repeated environmental regulations. development. It is time to reject hyperbole and, instead, seek com- Maine Governor Paul LePage mon interest.” In Stewart’s mind, “common ccording to the Portland Press Herald: “Gov. Paul LePage has proposed interest” means extracting oil and gas Azoning ten million acres of northern Maine for development, repealing from state park lands, with the state laws that require manufacturers to take back recyclable goods for disposal, benefiting from $300 million in roy- and reversing a ban on the use of a chemical linked to cancer in children’s alties that he projects. products.” LePage also advocates relaxing state standards on air emissions. In addition to Hocking Hills State Park, Stewart mentioned one other Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Ohio state park by name—Salt Fork. “In many ways Salt Fork is the poster alker has all but nixed wind farms in Wisconsin. Three companies child of state lands leasing,” Stewart Wthat were planning wind farms have now pulled out or are consider- said in his testimony on Bill 133. “It is ing doing so. huge—consisting of 20,000 consoli- He is also offering a sale of all state-owned power plants to private inter- dated acres.” But more importantly, ests. Many of these plants currently violate federal clean air standards, the park almost certainly has oil and according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. And he’s supporting an open- gas. “It may be the true ultimate pit iron ore mine up north. potential for this region,” said Stewart. Meanwhile, he refused federal high-speed railroad funds and ended loan Salt Fork “is the one they really, and grant programs that encourage energy-efficient business operations. really want to get their hooks into,” —Anne-Marie Cusac says Prosek of the Network for Oil and Gas Accountability and Protec-

The Progressive u 23 Cusac 11.2011_FeatureD 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:29 AM Page 24

tion. In addition to the huge size of one of the most-reproduced images in who knew how to find them. The the park itself, “It has a lake onsite. history. Nor did it propel momentum Michigan bobolinks were doing the They can use it for hydrofracking.” toward the first Earth Day. Yet the same acrobatic stunt, as if gravity The Ohio DNR also sees the park snapshot has a power of its own—it is gave them up just long enough so as a likely target. “Salt Fork State Park a homely image of home. they could pop above the grasses, certainly holds potential, given its Glenn just celebrated his ninetieth then claimed them again. history,” says spokesperson Jones. birthday, and he recently requalified My experience of not seeing a sup- There has been oil and gas drilling in for his pilot’s license. But in some posedly common bird is almost cer- the park’s past, she says, and there is a ways, his optimism is from another tainly linked to the bobolink’s steep great deal of such activity in the time. Ohio was important back then, population drop, which is due, in countryside near the park. too. When Ohio’s Cuyahoga River large part, to the plowing under of started on fire in 1969, Richard our grasslands. o I decide to go to Salt Fork. But Nixon realized that the people of the “The Bird of Birds is gone,” first I pass the Rushing Wind United States wanted to protect the warned Emily Dickinson in one of SBiker Church (where everyone natural world. Under pressure from a several poems where she associated is welcome) and pull off the highway burgeoning mass movement, he the bobolink with joy. “How nulli- in New Concord, Ohio, a few exits responded by signing some of the fied the Meadow—/Her Sorcerer from Salt Fork. I want to visit John most salient pieces of environmental withdrawn!” Glenn’s house. legislation we have. As Ohio environmentalists point There was something about John I asked Vessels and his co-workers out repeatedly, Salt Fork is an unusu- Glenn that I associated with state whether they knew of the gas and oil al success story. It is a recovered strip parks. A quality from the mid-twen- drilling that could happen up at Salt mine. Matt Trokan, conservation tieth-century United States. A belief Fork State Park, and what their opin- program coordinator of the Ohio in the public good. ions were. Ross Love, who plays the Sierra Club, notes the irony. In the At the John and Annie Glenn His- role of a boarder in the Glenn house- 1960s and 1970s, the State of Ohio toric Site, visitors can see John hold during the tour, tosses a sen- “put lots of money into it so they can Glenn’s sled and ice skates, his hobby tence over his shoulder. “It’s not like reclaim it,” he says. “A couple of horse (“Now, why he kept that, I we can change it,” he says. “They’re decades down the road, they change have no idea,” said our guide, Ron going to do what they want to do.” the rules so they can drill.” Vessels), his tricycle, family photos, As for Salt Fork, “I like it,” Love “Fundamentally, this is a promise- the flight suit and Converse sneakers says. “It’s quiet. It’s relaxing. There’s a breaker. The people were always he wore on Friendship 7, and a radio lot of woods out there.” promised the parks would be a safe he gave his wife-to-be, Annie, when haven from any development,” says she had the mumps in the 1930s. ’ve got silence on the brain as I Jack Shaner, public affairs director of Glenn sold his mother’s rhubarb to drive into 20,000-acre Salt Fork the Ohio Environmental Council. raise eight dollars to buy the radio, IState Park. I pull into the ranger “There’s a risk of flow out, a leak or Vessels tells us. We can also see station, roll down the window, turn spill. These are not unheard of events. Glenn’s senior year report card. “We off the engine. I hear a car pass on the A park is the last place you’d like it to covered up the B+” in Home Eco- park road, then only locust buzz and occur.” And where, he asks, are the nomics, Vessels says. Apart from the the breeze. As Love suggested, silence companies going to drill? “Not the B+, Glenn had all As. is easy to get here—for now. beach. Not the bathhouse. Not the Vessels is standing on the other side Then I notice two gleaming black campground. You have to go to of a glass case from me when he says birds with broad white bands on their remote areas. Now you’re going to go something that gives me pause. Vessels shoulders. They are doing an unusual to the very heart of what makes a park points to an old Minolta camera. “He flying maneuver of lifting a few feet out a park.” Shaner expresses deep skepti- took the first picture from space,” he of the milkweed and Queen Anne’s cism about the plan. “We’re going says. The photo is black and white. It lace. Then they sink back to invisibility. back to the laboratory,” he says. “We’ll captures a small, curved corner of I recognize them—bobolinks. see how much the land can take.” Earth. Underneath a skim of clouds I grew up hearing about lies a visible landmass and ocean. bobolinks. The way people talked, hat can a state park offer? Unlike the well-known photograph they seemed like ordinary birds. Yet, Public property. Public of the entire Earth taken from Apollo 8 though I’ve seen plenty of rural birds, Wvalues. A commons and a in December 1968, this little black I missed out on the bobolink till I communion with nature. A waterfall, and white scrap of an image never was in my forties and traveled to a cave, the sound of snow falling, landed on a stamp. It never became Michigan with a bunch of birders, silence, a bobolink. u

24 u November 2011 Calendar Ad.11.2011_FeatureD 12.2005x 10/4/11 7:02 PM Page 25

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By Elizabeth DiNovella Illustration by David Gothard The Group Behind the Republican Takeover

OU MAY HAVE HEARD ABOUT the American Legislative Exchange YCouncil (ALEC), which helps Republicans draft bills in statehouses. (We reported on the group last month.) But you’ve probably not heard of the Republican State Leadership Committee, which gets them elected in the first place. This little-known group, formed in 2002, is the only national organization that focuses on electing Republican majorities to state legislatures. It has been active in forty-six states and has spent tens of millions of dollars. Based in Alexandria, Virginia, the com- mittee targets legislative chambers—from Maine to Wisconsin—where there is a chance for control to change hands. The group played a decisive role in the 2010 elec- tions, and helped flip twenty state legislative cham- bers from Democrat to Republican. Republicans now control more state legislatures than at any time since 1928.

Elizabeth DiNovella is culture editor of The Progressive magazine. This report was produced as part of a collab- orative investigative effort to expose the influence of cor- porate money on the political process by members of The Media Consortium, in partnership with the We the Peo- ple Campaign. To read more stories from this series, visit www.themediaconsortium.org.

26 u November 2011 DiNovella 11.2011_FeatureD 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:26 AM Page 27

The committee’s main tactic was ney, spokesman for the Government Vinehout’s support for the 2009- to barrage the public airwaves with Accountability Board. 2011 state budget, which included negative ads, much of it done at the The committee was the top spend- the early release program. tail end of the campaign season. ing 1.91 organization in the fall 2010 Two D.C.-based companies han- GOP stalwarts such as Karl Rove and election, according to its filings with dled these TV and radio ads and Ed Gillespie aggressively executed the the Government Accountability received media consulting fees: Ten- battle plans through their consulting Board. Its filings also reveal where its Capitol and SRCP Media. TenCapi- firms. income came from: the Republican tol has a client list that includes the “We’ve had hard-fought cam- State Leadership Committee. U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the paigns before, but we’ve never seen “We have all these groups spend- Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce, out-of-state money drop a negativity ing millions of dollars in Wisconsin, the Michigan Chamber of Com- bomb in so many races,” says Ann and the source of income is them- merce, McDonald’s, and PhRMA. Luther, who sits on the board of selves,” says Mike McCabe, executive SRCP Media was founded by Maine Citizens for Clean Elections. director of the Wisconsin Democracy Greg Stevens, who ran John “It was shocking.” Campaign. “The true origin of the McCain’s 2000 campaign. Stevens Able to raise unlimited funds, the money is being concealed.” created the famous Michael Dukakis Republican State Leadership Com- Wisconsin does not have disclo- mittee is a stalking horse for corpo- sure laws that are geared for corporate rate America. Top contributors to the election spending because in 1905 group include Altria (formerly Philip the state legislature banned corporate Morris), Anheuser-Busch, Citigroup, contributions to political campaigns. Comcast Cable, Exxon Mobil, Home The 2010 Supreme Court ruling Depot, Monsanto, PhRMA, U.S. essentially overturned that law. Chamber of Commerce, Verizon, “Now, we are left with corporate elec- and WellPoint. tion spending but no disclosure laws,” says McCabe. “We are left in a he Republican State Leader- very vulnerable position.” ship Committee played a piv- Most of the Republican State Total role in Wisconsin, Leadership Committee’s money went enabling Republicans to flip both to oppose candidates, not support houses of the state legislature and the them. It spent five times more money governorship from Democrat to tearing down Democratic candidates Republican last November. The than building up its own Republican group bet big—-and won big—even candidates. though it was the first time it spent “We’ll be providing air cover,” money on legislative races in the Chris Jankowski, current president of state. It dropped almost one million the committee, boasted to The Wall dollars in five races, and won four of Street Journal. the seats. It certainly did. It blasted central The group had originally regis- Wisconsin’s airwaves and spent tered as a political action committee $326,700 on negative campaigns in Wisconsin in 2009. But it ended against Russ Decker, who was the the PAC after the January 2010 U.S. Democratic majority leader at the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens time. It was the only group to target United and formed as a corporation Decker. making independent disbursements. It also went after Democrat Kath-

In 2010, the Wisconsin Govern- leen Vinehout with a glossy direct ORGANIZE THIS!

ment Accountability Board created mail package that asked: “Why After a 57-year streak, War Resisters rule 1.91, which required indepen- would senator Kathleen Vinehout League presents its final Peace Calendar. This last edition features dazzling full- dent groups to file reports on politi- allow Wisconsin convicts out of color reproductions of every cover. $14.95 To order datebook, visit warresisters.org cal campaign spending. prison early?” The mailing resembles or call toll-free (877)234-8811 “1.91 was a rule to basically, in the a poster for a horror film: A young, wake of Citizens United, say that a white woman has a terrified look on WRL Peace Calendar 2012 FOREWORD BY NOAM CHOMSKY corporation had to register and her face as a man’s hand covers her report information,” says Reid Mag- mouth. The accusation was based on A 1955-2011 Retrospective

The Progressive u 27 DiNovella 11.2011_FeatureD 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:26 AM Page 28

sitting in a tank ad for the George H. committee, ranking within the top the judge also noted that “if the alle- W. Bush campaign. SRCP has done twenty-five contributors. American gations of the amended complaint work for Senators Bill Frist, Lindsey Crossroads is the brainchild of Karl are true, James Schatz behaved as a Graham, Saxby Chambliss, and the Rove and Gillespie. responsible public official . . . where- pro-Iraq invasion advocacy group 527s groups such as the Republi- as the Republican State Leadership Freedom Watch. Roll Call named can State Leadership Committee and Committee played the juvenile role SRCP “the largest and most influen- the Republican Governors Associa- of ‘gotcha’ politics in order to win an tial Republican media firm.” tions are ways to shuffle money election.” around, says Rich Robinson of the Frank Langley, Schatz’s Republi- he Republican State Leader- Michigan Campaign Finance Net- can opponent who won the election, ship Committee files with the work. The groups act as clearing- criticized the ads. “This cost me votes TIRS as a nonprofit “527” houses “to wipe fingerprints off the and cost me the respect of a lot of group. (The 527 number refers to the money,” he says. Thus, voters are people in my community who tax code.) This status gives the group unable to easily decipher which com- thought I had something to do with flexibility. There are no upper limits panies are influencing their state it,” Langley told Down East. “What on contributions or spending limits, elections. bothers me the most is that people and any type of donor can con- can just come along and drop a bomb tribute. he committee played a major from 40,000 feet, and I have to pick During the 2010 election cycle, role in the mud fest that char- up the pieces.” the Republican State Leadership Tacterized Maine’s 2010 leg- All the candidates who were tar- Committee ranked fourth among islative races. It spent $400,000 on geted by the negative ads were eligi- 527 groups in expenditures at $29 five Maine state senate races. All five ble for public funding under Maine’s million. The biggest spender during Republicans won. And all five disap- clean election laws. However, the that election cycle was the Republi- proved of the group’s intrusion into Republican State Leadership Com- can Governors Association, which state politics. mittee failed to file its expenditure shelled out $131 million, followed by “Their spending was roundly reports on time, which slowed the the Democratic Governors Associa- denounced,” says Alison Smith, pres- disbursement of the matching funds. tion ($55 million), and the American ident of Maine Citizens for Clean Because of this tardiness, Maine’s Federation of State, County, and Elections. “To compound the big Commission on Governmental Municipal Employees ($46 million). spending, it was just very negative Ethics and Election Practices levied a IRS filings show the committee attack ads. The ads were below the $26,000 fine against the committee, has been heavily backed by big busi- belt type messages.” the biggest fine ever levied. ness since its inception. Many of the The ads were so disparaging that “The late independent expendi- same companies that give money to one of the Democratic candidates, ture reports by the RSLC resulted in the committee also give money to James Schatz, filed a libel lawsuit a delay of more than $160,000 in ALEC and the Republican Gover- against the group. (These ads were matching funds to five State Senate nors Association. handled by Crossroads Media, an candidates,” says a report by Maine’s Its biggest contributor by far is the affiliate of American Crossroads.) ethics commission. “These delays are U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which The committee’s ad accused significant within the final two weeks has given more than $11 million. Schatz, who served as a selectman in of a campaign when it is critical for Devon Energy Corporation has given Blue Hill, of voting to cancel the candidates to have full control over nearly $2 million. Tobacco (Altria, town’s Independence Day fireworks the timing and content of their cam- Reynolds), pharmaceutical (Glaxo- and of voting to pay $10,000 to paign messages.” smithklein, AstraZeneca), and health political organization instead. Yet the insurance (WellPoint) industries all opposite was true: Schatz had voted hat happened in Wiscon- give money. for the fireworks. And the $10,000 sin and Maine wasn’t Ed Gillespie, former Republican donation was voted on by people of Wunique. The committee National Committee chairman, leads Blue Hill at a town meeting. devoted significant resources in 2010 the Republican State Leadership Judge D. Brock Hornby ruled toward Michigan, New York, and Committee. He also contracts with against Schatz, due to the lack of Ohio. it. During 2010, his company, Ed actual malice. The judge concluded The GOP picked up twenty seats Gillespie Strategies, received regular “this is the classic case recognized by in Michigan, and now is the majority monthly consulting fees of $16,667. the Supreme Court in describing the party in the House. (The Republi- American Crossroads, another 527 sometimes negative consequences of cans control the senate, too, and the group, has donated $600,000 to the First Amendment protection.” But governorship.)

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The Republican State Leadership Committee spent $1.4 million in four races for the New York State Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven? Senate and were able to pick up two. The Essential Writings of the Professor Glenn Beck Loves to Hate The GOP now controls the senate chamber. How is it that , a distinguished The committee spent almost $1 university professor, past president of the American million in the Ohio races, targeting Sociological Association, and recipient of numerous six and winning five. Most of these awards and accolades for her work, could suddenly districts went for President Obama in find herself all over the Internet—and Fox TV—as the subject of a vicious and relentless hate campaign 2008. The GOP now controls both spearheaded by darling of the right Glenn Beck? chambers in Ohio, and the new gov- ernor is a Republican, too. Is she “an enemy of the constitution” (Glenn Beck)? WALDVOGEL These new Republican majorities, Or is she “the embodiment of the best of American

democracy” (The Nation)? PETER along with the already-existing ones, BY

put the GOP in charge of redistrict- Now you can decide. ing Congressional maps in seventeen PHOTO states, including all of the House seats from the swing states of Michi- gan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wis- consin. “The future of the country ooking ahead to the 2012 elec- depends in part on how it tion, the committee is expect- responds to the legacy of Led to continue to focus on Frances Fox Piven.” swing states such as Colorado, Flori- —CORNEL WEST da, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin. “Piven asks essential “Wisconsin remains a battle- questions.” ground state, and the RSLC will be —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY aggressively involved in increasing our majority in 2012,” said Jankow - ski in a statement after Wisconsin’s summer recall elections. (The com- mittee did not return phone calls or Also just published: e-mails for comment.) This summer it launched the Future Majority Project, an initiative to get women, young people, and HELL NO: Your Right to Dissent in Twenty-First- Latinos to run for office as Republi- Century America cans. It has set a goal to recruit at least 100 new Hispanic Republican Michael Ratner and Margaret Ratner candidates. Kunstler explore attacks upon and crim- “The RSLC believes that cultivat- inalization of dissent and protest, from the surveillance of activists to the dis- ing change is best achieved through a ruption of demonstrations and from the bottom-up, state-level approach,” labeling of protestors as “terrorists” said Jankowski in a press release. to the jailing of those the government The Republican State Leadership claims are giving “material support” Committee may try to portray itself to its perceived enemies. Hell No is an indispensable tool in the effort to give as being grassroots, but its plans are free speech and protest meaning in a executed by D.C. insiders and paid post–9/11 world. for by big business. u THE NEW PRESS Celebrating 19 Years of Independent Publishing

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The Progressive u 29 FSt-Climber Ad.11.2011_Layout 1 10/5/11 9:41 AM Page 30

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By Dennis Bernstein Illustration by Daniel Morgenstern

Media Activist Runs for Congress

FIRST ENCOUNTERED NORMAN Solomon nearly thirty years ago, when I Iwas teaching writing to prisoners in a conservative community of upstate New York. One day, I opened up a local news- paper and saw an op-ed he had penned on the murder of a young engineer named Ben Linder by U.S.-supported counter- revolutionaries in Nicaragua. It was a time when very few in the mainstream were questioning President Reagan’s policies, and it meant a great deal to me. “As the glare of publicity fades, those of us with personal memories of Ben Linder are left to ponder the meaning of his death,” Solomon wrote. “Why would anyone want to kill a gentle helpful man for working to provide electricity to a small village in an impoverished country?” Since those early Reagan days, Solomon has been a biting media critic, a syndicated columnist, and the author of a number of books. And for more than a dozen years, he has directed the Institute for Public Accuracy, which he founded to present a wider range

Dennis Bernstein is the executive producer of Flash- points, an award-winning daily news magazine syndi- cated over Pacifica Radio, and a contributor to Consor- tiumnews.com. His first collection of poetry, “Special Ed.,” will be published in January.

The Progressive u 31 Bernstein 11.2011_FeatureD 12.2005x 10/4/11 7:00 PM Page 32

of voices that mainstream and alter- Cesar Chavez’s historic push to union- voice for economic justice, civil liber- native journalists can tap into. ize farmworkers across the nation,” he ties, and rigorous environmental pro- Early this year, Solomon announced tells me in the sweltering noon heat. “I tection—and a determined foe of the he was setting aside his distinguished love a good glass of wine. But there is militarism that is depleting our soci- career to become a Democratic candi- no wine on the planet wonderful ety in countless ways.” date for Congress. He is vying for the enough to wash away the bitterness of That’s if he gets to Congress. He seat soon to be vacated by the retiring injustice in the fields.” faces a steep challenge against the estab- Representative Lynn Woolsey, in the Miguel Gavilan Molina, who toiled lishment Democrat, California state new gerrymandered District 2 that in the fields as a child farmworker and representative Jared Huffman, and two stretches from the Golden Gate Bridge has played a key role in the creation of others just to win the primary. hundreds of miles north to the Califor- the first rural day labor center to pro- nia-Oregon border. tect migrant workers in Graton, Cali- olomon says he’s taking no cor- I caught up with candidate fornia, says he was impressed by porate money, but he hasn’t hesi- Solomon at a recent house party and Solomon’s “unrelenting support” for Stated to welcome into his cam- fundraiser, in Mill Valley, an affluent farmworkers and day laborers. paign some Hollywood star power, in suburb about fifteen miles north of “No one else has been out there for the name of Sean Penn. His relation- the Golden Gate Bridge. I asked him the farmworkers like Solomon,” says ship with Penn goes back some ten why he decided to make such a dras- Molina. “All the other politicians are years, just before the United States tic move. busy clinking glasses with the growers, invaded Iraq. Penn and Solomon trav- “For more than forty years, I’ve while Norman is taking a moral posi- eled together then to Iraq and Iran. been writing to change the system; tion for what he believes in, and beat- In late August, Penn headlined a now I’m running to change the sys- ing the drum for it wherever he goes.” campaign fundraising event at Mc - tem,” he said. “For decades, we’ve Solomon has also been on the cut- Near’s Mystic Theatre in Petaluma, seen one disaster after another as pro- ting edge of the resistance to nuclear about forty miles north of the Golden gressives have routinely left the elec- power and nuclear weapons. He is Gate Bridge. To an enthusiastic audi- toral field to corporate Democrats quick to make the point that the ence of some 300 Solomon supporters, and their Republican colleagues. We notion of the peaceful atom is a Penn recalled the trip to Iran. desperately need to go beyond the “myth.” He says he supports the “As hundreds, then thousands, false choice between staying true to immediate closure of all nuclear gathered around the circle of singing ideals and winning public office. Pro- power plants, in California and all women, suddenly it was the appear- gressives can—and must—do both.” over the United States. ance of the special police,” Penn said. Writer and social historian Martin Solomon has been arrested dozens “And then out came the batons. As Lee co-authored Solomon’s second of times protesting nuclear weapons things got chaotic, I briefly lost Nor- book, Unreliable Sources. Lee, who and nuclear power, including once in man in the crowd. I was about twen- lives in Healdsburg, right in the heart the mid-eighties when he boldly sat ty-five yards from getting to that of the new Congressional district, says in at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow inner circle of women who were tak- Solomon’s bid was a natural evolution. after the United States failed to sign ing bludgeons to the heads. And then “For Norman, media criticism was on to a nonproliferation treaty I saw Norman, not flinching, stand- always a vehicle for promoting social backed by Mikhail Gorbachev. ing directly beside them, and he justice,” says Lee. Over the years, Solomon has stood stayed through it all.” side by side with Pentagon Papers In a recent stump speech, the typ- n Labor Day weekend at Cal- whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg in ically mild-mannered and soft-spo- ifornia’s state capitol in Sacra- speaking out strongly against the way ken Solomon—who describes him- Omento, Solomon was one of the Israeli government has mistreat- self as a “Green New Deal” a few white faces ensconced in a sea of ed, abused, and brutally imprisoned politician—got worked up a bit as he red United Farm Worker flags. It was Israeli nuclear whistleblower laid down some of his core beliefs. the climax of a 200-mile pilgrimage Mordechai Vanunu. Now Ellsberg is “I believe that quality education, for farmworker rights, led by UFW standing behind Solomon in his bid adequate health care, consumer pro- President Arturo Rodriguez. While for Congress. tection, civil liberties, and environ- Solomon was present to garner sup- “No one could better represent me mental safeguards are not frills or mere port for his Congressional run, he’s no in Congress,” Ellsberg said in his privilege—they should be our stranger to this movement. endorsement in September. “Nor- birthrights as Americans,” Solomon “When I was seventeen years old in man will not be silent when Demo- said. “It’s not ‘national security’ to have 1969, I was passing out Boycott Grape cratic leaders lose their way or their our schools crumbling, homes fore- solidarity fliers in support of the late nerve. He’ll be a strong, independent closed on, and deficits skyrocketing.”u

32 u November 2011 Interview 11.2011_Interview 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:58 AM Page 33

THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW

by David Barsamian

Jodie Evans odie Evans is a whirlwind of energy and enthusiasm. Ever on Jthe move, ever planning new demonstrations, campaigns, and boycotts, she puts the active in activist. Visibility is not a problem for her or for Code Pink, the feminist anti-war orga- nization she co-founded with Medea Benjamin. It has a knack of getting into the faces of the powerful and breaking through the media silences. “We’re trying to find new and creative ways to disrupt power,” Evans says. She and Benjamin co-edited the book Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism. And Evans served as the executive producer of the documentaries The Most Dangerous Man in America (about Daniel Ells- berg) and The People Speak (based on Howard Zinn’s work). She is also the board

David Barsamian is the founder and director of Alternative Radio in Boulder, Col- orado. He interviewed Chris Hedges in the August issue.

The Progressive u 33 Interview 11.2011_Interview 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:58 AM Page 34

chair of the Women’s Media Center. to Code Pink. She keeps her buoyancy and equanimity despite The next day we hung a big banner on the White being the target of vituperative attacks and threats. House that said “No War in Iraq.” And Diane got up Vitriol from the Internet site Radio Patriot labels her on the pole and she wouldn’t come down. The media as “an agent of influence for the anti-American gov- from the Rose Garden came running out, and it was ernments of Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela, as well as on all the morning news. We then went to the steps Middle Eastern terrorists.” She is slandered and of the Capitol at lunchtime. We had painted pink demeaned sexually. But she carries on undeterred. doves of peace and put them on our bras and took A current Code Pink project she is involved with is our shirts off. And on our bellies we wrote “Read My the boycott of Ahava products, an Israeli cosmetics Tits. No War in Iraq.” Because we had taken our company using resources from occupied Palestinian shirts off, all the cameras in the Congressional hear- land. As a result of picketing and other measures, ing were on us. some stores in North America have dropped Ahava. That’s pretty much what Code Pink has done since Looking at the United States, she says, “We’re the beginning. We’re in the face of power, wherever it watching it crumble. But we have to be more vocal is. and stronger than ever. We have to rely on ourselves and remember what it is to be citizens because that’s Q: How big is Code Pink? how we are going to get what we want.” I was glad to finally catch up with her, as she has Evans: Right now, we have about 200,000 people quite the travel schedule. I talked with her in Boulder who get our e-mails each week, and we have about on a Sunday evening in August when she was in the 100 local chapters, but we have a small staff of five. Colorado Rockies for a conference. We feel that we’re just the container to give people the tools for activism, and then it’s really the locals that What kindled your activism? create the color and the intelligence and the vibrancy Q: that is Code Pink. Our purpose is to end war and Jodie Evans: In 1970, I was a maid in one of the bring those resources back to the life-sustaining needs big hotels in Las Vegas, and we got organized to of our community. march for a living wage. Jane Fonda came and marched with us. In that process, I found my power. Q: The so-called war on terror has been going on And we won. Then, as my friends from high school now for more than ten years. Where are we? started to go off to war, I became an anti-war activist and used a lot of the skills I got from being organized Evans: We’ve created a more dangerous world. We’ve as a maid. I joined the McGovern campaign, and created more violence. We’ve unraveled the fabric of turned eighteen a month before the election. I got to our own society. We’ve watched everything get worse. be one of the first eighteen-year-olds to vote. I still We’ve watched countries be destroyed, and we’ve remember how powerful that was. watched war become the answer to every question.

Q: What was the spark that launched Code Pink? Q: The Bush Administration said it wanted to help women in Afghanistan when it invaded. The Evans: In May of 2002, about thirty-five of us who Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy said at were activists got together, and we called ourselves the the time of the Afghan invasion that it was possi- Unreasonable Women for the Earth. By September, bly the first time in history that the U.S. Marine Bush was trying to frighten us with Code Orange and Corps was claiming to be a feminist organization. Code Red and Code Yellow. One day, as the Iraq War What’s your reaction to that? resolution was going through Congress, Medea, Diane Wilson, and I got on the phone, and we said, Evans: It’s devastating to even think that they say “OK, we’ve got to get to Washington.” We found out they’re helping these women. You can’t imagine through another girlfriend that Bush was going to what life is like for these women in Afghanistan. To have all the members of Congress in the Rose Garden help them would have been to educate them, would the next morning, and he was going to give them the have been to restore their country, would have been resolution, and it was just going to go through to create structures. Everything is in shambles. The Congress like lightning. So we got together that night only place that’s safe is Kabul. And the only women and we said, “We’re going to call ourselves Code Hot that anyone speaks to are the women inside of Pink.” But the problem was, when you went to the Kabul. Of course, they feel safe, so they want Amer- Internet, it was a porn site. So we changed the name ican soldiers to stay. So it becomes a very complex

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issue, even for women’s organizations. They say we’re in Afghanistan for the women. They’ve done nothing for the women. I spoke to some of the women in Afghanistan. They said, “We don’t need more soldiers. We need police.”

Q: Tell me about your “Create, Not Hate” pro- gram.

Evans: We have a “Ten Years and Counting Cam- paign,” and part of that is “Create, Not Hate.” What we’re doing, with a coalition of other organizations, is going into communities and saying, “Through your art, your theater, your music, your cultural center, explain what these last ten years have cost you, have cost your community, have cost our country, have cost the world.” What’s beautiful is the experience of creating art together, the experience of singing together or dancing together or creating theater together. That’s enriching. It gives you something juicy back. And then, out of that, who knows what happens?

Q: What’s the state of the women’s movement today?

Evans: I’m so excited by women right now, not just in America but globally. Women really are coming into their own. We’re standing on the shoulders of forty years of hard and messy work. But that doesn’t meant the patriarchy isn’t alive and well. I’m the chair of the Women’s Media Center. It was started by Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan to make the female half of the population visible. About 97 percent of the media is created by men. JOHANNA GOODMAN Q: Maureen Dowd of The New York Times quipped recently that Obama’s “Yes, we can!” slo- “I’m so excited by gan has devolved into “Hey, we might.” You were an early supporter of the President, and you’ve met with him. Such people as Norman Solomon and women right now, not Cornel West are using the word “betrayal” to describe the Obama Presidency. What happened? just in America but Evans: I was way ahead of them. In 2007, when Obama started to run, I wanted to support a black man for President, I wanted to support an anti-war globally.” activist for President. I thought it would be amazing while we were at war with Iraq and Afghanistan to have someone leading the country who said he was against war. By the general election, he had started talking about Afghanistan as “the good war,” and I had pulled back. As a matter of fact, when I did go to

The Progressive u 35 Interview 11.2011_Interview 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:58 AM Page 36

events (because my husband continued to support solitary confinement and was held naked at night in him), I confronted him and said, “There is no such Quantico for almost a year. That somebody who tells thing as a good war.” I took the opportunity to really us the truth, who exposes what we’re doing, was being get under his skin and make him uncomfortable. treated this way is barbaric. Then, at the Inaugural, Code Pink was the only organization that was out there against Obama. We Q: You come out of the Democratic Party. You had our little pink ribbons on our fingers. And then worked for Governor Jerry Brown of California in we did can-cans outside of all the balls. “Yes, we can- his first administration. What about breaking the can end war.” two-party duopoly? We’ve been in Washington constantly. We haven’t stopped pushing. And we haven’t lost the Evans: I would love to. I ran Jerry Brown’s Presi- courage to speak out against him, which has been dential campaign in 1992, which was focused on hard, because people are, like, “Oh, give him a campaign finance reform. If we didn’t change cam- chance.” Why do you give him a chance? The writ- paign finance, then it didn’t matter what you ing is already on the wall. And we watched the anti- believed in or what you worked for, the corporations war movement slowly just evaporate with Obama would fund the opposite. And that’s what we’ve coming in and putting everyone to sleep. The seen. After I ran that campaign, I left the Demo- betrayal was so shocking for people. They didn’t cratic Party, because I thought it was part of the know what to do with it. problem. I’ve since been a Nader supporter; I have People are, like, “Well, he’s trying.” No, he’s not been in the Green Party. trying. He’s giving in constantly. There is no leader- ship there. And you saw it early on. He compromises Q: Can we use the master’s tools, like elections, to before he’s at the table. The Republicans are even dismantle the master’s house? shocked at what they get from him. Something hap- pened when Obama got elected, and the fight left a Evans: Not while they’re being stolen by corpora- lot of people. I don’t know why. I said, “Why are we tions and funded by corporations. Not after Citizens not screaming in the streets?” And their attitude was, United. It’s going to get worse. The corporations “Well, because, you know, we don’t want to lose those own the elections and they’re manipulating the invitations to the White House.” masses. We have to come up with a new system, because this one is broken. That’s why I work very Q: The seduction of access. hard to create new patterns. I don’t know that I believe in the structure anymore. I feel like it needs Evans: The advantage we have as Code Pink is that a revolution, not another party. The structure is so we have no access to power, and we have no desire to corroded that we’re saying words that are meaning- have access to power. Lots of people run inside-out- less and pretending they exist, like “democracy” and side games. And I don’t know that you can. Because “freedom.” There are all these words that get thrown if you’re trying to play an inside game, having that around, and they don’t exist. We need a new politics power and that access is something that you will com- and a new economy. promise to get. Q: Where are the fissures in the power structure Q: You’ve defended Bradley Manning and Wiki - that could be cracked into and widened? Leaks. Why? Evans: There is no fissure until the people stand up Evans: Almost nobody is telling the truth. And the and say, “No more!” Because right now it’s crack truth tellers are put in jail. Bradley Manning. Wik- cocaine for the military, for the people in Congress, iLeaks. What are we afraid of? We’re afraid of the for the people in the White House. And until people truth. We’re pretending that we live in a democra- get in the streets and start telling the truth about cy, and we’re pretending we’re free. The insanity is what’s happening, and start screaming it and yelling that we live inside of the false stories that we tell it, there’s nothing that’s going to happen. It’s got to each other. happen in the streets. Whistle-blowers are being prosecuted more aggres- sively under the Obama Justice Department than Q: Did you see some of that in Wisconsin? under Bush. We have a campaign called Truth Set Free. Our first job around Bradley was just to let the Evans: Yes. And look at it. It was impressive. I think public know that he exists and that he was held in Wisconsin is what started to wake up activists again.

36 u November 2011 Interview 11.2011_Interview 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:58 AM Page 37

You can really feel it now: It’s people Evans: Yes, a lot of what we’ve been Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation taking power into their own hands doing at Code Pink is around our Title of Publication: The Progressive. Publication Number: 00330736. and coming up with ideas and being war criminals campaign. Because Date of Filing: 9/20/2011. Frequency of Issue: Monthly. Number of Issues Published Annually: 12. a citizens’ brigade. It’s open-source, they got off scot-free. The first book Annual Subscription Price: $32. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication: 409 East Main Street, it’s inspiring, and it’s not controlled that came out was Karl Rove’s, and I Madison, Dane, WI 53703. Publisher: Matthew Rothschild, 409 E. Main St., Madison, WI 53703. at the top. disrupted his first two book events. Editor: Matthew Rothschild, 409 E. Main St., Madison, WI 53703. Managing Editor: Amitabh Pal, 409 E. Main St., Madison, WI 53703. I think the Arab Spring was part of He had to totally transform his book Owner Name and Address: Nonprofit, nonstock, 501(c)(3), The Progressive, Inc., 409 East Main Street, Madison, WI 53703-2899. the inspiration for Wisconsin and tour. He could no longer speak to Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders owning or holding one percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities: None. reminded people of the power of audiences. He really was afraid of us. The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 their voice and of being engaged and Now we have Cheney’s book. We’re Months. Publication Title: The Progressive. Average No. Actual No. of their own responsibility. It’s more always trying to find ways to engage Issue Date for Circulation Copies Each Copies of Single Data Below: September 2011. Issue During Issue Published Preceding Nearest to Filing complicated in the United States, people. We’re always trying to find Extent and Nature of Circulation: 12 Months: Date: a. Total No. Copies 48,219 46,000 because we don’t have a dictator that ways that we can disturb power. If we b. Paid Circulation 1. Paid Outside-County Mail Subscriptions 42,267 41,300 we can dethrone. It’s a whole system can’t put them in jail, at least we can 2. Paid In-County Subscriptions 0 0 3. Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and that is corrupt, and the whole system tell them someone’s watching and Other Non-USPS Paid Distribution 1,756 1,380 4. Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS 46 55 isn’t holding anyone accountable. If that we know they’re war criminals. c. Total Paid Distribution 44,069 42,735 d. Free Distribution by Mail 1. Outside County 179 229 we don’t prosecute these war crimi- We have bookmarks that you can 2. In-County 0 0 3. Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS 0 0 nals, what’s the next horrible thing print out on your printer. You put 4. Free Distribution Outside the Mail 536 575 e. Total Free Distribution 715 804 they can do? As anyone knows, if them in the book and you move the f. Total Distribution 44,784 43,539 g. Copies Not Distributed 3,435 2,461 h. TOTAL 48,219 46,000 you’re not held accountable, you book to the crime section. When i. Percent Paid 98.4% 98.15%

think you can get away with it, and it somebody buys the book, inside it is Publication of statement of Ownership: Publication Required. I certify that all information furnished is true and complete. becomes OK. the bookmark saying the person Signature of Publisher: who wrote the book is a war crimi- Q: You’ve made a point about pur- nal. So we find every way we can to suing Bush and Cheney and other educate the public and to keep high officials. power nervous. u Matthew Rothschild 9/20/11

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Poem

The Abject Happening

Far too often we’d arrive just before death She saw it jump out of the ground and hover and the blood’s evacuations. Always like a demon, she said, then the ground opened there’d be two half circles of men around: like a small mouth, then an orange deafness. soldiers at an outer orbit, thinking only of the footprints used to get there, She would not leave him there with the evil birds and the family or the people who knew so she carried her brother’s body the man repeating There is no god down to the empty village, piece by piece. but Allah. And the dying, refusing, She carried him down—three appalling trips. still trying to stand, staring up at each of us as if we were torturers. We saw nothing in the sky as we left— nothing but vultures gathering, regardless, This day, with just six of us, we would have but since that day, for the rest of my stay, to move with speed into the mud-brick village anything at all that waved in the wind, to see what it was we thought we had heard— waved like the kite of the Pashtun boy. a mortar round or rocket but smokeless and east of Kabul, east of Jalalabad —Eliot Khalil Wilson up in the high croplands of Hindu Kush.

Outside a low house we saw her, the girl, not twelve, covered in blood that was half dry. She was not crying nor was she in pain with not one wound that anyone could see. It was her older brother’s blood, we learned, thick in her hair and reeking of iron.

They’d been flying his box kite in the fields. He left the path to set it in the wind to please her, he did this, to see her laugh at its flight, a thing of sticks and plastic.

He triggered a mine, and I imagine that from a great distance a man setting a mine might look as if he is planting something kind as an almond tree or peach.

Eliot Khalil Wilson is the author of “The Saint of Letting Small Fish Go” (Cleveland State University Press). He cur- rently lives in Denver.

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Unplugged Kate Clinton The Ha-Ha Response n late 2010, British money pit of the London Summer Simpsons. Apparently, comedy multi- IPrime Minister David Olympics, and the Murdoch debacle. culturalism is OK. After viewing, Cameron an nounc ed a Shutting down the News of the World participants were tested and shown to plan to survey the well- should make everyone happier. I have a greater resistance to pain. being of the residents of know I feel better when I don’t read Pain resistance is one way scientists the United Kingdom. the New York Post. measure the presence of endorphins. To gauge their happiness, Britain’s Given the events of the summer, I Evolutionary psychologists posit that independent national statistician thought for sure the survey would be jonesing for those feel-good effects is would design subjective questions— canceled. But somehow, a recent hereditary. The pleasure of one-on- such as “Don’t you just hate multicul- Oxford study on laughter seems to one primate grooming strengthened turalism?”—to add to an existing have squeaked through before govern- social bonding and aided their sur- annual household vival. Human social survey. Those an- laughter is “groom- swers would be bun- ing at a distance.” dled with more Primates make a objective answers to panting sound give a fuller picture instead of a distinct- of quality of life in ly human ha-ha Britain. For the sound but the dis- fullest picture, I rec- tance between pant- ommend checking pant and ha-ha is a the rain gauges. short “They killed “It’s time we Kenny!” away. focused not just on Cameron hopes to GDP but on use the results to craft GWB—general new public policy— well-being,” Eddie Izzard for head Cameron said. I was of the exchequer! happy the Prime What strikes me, clarified the “GWB” though, is how the because for me, impulse to “laugh GWB still means with” has devolved George W. Bush, into “laugh at.” What and while George is else are austerity mea- thriving in his Dal- sures but laughing at las assisted living, the pain of the poor, the United States is immigrants, the neither doing nor uninsured, the elder- being well. And sure ly, the homeless, the it’s sunny in Texas, unemployed? but if you check, the KELLY MUDGE In the United rain gauges have melted despite Pope ment funds were diverted to Libya. States, we don’t need to survey the Perry’s rainmaking revival meeting It was a bare-bones study, with national mood. Here, the devolution- and Presidential campaign opener. none of that highfalutin analysis of aries mock, “How’s that pursuit of Cameron proposed his survey cerebral or subversive humor. Psy- happiness thingie workin’ for ya?” before the expensive, excessive chologists went right for the ha-ha Fortunately, there is growing resis- smash ing of pro tests, the voracious response. Participants were shown tance. We may be a quart low on comedy excerpts not from Monty endorphins, but there is nothing a lit- Kate “She’s not dead, she’s pining” Clin- Python’s “Dead Parrot” sketch but tle laughter with our friends—and a ton is a humorist. from Friends, South Park, and The lot of organizing—won’t cure. u

The Progressive u 41 Zirin 11.2011_Conniff 12.2005x 10/5/11 3:20 PM Page 42

Edge of Sports Dave Zirin Advantage Union hen we think The constant rain and chaotic the best players in the history of the Wabout the pro schedule at the U.S. Open brought sport, or if you are a low-ranked ath- tennis tour—with its much of the ongoing griping of the lete trying to make your way, these are starched whites, seven- pro tennis tour out into the open. The terrible conditions that risk your figure paydays, and great Rafael Nadal, Murray, and star entire livelihood. Tennis pros move country club envi- U.S. player Andy Roddick confronted their bodies with such violent torque rons—the first thing that pops up tournament referee Brian Earley when that playing on a wet court could isn’t, “Those guys need a union.” In they were rushed onto a damp court shear the ligaments in your knees and other sports—like the remorseless they were told was dry. After Earley shoulders with one slip. brutality of boxing or the death march insisted this wouldn’t happen again, Also, playing three consecutive of professional cycling—the need for a water began to actually seep through days for a player of Nadal’s intensity is union where none exists seems like the cracks of Louis Armstrong Stadi- the equivalent of asking a marathoner common sense. But surely not in the um the following day. It was so bad to run twenty-six miles for three con- genteel land of tennis. secutive days. The Association Think again. There is a of Tennis Professionals circuit growing roar among the top isn’t a country club tour; it’s players in the game that they more like a sweatshop. Players will organize and go on strike if are treated like scenery for tele- their demands are not heard. vision broadcasts, and there is What demands, you may no controlling authority that ask? During the U.S. Open, looks out for their interests. As players had to take the court Nadal said later on ESPN, for three consecutive days to “They know it’s a lot of money, make up for rain delays, and and we are just part of the they had to play on wet and show. They are working for dangerous surfaces for part of that, not for us.” the tournament. They then You might think that if play- were given one day off before ers of Nadal, Murray, and Rod- having to fly to Europe for the dick’s stature are unhappy, Davis Cup. change would be in the offing. A strike “is a possibility,” said But tennis has faced down Andy Murray, the world’s num- angry stars in the past. Stan ber four player. “Let’s hope it Smith boycotted the opportu- doesn’t come to that, but I’m PATRICK MARTINEZ nity to repeat as Wimbledon sure the players will consider it. We that announcers John McEnroe, Brad champion in 1973 to protest the sus- need to have some say in what goes on Gilbert, and Chris Evert openly talked pension of Nikola Pilic by the Yugoslav in our sport. . . . We just want things on the telecast about the importance tennis federation. And in 1989, Ivan to change, really small things. Two or of getting a union so players could Lendl sat in at the doors of the U.S. three weeks off during the year, a few protect their very safety. McEnroe Open, according to McEnroe. less tournaments each year, which I even went on a six-minute dis- The simple fact is that unless all don’t think is unreasonable.” course—an unheard of amount of the players organize together, the time on broadcast television—to dis- conditions on the tennis tour will Sport in Society and the Northeastern cuss the history of tennis players who never improve. University School of Journalism have had tried to organize. He ended by This is a reality that all the players selected Dave Zirin as the winner of saying, “There is no player union, and seem to be realizing. It’s a reality that this year’s Excellence in Sports Journal- that’s the crux of the issue.” goes by the name of “solidarity.” ism in Print/Online Media. His newest It’s understandable why some After Nadal spoke on ESPN, the book, in collaboration with John Car- might not be overly sympathetic to great Serena Williams sent out a los, is “The John Carlos Story,” from the players. But whether you are tweet, “Preach Rafael Nadal preach.” Haymarket Books. Nadal, who is trying to become one of It’s a new day on the tour. u

42 u November 2011 Books 11.2011_Books 12.2005x 10/4/11 7:01 PM Page 43

Books What’s Wrong with School Reform Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to No doubt about it, the unions are But that is only after 392 pages of Fix America’s Schools public enemy number one for Brill’s assaults on teachers’ unions. By Steven Brill heroes, the school reform crowd. Brill repeats the mantras of school Simon & Schuster. 478 pages. $28. And while many of his stories are reformers that class size doesn’t mat- genuinely inspiring (who wouldn’t ter, that funding is not the issue, By Ruth Conniff root for idealistic young teachers who poverty is not the issue. The only knock themselves out to help poor thing that matters is a motivated, teven Brill has a thing for ener- kids succeed?), the union-bashing is inspiring teacher. Off the squash getic young Ivy League grads, jarring, especially if you happen to be courts, to the barricades! Swhom he refers to throughout reading his book, as I did, in Madi- If you can get past the elite love- his influential new book as “the best son, Wisconsin. fest, not to mention the discordant and the brightest.” Brill seems to have been caught ring of Brill’s title (More bad timing: Teach for America alumni, hedge flat-footed by Governor Scott Walker’s “class warfare” is now official Repub- fund millionaires and philanthropic attack on public employees’ bargain- lican shorthand for the way the help billionaires who fund school-reform ing rights in Wisconsin—and by the want to tax their wealthy employers. groups, and school administrators tremendous outpouring of support for The nerve!) you might enjoy Brill’s who take a break from lucrative those employees, particularly teachers. heroic narratives of determined, idea - careers to whip urban school systems In his final chapter, he makes a listic classroom teachers. But as I was into shape—these are the heroes of hasty effort to distance the school reading, I kept thinking, why do we this highly readable narrative by the reform he advocates from Walker’s need all these heroics? Why can’t the investigative journalist, lawyer, and “frontal attacks” on teachers’ unions. richest country in the world provide a Yale journalism prof. Brill introduces us to Dave Levin, who grew up on Park Avenue and went to Yale before co-founding the Knowledge Is Power Program. He describes Levin bantering with low- income students on a sidewalk in the Bronx, as if “being here was no big deal, no more out of the ordinary than meeting someone for squash at the Yale Club.” We spend a lot of time with Joel Klein, former New York City schools chancellor, “one of those Ivy Leaguers with an off-the-charts résumé that suggests that if the best and the brightest can do anything, he can probably do anything better.” Throughout the book, “the best and the brightest” do battle with the forces of mediocrity—those dullards who take up space and waste money, time, and students’ lives while wait- ing to retire with cushy benefits, thanks to the teachers’ union.

Ruth Conniff is the political editor of The Progressive. JOY JOY KOLITSKY

The Progressive u 43 Books 11.2011_Books 12.2005x 10/4/11 7:01 PM Page 44

decent, workaday school system for teach him anything. Really? Call me right-to-work states that make school everyone? Pollyanna, but the teachers I’ll never reform easy, while ignoring the fact By the end of the book, Brill more forget are the ones who taught me the that states like Wisconsin, which he or less comes around to this view most.) scolds for labor laws that made it himself, after watching one of his At the end of the book, Jessica hard to do reform here, score better “best and brightest” push herself to Reid goes to work at a regular public on college entrance exams. the verge of a nervous breakdown at a school and finds balance and happi- In one short, brutal chapter, he hyper-demanding, nonunion charter ness with the help of her union. sinks his hatchet into Diane Ravitch, school in Harlem. The teacher, Jessi- Brill, meanwhile, after promoting the education historian who once ca Reid, burns out and quits. school choice, charters, an end to promoted and helped administer “The lesson,” Brill writes, “is that strong unions and the “civil service George W. Bush’s No Child Left unions . . . have to be enlisted in that mentality,” while sneering at com- Behind policy, but came to see the fight because unions are the organiza- promise and collective effort, has a whole market-based approach as tional link to enable school improve- conversion experience. Helping all destroying public schools. Calling ment to expand beyond the ability of fifty million American public school Ravitch “disappointing” and inca- the extraordinary people to work children “cannot be done charter by pable of “articulate argument,” Brill extraordinary hours.” charter. It takes the infrastructure of goes in for the kill by nailing her for Gee, as we like to say in Wiscon- the public school system,” he writes. accepting speaking fees from teachers’ sin, ya think? Oops. unions. It’s OK with Brill, though, Brill doesn’t stop there. He goes on Unfortunately, that infrastructure that, after Michelle Rhee left her post to suggest that the nemesis of school is being seriously undermined by the as the superintendent of Washington, reform for his entire book up until the very forces Brill promotes. D.C., she began making money last chapter, American Federation of through a 501 (c) (4) funded by Teachers president Randi Weingarten, or anyone who cares about edu- anonymous hedge fund donors. should become the next Joel Klein. cation policy, Brill’s book is cru- Part of what’s so maddening about Fcial reading if only because it the school reform movement (which can’t help but think that this sud- explains why the two parties have now rivals Wisconsin’s largest busi- den burst of outside-the-box moved closer and closer together. He ness group for campaign donations in Ithinking was spurred, in part, by traces the birth of Democrats for Edu- the state) is how shoddy the thinking the cultural shift brought on by the cation Reform, a group which he says is behind this radical move to undo a battle in Wisconsin. is dedicated to “making it safe . . . for basic bulwark of our democracy. While our kids and teachers and Democrats to support education Brill is convinced that tying teach- students and neighbors and firefight- reform” (mainly with contributions to er evaluations to test scores is good ers and cops and community mem- offset losing union support). The because the same teachers tend to bers from all over the state were group preferred McCain’s education produce higher scores year after year. marching to defend unions, decent policies, but supported Obama The lesson, he says, is that good pay and benefits, as well as the whole because he had a better chance of get- teachers are all that matter. But he notion of the middle class, public ting an anti-union agenda through. leaves aside other data, including the education, and democracy itself, the Brill shows how a handful of foun- finding that the single most reliable pundits were slowly catching up with dations, including Broad, Gates, and indicator of school success is a stu- the idea that opinion-shapers in elite Walton, inject big money into states dent’s zip code. The charter schools circles on the East Coast might be a that are willing to undo union contracts that succeed, like the Harlem Chil- bit behind the curve. and break up public school systems. dren’s Zone, meanwhile, offer all The Daily Show had a running gag In Florida, he writes, former gov- kinds of wraparound services to help about public school teachers as fat ernor Jeb Bush has “succeeded by any parents and kids climb out of serious- cats—heaping on the rhetoric about measure.” ly challenging circumstances. greedy teachers as it showed friendly Jeb Bush? Brill, the veteran inves- That is what makes Brill’s adora- young women with compact cars and tigative reporter, has apparently not tion of the Ivy League “best and small apartments. read the Miami New Times exposé of brightest” so distasteful. There really Suddenly teacher-bashing (on full the harrowing conditions for special are distinct social classes in this coun- display in Brill’s book) didn’t look so ed students housed in classrooms at try, and the war between them, at pre- cool. (Hedge fund manager David strip malls with no books, no lesson sent, is being won by the people who Einhorn says he “never forgot” the plans, and bored, unqualified teachers. already have it made. Destroying sixth grade math teacher at his subur- Like business groups in Florida unions and dismantling public schools ban Milwaukee school who didn’t that gave the state an A, Brill extols will only accelerate the process. u

44 u November 2011 Classified 11.2011_Classified 12.2005 10/5/11 9:22 AM Page 45

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The Progressive u 45 Hightower 11.2011_Durst 12.2005x 10/5/11 9:37 AM Page 46

Vox Populist Jim Hightower Perry Tales t’s bedtime, children, fidious prince hit the mother load of the heat of his lusty romance of the Iso put on your jam- government largesse: political office. rowdy tea party crowd, Perry wooed mies, scootch under the He’s been hunkered down there for and wowed those who hate govern- covers, and I’ll tell you twenty-seven years and counting. In ment by offering passionate denunci- another story about the addition to drawing more than a ations of Social Security as a “Ponzi Texas governor. quarter-century’s worth of monthly scheme,” a “monstrous lie,” and a He is flitting hither, thither, and paychecks from Texas taxpayers, “failure.” The national retirement yon—spreading little Perry tales including $150,000 a year as gover- program, he thundered, violates the about his record so that he can get to nor, Perry also receives full health Constitution’s “principles of federal- the White House. It’s a bit of a coverage and a generous pension ism and limited government.” His strange quest, because he calls the from the state. Wait, there’s more: He unequivocal message was: Kill it! capitol city “a seedy place,” and he gets $10,000 a month to cover the But—oops—now in hot pursuit tells the commoners that he hates— rent on a luxury suburban home, a of the GOP presidential nomination, nay, deeply loathes!—the he’s learned that even most very government that he Republicans wince at his wants to head. With his tea macho wackiness. A CNN party hat carefully posi- poll in August finds that 57 tioned atop his bounteous percent of Republicans want crop of hair, Prince Rick no major changes in Social warns the commoners that Security. Why? Because, big government is bad, bad, despite the Ponzi-scheme bad—because it intrudes Perry Tale, it works. into their lives, forcing So, the red-meat tea things like Social Security partier who had savaged the and Medicare on them. program has suddenly This prancer would not turned into a senior-hugger, be where he is, though, offering a revised, gentler without the steady “intru- Perry Tale. In this one, he sion” of big government into never, ever meant to abolish his life. From first grade Social Security. Nay, Perry through college, his educa- now says with a pixie twin- tion was paid for by local, kle, he only wants to stimu- state, and federal taxpayers. late “a legitimate conversa- He was even a cheerleader tion in this country about for the government-run col- how to fix that program.” lege he attended. And, as JEM SULLIVAN If you’re not sure what cotton farmers, he and his family flock of personal aides, and even a “fix” means, ask your dog. were supported with tens of thou- state-paid subscription to Food & Perry might heed the blunt words sands of dollars in crop subsidies Wine magazine. of another Republican, who was from the pockets of national taxpay- So, children, ignore Perry’s talk— twice elected to the White House, ers—a big government “intrusion” and look at what he actually does. Dwight Eisenhower: “Should any into his pocketbook. When he says he intends to make political party attempt to abolish Then, after a brief stint in the fed- government “as inconsequential as Social Security . . . you would not eral government’s Air Force, the per- possible,” he means in your life, not hear of that party again in our politi- his. cal history. There is a tiny splinter Jim Hightower produces The Hightow- Now, Perry is sprinkling fresh group, of course, that believes you er Lowdown newsletter and is the fairy dust across the land in an effort can. . . . Their number is negligible, author, with Susan DeMarco, of to soften his earlier screed against and they are stupid.” “Swim Against the Current: Even a America’s Social Security program. Until our next Perry Tale, good- Dead Fish Can Go with the Flow.” During the past couple of years, in night children, and sweet dreams. u

46 u November 2011 Credo Ad.11.2011_Layout 1 10/5/11 9:30 AM Page 47

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