The = nyC’s neXt soCialist Wave — P6 = IndypendenT #251: OCTOBer 2019 • IndypendenT.OrG

App-drIVerS FIGhT BACK p4 nAOMI KleIn On The Green new deAl p14 pUnKS wITh A pUrpOSe p19

InSIde The AMAZOn esteBAn GUerrA why The wOrld’S lArGeST rAInFOreST COnTInUeS TO BUrn And hOw IT AFFeCTS US All BrIAn MIer repOrTS FrOM BrAZIl, p12

COME CELEBRATE WITH US! ’S 250TH ISSUE PARTY SATURDAY OCT 19 AT SIXTH STREET COMMUNITY CENTER SEE PAGE 7 FOR PARTY DETAILS 2 Community The IndypendenT Calendar

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS: ellen Davidson, Anna Gold, place new yorkers Alina Mogilyanskaya, Ann turn for hard-hitting Schneider, John Tarleton reporting that pulls no punches. this fall EXECUTIVE EDITOR: oCtoBer we published our John Tarleton 250th issue. Join us MANAGING EDITOR: TUE OCT 8 SUN OCT 13 Columbus’s landfall and sup- at the sixth street Community Peter Rugh 2PM–tBA • Free 12PM–6PM • Free port the call for nyC to change Center saturday, oct. 19 as we ACtIVIsM: reBeL Fest MArKet: Jersey CIty oDDI- Columbus Day to Indigenous mark this momentous occasion. CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: teach-ins, workshops, art mak- tIes MArKet Peoples Day. speakers include Performers include: reverend ellen Davidson, Alina ing, meditation, yoga, live music, Featuring over 70 purveyors of Pua Case, of the fight to save Billy & the stop shopping Choir, Mogilyanskaya, Nicholas talks and nonviolent direct action the old and the odd. Hawaii’s Mauna Kea mountain; outernational, sleepy Kitty, and Powers, Steven Wishnia training hosted by extinction HARBORSIDE JC and LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, Grace Bergere. there’ll be a rebellion as part of Xr Global 210 Hudson St., Jersey City standing rock’s sacred stone live auction, plus drink specials ILLUSTRATION DIRECTOR: rebellion nyC. Civil disobedi- Camp Founder. (including an exclusive Indypen- Frank Reynoso ence protests will be taking place SUN OCT 13 Randall’s Island, NYC dent-inspired cocktail). throughout the week. 2PM–4PM • Free SIXTH STREET COMMUNITY DESIGN DIRECTOR: Mikael Tarkela Washington Square Park, Mnhtn nAtUre: eCosoCIALIst HIKe: THU OCT 17 CENTER MArIne PArK sALt MArsH 7PM–9PM • Free 638 E. 6th St., Mnhtn DESIGNERS: WED OCT 9 Join the nyC Democratic social- LIt: oCeAn VUonG, WItH DA- leia Doran, Anna Gold, evan 7PM–9:30PM • Free ists of America’s ecosocialist rIn strAUss SAT OCT 19 Sult BooK LAUnCH: CAPITAL IS DEAD Working Group for an easy walk ocean Vuong’s debut novel, On 7:30PM • $79 & up By MCKenZIe WArK through Brooklyn’s largest park, Earth We’re Briefl y Gorgeous, was MUsIC: tHe orIGInAL MIsFIts ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGER: Join McKenzie Wark in conversa- one of the few remaining pre- published by Penguin Press this enjoy a ghouls’ night out, just in Dean Patterson tion with natasha Lennard around serves of liminal wetland space summer. He is also the author of time for Halloween. the launch of Capital Is Dead: Is in nyC. salt marshes and wet- the poetry collection, Night Sky THE GARDEN INTERN: This Something Worse? Wark lands are diverse ecosystems, with Exit Wounds, winner of the t. 4 Pennsylvania Plaza, Mnhtn Garret Reich argues that the all-pervasive supporting hundreds of species s. eliot Prize. He’ll be in conversa- presence of data in our networked of birds and fish, and are protec- tion with national Book Critics SUN OCT 20 GENERAL INQUIRIES: [email protected] society has given rise to a new tive against storm surges but also Circle Award winner Darin strauss. 2PM–4PM • Free mode of production, one not ruled uniquely climate-vulnerable. LILLIAN VERNON CREATIVE tALK: Meet CrAZy Horse FAM- SUBMISSIONS & NEWS TIPS: over by capitalists and their fac- SALT MARSH NATURE CENTER WRITERS HOUSE ILy eLDer & AUtHor MAtson [email protected] tories but by those who own and 3302 Ave. U, Bklyn 58 W. 10th St., Mnhtn Crazy Horse family elder Floyd control the fl ows of information. Clown, sr. and author William ADVERTISING & PROMOTION: VERSO BOOKS SUN OCT 13 SAT OCT 19 Matson discuss and sign their [email protected] 20 Jay St., Suite 1010, Bklyn 6PM–9PM • Donations welcome 11AM–5PM • Free book Crazy Horse: The Lakota sCreenInG: THEY LIVE PArty: sUPer sÁBADo: DIA De Warrior’s Life and Legacy based VOLUNTEER CONTRIBUTORS: SAT OCT 12 Horror and socialism have long MUertos CeLeBrAtIon on the family’s oral history. linda Martín Alcoff, Charlyne 10:30AM–5PM • Free gone hand in hand. In Capital, Celebrate Mexico’s beloved 3,000 AMERICAN INDIAN COMMUNITY Alexis, Bennett Baumer, Sue LIt: PeoPLe’s BooK FAIr Karl Marx writes, “Capital is dead year-old tradition that commemo- HOUSE Brisk, Valerio Ciriaci, Rico 39 Eldridge St., 4th Fl., Mnhtn Cleffi , Renée Feltz, lynne Browse collections from a variety labor, which, vampire-like, lives rates friends and relatives who Foster, emma Gaffney, of radical and leftist presses. only by sucking living labor, and have passed away, with face esteban Guerra, lauren Kaori THE PEOPLE’S FORUM lives the more, the more labor painting, art making, performanc- MON OCT 21 Gurley, Theodore Hamm, 320 W. 37th St., Mnhtn it sucks.” Catch this outdoor es and more. 7PM–9PM • Free David Hollenbach, Manvi screening of the cult-classic They EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO nIGHt sCHooL: eLeCtIons AnD Jalan, Sophia lebowitz, OCT 12–OCT 13 Live and help raise funds for the 1230 Fifth Ave., Mnhtn tHe stAte Derek ludovici, leonardo sAt–sUn 12PM–9PM • $15–$50 Brooklyn Democratic socialists Any socialist project that seeks March, Gary Martin, lydia FooD: neW yorK AFrICAn res- of America. SAT OCT 19 to engage in political struggle will McMullen-laird, Farid Nassif, tAUrAnt WeeK FestIVAL 472 79th St., Bklyn 7PM–1AM • $10–$20 donation have to come to a clear understand- Brady O’Callahan, Tiffany A showcase of the best of the PArty: CeLeBrAte 250 IssUes oF ing of what the state is. Focusing on Pai, Donald Paneth, libby African and African-inspired cui- OCT 13–OCT 14 A Free PAPer For Free PeoPLe the work of ralph Miliband, explore Rainey, Mark Read, Reverend sine in new york. Part of African sAt & sUn 11AM–2PM • Free For going on two decades, The which aspects of the state make it Billy, Chelsey Sanchez, Steven Sherman, Naomi Ushiyama, restaurant Week oct. 4–oct. 20. eVent: InDIGenoUs PeoPLe’s Indypendent has been the voice “capitalist” in nature. Isobel van Hagen, and Chris MIST HARLEM DAy CeLeBrAtIon of movements for social justice, MAYDAY SPACE Wright. 46 W. 116th St., Mnhtn Mark 527 years of survival since underground culture and the 176 St. Nicholas Ave., Bklyn

VOLUNTEER DISTRIBUTORS: erik Anders-Nilssen, eric Brelsford, Chris & Pam Brown, Hank Dombrowski, Joseph epstein, Kim Frazcek,

October 2019 lew Friedman, Mindy Gershon, Tami Gold, Priscilla Grim, laura Kaplan, Michael Korn, Jane laTour, Dave AdVerTISe In The Indy lippman, Ashley Marinaccio, UnIQUe AUdIenCe • AFFOrdABle rATeS • perSOnAl ATTenTIOn Christine Miller, Saul Nieves, FOr MOre InFOrMATIOn, eMAIl [email protected] Or CAll 212-904-1282 Caroline Rath, liam Reilly, Norm Scott, Carol Smith, and The IndypendenT Becky Vaughan. The IndypendenT 3 in this issue

AppAllInG eXplOITATIOn, p4 Rather than pay their drivers a minimum wage, rideshare compa- nies are simply booting them off their apps when it is convenient. The newS In BrIeF, p5 Bailing out taxi drivers, short- changing the MTA, defending East River Park, registering to

reBeCA AnCHonDo vote. here COMe The redS, p6 THU OCT 24 Look for a slew of new social- 7PM–9:30PM • in the neXt World: Honor ist candidates in the NY Dem Free those who have passed on in your life at primaries next year. BooK LAUnCH: a traditional Day of the Dead ceremony THE STARS AND hosted by the Museum of the American dOOFUSeS In BlUe, p8 THE BLACKNESS Indian on Nov. 2. How the NYPD arrested a vic- BETWEEN THEM tim, let a perp walk, and what Junauda Petrus- the cover-up says about our nasah reads from it’s dead around here: criminal justice system. her new book The West Village turns into the site of one The Stars and the of New York’s most rowdy and ghoulish CAlIFOrnIA SCheMInG, p9 Blackness Between parties every Oct. 31. New rent law reforms passed in Them, a work of California is a partial victory queer magic-real- but won’t go far enough to stop ism, liberation, Black diaspora THU OCT 31 landlords from gouging tenants. and astrological love. 6:30 PM – 11 PM • Free BLUESTOCKINGS BOOK- PArADe: West VILLAGe SAVInG MOney, SAVInG STORE, CAFÉ, & ACTIVIST HALLoWeen PArADe lIVeS, p10 CENTER the world’s most inventive Critics call Medicare for All a 172 Allen St., Mnhtn and hilarious costumes. this “middle-class tax hike,” but year’s theme is Wild thing. it’s actually less costly than our FRI OCT 25 6th Ave. from Spring St. to current system. 7:30PM • $10–$15 sliding 16th St., Mnhtn scale BehInd The FlAMeS & The MUsIC: HALLoWeen PUnK SAT NOV. 2 SMOKe SCreen, p12 sHoW to BeneFIt tHe 9AM-5PM • $5-$15 A report from Brazil on the BLACK trAns trAVeL FUnD ConFerenCe: WoMen, AC- driving forces behind the Ama- Bring your spooky wear. tIon & tHe MeDIA zon fi res. Funds go to help provide this year’s theme will be black transgender women #FeministAF when journal- rISInG TO MeeT A with resources to ensure ists, editors, filmmakers and plAneTAry eMerGenCy, p14 they are able to travel to and communications profes- Activist and bestselling author from their destinations safely sionals gather for panels on Naomi Klein tells The Indy and free from verbal harass- inclusive language, safety for what it’ll take to win a Green ment or physical harm. reporters, unions in digital New Deal. STARR BAR media and a workshop on 214 Starr St., Bklyn negotiating pay. Includes hUnTed & depOrTed, p16 a keynote by media critic Syrian refugees in Turkey are SAT OCT 26 soraya Chemaly, author facing a crisis not unlike what 8PM–1AM • $20 of Rage Becomes Her: The immigrant communities in the DAnCe: AssAtA sHAKUr Power of Women’s Anger. U.S. are undergoing. FreeDoM DAnCe For Po- THE PEOPLE’S FORUM LItICAL PrIsoners 320 W. 37th St., Mnhtn dISSIdenT ChOrdS, p19 this year marks the 40th The eclectic punk band Out- anniversary of the city’s best SAT NOV 2 ernational reunites to fi ght fundraiser to free long-held 11AM–5PM • Free Trump’s racist agenda. political prisoners. Admis- FestIVAL: DAy oF tHe sion includes one drink and DeAD/DÍA De Los MUertos The GAelIC GAnGSTer, p20 food is on sale. Performances by the Aztec Martin Scorsese reunites a famil- NATIONAL BLACK THEATRE group Cetiliztli nauhcampa, a iar cast in his new fi lm about the 2031 5th Ave., Harlem community “ofrenda” (altar) Irish hitman who allegedly killed and hands-on activities for Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. SUN OCT 27 all ages. 12PM–5PM • Free NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE pedAlInG pAST The pAST, p21 LIt: tHe Free BLACK WoM- AMERICAN INDIAN Set in a Parisian bicycle shop en’s LIBrAry sALUtes 1 Bowling Green, Mnhtn during a transit strike, a new tonI MorrIson novel offers a tale of commu- 2019 October Come and share your favorite nity, regret and redemption. passages, books, essays, speeches, poems, memories pOwer TO The peOple, p22 and stories of the ways the Two new books by Bhaskar Pulitzer Prize-winning black Sunkara and Astra Taylor ex- IndypendenT The feminist writer has infl uenced plore socialism and democracy your art, writing and life. respectively. THE FREE BLACK WOMEN’S LIBRARY TrUMp help hOTlIne, p23 1072 Bedford Ave., # 39, Bklyn Indy advice columnist Rev. Billy on “early onset racism”

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“Our basic constitutional rights are in jeopardy. "Law and Disorder” is an excellent magazine format radio show, hosted by progressive lawyers who analyze the state of civil

rights in this post-9/11 period. sUe BrIsK FromFr attacks on Muslims at home to torture abroad, "Law and Disorder” puts these constitutional attacks into roadBloCk: Tina Raveneau says perspective” Uber and Lyft aren’t paying her minimum - AMY GOODMAN HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW! UBer eXplOITed, wage.

on that cap. The New York Taxi Work- ers Alliance, which uses a worker-center lyFTed dOwn model to organize yellow-cab, black-cab, car-service and app-based drivers, sup- Co-founded by: drIVerS FIGhT BACK AS COMpAnIeS Try TO ported it, saying that Uber and lyft’s Michael Ratner (1943-2016) business model of fl ooding the city with President, Center for Constitutional Rights; CheAT TheM OUT OF The MInIMUM wAGe vehicles had slashed drivers’ incomes. The and hosted by movement lawyers: Independent Drivers Guild (IDG), an In- Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, A. Muste Memorial Institute; InCreASe They wOn lAST SprInG ternational Association of Machinists af- fi liate that worked out an agreement with and Michael Steven Smith, New York City attorney and author. Uber in 2016 for a voice in the workplace By Peter Rugh without collective bargaining or employee status, opposed the cap. NOW ON FACEBOOK.COM It advocates limiting the number of new drivers instead. t was a hard-won victory, and one New York City’s app- The IDG lobbied hard for the minimum-wage bill, but does not based drivers now fi nd themselves fi ghting to preserve. last advocate making app-based drivers employees instead of indepen- August, the City Council passed a law requiring the city’s dent contractors. In September, after the California legislature bluestockings Taxi and limousine Commission to set a minimum wage for passed a bill drastically narrowing when workers can be defi ned radical bookstore | activist center | fair trade cafe drivers with app-based taxi services like Uber and lyft. The as independent contractors — who don’t have to be paid minimum 172 ALLEN ST • 212-777-6028 TlC’sI minimum, $17.22 an hour after expenses, went into effect wage and can’t legally form unions — Uber said it would not change. bluestockings.com in February. But some drivers say they’re now making less money, Drivers’ work is “outside the usual course of Uber’s business,” the as app-based companies tweak their algorithms to avoid having to company’s head lawyer argued, because it’s not a taxi company, it’s pay that much. an app. “It’s never been worse,” Tina Raveneau of Brooklyn tells The In- Under the TlC’s minimum-wage rule, when drivers fail to earn dypendent. Attracted by the fl exibility the work seemed to offer, the a base pay of $17.22 an hour after expenses, the companies are re- 39-year-old single mother began as an app-based driver for lyft two quired to make up the difference. The TlC projected in January and a half years ago. She now fi nds herself struggling to pay bills and that it would increase earnings for the city’s 80,000-odd app-based worries she’ll have to go on government assistance. drivers by a total of $737 million this year, more than $9,000 each. lyft fi led a lawsuit against the TlC in January, attempting to The TlC doesn’t yet have fi gures on drivers’ incomes since Uber EVERY THURS • 9–9:45AM prevent the minimum wage from going into effect. After a state Su- and lyft began dropping drivers from the app when demand goes YOGA: Start your day with sun preme Court judge dismissed the suit in May, lyft and later Uber down, but at a Sept. 10 City Council hearing, acting TlC Commis- salutations and a vinyasa fl ow. took another route to escape the new requirements. They have both sioner Bill Heinzen said total driver earnings had risen $225 million narrowed when and where drivers can sign in to their apps to work. in the fi rst fi ve months the rules were in effect. The IDG says that SAT OCT 12 • 7–9:30PM Raveneau can get onto the lyft app during the morning rush hour, means the collective increase this year will fall $197 million short of BOOK LAUNCH: In Hustling Verse, but not during the time she is available. the commission’s projections. 50-plus self-identifi ed sex workers She switched to Uber, but in mid-September, Uber began bump- The TlC has “started to shift their language,” says IDG execu- explore their experiences with nuance ing drivers off the app if they don’t get to a “high-demand zone” tive director Brendan Sexton. “Instead of saying ‘minimum pay per and beauty. within 30 minutes of dropping off a fare. Drivers say they are not hour,’ they’re starting to say ‘average pay per hour,’ which complete- being told when they have been bumped. ly changes the whole dynamic of what the minimum pay was. That’s MON OCT 21 • 7–930PM “I would think that I was working, but I wouldn’t really be work- like having a McDonald’s where one person makes $20, another READING: Mab Segrest shares ing,” Raveneau said. But with no ride alerts coming into her phone makes $15 and another makes $10 — on average, sure, we’re all from her classic Memoir of a Race as she drove around, it didn’t take her long to catch on to what was making $15 an hour.” Traitor and discusses her decades of happening. The TlC has “all these regulations,” she says, “but driv- The wage law was meant to set a consistent minimum pay base experience as a white lesbian fi ghting ers are still driving around, praying that they can get to a hot spot so for all drivers. far-right movements in the South. that they can make money.” The IDG is calling for the TlC to be abolished and for the City The rideshare minimum wage is calculated based on utilization Council to step in and close the regulatory loopholes lyft and Uber rate, the percentage of time the vehicle has a fare. The formula was are exploiting. proposed by Michael Reich of the University of California at Berke- On Sept. 17, it organized a slow-motion motorcade that ground ley and the New School’s James Parrott, who conducted a study on morning rush-hour traffi c to a standstill as it oozed over the Brook- app-driver earnings for the TlC last year and found that Uber and lyn Bridge and along FDR Drive to Gracie Mansion, Mayor Bill de lyft’s predominately immigrant drivers were earning $14.17 and Blasio’s residence. An outraged Daily News editorial board called $13.88 an hour respectively, less than the $15 minimum for New on the city to “bring down the hammer” if drivers attempted such a October 2019 York City. The TlC adopted pay regulations meant to account for protest again. “Suspend ride-hail licenses,” read an op-ed published driver costs like gasoline and to compensate for the amount of time the following day. “Make arrests.” spent behind the wheel cruising without a passenger. But drivers like Raveneau say they will keep fi ghting until they The minimum-wage law was part of a package of bills the Coun- are paid a wage they can live on. “We’re the drivers who move New cil enacted last August intended to help drivers. Another bill largely York,” she says. “We should come fi rst.” stopped the city from issuing new licenses for “for-hire vehicles,” the category that includes app-based cabs.

The IndypendenT The two rival unions organizing drivers took opposing positions 5

Briefing room By indyPendent staff Park PeoPle: Hundreds of Lower East Side residents marched on Sept. 21 to save East River Park. Cuomo finally aPProves dria Ocasio-Cortez voting reform during a September Voters in New York State now have until Feb. 14 to register to vote Congressional hearing on predatory lending practices. Thousands and to change their party affi liations in order to be eligible to vote of cabbies, many of whom live in AOC’s Bronx-Queens district, in primaries next year. The state legislature scrapped the earlier were given expensive loans for overpriced medallions before the Oct. 11 deadline back in June but Andrew Cuomo took his time market bottomed out with the infl ux of rideshare vehicles into the signing it. The governor’s dallying led Bernie Sanders’ campaign city during the mid-2010s. They now fi nd themselves enmeshed manager to send a letter to the Democratic National Committee in debt. “Regulatory agencies knew, the city knew,” AOC said of last month urging it to force Cuomo’s John Hancock. “In 2016, the shoddy loans, adding that drivers are being forced to endure countless voters across the state of New York were disenfran- “manufactured fi nancial indentured servitude.” City Council- chised by the state’s arcane and inexcusable early party affi liation member Mark levine has been leading an effort to pass a bailout deadline — countless voters whose fi rst attempt to engage with bill, but Mayor Bill de Blasio has bulked at the price, which his of- the Democratic Party saw them turned away,” wrote Faiz Shakir. fi ce puts at $13 billion. levine says the mayor is exaggerating the One week later, Cuomo signed the bill into law. The presidential cost. Buying out and refi nancing the loans will cost the city about primary will be held in New York on April 28, Congressional and $1 million per driver, he says, which is what cabbies were paying state primaries occur on June 23. for their licenses when medallion prices were at their peak in 2014.

mta neW Budget off-traCk les Park Battle rages on The board governing the Metropolitan Transit Authority unani- After months of growing protests by lower east Side residents, mously approved a four-year, $51.5 billion capital budget in Sep- Mayor de Blasio announced Oct. 2 that the demolition of east tember, its largest ever. Though work on the capital plan was River Park and the building of a fl ood barrier and a new park will underway for more than a year, MTA Chairman Pat Foye ac- take place in phases instead of all at once, allowing locals some ac- knowledged that it “came together late.” Many board members cess to the park throughout the construction process. Supporters were given copies of the budget the day of the vote. Though all vot- of the park said it’s not enough and an earlier community-backed ing members backed the measure, mainly on the expectation that fl ood control plan should be adopted. “Our park will still be com- it will be amended down the line, some worried that the capital pletely destroyed — just over a longer period of time — fi ve years funds could come at the expense of day-to-day operations. “We’re instead of the original three and a half years,” said Pat Arnow of going to have the most fabulous new signals, the most fabulous east River Park Action. new rolling stock, accessibility for all, but it’s going to be running less frequently,” fretted non-voting member Andrew Albert.

a Bailout for CaBBies? Support for a bailout of New York City’s ailing taxi industry is

reBeCCA VAUGHAn gaining momentum following a fi ery speech from Rep. Alexan- October 2019 October The IndypendenT The 6eleCtoral PolitiCs nyC’S neXT SOCIAlIST wAVe Boris santos dSA TAKeS AIM AT The STATe ASSeMBly’S Old Pharah souffrant

GUArd marCela mitaynes

By Theodore Hamm concerning affi da- vit ballots to Gov. JaBari BrisPort he Democratic Socialists of America have clearly Andrew Cuomo, rocked the New York City political establishment which ultimately

CoUrtesy over the past two years. The group helped elect hurt DSA-backed Tiffany Caban’s insurgent campaign. It’s a Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress, knocked safe bet that many of the incumbents facing DSA primary chal- out a longstanding machine politician in the state lengers will receive money from Heastie’s war chest. TSenate, and nearly seized the most important elected offi ce in As a leader, Heastie is viewed as a transactional fi gure, who Queens. As the 2020 state races take shape, the local DSA chap- negotiates individually with Assembly members about what ters are seeking to expand their infl uence — and taking on an their districts need. He then doles out discretionary funding for even wider range of entrenched politicians. members’ preferred projects in exchange for their support for So far, 10 candidates have sought the Brooklyn DSA’s sup- his agenda. Any successful DSA candidates will thus need to be port for their 2020 state offi ce campaigns. In mid-September, ready to fi ght hard and loud against Heastie. the group announced its endorsements in four races: Boris Both Souffrant and Mitaynes already have a track record Santos, running to unseat Assemblyman erik Dilan in Assem- of doing so. In early June, they were among the 61 activists bly District 54 (Bushwick); Pharah Souffrant Forrest in her arrested at the state capitol demanding the passage of a set of challenge to Assemblyman Walter Mosley in AD 57 (Crown pro-tenant housing bills. While the protests helped spur the As- Heights); Marcela Mitaynes, running against Assemblyman sembly to action, leading to expanded rent stabilization and Felix Ortiz in AD 51 (Sunset Park); and Jabari Brisport (Bed- several other pro-tenant measures, Mitaynes said the victories Stuy), who’s seeking the State District 25 seat currently held by were “amazing, but bittersweet,” because the “Good Cause” Velmanette Montgomery, who may be retiring. eviction bill was not included in the package. She and Souffrant One reason the Brooklyn DSA chose only a handful of both vow to continue to draw on their community organizing prospective challengers is to focus the group’s energy and re- experience if elected. sources. like its Queens counterpart, the chapter only supports All three of the DSA’s Assembly candidates can expect the candidates with an explicitly socialist vision, which includes a Brooklyn Democratic machine to fi ght hard against them. pledge not to take developer or corporate donations and a vow But as seen in Salazar’s successful state Senate run last year

CoUrtesy to advocate for social justice on numerous fronts. (For example, against longtime incumbent Martin Dilan (erik’s father), the left-leaning emily Gallagher, who is challenging incumbent As- party apparatus no longer wields control in Williamsburg and semblyman Joe lentol in Greenpoint, did not receive the DSA’s Bushwick. Party boss Frank Seddio also was unsuccessful in support because she considers herself a progressive rather a so- his effort to help Assemblyman Ortiz unseat City Councilman cialist.) A candidate’s perceived viability was also a consider- Carlos Menchaca in 2017. As the Assistant Speaker of the As- ation in the Brooklyn endorsements. sembly, Ortiz, running for his 14th term, is likely to get Heast- One of the most common slams against the DSA is that the ie’s full support. group is full of mostly white newcomers to gentrifying neigh- Souffrant, meanwhile, clearly has the most formidable oppo- borhoods and thus hypocritical in claiming to advocate for nent of the three. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries will likely fi ght diverse working-class residents facing displacement pressures. hard for his protégé Mosley, who is also viewed as Seddio’s like- But the Brooklyn DSA’s 2020 slate consists of four candidates ly successor as party boss, meaning that other Brooklyn elected of color who grew up in the borough — either in the districts offi cials are likely to lend their support to Mosley as well. they seek to represent or in adjacent ones. And while the DSA’s vision is one of multiracial solidarity, All three of the Brooklyn DSA’s Assembly candidates main- New York City politics historically have been driven by ethnic tain that the incumbents in their districts should be judged not divisions. Dilan thus may play up his Puerto Rican and Afri- by their voting records but by their leadership or lack thereof on can American identity against Santos, who is Dominican and housing, health, criminal justice, immigration and voting rights. Salvadoran; and Mosley may align himself with African Ameri- The New York State Assembly, after all, is more than two-thirds cans against Souffrant, who is Haitian American. Ortiz, mean- Democratic, making a member’s ultimate support for a bill less while, almost certainly will try to rally Puerto Ricans against important than what they did to hasten its passage. Mitaynes, who is Peruvian-American. Santos, who is 29 and State Senator Julia Salazar’s chief of All three DSA candidates for Assembly nevertheless have staff, says that Assemblyman Dilan “has not been a helpful ad- ample experience building alliances with multiple groups. And

tWItter/@r67GIrL vocate” on housing and other matters. Souffrant, a 30-year-old across Brooklyn, Souffrant says, there’s a “new feeling” shared nurse who has been a lead organizer with the Crown Heights by fellow activists. No longer content to let the old guard run Tenants Union, views Mosley as “an all-talk, no action politi- the show, the DSA, she says, is “going to create the world we cian.” And Mitaynes, who is 45 and has spent the last decade want for ourselves.” fi ghting displacement in Sunset Park with Neighbors Helping Neighbors, explains that protecting tenants is “not a top prior- ity for Ortiz.” The State Assembly is currently run by Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx machine politician. While the group has made inroads in the State Senate, where Salazar is a member and Jessica Ra- mos is also closely aligned with the group, the DSA has not yet made inroads into the other chamber. “This election season is about us gaining a presence in the Assembly,” says Santos. Heastie is widely viewed as a business-as-usual Democrat. During the 2019 legislative session (January–June), his PAC took in nearly $300,000, roughly two-thirds of which came from unions and the PACs of various business interests in the state, October 2019 ranging from Albany lobbying fi rms to chiropractors. Heastie collected over $40,000 from the health care industry, precisely as the NY Health Act establishing single-payer insurance stalled and over $12,000 from law enforcement groups, while marijua- na legalization never made it to the Assembly fl oor.

CoUrtesy During the home stretch of the Queens DA primary in June, Heastie funneled $20,000 from his PAC to Melinda Katz; at

The IndypendenT the same time, he never sent a key piece of passed legislation 7

SATURDAY OCT. 19 ’S 250TH ISSUE PARTY

For going on two decades,

THE ININDYPENDENT has been the voice of movements for social justice, underground culture250th issue. COME CELEBRATE WITHand the place US! New Yorkers turn for hard-hitting reporting that pulls no punches. This fall we published our 7PM -1AM

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demanding JustiCe: Frankie Breton stands outside the Southern District of The nypd’S New York courthouse in Lower Manhattan. visited Tejada’s apartment. Clarke proceeded to apologize to Bret- STUpIdeST ArreST on for wrongly arresting him and to Te- jada for releasing Matias without search- And Then The COp lIed ABOUT IT wITh nO ing for active warrants. Clarke’s remorse, however, was not combined with an im- COnSeQUenCeS portant corresponding action: He did not withdraw the initial reports against Breton that he fi led with the District Attorney. By Theodore Hamm In late January 2017, just over four months after Breton’s arrest, the Manhattan DA’s offi ce, which had conducted its own investiga- n a Friday evening in late October 2016, Frankie tion of the incident, dropped the charges on the grounds that Breton Breton, a senior at NYU, returned from the fi rst day had acted in self-defense. of his internship at a Manhattan consulting fi rm to Such are the facts of the case as alleged in a civil lawsuit fi led by his girlfriend Katherine Tejada’s place in Washington attorney Andrew Stengel in the Southern District of New York. The Heights. When Breton arrived, he found Tejada’s ex- suit’s primary claim is wrongful arrest, and it names the City of New boyfriendO furiously trying to kick in her apartment door. York and NYPD offi cers Clarke and Cruz as the main defendants. When Tejada’s ex, Manny Matias, saw Breton, he yelled out, earlier this month federal judge John Koeltl rejected an effort by “That’s homeboy! It’s on!” Matias then charged at Breton and landed the city’s lawyers to dismiss the case. During oral arguments that several punches. The fi ght spilled out of the building, at which point preceded his ruling, Koeltl clearly viewed the above outline of events Matias took out a knife and began stabbing Breton, who suffered in the case to be compelling. sharp cuts to his right hand. “[T]he plaintiff has made a strong case that there was evidence Breton next tackled Matias, forcing him to drop the blade. Breton here that contradicted probable cause” to arrest Breton, Koeltl told then grabbed the knife, put it in his pocket and ran down the block. the city’s lawyers and Stengel. He further advised the city’s team that Matias picked up a piece of wood and chased after Breton, who the “case cries out to be settled sooner rather than later.” called 911 and fl agged down an NYPD squad car. As Stengel told Judge Koeltl, initial settlement discussions between As Breton and the offi cers arrived back at Tejada’s building, more the two sides had stalled by the time of the late July court appearance. cops pulled up. When Breton exited the squad car with the offi cers, “[Y]ou may want to reconsider,” Koeltl advised the city’s lawyers at Matias shouted, “That’s him!” Breton showed his bloody hand to the the time. cops, but Matias, though unscathed, insisted, “No, he stabbed me.” But as Stengel tells The Indypendent, the city’s team then made an NYPD Sergeant Freddy Cruz then searched Breton for a weapon offer that “was not serious and in bad faith.” And in early September and found Matias’ knife in his pocket. Although Tejada and other Koelt thus issued a ruling allowing the case to go forward to a pos- witnesses assured them that Matias was the assailant, the cops nev- sible trial, where a jury could award Breton a far greater amount than ertheless cuffed Breton. He and Matias were brought to the 33rd he has requested. Precinct, where the latter was already wanted for earlier assaults “‘No probable cause’ decisions are not common,” says Stengel, on Tejada. who credits Brooklyn exoneree Jabbar Collins, now a paralegal, for At the station house, Matias gave a statement against Breton, his “indispensable” consulting work on the case. whom cops then charged with fi rst-degree assault. Matias walked out “The NYPD doesn’t have license to ignore affi rmative evidence of of the precinct a free man. a suspect’s innocence,” Collins says. “And they also must inform the Breton was held in custody until his arraignment that Saturday in DA when they uncover such evidence.” Manhattan Criminal Court, where — despite being charged with a As George Joseph and Ali Winston reported for Gothamist this violent felony — he was released without bail. Breton’s hand was still week, Stengel has been waging a battle in State Supreme Court to bleeding, so he went to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where doc- force the city DAs to turn over any “Do not call” lists of cops with tors told him that although his hand needed sutures, too much time track records of making false statements. Offi cer Clarke might be a had elapsed after the initial wound to apply them. He had received no good addition to the Manhattan DA’s list if he isn’t on there already. treatment while in custody. epilogue: Matias was not charged for his assault on Breton. But Things then got even more absurd. he’s had several scrapes with the law since the 2016 incident. On that same Saturday afternoon, NYPD offi cer Steven Clarke — who had arrested Breton, taken Matias’ statement at the precinct

sUe BrIsK and sent the report charging Breton to the Manhattan DA’s offi ce — October 2019 The IndypendenT tenants & landlords 9 CAlIFOrnIA TenAnTS restricting vacancy increases, and the ellis Act, which developers have wIn pArTIAl exploited to buy rent-controlled buildings and demolish them to build luxury housing. To win that, housing activists say, grassroots organizing needs to VICTOry develop enough power to counter wITh COST OF hOUSInG SOArInG, MUCh reMAInS TO real-estate money. An emerging bat- tleground is the state capital of Sac- ramento, where more than half the GAry MArtIn Be dOne 510,000 residents are renters. “Folks are having trouble,” says By Steven Wishnia “We’ve seen more activism around tenants-rights issues local activist elizabeth Uribe, a school-bus driver and than we’ve seen in decades,” says Gross. But Proposition member of Service employees International Union local alifornia has enacted a law that will limit rent 10 only won in areas that have an established tenant move- 1021. “The rent eats fi rst.” increases for an estimated 8 million tenants, ment: San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, and the city of last year, a coalition of several groups collected 44,000 but the measure is closer to Oregon’s new los Angeles. It did worst in areas where tenant organizing signatures to put a rent-control amendment to the city anti-gouging law than to New York’s rent- is minimal, such as the Central Valley and the Inland em- charter on the ballot for the March 2020 primary election. stabilization system. pire, l.A.’s far-eastern suburbs. It would limit rent increases to between 2 and 5 percent a CAssembly Bill 1482, passed by the state legislature Sept. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who opposed Proposition 10, year, based on the Consumer Price Index. 11, will limit annual rent increases to 5 percent plus infl a- backed the rent-cap bill. It was also palatable to landlords: The City Council responded on Sept. 12 by passing a tion (with a maximum of 10 percent) in buildings more The California Apartment Association trade group did not rent-cap measure similar to the state law. But in exchange, than 15 years old and single-family houses owned by cor- oppose it, although the California Association of Realtors it asked the coalition to withdraw the ballot initiative. Some porations or real-estate investment trusts. It also requires did. The California Building Industry Association, the de- groups agreed, fi guring getting something was better than “just cause” to evict tenants who’ve rented their homes for velopers’ leading lobby, announced it would not oppose the the risk of getting nothing if the initiative was swamped by more than a year. bill after a compromise exempted buildings less than 15 real-estate money. “It’s the fi rst time we’ve had such a strong law passed years old from the rent cap. ACCe, the Sacramento Tenants Union and SeIU 1021 on the state level,” says larry Gross, executive director of That it covers single-family homes is signifi cant: Private- are persisting with the initiative. But the Council “is balk- the Coalition for economic Survival, a los Angeles-based equity funds bought up thousands of foreclosed houses in ing at putting it on the ballot,” says Uribe. The law doesn’t tenant-rights group.” But, he notes, “it’s not rent control.” California after the Great Recession. Invitation Homes, a specify when initiatives with enough signatures have to be The bill was passed amid rising pressure for the state to spinoff from the Blackstone Group private-equity fund, is placed on the ballot. The city just has to inform people not do something about its housing crisis. More than half of the largest private landlord in the Sacramento area, says less than 88 days before the election, says elliot Stevenson California’s 17.5 million renters spend more than 30 per- Anya Svanoe of the Alliance of Californians for Commu- of the Sacramento Tenants Union. cent of their income on housing, according to a study re- nity empowerment. Proposition 10 won only 39 percent of the vote in Sac- leased last year by the University of California at Berkeley’s Merika Reagan, an ACCe member who lives in an In- ramento and its suburbs, but carried the city center solidly. Haas Institute. San Francisco and San Jose have among the vitation-owned house in eastern Oakland, says that provi- “We will have a huge fi ght on our hands,” says Uribe. When highest rents in the nation. In los Angeles, where about 60 sion will be a lifesaver. She joined ACCe when the landlord she was phone-banking for Proposition 10, she says, she percent of residents are renters, about one-third of tenants whacked her with a $350 rent increase, and the group orga- talked to people who believed “bizarre” misinformation spend more than half their income on rent, says Gross. nized protests that pressured the company to bring it down from real-estate attack ads, such as that their rent would About 15 California cities, including los Angeles, San to $50. Still, she’s working 12 to 14 hours a day to make go up if local governments could enact stricter regulations. Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, have rent-control laws. her $2,100 rent. “We are going to be campaigning,” says Stevenson. However, a 1995 state law, the Costa-Hawkins Rental “These corporations are out of control,” she says. “ev- “The laws are only as good as the power built by tenants.” Housing Act, prohibits them from limiting rents on va- ery time my lease is up, it’s like a panic attack.” Her neigh- cant apartments, single-family homes, or in buildings con- borhood is gentrifying, with white people paying $3,000 structed after 1995. last November, Proposition 10, a bal- for a one-bedroom house. lot initiative to repeal that law, lost by a 59–41 margin. That displacement will continue, says Gross, unless two landlords outspent supporters by three to one. state laws are repealed: the Costa-Hawkins Act’s ban on

PreZ hoPefuls take aim at predatory lending and racial legal steps she can to stop states from unveil housing discrimination, and it sets a goal of pre-empting local efforts to enact tenant achieving “a fully decarbonized building protection laws.”

Plans PAGe/trUtHoUt troy sector by no later than 2030.” Former Vice President Joe Biden From astronomical rents and foreclosure Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth War- does not include housing in the “Joe’s to crumbling public housing, homeless- ren’s American Housing and Economic Vision for America” section of his ness and racial discrimination, the U.S. Mobility Act, introduced in March, is website. In July, his campaign said he has a housing crisis with multiple fronts. more narrowly focused. It would invest wanted to set a “national goal” of ensur- Yet housing has been barely mentioned $500 billion over the next 10 years ing that 100 percent of people released in this year’s presidential campaign. in units “affordable to lower-income from prison have housing. The two leading left-leaning candi- families,” much of it leveraged through As for incumbent Donald Trump, dates have proposed multiple initiatives, private dollars. She says this would his housing policy has been slipping though Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ reduce rents by 10 percent, and could be far-right agendas into the fine print of “Housing for All” platform, released paid for by raising the estate tax. agency regulations. In September, the Sept. 18, would spend almost $1.5 trillion Other provisions would crack down Treasury Department proposed mak- on redlining and add $3.6 billion in new ing it harder for apartment-building

over 10 years to build or preserve 7.4 2019 October million permanently affordable homes capital funding for public housing. The owners to get loans in places with in both rural and urban areas, plus $70 bill would also try to keep private-equity rent-control laws. billion worth of repairs to public housing. investors from buying up single-family — STEVEN WISHNIA It would also repeal the federal ban on homes, by requiring the Federal Hous- ing Administration to sell 75 percent of

constructing more public housing units. IndypendenT The Sanders also advocates national rent those it acquires through foreclosure to control, restricting rent increases to 3 owner-occupants. percent a year or 1.5 times the Consumer Warren opposes national rent Price Index, and prohibiting evictions controls, however. Instead, her plat- form says she would “take whatever without “ just cause.” Other proposals Bernie sanders 10CaPitalism The MedICAre increase in taxes? Yes. But what people would save on medical FOr All bills and insurance premiums would far exceed the extra taxes they’d have to pay, with the ex- ception of the very well off. In addition, both Sanders and War- MySTery ren would shift the overall bur- why COrpOrATe AMerICA hATeS The den of taxes to the rich. Medicare for All would actu- heAlTh CAre reFOrM ThAT wOUld ally cover much more than Medi- care does now, such as dental, vision and nursing-home care, SAVe TheM BIllIOnS there would be no copayments or deductibles and people wouldn’t By Paddy Quick have to buy private insurance to pay for the 20 per- cent of medical bills that Medicare doesn’t cover. ould “Medicare for All” mean The need for a fundamental restructuring of the higher taxes? It’s a question that U.S. health care system is obvious. The United States keeps coming up whenever the spends about twice as much per capita on health care Democratic presidential candi- as comparably affl uent countries in Western europe, dates take to the debate podiums. but its rate of infant mortality is often twice as high. WThis September, former vice president Joe Biden went For example, the U.S. spent $9,892 per capita on on the offensive, demanding of his rivals, Senators health care in 2016, while Finland spent $4,033. Fin- Bernie Sanders and elizabeth Warren, both of whom land’s infant mortality rate the next year, however, support a national health care system, how they was 2.50 per 1,000 live births, compared to 5.80 would pay for it. in the U.S. That means that out of the 3.79 million “I want to hear tonight how that’s happening,” babies born in the U.S. in 2018, about 12,500 died he barked. before their fi rst birthday who would have lived if Biden and other critics of Medicare for All claim it the U.S. had had an infant mortality rate as low as amounts to “middle-class tax hike.” Finland’s — about 34 a day. Since it is an accusation frequently leveled against Insurance companies would be the main corporate supporters of the health care reform, let’s break losers from Medicare For All, but the private health down the numbers. Would the Medicare for All Act,

BetH WHItney a bill introduced in Congress in February, lead to an Continued on page 18

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#peoplesforumnyc

320 West 37th Street, New York, NY 10018 | [email protected] | peoplesforum.org 12ENVIRONMENT 13 THE AMAZON ISN’T DYING. IT’S ESTEBAN GUERRA BEING KILLED. WELCOME TO THE EPICENTER OF DESTRUCTION WHERE AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE OF EVANGELICAL CATTLE RANCHERS AND BIG AGRIBUSINESS HOLDS DOMINION

By Brian Mier

arrived in Porto Velho, the state capital of Rondonia in the Brazilian Amazon, to fi nd the city completely engulfed in smoke. My eyes burned and my sinuses clogged up as in got into a taxi. I asked the driver about it and heI told me nothing was wrong. “This is all just fake news,” he says. “The media is making a circus out of it. We always have fi res this time of year. It’s just farmers burning weeds.” He is a young man with gel in his hair and a neck- lace with a crucifi x hanging over his t-shirt. I as- sumed he was one of the 71 percent of voters in the cal Christian ranchers from southern Brazil poured state who voted last year for Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s into the area. The settlers followed in the wake of a new far-right president. $440 million partnership between the World Bank While it’s true that many Brazilian farmers torch and Brazil’s former military dictatorship. By the their land before planting to burn off weeds and en- time international outcry caused the World Bank to rich the soil with ash, there’s a lot more fi res this cancel the project in 1986, Rondonia had become a year than in the past. According to Rondonia’s fi re major beef supplier to McDonalds. department, forest fi res are up by 293 percent in The disaster which befell Rondonia led to a fi ght deforesters that they will not be punished. When the the six counties surrounding Porto Velho and the for alternative development models. In the neighbor- head of INPE, the national space institute, warned increase is not being driven by brush fi res but by ing state of Acre, the rubber tappers union expelled the public that fi res were beginning to burn out of burning trees inside of indigenous reservations. Sat- the ranchers and gained control of the state gov- the control, Bolsonaro fi red him. Meanwhile, his ellite images from NASA confi rm this. The Amazon ernment along with the leftist Workers Party (PT). environmental minister and his foreign affairs min- rainforest does not naturally catch fi re, so these are They went on to transform it into a model of a low ister have all claimed that the increase in fi res — offi ce that defends indigenous peoples. The struc- all man made. carbon economy. As of 2018, 87 percent of Acre’s which sent a smoke cloud up that was so big the ture of the Brazilian state in the Bolsonaro govern- “Our land is soaked in blood,” says Luciana forest cover remained intact and its main commodi- city of São Paulo, over 1,500 miles away, went pitch ment has been turned against the indigenous peo- Oliveira, a local journalist who has received death ties were sustainable rainforest products such as After Rousseff was impeached on spurious dark at 3 p.m. last month, — is “fake news”. ple to reduce their territory and to dismantle land threats from people connected to the ruralista lobby natural latex, Brasil nut and Acai. More recently, grounds in 2016, her conservative successor Michel grants indigenous lands and forest reserves.” — the big ranchers and farmers who form a key sup- the expanding fi res in Rondonia have burned their Temer slashed funding for IBAMA, the environ- “What is happening this year,” he adds, “is not port base for Bolsonaro’s government. “We are the way into Acre spreading a swath of destruction. mental protection agency, by 51 percent. He also • • • caused by the drought, it is the result of a planned last frontier of forest cover, of jungle, so agribusi- The success of Acre’s model infl uenced the envi- dissolved the Ministry of Agrarian Development, action by these political forces and the greed of ness moves forward. The environment is an obstacle ronmental policies of the PT party, which won four which had been set up to support small farmers As capital to increase occupied territory to produce which it can only cross by destroying, and all we consecutive presidential elections starting in 2002. new pesticides produced by the likes of Monsanto “There is a land theft operation underway,” soy and beef.” have here is destruction.” President Lula da Silva appointed Marina Silva, an were legalized, profi ts soared for transnational says Frei Volmir, a long-haired Catholic Priest who As the fi res raged out of control, Donald Trump Acre senator and former top offi cial in the rubber companies like Cargill and Blackstone-fi nanced has been working with indigenous people in Ron- has defended Bolsonaro. However, some U.S. law- tappers union as his environmental minister. From beef producer JBS that grow monoculture crops in donia for 30 years. “A few days ago there were over makers are waking up to the unfolding tragedy. On • • • 2003 to 2016, PT governments spent billions on so- the Amazon. 600 fi re points registered near the Karipuna reser- Sept. 25, a group of Democrats introduced Resolu- lar energy, transformed Brazil into the sixth largest Then things got really bad. vation. What does this mean? That the people are tion 594 in the House of Representatives. In addi- The world gasped in August when it saw images producer of wind energy, built one million family In 2018 Lula, who was still the most popular pol- burning and that they will burn more and the gov- tion to calling for an investigation into the role the of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest going up in fl ames at rainwater capture systems in the drought-plagued itician in Brazil, was jailed on trumped-up corrup- ernment is doing nothing to stop it. Inside the Kari- U.S. Department of Justice played in helping corrupt an unprecedented rate. While major media outlets rural northeast, and pumped billions of dollars into tion charges. With Lula out of the way and unable puna territory there were two free indigenous tribes Brazilian prosecutors target Lula, it calls for both have moved on to other dramatic stories, the fi res technical support and fi nancing for family farmers. to speak or give interviews from his prison cell and living isolated deep in the forest. Now if you ask me government funding and U.S. support for World continue unabated in a rainforest that is home to Building on successful projects in Acre, the federal public discontent rising with insider politics as usual if they are still living there, I don’t know. Because as Bank and IMF loans to Brazil to be cut off until the hundreds of indigenous tribes and is the most biodi- government also amped up support for renewable (does this sound familiar?), Jair Bolsonaro, a LGBT- they kill the forest they kill the isolated tribes who Bolsonaro administration shows a real commitment verse place on Earth. The Amazon is also the world’s forest products, such as babaçu coconut oil, cocoa bashing former army captain, won a surprise elec- live there.” to protecting indigenous people and the Amazon. largest carbon sink, its 2.1 million square miles of and rubber. tion victory. He was backed by a powerful alliance As the PT regroups with unions and a social The resolution was introduced by Arizona Con- lush vegetation removing CO2 from the air and re- This is not to say that Brazil was an ecological of Christian evangelicals, big agribusiness and the movement mobilizes to fi ght against Bolsonaro’s gressman Raul Grijalva and co-signed by 13 other leasing oxygen back into the atmosphere. If it were utopia under Lula. He heavily subsidized monocul- military, also referred to as “B, B and B” — Bibles, plans for the Amazon, Ramon Cajui is running to Democratic members of the House. If you would to be transformed into dry grassland or desert as ture production in parts of the country in order to Beef and Bullets. These groups all see the Amazon be the PT’s party leader in Porto Velho. A civil ser- like to show solidarity with the indigenous peoples 2019 October many scientists fear it will be within a few decades, boost export earnings while legalizing genetically as a resource to be opened up and exploited and the vice worker of indigenous descent, I meet with him of the Amazon and Brazilian left opposition to Jair it would be an environmental calamity for a world modifi ed crops in the process. Nevertheless, Brazil rainforest’s indigenous inhabitants as savages to ei- at Porto Velho’s only scenic venue — a small public Bolsonaro, please call your lawmakers and ask them increasingly menaced by climate change. met its REDD+ greenhouse gas reduction goals nine ther be “civilized” or killed. square with three Victorian-era water towers on it. to support this resolution and help put an end to this While the fate of the Amazon is of global con- years early and reduced deforestation by 84 percent. Known as the “Trump of the Tropics,” one of From his perspective, the forest isn’t the only thing crisis. Another way to help is to vote out Bolsonaro’s October 2019 cern, the struggle over its future is a local story In 2014, the Union of Concerned Scientists made a President Bolsonaro’s fi rst moves was to announce that has been burned to the ground but also the ad- buddy Trump in 2020. INDYPENDENT THE where two strikingly different visions of what the presentation in the UN in which it called Brazil the plans to open up 50 percent of all indigenous reser- ministrative arms of the government that served the rainforest is for and how it should be managed are “world champion in deforestation reduction.” Dur- vations in the Amazon — which make up 23 percent public interest. Brian Mier is the editor and publisher of Brasil- contending with each other. ing the presidency of Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s former of all remaining rainforest — for the loggers, min- “If FUNAI, the indigenous affairs bureau, wasn’t wire.com. Rondonia, which is the size of Great Britain, Mines and Energy Minister, deforestation began to ers, ranchers and farmers connected to international great, at least the state was presented as an entity has been a bastion of right-wing politics since the creep back upwards, but this was nothing compared supply chains. He then fi red 22 state directors of IB- to contain this encroachment. Now it’s gone,” says 1980s when thousands of primarily white, evangeli- with what would come next. AMA and refused to replace them. It sent a signal to Cajui. “And we no longer have a public prosecutors’ THE INDYPENDENT 14Climate Change On FIre FOr A Green new deAl By Nancy Romer & John Tarleton

n her 2014 book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, Naomi Klein writes, “If enough of us stop looking away and decide that climate change is a crisis wor- thy of Marshall Plan levels of response, then it will become one, and the political class will have to respond.” IFive years later, it’s happening. Thanks to passionate young cli- mate activists and bold new elected officials like Alexandria Oca- sio-Cortez, Klein’s vision of using sweeping government action to address both climate change and longstanding social inequities has arrived at the center of political debate. This time it comes under the rubric of the Green New Deal. In On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, Klein continues to build the case for why dramatic climate action is not only urgently needed but could lead to a more just and humane world. In On Fire as well as this interview, she also explores the connection between climate denialism and white supremacy and the rise in recent years of violent movements that hold a very dif- ferent vision of how to respond to climate change. This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.

The IndypendenT: Bill McKibben of 350.org calls you the “intellectual godmother of the Green new deal.” how does it feel after many years of speaking out for something like a Green new deal to see it go from a fringe idea to one of the main is- sues in the presidential campaign?

NAOMI KleIN: It feels surreal and very exciting that we’re finally actually talking about solutions on the scale of the crisis. It’s been too long in coming. So as exciting as it is, I think any - one immersed in the climate science can’t help but feel a sense of loss about the time that was missed when we could have been doing this.

you begin On Fire by focusing on the recent surge in youth activism. Why is that?

I start the book talking about the youth climate strikes because I think young people are bringing a fierce urgency to the climate crisis, a moral clarity and in the United States have absolutely changed the debate. The Sunrise Movement has organized bril- liantly. They’ve put a huge amount of thought into what the pres- sure points are and how to build a mass movement, drawing on decades if not centuries of work from climate justice and indig- enous organizers. They deserve a lot of credit for that, but it’s dangerous to have any kind of movement that limits itself by fe- tishizing one group over another. The most powerful, long-lasting movements are powerful in part because they recognize the power of having an intergenerational coalition.

In the book, you revisit long-held narratives about white su- premacy and the domination of nature that exist in the United States and other settler-colonial societies.

For a long time now I’ve been trying to understand this thing called climate change denialism. I started by writing about the threat that climate action poses to an extreme free-market world view. If we’re going to take climate change seriously, we need mas- sive investments in the public sphere. We need to reverse privatiza- tion so we actually have the levers to transform our transportation systems and our energy systems. So the whole neoliberal playbook goes out the window. And the climate crisis is also a threat to the fetish for centrism — don’t do anything rash, let’s split the dif- ference, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good — because there’s no way to reconcile that definition of seriousness with the speed at which we need to move and the depth with which we need to change if we take the crisis seriously. I also think the ideological worldview that the climate crisis October 2019 challenges is deeper than either the fetish for liberal centrism or hard right free-market fundamentalism. It’s really a spiritual and narrative crisis that goes to the heart of the stories that under- pin settler-colonial nations like the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil. Nations imagined by europeans as spare countries, embedded in the way they named them: New england, New France, New Amsterdam.

The IndypendenT Lynne Foster The narrative of the frontier is inextricable from the idea of 15

dominating nature and people. And of the original New Deal while being forever cognizant of that’s inextricable from the age of the way it failed millions of people, so many black workers, On FIre FOr A Green fossil fuels and the beginning of cli- women, domestic workers, agricultural workers left unpro- mate change. The first steam engines tected, the systemic discrimination in allocation of relief were marketed as a way of dominat- particularly in Southern states. With all of those reminders ing the natural world because you and caveats and warnings, I think it’s still so important new deAl could sail your ships wherever you because in naming it the Green New Deal, we are reviving wanted, you could build factories a historical memory in people that says: yes, there was a wherever you wanted, wherever labor could be best con- time not so long ago that the United States changed both trolled. It’s always been this story of infinitely abusable, its values and policies at an absolutely staggering scale and infinitely inexhaustible, infinitely dominatable nature. It’s speed and placed at least the aspiration of social care at the always been this small group of powerful people, over- center of its policies. whelmingly men, who are able to dominate nature and the Many people were excluded from the New Deal’s circle people seen as closest to nature whether they are African of care. So the tapestry is complex but reviving that history people, whether they are indigenous people, whether they really flies in the face of the claim from the Jonathan Fran- are women who have so often been associated with nature. zens of the world that we really can’t do this, that humans are too inherently selfish and short-sighted. We need to re- And it continues to this day. vive memories of historical moments where we did come together and change quickly. exactly. When you see people like Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Trump, it’s so clear that their hatred for the you’re talking in favor of some kind of central planning earth, the glee with which they are setting the world on and public ownership. how do you feel about organizing fire is intermingled with their misogyny and racism, which strategies that do incorporate public ownership? is essential to their project. So we have this small group of men dominating and destroying nature and anything as- There are all kinds of incredibly destructive, publicly- sociated with the feminine, anything associated with the owned fossil fuel companies responsible for a huge amount earth. We are in the death throes of this belief. But it’s in of carbon in the atmosphere so public does not equal green. the death throes that we see the worst effects. However, when the levers of ownership are in public or community hands, it’s easier to change than when they are you’re describing neoliberal advanced capitalism at its privately controlled. worst. Are you imagining the next stage we’re building That’s why in Germany we saw hundreds of re-munic- as a socialist or social-democratic stage? ipalizations of the energy grid. It wasn’t ideological. The private companies were refusing to transition to renewable We’re at a crossroads where if we are to avoid truly cat- energy quickly enough. astrophic climate change, we need not only a different You mentioned central planning — I would say we need economic model but truly different narratives at the heart of our project about who we are, about our rela- “We need to revive tionship with nature. Is nature a ma- chine we dominate? Or, are we in a web of life based on all kinds of dif- memories of historiCal ferent interdependent relationships? You can call it ecosocialism, moments Where We did ecofeminism or ecofeminist social- ism. There is no beautiful name for Come together and it. But it’s not industrial socialism, because we know that didn’t reckon with ecological limits. But we are at Change quiCkly.” a crossroads not only for the battle over different economic visions. It is a battle over world- decentralized planning. views and narratives and a reimagining of our place in the The great beauty of renewable energy is that it lends web of life. Do we continue down this path of what in the itself to much smaller-scale ownership and control struc- book I call climate barbarism, a barbaric resurgence of the tures. Because fossil fuels are so expensive to dig up and re- most racist, supremacist dominance-based ideas that were fine and export, it lends itself to monopoly power whether absolutely fundamental to the forming of our nation as a in the hands of public players or private players. Renewable settler-colonial state? energy is lighter, and the inputs are everywhere, whether As more and more people are moving around the world it’s wind or sunlight or wave power so you don’t just need seeking safety, we are seeing a resurgence of that suprema- a few big players. cist worldview in order to justify fortressing our borders. What the experience of Denmark and Germany shows is It means allowing people to drown by the thousands in the when you have community ownership over renewable en- Mediterranean Sea, die in the desert, be separated from ergy, there’s much less pushback against wind farms and their parents in utterly barbaric concentration camps on solar farms because people are having a say over how their the border. Those supremacist ideas ebb and flow in his- communities are being transformed. It’s not just one land- tory and they are always resorted to when needed to justify owner who suddenly sells off their land and gets a bunch barbarism. This has been what the Trump presidency has of money and puts up a bunch of wind turbines. So if you been about since the first days of his campaign. want to move quickly, a commons approach based on com- munal ownership is incredibly practical. We recently saw a different kind of climate response In terms of how we organize, I think we have a long from Jonathan Franzen in the New Yorker. he argues we way to go in terms of organizing every sector in thinking are hopelessly doomed and that there’s not one chance in about what a Green New Deal would mean, whether for 10,000 that humanity can rise to meet all the challenges teachers in schools, nurses in the health care industry, etc. placed in front of it over the next 12 years, as climate What kinds of transitions are necessary that would both scientists warn we must do. What’s your response to battle historic inequalities and injustices, and would get us 2019 October someone like this who identifies as a liberal, accepts the to 100 percent clean energy? That kind of inclusive process science of climate change but doesn’t want his enjoyment is also practical because it would mean more and more peo- of the present to be disturbed by thinking about a future ple would feel a sense of collective ownership of the Green problem that he thinks can’t be solved? New Deal — and they would fight to win it. The IndypendenT The

I don’t know how much I want to engage with Franzen Nancy Romer is the co-founder of NYC People’s Climate specifically, but I believe he’s emblematic of a generation Movement. John Tarleton is the executive editor of The of liberals who believe they’re socially liberal, but who Indypendent. are incredibly suspicious of activism. They think it’s kind of unseemly, have never actually been part of any social movement and don’t believe that societies are capable of great change. That’s why it’s useful to revive the memory 16immigration AFTer The CIVIl door policies for the refugees, sealing its border and limiting their movement within the country. Turkish border guards have been accused by HRW of wAr using “excessive force” to repel Syr- FleeInG VIOlenCe In TheIr hOMelAnd, ian asylum seekers from attempting to cross into Turkey, resulting in injuries SyrIAnS nOw FInd TheMSelVeS hOUnded In and death, and in 2017, Istanbul and nine other provinces on the border with Syria suspended the registration of new TUrKey, A GATewAy TO eUrOpe asylum seekers. Just as the Trump administration Story & Photographs by Jaclynn Ashly has bullied Mexico into thwarting the passage of Central American migrants seeking to reach the U.S. border, stricter ISTANBUl, Turkey — During the Muslim holy month of immigration measures here follow a 2016 deal between Turkey Ramadan, family and friends often gather together during the and the european Union aimed at curbing the passage of refu- night hours, sipping tea and nibbling on sweets after a long day gees to europe, and coincide with a rise in public intolerance of fasting. for the refugees, who are increasingly blamed for an economic For Mustafa al-Mohammed and his family, a certain Rama- downturn in Turkey. dan night in May was all the more special. The day before, In July, reports emerged that Istanbul police were cracking his son, 21-year-old Hisham al-Mustafa, and his son’s wife, down on undocumented migrants, randomly stopping people Mariam, 18, birthed their third child. They named him Shoaib. on the streets to check IDs and raiding apartments. Images and “We always felt very comfortable here in Turkey,” said Mo- videos circulated on social media show Syrians sitting on the hammed, whose family fl ed fi ghting near Aleppo, Syria three fl oor of police vehicles in plastic handcuffs. Reports of refugees years ago and arrived in Istanbul, where they received tempo- being coerced into signing “voluntary” return forms and being rary protection. “We were making a life here and we were al- deported to northern Syria have sent the Syrian refugee com- most happy.” munity into a panic. At about 11:30 p.m. that evening, the family sat on the fl oor Istanbul authorities warn that Syrians registered outside of of their spacious, unfurnished living room in Istanbul’s Bagci- Istanbul have until October 30 to return to the province where lar district, chatting with friends who had come to congratulate they initially registered. Syrians who are unregistered will be them. Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud taken to camps. But reports of even refugees living within the banging on their apartment door. provinces where they registered being deported have sent a A group of police offi cers, armed and wearing bulletproof tremor through the Syrian community, which is becoming in- vests, stormed into the apartment and shouted orders in Turk- creasingly mistrustful of Turkish authorities. ish. “I couldn’t understand anything because I don’t speak The number of refugees who have been deported is diffi cult Turkish,” Mohammed said. to determine, emma Sinclair-Webb, a senior Turkey researcher After searching the house for about two hours, the offi cers for HRW, tells The Indy, but advocates estimate that it is a fate told his son Mustafa to come with them and brought him to a that has already befallen thousands. local police station. The family immediately called a lawyer, who said the detention was routine and that the 21-year-old would most likely be released in a few days. ‘VOLUNTARY’ DEPORTATIONS? Instead, however, Mustafa was transferred to a detention facility and on June 19, along with a busload of other Syrian Turkey is bound by the international customary law of non- refugees, deported to rebel-controlled Idlib, where Syrian and refoulement, which “prohibits the return of anyone to a place Russian bombardments have killed hundreds of people since where they would face a real risk of persecution, torture or late April. other ill-treatment, or a threat to life,” says Sinclair-Webb. “I was shocked,” Mohammed recalled. “My son is legally reg- Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has denied re- istered in Istanbul. He has a family and three children. He was ports that Syrians are being deported, and instead has main- the main provider for our family. How could they deport him?” tained that some refugees “voluntarily want to go back.” Mustafa, desperate to reunite with his family, attempted the “We have introduced policies to ensure that they go to safe dangerous journey across the Turkish-Syrian border numerous areas,” he said in July. times. It involves scaling a more than 450-mile-long cement Critics say Turkey is abusing the voluntary return process. barrier Turkey has erected along its border. each time he was The Istanbul-based We Want to live Together Initiative has caught and sent back. August 5 proved to be his last attempt. interviewed numerous deportees, all of whom were forced into Turkish border guards released a fl urry of bullets at the young signing voluntary return documents, which waived their tempo- man, shooting him to death. rary protection status. Refugees report being coerced into sign- ing the form amid threats of ill-treatment and violence. Others have been threatened with indefi nite detention and some were THE CRACKDOWN forced to sign the document despite not understanding Turkish. “If people are being coerced into signing forms to voluntarily During a recent interview, Mustafa’s young wife Mariam sat on return [to Syria], this constitutes deportation and that’s ille- the fl oor of the family’s living room, holding one of their child gal,” Sinclair-Webb said. in her arms. After news of Hisham al-Mustafa’s death reached the press, “I never thought something like this could happen,” Mariam Soylu alleged that the young man had volunteered to return to told The Indypendent. These were the only words she could muster Syria, claimed Mustafa was arrested for having ties to “terror- before her eyes fl ooded with tears and she could no longer speak. ist organizations” and denied that he was shot at the border. The loud wailing of Fatema al-Khalif, Mustafa’s mother, “Why would he voluntarily return to Syria when his whole fi lled the silence. “If we knew we would face this in Turkey, we family is here?” his father Mohammed said. “It was only after would have stayed in Syria to die,” she said. he was killed that the Turkish government started to tell every- Turkey hosts more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees — more one that he’s connected to terrorist organizations.” than any other country in the world — who have been afford- Under international law, suspicions of criminal activity do ed temporary protection. According to Human Rights Watch not legally nullify a person’s protection status and are not (HRW), half a million of these refugees are registered in Istan- grounds for deportation. bul. Another 350,000 Syrians in Istanbul are reportedly regis- “You can’t just smear someone with the taint of criminal October 2019 tered in other Turkish cities, but have migrated to Istanbul to activity or terrorism to justify deporting them,” said Sinclair- fi nd work. Webb.“You have to follow a due process and investigate the Syrians with kimlik documents — legal papers guarantee- allegations they are accused of.” ing their protection — need special permission to travel outside Allegations of terrorism by the Turkish government are “over- the province where they initially applied for protection. Mean- used and misused to describe activities that don’t even constitute while, tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in Istanbul are not criminal activity,” she added. “It has become a way of smearing registered at all. people, even in the absence of any evidence of criminal activity. It’s

The IndypendenT Over the past few years, Turkey has pulled back its open- a word that is used to stop the debate and repel any criticisms.” 17

gone But not forgotten: Mustafa al- Mohammed holds his dead son’s Turkish I.D. card.

living memory: Shoaib, Hisham al-Mustafa’s son.

‘SICK FROM FEAR’ 2019 RECEPTION+GALA DINNER forCed underground: Randa, a 39-year-old THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2019 Thousands of Syrian Istanbul resident from Damascus, says she is afraid to leave 6:00 pm - 9:30 pm I Plymouth Church refugees in Istanbul like her house for fear of the police. 57 Orange Street, Brooklyn Heights Mustafa’s family are now living in a state of terror. Bayan, a 30-year-old Syrian refu- lice. She noted that many Syrian refugees HONORING gee from Aleppo, is afraid to leave her have stopped speaking Arabic on the house. She is registered in Bursa Prov- street in fear the police will hear them. ince, but moved to Istanbul to fi nd work. “Many of my friends are now thinking “I’ve been living in Turkey for seven of risking it at sea to try and get to europe,” Zephyr Teachout years,” she said. “I have friends here and she said. “It’s not safe here anymore.” for her progressive positions a life. I can’t imagine leaving and start- Other refugees are contemplating sui- and voice on social and ing from zero all over again.” cide, according to Bayan. economic justice issues Bayan works at a Syrian TV station, Back in Istanbul’s Bagcilar district, Mus- about a 40-minute drive from her home tafa’s family continues to mourn his death. in Istanbul. Since the crackdown, she has “We’ve been running for eight years,” Ray Acheson stopped driving her car to work, as the said his mother, Fatema al-Khalif. “And for her leadership as Director license plate identifi es her as a foreigner, just when I think I’ve fi nally found a safe of Reaching Critical Will, and which she worries will make her a target place for my family, they killed my son.” for her indispensable work on for the police. Too afraid to take public The family is desperately seeking re- the United Nations treaty to transportation, where Turkish police of- settlement to another country. ban nuclear weapons ten stop people and check IDs, she takes “We are afraid, and we have no way a taxi, forcing her to pay $26 each day to defend ourselves,” al-Khalif said, just on transportation. clutching her dead son’s identifi ca- Jim Anderson “We’ve heard so many stories about tion card. “All we have is this ID and for his leadership as Director police arresting people, even those who it doesn’t protect us anymore. every day of Peace Action New York are registered in Istanbul,” Bayan told when the night comes, the whole family State, and for his lifelong commitment to peace and The Indy. “It feels like there’s nothing gathers together. We are scared that they PATHMAKERS TO PEACE PATHMAKERS social justice we can do to be safe. I started to feel sick will come and take one of us again.” from fear. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I have fallen into a depression. Now I’m taking medicine just to go to sleep and Info and tickets at bit.ly/ptptix19 stop myself from thinking.” 718-624-5921 “We [Syrians] have tried so hard to live, SUBWAY: A C to High Street; 2 3 to Clark Street but we are not accepted anywhere,” she added. “We are all so scared and at the same time it feels like we have no power to do anything. It’s like we’re not humans.” Randa, 39, a refugee from Damascus, is registered in Sakarya, about a two- hour drive from Istanbul. She has also been avoiding leaving her house unless absolutely necessary. To make matters more complicated, her husband, a Pales- tinian from the northern occupied West Bank, is also living in Istanbul without any documentation. After meeting each other in 2014, he decided to overstay his student visa to be with her. “We obviously can’t go to Syria and she would not be allowed into the West Bank, so this is the only way we can stay together,” he said. Randa says that if she does leave her house, she keeps an eye out for the po-

humanity on the move This is the second in a three-part special series by the Indy’s Jaclynn Ashly that looks at the challenges faced by migrants in Europe and the Middle East at a time when anti-immigrant sentiments are erupting across the world.

Part 1 African migrants fi nd themselves between a rock and a hard place in Malta. 2019 October

Part 2 Turkey yanks the welcome mat for 3.5 million refugees from Syria’s civil war. The IndypendenT The Part 3 Iraq’s Mandean people are trying to start their lives over in Jordan, but the authorities there don’t want them going anywhere near the river water that is sacred to them. CoUrtesy 18

assumption that the distribution of the MedICAre-4-All resources of society should be based en- Continued from page 10 tirely on market transactions. Senators Sanders and Warren are the care insurance system is notoriously two Presidential candidates who have spo- ineffi cient. Only 3% of Medicare’s ex- ken forcefully in support of Medicare for penses today go to cover administrative All, though Warren has also indicated she compared to 25-30% for the insurance might accept a weaker alternative such as corporations. This has created a system “public option” insurance, allowing peo- where the fi rst thing a patient has to do ple under 65 to buy Medicare coverage. when visiting a doctor’s offi ce is speak If either is elected, they will make with the clerical workers who are re- signifi cant contributions to the desper- sponsible for ensuring that the patient’s ately needed health and well-being of the insurance plan will cover the cost. These working class. But while Warren cam- administrative costs are now paid for by paign advocates a continuous process of I DESIGN THE INDY the people they insure. “corrections” to the damages that result The current system is also expen- from unregulated capitalism, Sanders has I DESIGN FOR CHANGE sive for businesses. Most of the largest brought into the arena of public debate U.S. corporations provide some of their the more basic contradiction between I CAN DESIGN FOR YOU workers with health insurance, at a cost capitalism and human rights, and is thus that is often well over $10,000 a year for a more formidable foe than Warren. a family. employers continually try to Warren proclaims herself to be a get workers to pay a bigger share of the “capitalist to my bones” in her support costs, from premiums to copayments to for a market-based economy. But she deductibles. One of the things that pro- sees universal health care as one of many voked the General Motors strike of Sep- “correctives” needed to make capitalism tember was that the company demanded function better. Sanders is a democratic that workers pay 15 percent of the costs socialist who sees Medicare for All as mediCare for all Challenges the assumPtion that the distriBution of soCiety’s resourCes should Be Based entirely on market transaCtions.

of their health insurance, instead of 3 one of the components of a social sys- percent. Another was that GM wants tem in which production is organized to keep using temporary workers, who to meet the needs of people rather than receive few or no benefi ts, as 7 to 10 per- the maximization of profi ts. This is a cent of its total workforce. far more dangerous threat to capital- Why, then, is the U.S. corporate class ism than correcting its “ineffi ciencies.” so opposed to Medicare for All, if it Not all those who support Medicare for would save businesses the expense of pay- All, including Warren, agree with Sand- ing for workers’ health insurance and the ers, but the movement has succeeded in trouble of hiring staff to administer it? raising a challenge to the status quo that The most basic reason is what it promises to continue long past 2020. stands for. In a capitalist society, the need to obtain health care, along with Paddy Quick is a professor emerita of food and shelter, is what requires work- St. Francis College in Brooklyn and a ers to engage in the wage labor that gen- member of the Union for Radical Politi- erates the profi ts of the capitalists. Cor- cal Economics. porations that currently provide some form of health insurance benefi ts are well aware that the fear of losing those benefi ts makes workers more vulnerable to increased work pressure and less able to demand higher wages. But even if corporations as a whole would be better off if the U.S., like most other countries, had an “effi cient” MIKAELhealth care system, they have a more fundamental reason for opposition. The October 2019 most class-conscious capitalists recog- TARKELAnize the danger inherent in the concept that health care is a human right. The GRAPHICgrowing support for Medicare For All is not simply a demand for “more,” like DESIGNthe demand for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. It challenges the very heart of the

The IndypendenT [email protected] capitalist organization of society, the musiC 19

TO The

OUTer CoUrtesy

shouting lIMITS out: Miles Solay of ‘STArT A FUCK’n BAnd,’ The Outernational. ClASh’S JOe STrUMMer Benefi t shows and de- colonizing concerts have blossomed, with proceeds TOld MIleS SOlAy. he dId. being donated to activist and legal aid groups like By Celestina Billington No Mas Muertes and RAÍCeS. Recently Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff pledged I dream of fi re but I sleep so cold to match all donations to initiatives support- I raise the red fl ag on the Alamo ing children at the border up to $10,000. I want to show you how our lives unfold Though musicians across genres have been Deep inside underneath it all. participating in the movement, unsurpris- ingly, the loudest among them have been hese are the opening lyrics of the punks. Groups like Outernational and FOllOw The Outernational’s most popular deafening hardcore thrashers Junta are uti- song, “Todos Somos Ilegales,” lizing every method at their disposal — from or we are all illegals. The revo- social media to the stage — to give voice to lutionary ballad decrying the the resistance. injusticeT of the border system and American Solay founded Outernational with bassist IndypendenT hypocrisy was produced by Tom Morello of Jesse Williams. The two met at Revolution Rage Against the Machine and served as the Books in Manhattan as teenagers during we’re MOre ThAn A newSpAper. yOU CAn title track for the band’s second record — a the mid-1990s and quickly began collabo- concept album, a journey north. rating. At 15, Miles smooth-talked his way nOw GeT All OUr lATeST newS COVerAGe “On the one hand you bring lived ex- backstage at a taping of Saturday Night live perience — the hopes, dreams, aspirations, where Rage Against the Machine was head- And AnAlySIS VIA fucking courage and sacrifi ce of being driv- lining. There he forged a lifelong friendship en from your homeland and leaving every- with Morello, which eventually led to the thing behind,” says Outernational frontman “Todos Somos Ilegales” collab. Red Hot and cofounder Miles Solay, discussing the Chili Peppers’ drummer Chad Smith and sojourn the record seeks to convery. Puerto Rican rapper Residente also appear “You basically risk life and limb to just in the song. OUr weeKly newS ShOw On wBAI-99.5 FM be able to survive,” he said, wearing a t- Yet by far the biggest infl uence on the shirt with a black and white print of a Pan- band’s diverse style — which features AIrS MOndAyS 6:00-6:30 cho Villa-esque fi gure on it, the name of sounds common in reggae, mariachi, hip his band emblazoned above. “On the other hop and punk — is the Clash. hand, you are forced to come to a country When Solay and Williams were fi rst that is responsible for so much immiseration beginning to jam together they met for- and suffering all over the world, but in par- mer Clash frontman Joe Strummer at an ticular those very same freaking countries after-hours bar. “It was like seven in the that so many people are forced to leave to morning,” Solay recalls. “He leaned in like www.IndypendenT.OrG come here.” kissing close, and was sort of like, ‘Start Released as a single eight years ago, on a fuck’n band.’ And you know, my whole the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that face got wet.” found Arizona had run afoul of the Consti- like his heroes, Solay sees his work as tution when the state’s governor deputized emblematic of his social responsibility as local law enforcement to scrutinize anyone an artist. FACeBOOK.COM/TheIndypendenT suspected of being an undocumented resi- He has some advice for his fans: “even dent, “Todos Somos Ilegales” continues to if you’re in America, which is on the top of

@TheIndypendenT 2019 October resonate in the age of Trump. the trash heap of humanity, don’t turn away. The single’s initial popularity led to op- Don’t turn away from the connectedness of portunities for Outernational at festivals in humanity and how integrated everything is. europe and latin America, with appear- It’s time to get out of the comfort zone. That ances at the likes of SXSW and Viva latino! will require courage. I don’t mean courage The tours continued up until 2015, when like ‘I’m so tough.’ I mean courage like epis- IndypendenT The the musicians took a sabbatical to reboot. temological courage. If you start searching, SIGn Up AT IndypendenT.OrG But recently they’ve picked back up, joining really searching for the answers, then you a growing latinx music scene here in New gotta keep digging, even if it challenges some York, where, across the city, musicians are of your most deeply held assumptions.” responding to the racist ideologies shaping the nation’s border policy with imagination, charisma and zeal. SOUndClOUd.COM/The-IndypendenT 20film JIMMy hOFFA IS BACK

The Irishman Dir. Martin Scorsese Opens Nov. 1, Netfl ix Nov. 27 typically shoots mostly on fi lm, but Steve Zaillian’s script 70 percent of this movie was shot takes great delight in fi nd- dead man digitally with two cameras, which ing humor in the darkest of Walking: Al Pacino By Robert Ross he described as “three-eyed mon- scenarios, resulting in many as Jimmy Hoffa in the sters.” They permit digital aging laugh-out-loud moments — Irishman. without the actors having to wear mobsters bicker and quibble artin Scorsese’s The Irishman, his lat- any kind of mapping devices. over social niceties, punc- est cinematic exploration of the world The director has talked openly about some of his tuality and fi sh, while nonchalantly committing heinous of organized crime, is perhaps one of reservations about this technical breakthrough, and al- crimes. It’s the inherent humanity of these characters that the most widely anticipated fi lms of the though he has stated that the unfamiliar equipment did allows us more access to their inner selves. The fi lm be- year, but those looking forward to sit- not slow down production, it may have played a role in comes much more than a retelling of mobster apocrypha Mting down to the visual feast we have grown to expect from determining the “look” of the fi lm. and lore, arriving at a meditative and thoughtful rumina- one of America’s defi nitive directors may be disappointed. The fi rst look at a de-aged De Niro, provokes un- tion on what it is to be a man, which one can expect from The opening scene of the fi lm, one of 309 scenes shot easiness, as he at times resembles an action fi gure from a director and cast who are well into their seventies. over a period of 108 days, in 117 separate locations, Robert Zemeckis’ Welcome To Marwen. But as the fi lm By comparison, the female characters are given short promises the usual fare. The camera snakes down a series unfolds in a largely chronological fashion, albeit in the shrift. It is a pity that an actor as talented as Anna Pa- of hallways in a long dolly shot, eventually coming to rest context of a fl ashback narrative, this uneasiness fades quin is given little more than scowls and withering stares in a closeup of Robert De Niro, portraying Mafi a hitman and one begins to appreciate the real genius of the lead- to elucidate the eternally complex nature of a daughter’s Frank Sheeran, the eponymous Irishman. This opening ing players in our story. relationship with her murderous father. shot, a signature of Scorsese’s, proves to be only a teaser. Pesci delivers an understated and rock-solid perfor- It’s a good thing that The Irishman will be stream- netFLIX

Sure, all the ingredients are there — the sea of famil- mance as mob boss Russell Bufalino, Frank Sheeran’s ing on Netfl ix after its limited run in the movie houses, iar faces, De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel. The mentor. One gets the feeling that this may be the last because this is a banquet of a fi lm that cannot be fully smoke-fi lled nightclubs, the back-alley assignations and we see of Pesci, which would be a shame, but it lends his appreciated in one sitting. I for one will defi nitely be go- public assassinations, the paradoxical pathology of felo- performance an entirely appropriate fatalism. De Niro’s ing back for seconds. nious family men who discuss the merits of meat sauce Frank Sheeran is an uncomplicated man who proceeds and machine guns in equal measure. through life with a resignation and stolidity that plays However, unlike Scorsese’s earlier Mafi a movies, most effectively in the scenes he shares with Al Pacino, Goodfellas and Casino, which snap and crackle as they who gives us some of his best work in years, as mobbed- barrel through their respective stories, propelled by Thel- up Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Pacino’s Hoffa ma Schoonmaker’s unique editing and Scorsese’s fond- is a garrulous force of nature that elbows and barges his ness for dolly shots, smash cuts and sudden zooms, The way through the movie. Irishman moves more like its hero, a 6’4”, 250-pound Prior to his disappearance in 1975, Hoffa was trying October 2019 lumbering menace who proceeds with the measured pace to claw his way back into power. Before going to prison of a large man in no hurry to get where he’s going. eight years earlier, he’d headed what was then the larg- Scorsese largely abandons his usual tropes for a more est union in the country, which he’d done a lot to build generic style, a decision that may in part have been dic- up. The Teamsters controlled virtually all over-the-road tated by the new technology he’s working with for the trucking, and their leadership was spectacularly cor- fi rst time. Much has been speculated regarding the use of rupt. Their massive pension fund attracted all sorts of the Industrial light and Magic de-aging technology that unsavory characters — who Scorsese portrays more as

The IndypendenT enables actors to play characters half their age. Scorsese charmingly inept uncles than menaces to society. fiCtion heritage 21 A pArISIAn preSenT InTrUdeS

has the emotional where- On A lOnG ISlAnd withal to broach these top- ics. even more worrisome, pAST he has to accept that raising them might hasten Helen’s death or drive an even big- The Art of Regret ger wedge between them. By Mary Fleming This is big stuff and the She Writes Press, Oct. 22 novel does not tackle these issues within a linear time- frame. Instead, long be- By Eleanor Bader fore the Big Reveal, a host of things happen. Among them, a prolonged tran- t the start of Mary Fleming’s sit strike forces the city’s people to become insightful second novel, The bike riders, fi lling Trevor’s once-moribund Art of Regret, Paris resident shop with eager customers. Indeed, the vol- Trevor McFarquhar is some- ume becomes so overwhelming that Trevor thing of a sad sack. hires an assistant, an undocumented Polish AThe bike shop he owns is barely bring- immigrant who quickly makes himself in- ing in enough money to pay the rent on his dispensable. In addition, a stroke of seren- shabby, under-furnished, studio apartment dipity brings a dog into Trevor’s life, giving and he and his fi nancially successful young- his days an unfamiliar but oddly comforting er brother, mom and stepfather barely talk routine and structure. lastly, there’s his re- to one another, having settled into a thor- lationship with Stephanie, an inappropriate oughly superfi cial relationship several de- sexual partner — or maybe an unhealthy cades back. He’s pushing 40, has few friends obsession — that he knows cannot and and wants only “casuals” — multiple-night should not be sustained. stands with comely young women that in- As is obvious, there’s a lot going on in clude neither strings nor emotional intimacy. The Art of Regret. Furthermore, the streets And although Trevor once dreamed of both working-class and bourgeois Paris of becoming a professional documentary are presented in vivid detail. So, too, are photographer, a serious bike accident right political observations about social class, tyrone WALLACe before he was scheduled to mount his fi rst discrimination against immigrants, the exhibition as an up-and-coming twenty- sexual politics of family life and the per- something derailed his career, leaving him vasive belief that a heterosexual couple is mired in low-level depression, a condition he incomplete without children. Relationship has done nothing to shake. ethos are probed as are the limits of friend- What’s more, he’s haunted by the past ship and personal autonomy. In addition, a and the deaths, one year apart, of his sis- well-crafted denouement that addresses rec- ter and father. The family had been living onciliation — the healing that often accom- in long Island, New York, when fi ve-year- panies forgiving those who trespass against old Franny was hit by a car. A year later, his us — gives the novel added heft as well as dad tumbled off the roof of their home while intellectual staying power. supposedly securing a television antenna. Beautifully written, tender, evocative,

But was his death really an accident? Or and moving, The Art of Regret is a cogent ALL PHotos JIMIn KIM did his dad commit suicide? reminder that risk-taking is essential to a Trevor only knows what he was told as well-lived life. Trevor’s bravery in speaking a 10-year-old kid, but he continues to stew to his mother about long-suppressed issues in confusion and grief; this reaction is made pays off, allowing him to parse the past with worse by his mom’s silence about what actu- an adult understanding of mourning and its ally happened. Other questions also nag at aftereffects, and open himself up to deeper BeATInG The him. Why, for example, did his mom move relationships with friends and potential the family to Paris almost immediately after mates. It’s hopeful and realistic, inspiring 2019 October these tragedies occurred? Why did she mar- and heartfelt. ry edmond, a Parisian fi nancier, so quickly? No one wants to die staring down a drUM even more important, why didn’t they ever bushel of regrets or lamenting a roster of talk about Franny? Had his mother com- should-haves. Both Helen and Trevor pro- The annual Bronx Native American and food. Bobby Gonzalez, a Taino poet pletely forgotten their earliest years as sub- voke us to fi gure out ways to make sure that Festival, brought together hundreds of and lifelong Bronx resident, founded IndypendenT The urban Americans? we confront our demons, push boundaries members of indigenous communities the festival 25 years ago. Flash forward 30 years and Trevor’s and live as fully as possible. I, for one, want in the Western Hemisphere on Sept. 29. mom, Helen, is now dying of cancer. This to thank Mary Fleming for the reminder. The gathering celebrates, and works — INDYPENDENT STAFF gives Trevor an urgent, now-or-never open- to preserve and pass down indigenous ing to probe topics he had long assumed were cultures through dance, poetry, song verboten. The situation is, of course, highly fraught and Trevor has to determine if he 22BOOKS

LEFT TURN: Jacobin editor and publisher OLD WORDS, NEW Bhaskar Sunkara has helped make socialism MEANINGS relevant again. racial divisions. Nor does the intense itation workers in Memphis, The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics In An Era of Extreme connectivity that has turned every Tennessee, which socialist DEMOCRACY, Inequality waking hour into a stew of work, sympathizer Martin Luther NOW?: Astra Taylor By Bhaskar Sunkara consumerism, social life, fi nancial King was supporting when he explores the meaning of Hachette Book Group, April 2019 management, and more factor in. was assassinated there? democracy in her new Above all, the threat to existence In the fi nal part of The book. Democracy May Not Exist But We Will Miss It When It’s Gone posed by the rapacious exhaustion of Socialist Manifesto, Sunkara By Astra Taylor the natural environment gets only a maps out a strategy for the Henry Holt, May 2019 perfunctory mention. Speculative fi c- U.S. socialist movement that, unsurprisingly, fails to ac- tion is nice, but if the starting point knowledge signifi cant social actors besides the socialist doesn’t really resemble the present, movement itself and the labor movement. Nevertheless, he By Steven Sherman what is the point? and his peers at Jacobin have dragged the idea of socialism Sunkara goes on to outline a his- out of sectarian corners and academic margins and thrust it tory of capitalism and socialism. He into the mainstream of the American left and even into elec- nly 10 years ago, the meanings of “democ- locates the beginning of capitalism in 18th-century England toral politics. It is a thrilling development, even if it will fall racy” and “socialism” seemed stable in the with the birth of the industrial working class, ignoring the on other writers to fi gure out how all of that stuff Sunkara United States. The U.S. was a democracy, European conquest of the Americas and the creation of has pushed from the margins transforms the analysis. while socialism Leaving things out isn’t had few defend- likely to be a criticism hurled Oers outside of marginal corners at Astra Taylor’s book. In over of academia and cultish groups 300 pages, Democracy May no one paid attention to. Most Not Exist But We Will Miss radical activists would say that It When It is Gone spans sev- they were promoting “social eral millennia, and touches on justice” (or “racial” or “glob- not just virtually all of the top- al” justice). Although Vermont ics noted above, but also the Sen. Bernie Sanders, an avowed democratic rights of rivers or democratic socialist, had been animals. The bulk of the book in Washington for close to two is seven chapters focused on an- decades, few paid much mind. tinomies of democratic theory: Things are very different freedom and equality, confl ict now. We have a president who and consensus, inclusion and disrespects such basic demo- exclusion, coercion and choice, cratic norms as elections and spontaneity and structure, ex- the rule of law. Simultane- pertise and mass opinion, local ously, critiques of the undemo- and global. The book’s conclu- cratic nature of the Electoral sion adds two more: optimism College and the Senate have and pessimism, and the tension become more widespread, rais- between historical precedent

ing the question of how much ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG and governing in the name of of a democracy the U.S. really the present or future. is. Sanders has reshaped dis- Those pairings are well course in the Democratic Par- chosen, speaking to deep ten- ty, and in his wake, the Demo- sions in understanding what cratic Socialists of America democracy is and could be. To has fl ourished. explore them, Taylor incorpo- Two highly relevant new rates wide-ranging historical books take socialism and examples and interviews with democracy as their respec- academics, politicians, activ- tive topics. Bhaskar Sunkara, ists and many others, including founding editor and publisher what might be called the wis- of Jacobin magazine, seeks dom of “ordinary” people. to sharpen our understand- Ancient Athens and the ing of socialism’s history and American Revolution are its potential in The Socialist particularly important touch- Manifesto. Filmmaker and stones, with the former often author Astra Taylor seeks to presented positively, while a reground democracy in far very critical light is brought to more utopian terms than the bear on the founding fathers liberal resistance to Donald of the United States. There are Trump, with Democracy May occasional standout passages,

Not Exist But We Will Miss COLUMBIA GSAPP such as Taylor’s description It When It is Gone. Both are of the democratic governance well worth reading, despite of pirate ships and the federa- their limitations. trans-Atlantic slavery more than two centuries earlier. As tions of native peoples before the settler colonization of The Socialist Manifesto begins with speculative fi ction in the fi rst chapter, wage laborers are foregrounded at the North America. about how a worker at the bottling plant for Bon Jovi Pasta expense of other hierarchical identities. But at times Taylor’s focus gets lost amidst. Democracy, Sauce (a real company) might experience change under the A brief history of socialist parties follows. This is the when wrenched out of specifi c contexts, can be a pretty fuzzy existing rules of the United States, Sweden, and a socialist strongest part of the book. Sunkara judiciously maps the term, and here it starts to mean something like “the ideal future that follows the populist presidency of Bruce Spring- challenges and dilemmas faced by early socialists, and his society.” The problem is that evaluating societies in terms of steen. This is an amusing premise, but I also found it odd. assessments are balanced, rather than crude cheerleading for whether they live up to principles like equality and inclusion Although plenty of American workers do work in factories, one fi gure or another. But as he moves to the history of the may be at odds with evaluating whether the mechanisms to most do not, and service workers and public-sector workers post-World War II globe, he shows no interest in the efforts give people a voice and democratic control over their leaders face different challenges. toward unity in the Global South led by developing nations are actually functioning. October 2019 Given what Americans pay for housing, medical care, in the 1970s or in the renewed internationalism of the World Democracy May Not Exist But We Will Miss It When and to borrow money, it is unclear whether more surplus is Social Forum. Nor does he have much to say about the ex- It is Gone is thus best seen as a spur to debate, raising far fl owing into the hands of capitalists through workplace ex- plosion of social movements in the 1960s in the U.S. Can more questions than it answers. Taylor only briefl y touches ploitation or through rent-seeking. Sunkara ignores this and the story of American socialism be told without a glance at on how her queries relate to socialism, but that’s a question other matters that make present-day political economy more the way struggle rooted in black communities became class well worth delving further into. complicated than workers vs. owners/bosses. He doesn’t dis- struggle — for instance, the black-led autoworkers’ Revo- cuss the transformation of American family life by the im- lutionary Union Movement in Detroit? Without the role of

THE INDYPENDENT perative that all able-bodied adults should be working, nor Malcolm X or the Black Panthers, or the 1968 strike by san- 23 International Publishers

Upcoming Events at The Peoples Forum  First join International Publishers on Saturday October 12th at the People’s Book Fair. From 10:30AM on. At The People’s Forum 320 W. 37th St. in Manhattan .  Then on Thursday October 18th beginning at 4PM Dr. Gerald Horne will present om his book, White Suprem- acy Confronted  In November on Thursday the 14th Marc Brodine will be at The People’s Forum to discuss and sign his book, Green Strategy . A discussion of the tactics necessary for the 21st century environmental movement from a Marxist perspective  Finally in December, on the 12th join professor An- drew Zimmerman who will discuss his book, The Civil War in the United States.—a compilation of he writings of Marx, Engels, Weydemeyer and DuBois on the U.S. Civil war; compiled, translated introduced by professor Zimmerman Jon QUILty trumP dePression Visit our website www.intpubnyc.com hotline or call: 212-366-9816 hi Billy, fi nal days, we can tell the truth by giving. I love living in a city that is so open and let them in! let us out! let them in! welcoming to immigrants from other Hear us shout! countries. I also think this country could take in a lot more immigrants and be just fi ne. But I fi nd myself scratching my • • • head when you and others call for “no borders.” how would that work? If 50 million or a 100 million or a billion people dear Rev Billy, suddenly came pouring into the country, After all the horrible things Trump’s done, there wouldn’t be enough schools for their he’s being busted for a shady telephone children, houses for them to live in or food call with the president of Ukraine. I prob- for them to eat. ably shouldn’t be picky. What do you make of the situation? — JAMeS, Sunnyside — LOUISe, Mott haven

Dear JAMeS, Possibly, you’re white. Me too, and let me As Trump comes apart, we are surprised SUBSCrIBe TOdAy! say this: That feeling of ‘what-if-they-all- by his delicacy. He’s like a balloon sputter- GeT The Indy delIVered STrAIGhT TO yOUr hOMe eVery MOnTh come-and-overwhelm-us?’ is sneaky at fi rst, ing all over the room, his sentences spew- like the fi rst signs of the common cold, but ing out. He has the innocence of a broken you have to catch it early, because this is robot. He’s shouting “Treason!” at people yOU dOn’T wAnT TO MISS A SInGle ISSUe eARlY ONSeT RACISM! If you don’t he’s can’t fi nd. He’s haunted. He wants to catch it, you can, as you get older, turn into execute the whistle-blower, but he wants to 12 ISSUeS $30 • 24 ISSUeS $54 Mitch McConnell. “interview” her. look at what you’ve said here, James, in The thing is, he is a lonely man who is as your tone of Christian selfl essness. By wel- crazy as the systems that he inherited when coming and not welcoming simultaneously, he won the election. Our neo-liberal econ- IndypendenT.OrG/SUBSCrIBe you are summing up the contradiction of omy, for instance, is complete nonsense. late-stage America. We invite the world by every object and every dream is for sale. Or Send CheCK Or MOney Order TO our marketing seductions to the phantasia of Trump is a heavy-hitting clown who rose a clean, safe suburb, while we just as strenu- to be as ridiculous and evil as the prevailing The IndypendenT ously disinvite with red-lining, toxic traffi c, culture. We need to fi gure out precisely how 2019 October bad jobs and murderous police. The lie of we invented him. 388 ATlAnTIC AVe, 2nd Fl democracy hurts those who fi nd their best BrOOKlyn, ny 11217 selves appealed to, their hopes lifted. Mean- — ReV while, it schizzes those of us who copped the privilege. We realize that we’re winners in a IndypendenT The vicious Ponzi scheme. REVEREND BILLY & SAVITRI D’S CHURCH OF look, James, the billion people are com- STOP SHOPPING PERFORM AT JOE’S PUB AT ing anyway. Our climate violence is forcing THE PUBLIC THEATER ON SUNDAY AFTER- The the results of our rapacious economy across NOONS FROM THANKSGIVING TO CHRISTMAS. our borders. Best to offer not a guilty apol- ogy, but a gift economy. Invite everyone in and share everything we can. Now, in these IndypendenT ANNOUNCING THE NEW WBAI 2019 SCHEDULE: W B A I Progressive + Provocative Programming pacifica radio 99.5fm Streaming online + Listen on Demand at WBAI.ORG • 99.5 FM

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY 5:00 Making Contact Back of the Book / Host: Lisa Rudman Rape Forum In Other News Earth Mum Radio Equal Time for Black Seinfeld What’s The Free Thought 5-5:30am Frequency Kenneth Host: Geoff Brady 5:30 Host: Earth Mum Host: Rebecca Myles 5-6am Host: Arnell Dowret Host: Psyche, Nithsa The Laura 5-6am Host: Martin / Fischer 5-6am 5-6am Flanders Show 5-6am 5:30-6am 5-6am 6:00 City Watch Jimmy Dore Gospel Rising Up with Sonali Everything Old Host: Jeff Simmons Host: Sonali Kolhatkar 6-7am Show is New Again Challenge 6-7am 6-7am Host: Host: Dave Kenny 7:00 Rev. Ray Blanchette Waking Up Host: Forlano & Downey 7-8am 6-8am 6-8am 8:00 Dreamleapers Democracy Now! Host: Goodman, González, Shaikh 8-9am Any Saturday Hos t: Harriet Cole 8-9am Host: 9:00 Equal Rights Equal Rights Law & Disorder Clearing The Fog The Aware Show David Rothenberg Here of a & Justice & Justice Host: Smith & Bogosian Hosts: Margaret Flowers Host: Lisa Garr Sunday Morning & Kevin Zeese Host: Mimi Rosenberg Host: Mimi Rosenberg 8-10am 9-10am 9-10am 9-10am 9-10am 9-10am Host: Chris Whent 10:00 Bike Snob Black Platform Talk Out of School Black Star News On the Count Host: Mangual & Ward Host: Haimson, Burris Morning Irsay 9-11am Host: Eben Weiss Host: Bertha Lewis Host: Milton Allimadi 10-11am 10-11am 10-11am 10-11am 10-11am Host: James Irsay 11:00 New York, From the Streets Living for The City Positive Mind Code Pink Radio 10-Noon with Bob Law Radio Free Host: Michael G. Haskins Host: O'Donoghue, We + Thee Hosts: Benjamin, Eirann Starr, Diemer Hosts: McCourt & McDonagh Evans & Co. 11-Noon 11-Noon 11-Noon 11-Noon 11-Noon Hosts: McCourt Noon Gary Null Show & McDonagh The Gary Null Show Noon-1pm 1-2pm 11am-1pm

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