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H The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. —Karl Marx H JULY/AUGUST 2016 VOL. 16 NO. 4

When Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” she spoke perhaps unconsciously for millions of America’s victims in faraway places. Read Get Ready for Another World War on page 17.

On the Front Cover: s Capitalism is destroying the planet. Read Replanting Paradise on page 2.

French citizens take to the streets to stand up against the One Percent’s relentless attacks on living standards. Read French Stand Up on page 51.

Replanting Paradise - Page 2 Let Them Drown, The Violence of Othering in a Warming World - Page 4 Once More on the European Union - Page 32 Supporting the “lesser evil,” because we can’t live with a Trump victory, is a tacit admission that the status quo is tolerable. Read Leap Manifesto - Page 49 Trumpophobia on page 19.

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT BC Muhammad Ali Fighter for Palestine By Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

On the occasion of the passing of leg- United States, and as a force against “U.S. my people is here. I will not disgrace endary athlete and struggler for justice, imperialism worldwide. He wrote poetry my religion, my people or myself by Muhammad Ali, Samidoun Palestinian in tribute to the Black leaders of the Attica becoming a tool to enslave those Prisoner Solidarity Network joins mil- prison uprising. At the height of his who are fighting for their own jus- lions around the world in remembering career, Muhammad Ali refused to fight in tice, freedom and equality. Ali’s historic legacy of commitment to the Vietnam War in 1967, was sentenced “If I thought the war was going to the liberation of oppressed peoples and to five years in prison and stripped of his bring freedom and equality to 22 mil- his willingness to sacrifice in order to title. When asked about his refusal while lion of my people they wouldn’t have adhere to those principles. participating in a Louisville housing jus- to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my tice struggle, Ali said: In 1985, Ali traveled to Israel in an beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? attempt to secure the release of Lebanese “Why should they ask me to put on We’ve been in jail for 400 years.” and Palestinian prisoners imprisoned a uniform and go 10,000 miles from in occupied Southern Lebanon. This home and drop bombs and bullets on Dave Zirin writes, “Ali’s refusal to fight followed on his visits to Palestinian Brown people in Vietnam while so- in Vietnam was front-page news all over refugee camps in 1974, when he called Negro people in Louisville are the world. In Guyana there was a picket of declared in Beirut that, “the United treated like dogs and denied simple support in front of the U.S. embassy. In States is the stronghold of Zionism and human rights? No I’m not going Karachi, young Pakistanis fasted. And imperialism.” While visiting Palestinian 10,000 miles from home to help mur- there was a mass demonstration in refugee camps in South Lebanon, he der and burn another poor nation Cairo.” While Ali’s later de-politicization simply to continue the domination of declared, “In my name and the name of and cooperation with the U.S. govern- white slave masters of the darker peo- all Muslims in America, I declare sup- ment speak to a more complex legacy, the ple the world over. This is the day national and international resonance of port for the Palestinian struggle to lib- when such evils must come to an end. erate their homeland and oust the his resistance to imperialism in the 1960s Zionist invaders.” “I have been warned that to take and 1970s at the height of his athletic such a stand would cost me millions greatness echoed around the world. Ali championed the Black liberation of dollars. But I have said it once and struggle on multiple fronts; within the I will say it again. The real enemy of Ali’s history of struggle illustrates the lengthy and deep history of joint struggle and mutual solidarity among oppressed peoples and national libera- tion movements, and that Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon—and the Black Liberation Movement—were centers and incubators not only for the Palestinian revolution and Black strug- gle, but revolutionary movements the world over. We recall Ali’s role in rep- resenting a deep and collective legacy of resistance to imperialism, to anti- Black racism, and to Zionism, and of the struggle to free prisoners—and peoples—from the jails these systems of oppression create. —Samidoun, June 5, 2016 http://samidoun.net/2016/06/ remembering-muhammad-ali-i- declare-support-for-the-palestinian- struggle-to-liberate-their-homeland/

FC SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 SocialistViewpoint July/August 2016 Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT www.socialistviewpoint.org CONTENTS email: [email protected] (415) 824-8730 Environment Fidel Castro and Cuba ...... 40 Replanting Paradise ...... 2 By Solomon Comissiong By Bonnie Weinstein Belgium ...... 42 Let Them Drown ...... 4 By Erik Demeester By Naomi Klein Imperialism’s Junior Partners ...... 44 No Water For You! ...... 10 By Patrick Bond By Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo Brazil ...... 47 America’s Next Flint ...... 12 By Glen Ford By Stuart Smith Peña Nieto’s Murderous Regime ...... 48 Great Canada Fire ...... 13 By Jorge Martin By Paul Street Leap Manifesto ...... 49 French Stand Up ...... 51 U.S. Politics and the Economy By Richard Greeman Get Ready for Another World War ...... 17 By John Pilger Incarceration Nation Trumpophobia ...... 19 Times May Have Changed, But The Truth Hasn’t . 54 By Robert Meeropol By Kevin Cooper Orlando Massacre ...... 20 Censorship in U.S. Prisons ...... 54 By Chelsea E. Manning By Jaan Laaman Freddie Gray Case ...... 21 Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Fourth of July ...... 55 By Glen Ford By Chris Hedges Detroit Teacher’s Strike ...... 22 Wrongful Convictions ...... 57 By Glen Ford By Lorenzo Johnson More Than a Few Rogue Cops ...... 23 Political Prisoner Reverend Pinkney ...... 58 By Mary Anne Henderson and Brian Platt By Glen Ford Guns in America ...... 27 Child Lifers ...... 59 By Steven Katsineris By Shakaboona “Disposable” Americans ...... 30 September 9th Strike ...... 60 By Paul Buchheit By Margaret Kimberley Catastrophe Unmasked ...... 31 Security Threat Group “Kickouts” ...... 61 By Nayvin Gordon, M.D. By Jose Villarreal International Out of Order ...... 64 Once More on the European Union ...... 32 By Wilbert Saunders, Jazz the Poet By Tony McKenna Book Reviews Britain: Heads They Win, Tails We Lose ...... 37 Criminal Injustice ...... 65 Editorial By Socialist Appeal, Britain By Chris Hedges Brexit ...... 38 Lies Military Recruiters Tell ...... 68 By Mumia Abu-Jamal By Ron Jacobs South Africa’s Gold Miners ...... 39 By Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo Just In From Facebook ...... 70

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Vol.Vol.Vol. 16, 16,3, No.No. 244 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 1

Environment ENVIRONMENT Replanting Paradise A socialist revolution is the only solution By Bonnie Weinstein

Naomi Klein delivered this year’s and water can be sacrificed to open- ed in this issue of Socialist Viewpoint. Edward Said lecture in London on May pit mining and oil spills.” As in Klein’s piece, it takes on the 5, 2016 titled “Let Them Drown: The And she does blame capitalism: “extractive economy.” Violence of Othering in a Warming “These ways of explaining our It starts from the premise that: World” reprinted in this issue of current circumstances have a very “Deepening poverty and inequal- Socialist Viewpoint. specific, if unspoken meaning: that ity are a scar on the country’s pres- It accurately depicts the connection humans are a single type, that ent. And Canada’s record on climate between climate catastrophe, war and human nature can be essentialized change is a crime against humanity’s oppression, and blames the profit- to the traits that created this crisis. future. In this way, the systems that certain driven capitalist system itself. “These facts are all the more jar- humans created, and other humans ring because they depart so dramati- But it does not promote the only powerfully resisted, are completely cally from our stated values: respect alternative, the overthrow of capitalism let off the hook. Capitalism, colo- for Indigenous rights, international- and the establishment of a world-wide, nialism, patriarchy—those sorts of ism, human rights, diversity, and democratically organized, socialist systems. Diagnoses like this erase the environmental stewardship.” economy, controlled by the working very existence of human systems class, and based upon human need and that organized life differently: sys- It proposes progressive reforms that not profit. tems that insist that humans must would improve environmental and think seven generations in the social conditions. And, like Klein, Instead, Klein uses the term, “extrac- future; must be not only good citi- acknowledges that: tive economy,” i.e., an economy based zens but also good ancestors; must “We know that the time for this upon the extraction of natural resourc- take no more than they need and great transition is short. Climate es such as gas, oil and minerals, as give back to the land in order to scientists have told us that this is the opposed to renewable resources such protect and augment the cycles of decade to take decisive action to regeneration.” as solar, wind, etc., as the cause of the prevent catastrophic global warm- climate crisis. And while she puts This is where she should argue for ing. That means small steps will no blame on the fundamental economic socialism, but her conclusion falls longer get us where we need to go.” structure of capitalism—she does not short: call for the overthrow of capitalism and What’s different and encouraging “The most important lesson to about The Leap Manifesto is that it the establishment of a socialist society. take from all this is that there is no does present a program for change: Klein does give many powerful way to confront the climate crisis as examples of how capitalism and its a technocratic problem, in isolation. “A leap to a non-polluting econ- dependence upon institutional racism It must be seen in the context of omy creates countless openings for similar multiple ‘wins.’ We want a is destroying the environment and austerity and privatization, of colo- universal program to build energy entire countries in its relentless pursuit nialism and militarism, and of the various systems of othering needed efficient homes, and retrofit existing of more power leading to more profits: to sustain them all.” housing, ensuring that the lowest “Fossil fuels aren’t the sole driver income communities and neighbor- of climate change—there is indus- The Leap Manifesto hoods will benefit first and receive trial agriculture, and deforesta- But Klein is not alone in her avoid- job training and opportunities that tion—but they are the biggest. And ance of calling for a socialist revolution reduce poverty over the long term. the thing about fossil fuels is that as the only solution. We want training and other resourc- they are so inherently dirty and toxic es for workers in carbon-intensive that they require sacrificial people In Canada there’s a new document jobs, ensuring they are fully able to and places: people whose lungs and called “The Leap Manifesto, A Call for take part in the clean energy econo- bodies can be sacrificed to work in a Canada Based on Caring for the my. This transition should involve the coal mines, people whose lands Earth and One Another,” also reprint- the democratic participation of

2 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 workers themselves. High-speed rail Capitalism’s profit-motive of pro- Socialism is the answer powered by renewables and afford- duction can’t be anything else but The fundamental fact is, capitalism able public transit can unite every extractive and disruptive can’t be reformed. Sure we can win a community in this country—in few reforms here and there and we place of more cars, pipelines and It has nothing to do with individual exploding trains that endanger and decision-making, altruism, and the must continue to unite to fight for divide us.” goodwill of capitalists or “capitalist these reforms. And it accurately connects our cur- democracy,” which isn’t democracy at But ultimately, the capitalist class rent ecological and social crisis to all. That’s why it can’t make these logi- must be overthrown and a democrati- unprecedented private wealth: cal reforms—even to save the very cally organized working class must take planet we share. their place; just as production for prof- “One thing is clear: public scar- it must be replaced by production for city in times of unprecedented pri- Modern society has the knowledge vate wealth is a manufactured crisis, and the technology to make the world the needs and wants of the majority, designed to extinguish our dreams a paradise, but the very economic and the health and safety of our planet. before they have a chance to be structure of capitalism itself will not These fundamental changes are not born….” allow it. In fact, the capitalist class unreachable fantasies; they are essen- And here’s where they fall short: must maintain constant vigilance tial to our very survival. against any attempt to challenge their “Inevitably, this bottom-up A worldwide socialist revolution is the revival will lead to a renewal of power—the military, police and prison only way we can achieve all the reforms democracy at every level of govern- industrial complex are their weapons we desperately need and want—the elim- ment; working swiftly towards a sys- of mass oppression—all designed to ination of war and all weapons of death tem in which every vote counts and maintain their power. and destruction and an end to environ- corporate money is removed from The profit-driven engine of capital- mental catastrophes that result from the political campaigns.” ism consumes everything in its path “profit-above-all-else” mentality that is In other words, like Klein, they turning it into the profits that only they the essential nature of capitalism. envisions a “kinder and gentler” form benefit from. Only a socialist world can ensure of capitalism: switching from extrac- As succinctly expressed in the great economic and social justice for all. We tive energy forms to renewable ones; Joni Mitchell hit song, “Big Yellow must carry out a socialist revolution if fighting for social and economic justice Taxi” by Counting Crows: “They paved we truly want to dig up those parking and against militarism; and for real paradise and put up a parking lot.” lots and re-plant paradise. democratic decision-making—but still, under a “kinder and gentler” capi- talist economic system based on pri- vate profit. Capitalism must go The problem we face isn’t just the extractive economy, injustice and war, but the fact that the capitalist class is in control of all the world’s economy and is dependent on injustice, war and rac- ism to maintain their control irrespec- tive of the catastrophes they bring. The capitalist class bases all their decisions on how to run industry and the economy solely upon whether or not they can make a profit. They, as a ruling class, override all else in their quest for profit, with no regard to environmental or human catastrophic consequences.

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 3 Let Them Drown The violence of othering in a warming world By Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein delivered this year’s East will likely “experience tempera- I grew up in a Jewish community Edward Said lecture in London on May ture levels that are intolerable to where every occasion—births and 5, 2016. humans” by the end of this century. deaths, Mother’s Day, bar mitzvahs— Edward Said was no tree-hugger. And that’s about as blunt as climate was marked with the proud purchase Descended from traders, artisans and scientists get. Yet environmental issues of a JNF tree in the person’s honor. It professionals, he once described him- in the region still tend to be treated as wasn’t until adulthood that I began to self as “an extreme case of an urban afterthoughts, or luxury causes. The understand that those feel-good far- Palestinian whose relationship to the reason is not ignorance, or indiffer- away conifers, certificates for which land is basically metaphorical.” In After ence. It’s just bandwidth. Climate papered the walls of my Montreal ele- the Last Sky, his meditation on the change is a grave threat but the most mentary school, were not benign—not photographs of Jean Mohr, he explored frightening impacts are in the medium just something to plant and later hug. the most intimate aspects of Palestinian term. And in the short term, there are In fact these trees are among the most lives, from hospitality to sports to always far more pressing threats to glaring symbols of Israel’s system of home décor. The tiniest detail—the contend with: military occupation, air official discrimination—the one that placing of a picture frame, the defiant assault, systemic discrimination, must be dismantled if peaceful co- posture of a child—provoked a torrent embargo. Nothing can compete with existence is to become possible. of insight from Said. Yet when con- that—nor should it attempt to try. The JNF is an extreme and recent fronted with images of Palestinian There are other reasons why envi- example of what some call “green colo- farmers—tending their flocks, working ronmentalism might have looked like a nialism.” But the phenomenon is hard- the fields—the specificity suddenly bourgeois playground to Said. The ly new, nor is it unique to Israel. There evaporated. Which crops were being Israeli state has long coated its nation- is a long and painful history in the cultivated? What was the state of the building project in a green veneer—it Americas of beautiful pieces of wilder- soil? The availability of water? Nothing was a key part of the Zionist “back to ness being turned into conservation was forthcoming. “I continue to per- the land” pioneer ethos. And in this parks—and then that designation ceive a population of poor, suffering, context trees, specifically, have been being used to prevent Indigenous peo- occasionally colorful peasants, among the most potent weapons of land ple from accessing their ancestral ter- unchanging and collective,” Said con- grabbing and occupation. It’s not only ritories to hunt and fish, or simply to fessed. This perception was “mythic,” the countless olive and pistachio trees live. It has happened again and again. he acknowledged—yet it remained. that have been uprooted to make way A contemporary version of this phe- If farming was another world for for settlements and Israeli-only roads. nomenon is the carbon offset. Said, those who devoted their lives to It’s also the sprawling pine and eucalyp- Indigenous people from Brazil to matters like air and water pollution tus forests that have been planted over Uganda are finding that some of the appear to have inhabited another plan- those orchards, as well as over most aggressive land grabbing is being et. Speaking to his colleague Rob Palestinian villages, most notoriously by done by conservation organizations. A Nixon, he once described environmen- the Jewish National Fund, which, under forest is suddenly rebranded a carbon talism as “the indulgence of spoiled its slogan “Turning the Desert Green,” offset and is put off-limits to its tradi- tree-huggers who lack a proper cause.” boasts of having planted 250-million tional inhabitants. As a result, the car- But the environmental challenges of trees in Israel since 1901, many of them bon offset market has created a whole the Middle East are impossible to non-native to the region. In publicity new class of “green” human rights ignore for anyone immersed, as Said materials, the JNF bills itself as just abuses, with farmers and Indigenous was, in its geopolitics. This is a region another green NGO, concerned with people being physically attacked by intensely vulnerable to heat and water forest and water management, parks park rangers or private security when stress, to sea-level rise and to desertifi- and recreation. It also happens to be the they try to access these lands. Said’s cation. A recent paper in Nature largest private landowner in the state of comment about tree-huggers should Climate Change predicts that, unless Israel, and despite a number of compli- be seen in this context. we radically lower emissions and lower cated legal challenges, it still refuses to And there is more. In the last year of them fast, large parts of the Middle lease or sell land to non-Jews. Said’s life, Israel’s so-called “separation

4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 barrier” was going up, seizing huge up in this dangerous place, or to grasp even when surrounded by continuous swathes of the West Bank, cutting the transformations required to get us danger. It’s a word most associated Palestinian workers off from their jobs, out. So what follows are some with places like Hebron and Gaza, but farmers from their fields, patients from thoughts—by no means complete— it could be applied equally today to hospitals—and brutally dividing fami- about what we can learn from reading residents of coastal Louisiana who have lies. There was no shortage of reasons Said in a warming world. raised their homes up on stilts so that to oppose the wall on human rights they don’t have to evacuate, or to grounds. Yet at the time, some of the Going home Pacific Islanders whose slogan is “We loudest dissenting voices among Israeli He was and remains among our are not drowning. We are fighting.” In Jews were not focused on any of that. most achingly eloquent theorists of countries like the Marshall Islands and Yehudit Naot, Israel’s then environ- exile and homesickness—but Said’s Fiji and Tuvalu, they know that so ment minister, was more worried homesickness, he always made clear, much sea-level rise is inevitable that about a report informing her that “The was for a home that had been so radi- their countries likely have no future. separation fence…is harmful to the cally altered that it no longer really But they refuse just to concern them- landscape, the flora and fauna, the eco- existed. His position was complex: he selves with the logistics of relocation, logical corridors and the drainage of fiercely defended the right to return, and wouldn’t even if there were safer the creeks.” “I certainly don’t want to but never claimed that home was fixed. countries willing to open their bor- stop or delay the building of the fence,” What mattered was the principle of ders—a very big if, since climate refu- she said, but “I am disturbed by the respect for all human rights equally gees aren’t currently recognized under environmental damage involved.” As and the need for restorative justice to international law. Instead they are the Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti inform our actions and policies. This actively resisting: blockading Australian later observed, Naot’s “ministry and perspective is deeply relevant in our coal ships with traditional outrigger the National Parks Protection time of eroding coastlines, of nations canoes, disrupting international cli- Authority mounted diligent rescue disappearing beneath rising seas, of the mate negotiations with their inconve- efforts to save an affected reserve of coral reefs that sustain entire cultures nient presence, demanding far more irises by moving it to an alternative being bleached white, of a balmy Arctic. aggressive climate action. If there is reserve. They’ve also created tiny pas- This is because the state of longing for anything worth celebrating in the Paris sages [through the wall] for animals.” a radically altered homeland—a home Agreement signed in April—and sadly, there isn’t enough—it has come about Perhaps this puts the cynicism about that may not even exist any longer—is something that is being rapidly, and because of this kind of principled the green movement in context. People action: climate sumud. do tend to get cynical when their lives tragically, globalized. In March, two But this only scratches at the surface are treated as less important than flow- major peer-reviewed studies warned of what we can learn from reading Said ers and reptiles. And yet there is so that sea-level rise could happen signifi- in a warming world. He was, of course, much of Said’s intellectual legacy that cantly faster than previously believed. a giant in the study of “othering”— both illuminates and clarifies the One of the authors of the first study what is described in Orientalism as “dis- underlying causes of the global eco- was James Hansen—perhaps the most regarding, essentializing, denuding the logical crisis, so much that points to respected climate scientist in the world. humanity of another culture, people or ways we might respond that are far He warned that, on our current emis- geographical region.” And once the more inclusive than current campaign sions trajectory, we face the “loss of all other has been firmly established, the models: ways that don’t ask suffering coastal cities, most of the world’s large ground is softened for any transgres- people to shelve their concerns about cities and all their history”—and not in sion: violent expulsion, land theft, occu- war, poverty and systemic racism and thousands-of-years from now but as pation, invasion. Because the whole first “save the world”—but instead soon as this century. If we don’t point of othering is that the other demonstrate how all these crises are demand radical change we are headed doesn’t have the same rights, the same interconnected, and how the solutions for a whole world of people searching humanity, as those making the distinc- could be too. In short, Said may have for a home that no longer exists. tion. What does this have to do with had no time for tree-huggers, but tree- Said helps us imagine what that climate change? Perhaps everything. huggers must urgently make time for might look like as well. He helped to Said—and for a great many other anti- popularize the Arabic word sumud (to We have dangerously warmed our imperialist, postcolonial thinkers— stay put, to hold on:) that steadfast world already, and our governments because without that knowledge, there refusal to leave one’s land despite the still refuse to take the actions necessary is no way to understand how we ended most desperate eviction attempts and to halt the trend. There was a time

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 5 when many had the right to claim North America, these are overwhelm- reconciliation report called it “cultural ignorance. But for the past three ingly communities of color, Black and genocide.” The trauma associated with decades, since the Intergovernmental Latino, forced to carry the toxic bur- these layers of forced separation—from Panel on Climate Change was created den of our collective addiction to fossil land, from culture, from family—is and climate negotiations began, this fuels, with markedly higher rates of directly linked to the epidemic of refusal to lower emissions has been respiratory illnesses and cancers. It was despair ravaging so many First Nations accompanied with full awareness of the in fights against this kind of “environ- communities today. On a single dangers. And this kind of recklessness mental racism” that the climate justice Saturday night in April, in the commu- would have been functionally impossi- movement was born. nity of Attawapiskat—population ble without institutional racism, even if Fossil fuel sacrifice zones dot the 2000—11 people tried to take their own only latent. It would have been impos- globe. Take the Niger Delta, poisoned lives. Meanwhile, DeBeers runs a dia- sible without Orientalism, without all with an Exxon Valdez-worth of spilled mond mine on the community’s tradi- the potent tools on offer that allow the oil every year, a process Ken Saro- tional territory; like all extractive proj- powerful to discount the lives of the Wiwa, before he was murdered by his ects, it had promised hope and oppor- less powerful. These tools—of ranking government, called “ecological geno- tunity. “Why don’t the people just the relative value of humans—are what cide.” The executions of community leave?,” the politicians and pundits ask. allow the writing off of entire nations leaders, he said, were “all for Shell.” In But many do. And that departure is and ancient cultures. And they are my country, Canada, the decision to linked, in part, to the thousands of what allowed for the digging up of all dig up the Alberta tar sands—a partic- Indigenous women in Canada who that carbon to begin with. ularly heavy form of oil—has required have been murdered or gone missing, Sacrificial lambs the shredding of treaties with First often in big cities. Press reports rarely Nations, treaties signed with the British make the connection between violence Fossil fuels aren’t the sole driver of Crown that guaranteed Indigenous against women and violence against the climate change—there is industrial peoples the right to continue to hunt, land—often to extract fossil fuels—but agriculture, and deforestation—but fish and live traditionally on their it exists. Every new government comes they are the biggest. And the thing ancestral lands. It required it because to power promising a new era of respect about fossil fuels is that they are so these rights are meaningless when the for Indigenous rights. They don’t deliv- inherently dirty and toxic that they land is desecrated, when the rivers are er, because Indigenous rights, as defined require sacrificial people and places: polluted and the moose and fish are by the United Nations Declaration on people whose lungs and bodies can be riddled with tumors. And it gets worse: the Rights of Indigenous People, sacrificed to work in the coal mines, Fort McMurray—the town at the cen- include the right to refuse extractive people whose lands and water can be ter of the tar sands boom, where many projects—even when those projects sacrificed to open-pit mining and oil of the workers live and where much of fuel national economic growth. And spills. As recently as the 1970s, scien- the money is spent—is currently in an that’s a problem because growth is our tists advising the U.S. government infernal blaze. It’s that hot and that religion, our way of life. So even openly referred to certain parts of the dry. And this has something to do with country being designated “national Canada’s hunky and charming new what is being mined there. sacrifice areas.” Think of the moun- prime minister is bound and deter- tains of Appalachia, blasted off for coal Even without such dramatic events, mined to build new tar sands pipelines, mining—because so-called “mountain this kind of resource extraction is a against the express wishes of Indigenous top removal” coal mining is cheaper form of violence, because it does so communities who don’t want to risk than digging holes underground. There much damage to the land and water their water, or participate in the further must be theories of othering to justify that it brings about the end of a way of destabilizing of the climate. sacrificing an entire geography—theo- life, a death of cultures that are insepa- Fossil fuels require sacrifice zones: ries about the people who lived there rable from the land. Severing Indigenous they always have. And you can’t have a being so poor and backward that their people’s connection to their culture system built on sacrificial places and lives and culture don’t deserve protec- used to be state policy in Canada— sacrificial people unless intellectual tion. After all, if you are a “hillbilly,” imposed through the forcible removal theories that justify their sacrifice exist who cares about your hills? Turning all of Indigenous children from their fami- and persist: from Manifest Destiny to that coal into electricity required lies to boarding schools where their Terra Nullius to Orientalism, from another layer of othering too: this time language and cultural practices were backward hillbillies to backward for the urban neighborhoods next door banned, and where physical and sexual Indians. We often hear climate change to the power plants and refineries. In abuse were rampant. A recent truth and blamed on “human nature,” on the

6 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 inherent greed and short-sightedness It’s something that is becoming less Weizman has a groundbreaking take of our species. Or we are told we have and less possible. Fracking is threaten- on how these forces are intersecting.1 altered the earth so much and on such ing some of the most picturesque parts The main way we’ve understood the a planetary scale that we are now living of Britain as the sacrifice zone expands, border of the desert in the Middle East in the Anthropocene—the age of swallowing up all kinds of places that and North Africa, he explains, is the so- humans. These ways of explaining our imagined themselves safe. So this isn’t called “aridity line,” areas where there current circumstances have a very spe- just about gasping at how ugly the tar is on average 200 millimeters of rainfall cific, if unspoken meaning: that sands are. It’s about acknowledging a year, which has been considered the humans are a single type, that human that there is no clean, safe, non-toxic minimum for growing cereal crops on a nature can be essentialized to the traits way to run an economy powered by large scale without irrigation. These that created this crisis. In this way, the fossil fuels. There never was. meteorological boundaries aren’t fixed: systems that certain humans created, There is an avalanche of evidence they have fluctuated for various rea- and other humans powerfully resisted, that there is no peaceful way either. sons, whether it was Israel’s attempts to are completely let off the hook. The trouble is structural. Fossil fuels, “green the desert” pushing them in one Capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy— unlike renewable forms of energy such direction or cyclical drought expanding those sorts of systems. Diagnoses like as wind and solar, are not widely dis- the desert in the other. And now, with this erase the very existence of human tributed but highly concentrated in climate change, intensifying drought systems that organized life differently: very specific locations, and those loca- can have all kinds of impacts along this systems that insist that humans must tions have a bad habit of being in other line. Weizman points out that the think seven generations in the future; people’s countries. Particularly that Syrian border city of Daraa falls directly must be not only good citizens but also most potent and precious of fossil on the aridity line. Daraa is where good ancestors; must take no more fuels: oil. This is why the project of Syria’s deepest drought on record than they need and give back to the Orientalism, of othering Arab and brought huge numbers of displaced land in order to protect and augment Muslim people, has been the silent farmers in the years leading up to the the cycles of regeneration. These sys- partner of our oil dependence from the outbreak of Syria’s civil war, and it’s tems existed and still exist, but they are start—and inextricable, therefore, where the Syrian uprising broke out in erased every time we say that the cli- from the blowback that is climate 2011. Drought wasn’t the only factor in mate crisis is a crisis of “human nature” change. If nations and peoples are bringing tensions to a head. But the fact and that we are living in the “age of regarded as other—exotic, primitive, that 1.5 million people were internally man.” And they come under very real bloodthirsty, as Said documented in displaced in Syria as a result of the attack when megaprojects are built, the 1970s—it is far easier to wage wars drought clearly played a role. The con- like the Gualcarque hydroelectric dams and stage coups when they get the crazy nection between water and heat stress in Honduras, a project, which, among idea that they should control their own and conflict is a recurring, intensifying other things, took the life of the land oil in their own interests. In 1953 it was pattern all along the aridity line: all defender Berta Cáceres, who was assas- the British-U.S. collaboration to over- along it you see places marked by sinated in March. throw the democratically elected gov- drought, water scarcity, scorching tem- Nowhere to run ernment of Muhammad Mossadegh peratures and military conflict—from Some people insist that it doesn’t after he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Libya to Palestine, to some of the have to be this bad. We can clean up Oil Company (now BP). In 2003, bloodiest battlefields in Afghanistan resource extraction, we don’t need to exactly fifty years later, it was another and Pakistan. do it the way it’s been done in Honduras UK-U.S. co-production—the illegal But Weizman also discovered what and the Niger Delta and the Alberta tar invasion and occupation of Iraq. The he calls an “astounding coincidence.” sands. Except that we are running out reverberations from each intervention When you map the targets of Western of cheap and easy ways to get at fossil continue to jolt our world, as do the drone strikes onto the region, you see fuels, which is why we have seen the reverberations from the successful that “many of these attacks—from rise of fracking and tar sands extraction burning of all that oil. The Middle East South Waziristan through northern in the first place. This, in turn, is start- is now squeezed in the pincer of vio- Yemen, Somalia, Mali, Iraq, Gaza and ing to challenge the original Faustian lence caused by fossil fuels, on the one Libya—are directly on or close to the pact of the industrial age: that the hand, and the impact of burning those 200 millimeter aridity line.” The red heaviest risks would be outsourced, fossil fuels on the other. dots on the map above represent some offloaded, onto the other—the periph- In his latest book, The Conflict of the areas where strikes have been ery abroad and inside our own nations. Shoreline, the Israeli architect Eyal concentrated. To me this is the most

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 7 striking attempt yet to visualize the gunships, force migrants back to their will pursue “efforts to limit the tem- brutal landscape of the climate crisis. shores and burn the boats.” In another perature increase to 1.5°c (2.7°F).” Not All this was foreshadowed a decade ago bit of symbolism Nauru is one of the only is this non-binding but it is a lie: in a U.S. military report. “The Middle Pacific Islands very vulnerable to sea- we are making no such efforts. The East,” it observed, “has always been level rise. Its residents, after seeing governments that made this promise associated with two natural resources, their homes turned into prisons for are now pushing for more fracking and oil (because of its abundance) and others, will very possibly have to more tar sands development—which water (because of its scarcity).” True migrate themselves. Tomorrow’s cli- are utterly incompatible with 2°c, let enough. And now certain patterns have mate refugees have been recruited into alone 1.5°c. This is happening because become quite clear: first, Western service as today’s prison guards. the wealthiest people in the wealthiest fighter jets followed that abundance of We need to understand that what is countries in the world think they are oil; now, Western drones are closely happening on Nauru, and what is hap- going to be OK, that someone else is shadowing the lack of water, as drought pening to it, are expressions of the going to eat the biggest risks, that even exacerbates conflict. same logic. A culture that places so lit- when climate change turns up on their Just as bombs follow oil, and drones tle value on Black and Brown lives that doorstep, they will be taken care of. follow drought, so boats follow both: it is willing to let human beings disap- When they’re wrong things get even boats filled with refugees fleeing homes pear beneath the waves, or set them- uglier. We had a vivid glimpse into that on the aridity line ravaged by war and selves on fire in detention centers, will future when the floodwaters rose in drought. And the same capacity for also be willing to let the countries England last December and January, dehumanizing the other that justified where Black and Brown people live inundating 16,000 homes. These com- the bombs and drones is now being disappear beneath the waves, or desic- munities weren’t only dealing with the trained on these migrants, casting their cate in the arid heat. When that hap- wettest December on record. They were need for security as a threat to ours, pens, theories of human hierarchy— also coping with the fact that the gov- their desperate flight as some sort of that we must take care of our own ernment has waged a relentless attack invading army. Tactics refined on the first—will be marshaled to rationalize on the public agencies, and the local West Bank and in other occupation these monstrous decisions. We are councils, that are on the front lines of zones are now making their way to making this rationalization already, if flood defense. So understandably, there North America and Europe. In selling only implicitly. Although climate were many who wanted to change the his wall on the border with Mexico, change will ultimately be an existential subject away from that failure. Why, Donald Trump likes to say: “Ask Israel, threat to all of humanity, in the short they asked, is Britain spending so much the wall works.” Camps are bulldozed term we know that it does discrimi- money on refugees and foreign aid when in Calais, thousands of people drown nate, hitting the poor first and worst, it should be taking care of its own? in the Mediterranean, and the whether they are abandoned on the “Never mind foreign aid,” we read in Australian government detains survi- rooftops of New Orleans during the Daily Mail. “What about national vors of wars and despotic regimes in Hurricane Katrina or whether they are aid?” “Why,” a Telegraph editorial camps on the remote islands of Nauru among the 36-million who according demanded, “should British taxpayers and Manus. Conditions are so desper- to the UN are facing hunger due to continue to pay for flood defenses ate on Nauru that last month an Iranian drought in Southern and East Africa. abroad when the money is needed migrant died after setting himself on here?” I don’t know—maybe because fire to try to draw the world’s atten- Denying the truth Britain invented the coal-burning steam tion. Another migrant—a 21-year-old This is an emergency, a present engine and has been burning fossil fuels woman from Somalia—set herself on emergency, not a future one, but we on an industrial scale longer than any fire a few days later. Malcolm Turnbull, aren’t acting like it. The Paris nation on Earth? But I digress. The the prime minister, warns that Agreement commits to keeping warm- point is that this could have been a Australians “cannot be misty-eyed ing below 2°c (3.6°F). It’s a target that moment to understand that we are all about this” and “have to be very clear is beyond reckless. When it was affected by climate change, and must and determined in our national pur- unveiled in Copenhagen in 2009, the take action together and in solidarity pose.” It’s worth bearing Nauru in African delegates called it “a death sen- with one another. It wasn’t, because cli- mind the next time a columnist in a tence.” The slogan of several low-lying mate change isn’t just about things get- Murdoch paper declares, as Katie island nations is “1.5 to stay alive.” At ting hotter and wetter: under our cur- Hopkins did last year, that it’s time for the last minute, a clause was added to rent economic and political model, it’s Britain “to get Australian. Bring on the the Paris Agreement that says countries about things getting meaner and uglier.

8 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 The most important lesson to take emissions, while creating huge num- way some in the media were using the from all this is that there is no way to bers of good, unionized jobs and deliv- disaster to rev up anti-foreigner senti- confront the climate crisis as a techno- ering meaningful justice to those who ment, and he said so: cratic problem, in isolation. It must be have been most abused and excluded “I live in Hebden Bridge, seen in the context of austerity and under the current extractive economy. Yorkshire, one of the worst affected privatization, of colonialism and mili- Said died the year Iraq was invaded, areas hit by the floods. It’s shit, tarism, and of the various systems of living to see its libraries and museums everything has gotten really wet. othering needed to sustain them all. looted, its oil ministry faithfully guard- However…I’m alive. I’m safe. My family are safe. We don’t live in fear. The connections and intersections ed. Amid these outrages, he found between them are glaring, and yet so I’m free. There aren’t bullets flying hope in the global antiwar movement, about. There aren’t bombs going off. often resistance to them is highly com- as well as in new forms of grassroots partmentalized. The anti-austerity I’m not being forced to flee my communication opened up by technol- home and I’m not being shunned by people rarely talk about climate change, the richest country in the world or the climate change people rarely talk criticized by its residents. about war or occupation. We rarely Indigenous people make the connection between the guns “All you morons vomiting your xenophobia…about how money that take Black lives on the streets of from Brazil to should only be spent ‘on our own’ U.S. cities and in police custody and Uganda are finding need to look at yourselves closely in the much larger forces that annihilate the mirror. I request you ask your- so many Black lives on arid land and in that some of the selves a very important question… precarious boats around the world. Am I a decent and honorable human Overcoming these disconnections— most aggressive land being? Because home isn’t just the strengthening the threads tying togeth- UK, home is everywhere on this er our various issues and movements— grabbing is being planet.” is, I would argue, the most pressing done by conserva- I think that makes for a very fine last task of anyone concerned with social word. and economic justice. It is the only way tion organizations. —London Review of Books, June 2, 2016 to build a counterpower sufficiently http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n11/nao- robust to win against the forces pro- A forest is suddenly mi-klein/let-them-drown tecting the highly profitable but rebranded a carbon increasingly untenable status quo. Climate change acts as an accelerant to offset and is put 1 The Conflict Shoreline by Eyal Weizman many of our social ills—inequality, and Fazal Sheikh (Steidl, 92 pp., £25, June 2015, wars, racism—but it can also be an off-limits to its 978 3 95829 035 8). accelerant for the opposite, for the traditional forces working for economic and social justice and against militarism. Indeed inhabitants. the climate crisis—by presenting our species with an existential threat and putting us on a firm and unyielding ogy; he noted “the existence of alterna- science-based deadline—might just be tive communities across the globe, the catalyst we need to knit together a informed by alternative news sources, great many powerful movements, and keenly aware of the environmen- bound together by a belief in the inher- tal, human rights and libertarian ent worth and value of all people and impulses that bind us together in this united by a rejection of the sacrifice tiny planet.” His vision even had a zone mentality, whether it applies to place for tree-huggers. I was reminded peoples or places. We face so many of those words recently while I was overlapping and intersecting crises that reading up on England’s floods. Amid we can’t afford to fix them one at a all the scapegoating and finger-point- time. We need integrated solutions, ing, I came across a post by a man solutions that radically bring down called Liam Cox. He was upset by the

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 9 No Water For You! Forty percent of Detroit will be deprived of life sustaining water: the UN investigates human rights violations By Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

May 10, 2016—Usually crimes nent of ethnic cleansing that is some- “I’m not surprised that the world’s against humanity take place behind times politely and inaccurately called eyes are focused on police issues in the closed doors, in concentration camps, gentrification. U.S.,” said Alba Morales, who investi- Abu Ghraib-like torture settings or The forced relocation tactics have gates the U.S. criminal justice system at Nazi Germany; not so in 83 percent changed over the years, with contem- Human Rights Watch. “There is an Black Detroit, Michigan. In the next porary methods eerily resembling international spotlight that’s been few weeks, the international commu- Nazi-like strategies, such as deliberate- shone [on the issues], in large part due nity will witness with eyes wide open ly poisoning urban and domestic water to the events in Ferguson and the dis- the city of Detroit’s blatant violations supplies, depriving children and house- proportionate police response to even peaceful protesters,” she said. of human rights. These crimes will be holds of life-maintaining and sustain- condoned and executed by Detroit The recommendations from the officials with the full knowledge of the Council seem tepid and dismissive of White House. Three U.N. human the scale of the violence towards Access to water is considered a human rights experts issued African-Americans. These same atroci- right and access to safe and clean water is ties occurring in any other country a core mission of the Environmental a statement declar- outside the U.S., such as Bosnia or Syria Protection Agency (EPA), however, 40 ing that “disconnec- would cause an international uproar percent of the residents of Detroit will be tion of water servic- and calls to prevent deaths from water deprivation and to provide interna- deprived of the basic element of life: es because of failure water. Children will go to school with- tional protections for the targeted out baths and senior citizens will be to pay due to lack of group. But, the U.S. is the major donor deprived of water to take medicine. means constitutes a to the UN and plays a leadership role on the UN Security Council, making it vir- Having lost confidence in a U.S. national violation of the commitment to saving the lives of citi- tually impossible for nations that would zens, advocacy groups have begun to human right to show solidarity to African-Americans to petition the United Nations for an emer- water act through this institution. gency response. Nevertheless, UN member states do have a bully-pulpit to expose the human The Detroit Water and Sewerage rights violations occurring in the U.S. Department (DWSD), has begun shut- ing water and a decent education. Black ting off water to 3,000 people a week, communities—already traumatized by However, when one considers the and could soon cut off access to drink- the removal and imprisonment of war-like tactics deployed against an able water for 150,000 Detroit resi- nearly one million African men and unarmed civilian population, such as, dents who have failed to pay recent the murder by police of thousands of deliberate state-sponsored poisonings, water bills. unarmed young men and women— murders of unarmed civilians, forced have become soft targets for these relocations and imprisonment, one is Detroit was one of the cities hardest unrelenting attacks. left asking what part of genocide does hit by international trade agreements, the UN not understand? such as NAFTA. Detroit is also a city The United Nations’ Human Rights targeted for ethnic cleaning of its council criticized the United States for And the beat of genocide escalates. African population to make space for police violence and racial discrimina- The Detroit People’s Water Board, white professionals. Once a thriving tion, the Guantánamo Bay Detention Food and Water Watch, Blue Planet middle-class city, the union movement Facility and the continued use of the Project, and Michigan Welfare Rights was crushed by the government and death penalty. Member countries criti- Organization submitted a comprehen- business executives determined to cized the U.S. and recommended that it sive report to the U.N.’s special rap- drive wages down. At the end of the strengthen legislation and expand porteur that details the dire situation day, these latest tactics are designed to training to “eliminate racism and exces- facing the predominately Black popu- induce forced relocations; a compo- sive use of force by law enforcement.” lation of Detroit:

10 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 “Sick people have been left without nearly 83 percent Black population. “If fill buckets, sinks, and tubs before los- running water and working toilets. these water disconnections dispropor- ing access to water.” People recovering from surgery cannot tionately affect African Americans, they “We really don’t want to shut off wash and change bandages. Children may be discriminatory, in violation of anyone’s water, but it’s really our duty cannot bathe, and parents cannot treaties the U.S. has ratified,” said Farha. to go after those who don’t pay, because cook…” “(F)amilies concerned about These calls for justice are falling on if they don’t pay, then our other cus- children being taken away by authori- deaf ears. While President Obama con- tomers pay for them,” department ties due to lack of water and sanitation cedes that the poisoning in Flint “was a spokesperson Curtrise Garner told Al services in the home have been sending man-made disaster; this was avoidable, Jazeera America. “That’s not fair to our their children to live with relatives and this was preventable,” the President other customers.” friends, which has an impact on school did not deploy with all due haste the attendance and related activities.” Businesses owe hundreds-of-thousands full power of the federal government to of dollars but a decision was made not to Activists claim the city has been solve this situation. In fact, he primed disconnect the corporate community: unfairly overcharging Detroit residents the Flint community, in which over “According to a department list, for water to compensate for its signifi- 8,000 children are suspected of being the top 40 commercial and industrial cant financial woes. According to the lead poisoned to expect that it may accounts have past-due accounts U.S. Census Bureau, 38.1 percent of take an additional two years before totaling $9.5 million. That list Detroit residents are living below the lead pipes are replaced. But, he left includes apartment complexes, the poverty line. The Detroit City Council Flint on a positive note, asserting that, Chrysler Group, real estate agencies, just approved a nearly nine percent “filtered water in the city was safe for a Laundromat and even a cemetery.” rate increase for water. anyone over the age of six.” The only people who apparently are Three U.N. human rights experts But not everyone is feeling the pain in denial regarding the blatant, surgical issued a statement declaring that “dis- of water deprivation in Detroit. That and genocidal attacks against them are connection of water services because of kind of pain seems to be reserved for unfortunately the targets of the attack. failure to pay due to lack of means families and communities. The Detroit Perhaps, Black folks are hoping that constitutes a violation of the human Water and Sewerage Department has U.S. genocidal policy towards our right to water and other international decided not to pull the plug on busi- community will be confined to Flint human rights. nesses in the city. Although the city and Detroit. How else can you explain “Despite the tough times many peo- claims that it started sending out notic- the silence and inaction of Black com- ple are facing, they’ve been paying an es about the disconnections in March, munities across the country? average of $64.99 a month, significantly the report’s authors write that they —Black Agenda Report, May 10, 2016 higher than the national average of heard “directly from people impacted about $40, and rates are only going up.” by the water cutoffs who say they were http://www.Blackagendareport.com/ given no warning and had no time to detroit_human_rights_violations “When I conducted an official country mission to the U.S. in 2011, I encouraged the U.S. government to adopt a federal minimum standard on affordability for water and sanitation and a standard to provide protection against disconnections for vulnerable groups and people living in poverty,” said Catarina de Albuquerque, who is the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the right to safe drinking water and sanita- tion. “I also urged the government to ensure due process guarantees in rela- tion to water disconnection.” One of the experts, Leilani Farha, who focuses on the right to adequate housing, also pointed out the racial implications of shutting off water to the

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 11 America’s Next Flint By Stuart Smith

America’s drinking water is under C-8 in the industrial process. revealing a mound of soapy froth. assault—from careless dumping of Earlier this year, the New York ‘‘‘I’ve taken two dead deer and two hazardous wastes to the lead pollution Times, in the fashion of a legal thriller, dead cattle off this ripple,’ Tennant caused by our ancient infrastructure. laid out what happened when a white- says in voice-over. ‘’The blood run Yet rarely do these tales of governmen- shoe corporate lawyer decided to out of their noses and out their mouths.…They’re trying to cover this tal neglect or industrial abuses make it investigate a tip that a DuPont chemi- stuff up. But it’s not going to be cov- onto the national radar screen. The cal facility was polluting a stream in Flint, Michigan, lead pollution story ered up, because I’m going to bring it Vienna, West Virginia, a place where out in the open for people to see.’’’ was different—a “perfect storm” that the attorney had relatives. His new cli- combined race, the poisoning of count- ent was a farmer, Wilbur Tennant, In spite of the damning evidence, it less children, and gross negligence on who’d sold a parcel of land to DuPont took the lawyer, Rob Bilott, years to the part of the state government. Yet for a landfill: convince DuPont, local officials, and even that story didn’t become a nation- the U.S. Environmental Protection “DuPont rechristened the plot al cause celebre right away. The truth is Agency that PFOA from the facility was Dry Run Landfill, named after the not only contaminating Tennant’s farm that, as terrible as the Flint situation creek that ran through it. The same has been, there are other threats to creek flowed down to a pasture but polluting the groundwater for water across the U.S. that are just as where the Tennants grazed their Vienna, where the chemical plant is bad…or arguably worse. cows. Not long after the sale, Wilbur located, and several neighboring com- One huge environmental crisis facing told Bilott, the cattle began to act munities. That was alarming news. As the nation right now involves a chemical deranged. They had always been like the lawyer researched the case, he found known as C-8, or PFOA, which stands pets to the Tennants. At the sight of evidence that DuPont had known the a Tennant they would amble over, for perfluorooctanoic acid. This is a health risks of C8 going back to the nuzzle and let themselves be milked. deadly carcinogen—used in a number 1950s, and that its own tests going back No longer. Now when they saw the to the 1960s showed increased risk of of household substances, most notably farmers, they charged. Teflon coatings—that persists forever liver cancer, birth defects, and a host of “Wilbur fed a videotape into the and is increasingly found in the human other serious ailments. VCR. The footage, shot on a cam- Despite those findings, which were bloodstream. The risk of exposure is corder, was grainy and intercut with dramatically greater for citizens who live static. Images jumped and repeated. bitterly fought by the company, little in the shadow of factory sites that used The sound accel- has been done to clean up the problem erated and slowed that has continued to pose risks for the down. It had the drinking water used by roughly 100,000 quality of a hor- people. Just last week, new tests of tap ror movie. In the water in the Vienna area were judged opening shot the under new, tougher federal standards camera pans for C8 that have finally been put into across the creek. place. Those standards show the water It takes in the is now officially unsafe to drink: surrounding for- est, the white ash “Three West Virginia communi- trees shedding ties are changing their water sources their leaves and after the federal Environmental the rippling, shal- Protection Agency released low water, before Thursday a new national standard pausing on what for C8, a chemical that for years appears to be a contaminated the drinking water of snow bank at an Wood County communities and is elbow in the linked to cancer, thyroid disease and creek. The cam- dangerously high blood pressure in era zooms in, pregnant women.

12 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 “The EPA’s move caused imme- diate action, as West Virginia regu- Great Canada Fire lators on Thursday advised Vienna Deleting the real story residents not to drink or cook with their water, based on test results By Paul Street over the past couple of years. Deletion and de-contextualization chock full of bloodthirsty, Islamist “‘The Bureau for Public Health is are standard instruments in the corpo- lunatics who “hate us for no good rea- working with the town of Vienna to rate U.S. media’s propagandistic, pow- son.” Send in the drones, gunships, implement appropriate precautions, er-serving toolbox. The nightly news which will include a “Do Not Drink” bombers, and Special Forces! streams endless terrifying images of advisory until additional testing and In the summer of 2014, U.S. corpo- violent inner city Black criminality evaluation takes place,’ said Dr. rate media gave spectacular coverage to with no reference to the savage jobless Rahul Gupta, commissioner of the the flood of “unaccompanied minors” poverty imposed on the Black commu- state Bureau for Public Health. ‘The fleeing abject poverty and endemic vio- Department of Health and Human nity by contemporary state-capitalist, lence in Central America to the United Resources and the Department of race-class apartheid. The typical white Military Affairs and Public Safety suburban news viewer is thereby States through Mexico. There was no will assist those affected by the EPA’s encouraged to conclude that urban reference in this reporting to the central advisory, and the state will assist in people of color are a mass of dangerous and ongoing historical role of the securing installation of new filters.’ barbarians best handled with mass United States in devastating El Salvador, “‘Two other public water systems arrest and incarceration. Guatemala, and Honduras and thus in in West Virginia, located in Nightly weather reporters regularly creating the extreme misery that drove Parkersburg and Martinsburg, were relay new heat, drought, rain, and parents to send children on perilous also affected by the new EPA thresh- snowfall records along with epic floods, northward journeys. U.S. news-watch- olds. They have taken immediate unprecedented tornado and hurricane ers were encouraged to see the child action by using additional water waves, and other extreme meteorology. migrants as unworthy of decent treat- sources to provide water.’” They do so without reference to the ment from the United States. This is a national scandal—perhaps anthropogenic—really capital-o-gen- Sometimes the failure to make basic even worse than Flint, since residents ic—global warming that lay behind the contextualizing connections and the in this area of West Virginia were new planetary conditions. The mass doctrinal practice of deletion reaches a allowed by regulators to drink this level viewing audience is encouraged to con- level that seems almost beyond belief. I of tainted water for years. clude that Mother Nature is going off sat stunned while one broadcast-news Like Flint, it’s unclear when—if on its own—with no assistance from outlet after another reported on the ever—the residents of Vienna will be the human-made Greenhouse Effect historic, climate change-driven wild- able to drink their tap water safely again. cooked up by modern capitalism and fire that razed much of the Canadian It’s the price of years of neglect of our Big Carbon. town of Fort McMurray and northern most precious resource, the water that The national news blares horrifying Alberta to the ground last month. we drink. And it will take years of deter- footage of terror, violence, and “anti- mined effort, in a whole lot of commu- Americanism” in Africa and the Middle None of the broadcasts dared to craft nities, to make things right again. East without reference to the role of the the obvious story connection begging to be made between the epic blaze and Learn more about my fights against giant U.S. military empire in wreaking the large-scale extraction of tar sands polluters in low-income neighborhoods colossal, criminal, and mass-murder- oil in that region. in Mississippi and Louisiana in my new ous destruction (with help from pow- book, Crude Justice: How I Fought Big erful allies like England, France, Israel, It was a remarkable story NOT to Oil and Won, and What You Should and the Saudi kingdom) in those lands. report. The fire took off and spread Know About the New Environmental (No such destructive criminality can thanks to record-setting heat (into the Attack on America. ever be acknowledged in dominant low Fahrenheit 90s) that reflected a U.S. mass media, which doctrinally pronounced regional warming trend —The Stuart Smith Blog, May 24, portrays Uncle Sam as an inherently evident for years. Under the influence 2016 noble, benevolent, and humanistic of climate change resulting from the http://www.stuarthsmith.com/is- actor on the global stage.) The typical excessive extraction, sale, and burning this-americas-next-flint/ U.S. news consumer is incited to con- of fossil fuels, the northern latitudes clude that these parts of the world are are warming faster than anywhere else.

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 13 One of the consequences is that North pay special attention to the United factor in the Canadian fire, of course. A American wildfire seasons are getting States’ leading newspaper, the purport- May 10th article by the Times’ leading bigger, fiercer, and longer than ever. edly arch-liberal and even (the FOX climate reporters, Justin Gillis and At the same time, to complete the News right would preposterously have Henry Fountain, was cautiously titled, story left out, Fort McMurray is a boom- Americans believe) left-wing The New “Global Warming Cited as Wildfires town with rising population and busi- York Times and add some critical (actu- Increase in Fragile Boreal Forest.” Gillis ness driven primarily by the extraction ally left and environmentalist) com- and Fountain wrote that “the near of exceptionally carbon-rich Canadian mentary on the depressing determina- destruction of Fort McMurray by a tar sands oil. The fire-ravaged town is tion of “mainstream” reporters (and/ wildfire” was “the latest indication that smack in the heart of one of the world’s or their editors) to omit the most rele- the boreal forest is at risk from climate leading centers of planet-baking oil vant and urgent point. change.” They included the burning of extraction. It sits beneath the Athabasca fossil fuels alongside other factors— Forces of nature against firefighters Oil Sands, whose “dirty [filthy carbon- logging, insects, and inadequate emer- rich] oil” is extracted on a giant, Earth- An early New York Times report, for gency fire services—that were threat- warming scale by great Big Carbon firms example, was titled “Forces of Nature ening the great sub-Arctic swath of including Syncrude, Suncor Energy, Against Firefighters Around Fort woodlands stretching from Canada th CNRL, Shell, and Nexen. McMurray” (May 5 ). Blaming the and Alaska into Russia. destruction on “strong, shifting winds,” The Alberta tar sands region is home Remarkably and revealingly enough, Times reporter Fernanda Santos quot- to some of the most carbon-rich, plan- however, Gillis and Fountain never ed a “senior disaster management et-cooking fossil fuels on Earth. mentioned the planet-cooking indus- response manager” on how “forces of Alberta’s vast oil sands are the world’s try that turned Fort McMurray into a nature we cannot control” had plagued third-largest crude reserves. boomtown. They referred to Fort firefighters. Santos cited an emergency Environmental concerns about the McMurray only as “a Canadian city” commander who told the Times that mining of those reserves were the main and as “one of the largest human out- “Mother Nature has conspired against reason that climate activists like Bill posts in the boreal forest.” us on multiple fronts.” McKibben engaged in high-profile Both descriptions were accurate but protests of the proposed Keystone XL The article began with the following they left something out: the “human Pipeline—a leading news story a few sentence: “The Alberta fire department outpost’s” core connection to one of years ago. said it would be a couple more days the world’s largest and most toxic cen- before investigators would be able to The Canada fire story wrote itself, it ters of human-generated, fossil-fueled determine whether the fire there was would have seemed. Imagine the fol- climate-change. caused by people or lightning.” The lowing obvious and reasonable head- phrase “by people” referred to the Concerns about supplies, not liv- line: “Nearly 100,000 Flee Planet- chance that some human individual or able ecology Warming Oil Town—Mother Nature group provided the immediate spark Uses Raging Inferno to Tell Canada To be sure, there was considerable with, say, a campfire, not to the giant and Humanity to Break Free From business news reporting on one aspect carbon-industrial complex that has Fossil Fuels.” of the relationship between the been heating the planet to a treacherous Canadian fire and oil sands production In reality, no such headline had a degree for many decades. Santos and/or above Fort McMurray—on how the fire snowball’s chance in Hell of making it her editor(s) did not see it as news threatened that production and hence into print in “mainstream” (corporate worth printing that the “forces of “economic growth.” A May 8th Reuters and commercial) U.S. media, which is nature” in question bore the clear and report was titled, “Oil Sands Fared Well intimately bound up with the vast, obvious, scientifically proven imprint of Through Canada Fire, But Restart a many-sided carbon-industrial complex. human-/capitalism-generated carbon Challenge.” It discussed the oil sands What did appear in leading “main- emissions, fueled in no small part by the industry but omitted the climate issue, stream” media was quite different from mining, refining, sale and burning of treating the fire in purely short-term, what any serious investigator con- super-toxic, hyper-potent tar sands oil. bottom-line economic terms. Reuters’ cerned for the fate of a livable Earth correspondents, Jessica Resnick Ault would have known to be the real story One of the largest human out- and Liz Hampton, stuck obediently to and hook behind the Canadian fire. posts in the Boreal Forest relating how the disruption of the oil Below I discuss the fire’s coverage in The Times’ editors knew that sands’ labor supplies and production, print and online corporate media. I human-driven climate change was a leading to an increase in oil prices:

14 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 “The mass evacuation of resi- Blow to Oil Sands Industry and likes of Goldman Sachs puts livable dents from the wildfire-devastated Economy.” Times reporter, Ian Austen, ecology and a decent future at grave and Canadian oil town of Fort McMurray discussed the epic, capital-o-genically ever more imminent risk? So what if tar is likely to significantly delay the fueled blaze purely as a story about sands oil is among the most carbon-rich restart of production, even though markets, production infrastructure, fossil fuels that need to be kept under- energy facilities themselves have “global growth,” and fuel prices—real- ground if we are to avert environmental escaped major damage from the ly (though Austen could not say so) catastrophe? So what if the healthiest flames, oil prices jumped in early Asian trading on concerns over the about profits: thing would be for the oil sands to be loss of production capacity caused “As the fire ripped through Fort shut down? Who cares? “Global by the fire—equivalent to around McMurray, oil companies severely growth”—and the world petro-capital- half of the country’s oil sands pro- pulled back or stopped pumping ist profit rate—must march on! duction. altogether…While the oil markets The “full toll” of the Canada fire “…A prolonged shutdown will have remained relatively stable and includes the exacerbation of global production is slowly picking up, the heighten concerns about supplies warming, for the burning and vast after three major oil firms warned economic blow is significant to a region and a country already bat- boreal forest destruction become causes on Friday they won’t be able to as well as consequences of climate deliver on some contracts for tered by weak oil prices and uncer- tainty over global growth…The full change. But that is a matter of no con- Canadian crude…Only one oil cern to responsible business journalists. sands production site, CNOOC unit toll will depend largely on the health Nexen’s Long Lake facility, has sus- of the oil sands. The largest projects, north of Fort McMurray have been A minimal impact on Canadian tained minor damage, and provin- economic growth cial fire officials said on Sunday they largely unscathed, protected in part expected to hold flames back from by their wide, deforested perime- The Wall Street Journal was less Suncor Energy Inc.’s main oil sands ters…But oil companies are still alarmist about threats to carbon-spew- plant north of Fort McMurray…. assessing the damage to the electrical ing capitalist growth four days earlier. The fire has shut down about one network, the aboveground buildings In a May 7th article titled “Canada million barrels per day or 40 percent and the pipelines that ship Fort Wildfires Raise Threat to Oil-Sands McMurray’s production. Then there of total oil sands production.” Mining Operations,” the WSJ’s Chester is the complex nature of the projects, Reuters deleted the obvious scien- which means that oil will not neces- Dawson noted that Suncor had “closed tifically demonstrated connection sarily start flowing again quickly. down production of 300,000-barrels- of-oil-a-day at two mines and a pair of between oil extraction (including oil “The status of smaller plants, oil-sands well sites, and its Syncrude sands extraction) and the conditions which are largely south of the city, is that gave rise to the fire that interrupt- less clear…The southern plants, for unit has shut its 350,000-barrel-a-day- ed oil sands production. Those are the most part, bring the tarlike bitu- capacity mines.” But such (suppos- matters that (un)naturally hold no men of the oil sands to the surface edly terrible) developments (welcome interest to good capitalist journalists by injecting vast quantities of steam for anyone who cares about livable who know to stick responsibly to noth- underground. Plants of that variety, ecology) were nothing for planet-bak- ing but the basic business facts. like Japan Canada Oil Sands, have ing investors to get too upset about. been operating for several years and For, as Dawson reported: It was unthinkable, of course, that have built up so much heat under- Ault and Hampton might have con- “The outages are expected to ground they can sit idle for up to 12 have a minimal impact on Canadian veyed environmentalists’ reasonable months and be restarted with com- sense that a 40 percent reduction in tar economic growth, according to a parative ease…The global oil mar- report from the Conference Board sands oil extraction was a good thing for kets are sensitive to that timeline. of Canada released early Tuesday. human beings and other living things. Goldman Sachs estimates that the The Ottawa think tank bases its lost production, assuming compa- findings on an estimated oil-pro- Staggering blow to economy, not nies can ramp up production over Earth duction loss of about 1.2 million 10 days, will total 14 million barrels. barrels-a-day over a two-week peri- Similar in its indifference to capi- If so, that would have a relatively od…The Conference Board’s find- tal’s environmental arch-criminality minor impact on North American ings are based on information avail- and that criminality’s relationship to stockpiles, which are nearly full” able before the latest evacuations. the Great Canadian Wildfire of 2016 (emphasis added). The latest setback could result in a was a May 11th New York Times report So what if oil extraction on the rapa- ‘bigger [production] hit’ in May, but titled “Canada Fire Deals Staggering cious and reckless scale funded by the the industry will likely make up that

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 15 lost output in June, assuming opera- were expected to help slow the spread destroyed the oil sands boom town tions resume, said Pedro Antunes, of the fires later this week.” Fort McMurray was irrelevant as far as the Conference Board’s deputy chief What a shame it would have been if “mainstream” journalists were con- economist. Similarly, efforts to cerned. rebuild the oil-sands region will help “the forces of nature” had claimed to offset the decline in economic some of the most eco-cidal, life-gassing Meanwhile, the Mauna Loa growth caused by the fires, Mr. production facilities on Earth! Observatory in Hawaii reports that the Antunes said.” global concentration of carbon dioxide A loss of production That was good to know! It’s a shame in the atmosphere—the leading force Things got scary again in Canada that carbon-driven climate change is behind recent climate change—has for Big Carbon in following days. A creating an environmental disaster that reached 400 parts-per-million (ppm) May 17th New York Times report was has emerged as the biggest issue of our for the first time in recorded history. titled, “Fort McMurray Wildfire or any time—a catastrophe that raises Levels that high have only been reached Upends Plan to Restart Oil Sands the not-so distant prospect of human during the Pliocene era. According to Operations.” Times reporter Ian Austen extinction. Thanks to fossil-fueled Dr. Erika Podest, a leading carbon and noted that “Rapidly changing winds anthropogenic global warming, the water cycle research scientist, “This brought Alberta’s huge wildfire to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in milestone is a wake-up call that our perimeter of two of the oldest and larg- Boulder, Colorado reports that we may actions in response to climate change est of Canada’s oil sands complexes on have come to “the starting point when need to match the persistent rise in Tuesday, posing a new threat to an melting permafrost begins a likely irre- CO2. Climate change is a threat to life industry that just a day earlier had been versible release of 190 gigatons of on Earth and we can no longer afford preparing to resume full-scale opera- greenhouse gases into the atmo- to be spectators.” tions.” The blaze was “now close to the sphere…Thawing permafrost is threat- By all means let’s “resume full-scale Syncrude and Suncor oil sands plants” ening to overwhelm attempts to keep operations” in the Canadian tar sands! and threatened “to enter the open pit the planet from getting too hot for mines where gigantic excavators scoop —Counterpunch, June 16, 2016 human survival. Without major reduc- up tar like bitumen and place it in http://www.counterpunch. tions in the use of fossil fuels, as much similarly oversize dump trucks…” org/2016/06/16/deleting-the-real-story- as two-thirds of the world’s gigantic Austen reported the Conference Board behind-the-great-canada-fire/ storehouse of frozen carbon could be of Canada’s calculation that “14 days of released…this might be irreversible.” shutdown would mean a loss of pro- The northern latitudes are aflame duction valued at 985 million Canadian like no time in recorded historical dollars, about $762 million.” memory. But hey, Canadian economic How horrible. Never mind that None of the broadcasts growth will march on. And disasters reduced tar sands oil production is a often bring capitalist investment and positive for life’s ever-slimming chanc- dared to craft the obvi- growth opportunities, including es of decent survival in an ever hotter rebuilding! and more volatile and inhabitable ous story connection A close call world that carbon-addicted capital There had, however, been a close made. begging to be made call. By Dawson’s account, “Alberta So it’s not true that reporters made Premier Rachel Notley said the fires no connection between the Great between the epic blaze approached the doorstep of oil-sands Canada Fire of May 2016 and the mines operated by industry leader Canadian tar sands oil industry. But and the large-scale Suncor Energy Inc. (SU -2.64 percent) the connection went one capitalist and and its subsidiary Syncrude north of extractivist way. It was all about how extraction of tar sands the town of Fort McMurray, which the the fire, treated as a purely natural blaze devastated this month. Provincial disaster, was interfering with oil sands oil in that region. government officials said by late production. The fact that oil sands Tuesday firefighters succeeded in halt- production is a key part of the plane- ing the advance of the flames to the tary carbon-industrial-complex that south and west perimeters of those creates the climatological context for facilities, and that weather conditions such fires as the one that nearly

16 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4

U.S. Politics and the Economy U.S. Politics and the Economy Get Ready for Another World War By John Pilger

Returning to the United States in an fling through a Santa’s grotto of revi- guilty before she was tried. Today, election year, I am struck by the silence. sionism, were dispensed a variety of Obama runs an unprecedented world- I have covered four presidential cam- lies: the atomic bombing of Hiroshima wide campaign of terrorism and mur- paigns, starting with 1968; I was with and Nagasaki saved “a million lives”; der by drone. Robert Kennedy when he was shot and Iraq was “liberated [by] air strikes of In 2009, Obama promised to help I saw his assassin, preparing to kill him. unprecedented precision.” The theme “rid the world of nuclear weapons” and It was a baptism in the American way, was unerringly heroic: only Americans was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. No along with the salivating violence of the pay the price of freedom. American president has built more Chicago police at the Democratic No debate about endless war nuclear warheads than Obama. He is Party’s rigged convention. The great “modernizing” America’s doomsday The 2016 election campaign is counter-revolution had begun. arsenal, including a new “mini” nuclear remarkable not only for the rise of weapon whose size and “smart” tech- The first to be assassinated that year, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders but nology, says a leading general, ensure Martin Luther King Jr., had dared link also for the resilience of an enduring its use is “no longer unthinkable.” the suffering of African-Americans and silence about a murderous self- the people of Vietnam. When Janis bestowed divinity. A third of the mem- James Bradley, the best-selling Joplin sang, “Freedom’s just another bers of the United Nations have felt author of Flags of Our Fathers and son word for nothing left to lose,” she spoke Washington’s boot, overturning gov- of one of the U.S. Marines who raised perhaps unconsciously for millions of ernments, subverting democracy, the flag on Iwo Jima, said, “[One] great America’s victims in faraway places. imposing blockades and boycotts. myth we’re seeing play out is that of “We lost 58,000 young soldiers in Most of the presidents responsible Obama as some kind of peaceful guy Vietnam, and they died defending your have been liberal—Truman, Kennedy, who’s trying to get rid of nuclear weap- freedom. Now don’t you forget it.” So Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama. ons. He’s the biggest nuclear warrior there is. He’s committed us to a ruin- said a National Parks Service guide as I The breathtaking record of perfidy ous course of spending a trillion dol- filmed last week at the Lincoln is so mutated in the public mind, wrote lars on more nuclear weapons. Memorial in Washington. He was the late Harold Pinter, that it “never Somehow, people live in this fantasy addressing a school party of young happened. … Nothing ever happened. that because he gives vague news con- teenagers in bright orange T-shirts. As Even while it was happening it wasn’t ferences and speeches and feel-good if by rote, he inverted the truth about happening. It didn’t matter. It was of photo-ops that somehow that’s Vietnam into an unchallenged lie. no interest. It didn’t matter.” attached to actual policy. It isn’t.” The millions of Vietnamese who Pinter expressed a mock admiration died and were maimed and poisoned for what he called “a quite clinical Obama’s legacy and dispossessed by the American manipulation of power worldwide On Obama’s watch, a second Cold invasion have no historical place in while masquerading as a force for uni- War is under way. The Russian presi- young minds, not to mention the esti- versal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, dent is a pantomime villain; the mated 60,000 veterans who took their highly successful act of hypnosis.” Chinese are not yet back to their sinis- own lives. A friend of mine, a Marine Take Obama. As he prepares to ter pig-tailed caricature—when all who became a paraplegic in Vietnam, leave office, the fawning has begun all Chinese were banned from the United was often asked, “Which side did you over again. He is “cool.” One of the States—but the media warriors are fight on?” more violent presidents, Obama gave working on it. A few years ago, I attended a popu- full reign to the Pentagon war-making Neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie lar exhibition called “The Price of apparatus of his discredited predeces- Sanders has mentioned any of this. Freedom” at the venerable Smithsonian sor. He prosecuted more whistleblow- There is no risk and no danger for the Institution in Washington. The lines of ers—truth-tellers—than any president. United States and all of us. For them, ordinary people, mostly children shuf- He pronounced Chelsea Manning the greatest military build-up on the

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 17 borders of Russia since World War China. In America, people are being support Clinton if she is nominated. Two has not happened. On May 11, primed to see any Chinese defensive The election of Trump or Clinton is Romania went “live” with a NATO position as offensive, and so the ground the old illusion of choice that is no “missile defense” base that strengthens is laid for rapid escalation. A similar choice: two sides of the same coin. In the ability of first-strike American mis- strategy of provocation and propagan- scapegoating minorities and promising siles to strike at the heart of Russia, the da is applied to Russia. to “make America great again,” Trump world’s second nuclear power. A “feminism” of bloody coups is a far-right-wing domestic populist; In Asia, the Pentagon is sending yet the danger of Clinton may be more Clinton, the “women’s candidate,” ships, planes and Special Forces to the lethal for the world. leaves a trail of bloody coups: in Philippines to threaten China. The Honduras, in Libya (plus the murder “Only Donald Trump has said any- U.S. already encircles China with hun- of the Libyan president) and Ukraine. thing meaningful and critical of U.S. dreds of military bases that curve in an The latter is now a CIA theme park foreign policy,” wrote Stephen Cohen, arc up from Australia, to Asia and swarming with Nazis and the frontline emeritus professor of Russian History across to Afghanistan. Obama calls this of a beckoning war with Russia. It was at Princeton and NYU, one of the few a “pivot.” through Ukraine—literally, border- Russia experts in the United States to As a direct consequence, China land—that Hitler’s Nazis invaded the speak out about the risk of war. reportedly has changed its nuclear Soviet Union, which lost 27 million In a radio broadcast, Cohen referred weapons policy from no-first-use to people. This epic catastrophe remains a to critical questions Trump alone had high alert and put to sea submarines presence in Russia. Clinton’s presiden- raised. Among them: why is the United with nuclear weapons. The escalator is tial campaign has received money from States “everywhere on the globe?” quickening. all but one of the world’s ten biggest What is NATO’s true mission? Why It was Hillary Clinton who, as arms companies. No other candidate does the U.S. always pursue regime Secretary of State in 2010, elevated the comes close. change in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine? competing territorial claims for rocks Sanders, the hope of many young Why does Washington treat Russia and and reef in the South China Sea to an Americans, is not very different from Vladimir Putin as an enemy? international issue; CNN and BBC hys- Clinton in his proprietorial view of the The Trump hysteria teria followed; China was building air- world beyond the United States. He strips on the disputed islands. In its backed Bill Clinton’s illegal bombing of The hysteria in the liberal media mammoth war game in 2015, Operation Serbia. He supports Obama’s terrorism over Trump serves an illusion of “free Talisman Sabre, the U.S. practiced by drone, the provocation of Russia and open debate” and “democracy at “choking” the Straits of Malacca and the return of Special Forces (death work.” His views on immigrants and through which pass most of China’s oil squads) to Iraq. He has nothing to say Muslims are grotesque, yet the deport- and trade. This was not news. on the drumbeat of threats to China er-in-chief of vulnerable people from America is not Trump but Obama, Clinton declared that America had a and the accelerating risk of nuclear war. whose betrayal of people of color is his “national interest” in these Asian He agrees that Edward Snowden should legacy: such as the warehousing of a waters. The Philippines and Vietnam stand trial and he calls Hugo Chavez— mostly Black prison population, now were encouraged and bribed to pursue like him, a social democrat—“a dead more numerous than Stalin’s gulag. their claims and old enmities against communist dictator.” He promises to This presidential campaign may not be about populism but American liber- alism, an ideology that sees itself as modern and therefore superior and the one true way. Those on its right wing bear a likeness to Nineteenth Century Christian imperialists, with a God- given duty to convert or co-opt or conquer. In Britain, this is Blairism. The Christian war criminal Tony Blair got away with his secret preparation for the invasion of Iraq largely because the

18 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 liberal political class and media fell for Trumpophobia his “cool Britannia.” In the Guardian, the applause was deafening; he was By Robert Meeropol called “mystical.” A distraction known as identity politics, imported from the I’m not as worried about the possi- tal impact, some progressives propose United States, rested easily in his care. bility of a Trump Presidency as many we vote for Clinton, a candidate whose History was declared over, class was of my friends. policies make that end result more abolished and gender promoted as fem- This could be because I tend to look likely, in order to avoid the more inism; lots of women became New on the bright side. Often, my initial immediate sociopolitical threat of Labor MPs. They voted on the first day reaction to bad news is to think that it Trump. I admit this is not an easy of Parliament to cut the benefits of can’t be that bad. But this is about choice, but choosing the latter over the single parents, mostly women, as more than denial. former could be our worst mistake. instructed. A majority voted for an I don’t take the possibility of armed Some progressive people say it isn’t invasion that produced 700,000 Iraqi Trumpomaniacs patrolling the streets that bad. We can adjust capitalism to widows. lightly. I had family members killed in make it greener, a new technological The equivalent in the U.S. is the the holocaust. Roy breakthrough will presence of politically correct warmon- Cohn, one of the save us or a mass gers on the New York Times, the principal engineers Capitalism, with movement could push a Clinton Washington Post and network TV who of my parents’ frame- its grow or die Presidency to change dominate political debate. I watched a up and execution, course. Clinton’s his- furious debate on CNN about Trump’s was Trump’s men- imperative, is not tory of support for infidelities. It was clear, they said, a tor. I understand the sustainable. war, global, neo-lib- man like that could not be trusted in danger of his poten- eral corporate con- the White House. No issues were raised. tial Supreme Court trol, and the fossil fuel industry, indi- Nothing on the 80 percent of Americans appointments and his racist, misogynist cates the last is extremely unlikely. whose income has collapsed to 1970s policies. I know a Trump victory could levels. Nothing on the drift to war. Science suggests that four or eight more hurt a lot of people and would never years of Obama-style energy policies, The received wisdom seems to be advocate voting for him. plus incremental greening, will not save “hold your nose” and vote for Clinton: But I’m more concerned with the us. Capitalism, with its grow or die anyone but Trump. That way, you stop underlying anti-Trump message. imperative, is not sustainable. the monster and preserve a system gag- Supporting the “lesser evil,” because ging for another war. Other progressives reject capitalism, we can’t live with a Trump victory, is a but insist there is no viable alternative. —Reader Supported News, May 28, tacit admission that the status quo is That’s admitting defeat. We might not 2016 tolerable. It isn’t. While Trump could succeed, but if radical change is needed, http://readersupportednews.org/ be deadly for more of us domestically, then, by definition, we must step out- opinion2/277-75/37125-focus-eerie- our current system already is toxic for side of the current political framework silence-about-a-new-world-war hundreds-of-millions of people world- to bring it about. We must take to heart wide, and is in the process of destroy- Naomi Klein’s brilliant insight that ing the productive capacity of the plan- everything has changed and act on it. et. Both Trump’s and Clinton’s envi- Our civilization, even our survival No American president ronmental policies would be disastrous as a species, is at stake. Like so many for most of the world’s population. has built more nuclear who have researched this issue, I live warheads than Obama. He A willingness to vote for the status every day with that understanding. My quo because Trump is worse is also a fear of Trump pales in comparison. is “modernizing” subtle form of cognitive dissonance. It Robert Meeropol (born Robert America’s doomsday arse- is a refusal to acknowledge, or to act on Rosenberg in 1947) is the younger son of the knowledge, that we are about to Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. nal, including a new run out of time and so must make cli- “mini” nuclear weapon... mate change the number one priority. —Robert Meeropol, June 9, 2016 Instead of confronting a longer-term, http://www.robertmeeropol.com/ but qualitatively deadlier, environmen- blog.htm

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 19 Orlando Massacre We must not let the Orlando nightclub terror further strangle our civil liberties By Chelsea E. Manning

This morning, I woke up in my cell We’re not sure yet what schemes law enforcement only to have those to an even more shattered and frac- might be proposed over the next few same mechanisms turned against us. tured world. We are lost. We are devas- days and weeks, but we have seen how For example, more intense scrutiny on tated. We are bewildered. We are hurt. politicians have used our fear to com- verification procedures in government And we are angry. I haven’t been this promise our constitution many times and business have created barriers for angry since losing a soldier in my unit in the past, from extraordinary rendi- trans people seeking documents that to an RPG (Rocket-Propelled Grenade) tion (kidnapping) to enhanced inter- correctly identify their gender, causing attack in southeastern Baghdad during rogation (torture), from foreign intel- us to be subjected to abusive and my deployment in Iraq in 2010. ligence surveillance courts to encryp- humiliating searches when traveling. As a young queer kid growing up, I tion backdoors. Any increase in surveillance of margin- explored my identity through the alized communities for the sake of Chicago and Washington, DC club security have expanded the cycle of scene. As many have said, the club is We must grieve and criminalization that queer people— our sanctuary—a place where we find mourn and support especially queer people of color—are forced to navigate. ourselves, love ourselves and find com- each other, but in munity. I can totally relate to the trau- Obama says it appears Omar Mateen ma that has afflicted our community in our grief and out- was inspired by extremist information the wake of the shooting in Orlando. rage we must resist spread over the internet but there’s no We must grieve and mourn and any temptations to evidence he was directed from abroad support each other, but in our grief Earlier this year, the FBI sought a and outrage we must resist any tempta- let this attack—or novel judicial backdoor to a cellphone in tions to let this attack—or any attack— any attack—trigger response to the San Bernardino attack. trigger anti-Muslim foreign policy, anti-Muslim foreign Such a backdoor would have potentially attacks on our civil liberties, or as an allowed the government to more easily excuse to descend into xenophobia and policy, attacks on target queer and trans people as well as Islamophobia. our civil liberties, or human rights campaigners, environ- However, an attack like this is care- as an excuse to mentalists and anti-corporate protestors fully planned and executed to maxi- as “threats and criminals.” mize attention by inflaming the pas- descend into xeno- In response to leaks and mass attacks sions of a helpless public. Because of phobia and on military bases, the FBI also sought this, the response can be more danger- Islamophobia. to stifle potential whistleblowers. This ous than the attack. The refrains of Insider Threat program used my gen- “safety and security” have, for many der identity, psychological profile and years, been used as a tool by the power- Some will claim extreme measures history as a basis for their targeting. ful to justify curtailing civil liberties and are necessary to protect the queer and “Safety and security” has even been emboldening backlash against immi- trans community. Others will erase the used as a justification to place a two- grants, Muslim people and others. queer and Latin identities of the vic- inch limit on the length of my hair. Those who wish to continue cam- tims and instead claim that we are at We are not safe and secure when the paigns of fear are prepared to cast an war with Islam. But regardless of how government uses us as pawns to perpe- entire religion as hateful with no reflec- the narrative is told, such policies will trate violence against others. Our safety tion on their own complicity in the undoubtedly have a negative impact on and security will come when we orga- many forms of violence the queer com- our community at home and abroad. nize, love and resist together. munity encounters in the United Current proposals for hate crime We should remember that we are States. We should not let their agendas laws and terrorism enhancements only alive. We are real flesh and blood. guide our reaction to this senseless take more power away from our com- Apart from the fact that we are increas- massacre. munity. We consolidate power with ingly disconnected from the world by

20 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 technology and politics, we are still Freddie Gray Case surviving as a community. And even though we have come a Judge rules it is unreasonable to expect cops to obey the law long way, events like these remind us By Glen Ford we still have a long way to go. Thoughts and prayers alone won’t protect our The cops charged in the death of rabbit runs away from the hounds they community. We need to continue to Freddie Gray had another good day in a will chase it down and tear it apart. build and support queer and trans Baltimore courtroom, on Monday, So, the hounds are on trial in communities and end the profiling and May 23, 2016, when one of the six offi- Baltimore. The prosecution maintains criminalization that so many face. cers was found not guilty of second that the cops had no right to arrest and degree assault, misconduct and reckless We find solace and sanctuary in the move Freddie Gray—that this amount- endangerment. Officer Edward Nero club because we are so often expelled ed to second-degree assault on his per- had opted not to undergo a trial by from other public spaces—from bath- son. In her closing arguments, deputy jury, so the case was decided by a Black rooms, from street corners, from jobs, state’s attorney Janice Bledsoe said circuit court judge, Barry Williams. The from history. Our survival is our resis- “people get jacked up in the city all the trial of another cop, William Porter, tance. And our solidarity and support time” by cops, and such behavior must ended in a mistrial back in December for the Muslim community in these be punished. But, the judge seemed to when the jury deadlocked on all four coming days and months—some of think it would be ridiculous to treat counts. If Officer Porter is tried again, it whom are queer and trans—will lift us every arrest as criminal just because will be after the trials of all the other all up in the face of anyone seeking to there were no grounds for arrest. cops are completed. further marginalize another. Officer Nero’s lawyer agreed, saying it But Officer Nero is home free, didn’t make any difference if the cops —The Guardian, June 13, 2016 because Judge Williams ruled that there acted illegally in arresting Freddie http://www.theguardian.com/com- was “no evidence that the cop intended Gray. “Wrong or right isn’t the stan- mentisfree/2016/jun/13/chelsea-man- for a crime to occur.” Judge Williams dard,” said the cop’s attorney. “The ning-civil-liberties-orlando-terrorism was affirming the triple legal standard standard is, were they so wrong that it Write to Chelsea E. Manning: that exists in American law: one stan- was unreasonable?” Mail must be addressed exactly as follows: dard for cops, another for civilians in So, cops have to be more than just CHELSEA E. MANNING 89289 general, and no reliable expectation of guilty of breaking the law; they must be 1300 NORTH WAREHOUSE ROAD justice at all for Black people. “unreasonably” guilty—whatever that is. FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS 66027-2304 Officer Nero was one of the cops Warren Brown, a defense lawyer Support Chelsea E. Manning: WHO arrested Freddie Gray, dragged who observed the proceedings, said: “If Private Manning Support Network: his limping body to a police transport you’re going to go back and charge http://www.bradleymanning.org/ wagon, and then failed to secure him every police officer whose arrest was Courage to Resist with a seatbelt. Gray was given a wild determined to be illegal with assault, or 484 Lake Park Ave. #41 ride through the streets of Baltimore, every search that’s deemed to be absent Oakland, CA 94610 his handcuffed body crashing into the probable cause, [then] you’re going to 510-488-3559 sides and front of the vehicle, fatally indict the entire police force.” severing his spine. couragetoresist.org Sounds good to me. Indict them all, Lawlessness begins with and empower the people to form a the lawmen security force that respects, and is answerable to, the community it serves. Freddie Gray’s only offense was to But, of course, it would be “unreason- run away after making eye contact with able” for Black people to expect any- a police supervisor—which is not a thing that smacks of justice in America. crime in anybody’s law book. But, as my colleague Bruce Dixon often says, —Black Agenda Report, May 24, 2016 cops are like hounds, and Black people http://blackagendareport.com/fred- are treated like rabbits, and when a die_gray_cop_acquitted

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 21 Detroit Teacher’s Strike Detroit teachers strike against disaster capitalism By Glen Ford

Detroit’s public school teachers to the Obama administration’s national a total structural collapse, while blam- stand at the front lines of the resistance charterization juggernaut. President ing the Detroit community for the to Black urban removal and the priva- Obama let it be known that he opposed “failure” of the public schools, which tization of education in the United the sick-out. “These kids aren’t getting are nominally $3.4 billion in debt. States. The teachers ended a two-day educated, and that’s—that is a real However, except for a brief period from sick-out on Wednesday, May 4, 2016, problem, and one that the president’s 2005 to 2008, an elected school board after Emergency Manager Steven deeply concerned about,” said White has not been in charge since the state Rhodes assured their weak-kneed House press secretary Josh Earnest. The takeover of 1999, under a Republican union leadership that the state-run Obama administration collaborated governor. Then, in 2009, Democratic system would honor its “contractual with state and corporate leaders in the Governor Jennifer Granholm imposed obligation to pay teachers what they deal to bankrupt Detroit’s municipal the first of a succession of emergency have earned.” However, this grudging government, in 2014—an arrangement managers over the Detroit public concession to contract law does not presided over by Judge Steven Rhodes, schools. Thus, the state—under both signal a retreat from the state’s two before he was named Emergency Democratic and Republican adminis- decades-long campaign to destroy Manager for the district’s schools. trations—should be held responsible Detroit’s public institutions and drain The sick-outs began in November, for most of the Detroit system’s “debt” the city of its poor Black majority led by union reformers under elected during the 21st century. population. Republican Governor Rick president Steve Conn and BAMN (By The whole concept of public school Snyder’s plan for the Detroit public Any Means Necessary) activists. Conn “debt” must be rejected. Public schools schools would create the conditions to says the actions should be called by are not capitalist enterprises; they do complete the privatization of a district their proper name. “This is a strike and not operate on a for-profit basis (unless that is already second only to New we have got to continue to strike to vic- they are charters), and are tied to state Orleans in charter school enrollment. tory, which means defeating Snyder’s and federally imposed funding formu- The local union satraps are spineless plan to destroy our schools,” said Conn. las that even elected school boards are jellyfish who deposed the elected lead- Teachers strikes are illegal in Michigan. helpless to alter, and which serve to ership at the behest of American The state has been spoon-feeding reinforce huge disparities between Federation of Teachers president Randi the district just enough money to avert white suburban and Black and brown Weingarten, who long ago surrendered urban districts. Black communities cannot be held responsible for the racist hysteria of white flight, which relentlessly down- sized Detroit and its school popula- tion, robbing the system of per-pupil funding while the proportion of needi- est students steadily increased and the physical school structures deteriorat- ed—leading to Black flight from the Detroit schools. Nor can these com- munities be blamed when legislatures dominated by hostile whites facilitate the spread of urban charter school enterprises that they would never tol- erate in their own communities. The same corporate forces that rejoiced in the ethnic and class cleans- ing of New Orleans after Katrina, and

22 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 that have schemed to rid Detroit of as many Black people as possible to pave More Than a Few Rogue Cops the way for a “renaissance,” are at work The disturbing history of police in schools in every urban center in the nation. By Mary Anne Henderson and Brian Platt Charter schools are the principal weap- on to disenfranchise and destabilize April 26, 2016—Another week, lesser known is how that same bias Black communities. The public schools another video of police abuse surfaces. pervades the classroom. were the first target of the corporate This time the video shows San Antonio A host of studies shows that Black demographic demolition strategy school resource officer Joshua Kehm students are more likely to be disci- hatched in the 1990s to “rescue” the cit- body-slamming 12-year-old Rhodes plined while in school, a process of ies from Black and brown domination, Middle School student Janissa Valdez. targeting that begins in preschool under the guise of “reform.” Charter Valdez was talking with another stu- where Black children make up nearly schools are multi-use destructive devic- dent, trying to resolve a verbal conflict half of students suspended during the es. They serve both to privatize the between the two, when Kehm entered year while only comprising 18 percent public education sphere and to discon- and attacked her. “Janissa! Janissa, you of preschool enrollments. Throughout nect the Black urban polity from issues okay?” a student asked before exclaim- their school careers, Black boys are of community governance and “devel- ing, “She landed on her face!” In a more than three times as likely to be opment.” Once local democratic con- statement on the incident, co-director suspended or expelled as their white trol is removed from schools, the same of the Advancement Project Judith counterparts. For Black girls, the situa- financial rationale can be deployed Browne Davis wrote, “Once again, a tion is even more extreme, as they are against the municipal government. video captured by a student offers a six times more likely to be suspended Four years after Detroit’s schools were sobering reminder that we cannot or expelled. placed under an emergency financial entrust school police officers to inter- manager (EFM) in 2009, the state vene in school disciplinary matters that Once police are added to the equa- imposed an EFM on the city in order to are best suited for trained educators tion, the racial disparities of the move Detroit into bankruptcy. Mass and counselors.” American criminal justice system are brought inside the school. The fact that water cut-offs followed, designed to This senseless attack on a student is schools already disproportionately dis- drive the poor out of town for lack of immediately reminiscent of video taken essential fluids. In EFM-run Flint, the by kids at a South Carolina high school cipline non-white students translates water was poisoned. Charter schools in October. While classmates looked into school resource officers that are play a key role in urban disaster capital- on, school resource officer (SRO) Ben more likely to refer students to the ism, wrecking the community nexus of Fields slammed a 16-year-old student juvenile justice system. This racist dis- public education by draining the sys- to the ground and then dragged her by ciplining creates and feeds the school- tem of students and resources. They are her hair across the floor after she refused to-prison pipeline. an infestation of Trojan horses, posi- to hand over her cellphone. Some will say that, for all their tioned as “marketplace” alternatives to At times like this, media talking faults, SROs are needed to protect stu- the public sphere—the antithesis of heads and editorial boards wring their dents from violence on campus—the community control. hands over “bad apples” in the police image of Columbine is always invoked Detroit’s public school teachers did department—both Kehm and Fields around discussions of police in school. not go on sick-out just to collect a have since been fired. Yet, the problem But Columbine employed an SRO at check or two. They are mounting a of police violence goes deeper than just the time of the shooting. In fact, while desperate defense against corporate a few rogue cops. Deeply rooted insti- the shooting was going on at dictatorship and ethnic cleansing of tutional racism and sexism in the Columbine, 800 police officers and the cities. United States informs the behavior of eight SWAT teams surrounded the school. Yet, all refused to confront the —Black Agenda Report, May 4, 2016 the police. Recently, books like Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass shooters, preferring to “contain the perimeter.” The truth is having police http://www.blackagendareport.com/ Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness on campus does not curb violence. detroit_teachers_sick_out and the growth of civil rights protest by groups like Black Lives Matter have The origin of school resource officers highlighted the deep-seated racism in lies not in school shootings, but in the the American criminal justice system opposition to the Civil Rights and how it targets people of color, but Movement. California launched the

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 23 modern trend of bringing police into Black Panther headquarters in Los reinstall the metal detectors, flatly stat- schools in 1968. Early police-in-school Angeles, exchanging over 5,000 rounds ing, “We are not running a concentra- programs targeted middle schools (Los of ammunition with the besieged civil tion camp here” (New York Times, Angeles Times, November 5, 1968). rights organization. Respect for the October 7, 1980). Yet the call for merg- Parents were assured the programs were police was at an all-time low. The aim ing schools and prisons would prove “purely educational” and their inten- of putting police in schools was to irresistible, and in 1993 South Boston tion was “not to effect a policing plan” indoctrinate kids while they are young High—along with many other schools (Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1969). “In and to change their perspective on law across the country—doubled the num- no way,” Arden Daniels, a Glendale enforcement. But once police were in ber of security officers and approved school principal, emphasized in 1970, the schools, mission creep followed. searches with hand-held metal detec- “does he [their SRO] participate as a Police also served as the enforce- tors. South Boston City Councilman disciplinarian, a responsibility of the ment arm of school desegregation pro- James Kelly fought for the change say- principal and other administrators.” grams. However, their tactics—mir- ing that white residents and students (Los Angeles Times, January 11, 1970) roring those used on the streets outside lived in fear of Black youth, “a good portion of whom act like a bunch of Mission creep of school—frequently targeted the Black students they were supposed to terrorists.” The purpose of these early pro- protect. Case in point: when a white Changes in Boston mirrored those grams was to “develop a closer rapport student killed a Black student at happening throughout the country in between students and law enforcement Lubbock’s Dunbar High School in the 1980s. The War on Drugs targeted officers and to create a greater respect 1971, police shut down the tradition- Black and Brown people incarcerating for law and order” (Los Angeles Times, ally Black school and surrounded the them in record numbers. As a result November 5, 1968). At this time, stu- Black Eastside, patrolling it with a tank. Black and Brown youth were demon- dents watched police on the nightly ized in the public mind. “Kids are com- news attack civil rights marchers with White resistance to school busing in ing to school with Uzis!” Oprah Winfrey vicious dogs and batons. A hit-squad Boston led to the first introduction of told her audience in 1988 as she stood made up of Chicago police officers metal detectors in public schools, fur- in the gym of Southwestern High made national news when they assas- ther fusing the education and incarcer- School in Baltimore, “Kids are hiding sinated Black Panther leader Fred ation model. After a brief removal, guns in their underwear! Knives in their Hampton in his bed while he slept in white parents and students boycotted socks!” Flanked by police and security 1969—one year after the same depart- South Boston High School in 1980 guards, Oprah would not even enter the ment savagely beat antiwar protesters demanding that Black students be school until metal detectors were at the Democratic National checked at the door of the school with installed. Reviewing the 1989 exploita- Convention. Shortly after Hampton’s “airport-style” metal detectors (New tion flick, Class of 1999, in which stu- assassination a force of hundreds of York Times, October 8, 1980). School dent gangs engage in open warfare at LAPD officers and SWAT raided the Headmaster Jerome Winegar refused to Seattle high schools until Terminator- style cyborg teachers arrive on the scene to restore order, Los Angeles Times movie reviewer Kevin Thomas described this absurd scenario as “uncomfortably close to the possible.” In this environment, the job of SROs expanded to discipline enforce- ment within the school. Truancy raids like the 1982 bust in Miami that round- ed up 250 high school students at a local park became common as SROs and local police intensified coopera- tion. “It was like bringing cattle in,” according to school resource officer Barney Silver, “We pretty much round- ed them up.” (Miami Herald, October 22, 1982)

24 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 Talking to the Los Angeles Times in Jason Nance notes that schools began It is no coincidence that schools 1992, Paul Walters, police chief for to “appl[y] zero tolerance to a multi- adopted this more punitive approach Santa Ana, California, outlined the tude of offenses, including possession to student discipline at the exact same expanded role of the school resource of drugs, alcohol, or tobacco; fighting; time that white students and parents officer, “a special relationship is created dress-code violations; truancy; and tar- began fleeing the public school system. between the department, the school diness.” Nance concludes that the pres- Efforts at desegregating schools in administration and the students. ence of SROs “leads school officials to Boston led to white families fleeing to Officers help the school in identifying redefine lower-level offenses as crimi- the suburbs or to private schools. In potential problems on campus and in nal justice issues rather than as social the South, “segregation academies,” the surrounding neighborhoods.” As or psychological issues… In other religious private schools designed to we all know, teenagers have always had words, SRO programs appear to facili- maintain school segregation, continue problems. In the past those disciplinary tate a criminal justice orientation to to flourish long after school busing has issues had largely been considered the how school officials respond to offens- faded from the scene. In Philadelphia, domain of parents and school faculty— es that were once handled internally.” white flight from public schools left a boundary that police initially respect- It is important to consider the effect one teacher asking, “Where have all the ed. Now, school resource officers repre- that this level of police control has on white kids gone?” The Harvard Civil sented the bridge between schools and students. School Resource Officer pro- Rights Project notes that the trend the criminal justice system. grams socialize students for an over- toward desegregation in schools policed world, normalizing it. reversed itself in 1988 leaving many Criminalizing youth Sociologists Aaron Kupchik and Torin schools more racially segregated today The anti-gang hysteria whipped up Monahan describe the effect of these than they were in 1968. As a result, last by politicians and the press in the 1990s programs in a 2006 paper, “Police year, for the first time in the nation’s led to the further expansion of the role interact with students on a daily basis, history, the majority of kids in public of police in schools. Hollywood turned cultivate informants, spread an ambi- school were non-white. inner-city schools with majority-minor- ance of control and streamline the Defunding public schools ity student populations into dystopian formal disciplinary process to efficient- battlegrounds in films like Only the ly usher students into the criminal The changing demographics of Strong (1993), Dangerous Minds (1995), justice system.” In the name of the War American public schools has several The Substitute (1996), and 187 (1997). on Drugs, the punitive gaze of police implications. First, because of the deep Talk of “super-predators” and “kids was extended to every student in and historical connection between race without a conscience” drove a biparti- schools where SROs operated. In and class in the United States, news of san wave of legislation that sought to Kansas City high schools, signs at the the racial demographic swing in public “bring them to heel” by aggressively entrance of the student parking lot schools was followed quickly by news criminalizing Black and Brown youth. alerted commuters that merely parking that the majority of public school stu- Mandatory minimum sentences were implied consent to vehicle searches dents are poor. As one would expect, toughened while the barriers for trying “with or without cause.” Unannounced, defunding of the public school system children as adults were relaxed— suspicion-less locker searches along soon followed. It is a disturbing trend dropped to 14 in most states. Despite with the use of drug-sniffing dogs in the United States that once a public (or perhaps because of) the disastrous became staples of school anti-drug institution becomes associated in the effects of the 1994 Violent Crime programs. The use of undercover public mind with poor people and, Control and Law Enforcement Act on police officers in high schools leapt most importantly, Black people, sup- poor and minority communities, its from the television screen to reality in port for maintaining that institution primary authors and promoters (the many cities. One such officer in Atlanta begins to wane. Welfare was eviscerat- Clintons and Joe Biden) remain the explained his job to a local journalist, ed with the aid of a concerted cam- leading voices of the Democratic Party. “I knew I had to fit in, make the kids paign to associate the program with Not as well known, but no less trust me and then turn around and poor Black mothers in the eyes of the problematic, was the passage of the take them to jail” (Atlanta Journal- public. Similarly, public education is Gun-Free Schools Act in 1994. Initially Constitution, March 7, 2001) The arti- increasingly associated with the urban designed to create a zero tolerance cle does not say whether the officer poor, driving up support for private policy for students caught with a fire- ever considered the negative effect his school voucher programs and charter arm, it quickly crept into every aspect operation might have had on social ties school “alternatives” that drain vital of school discipline. Law professor within the student community. resources from public schools.

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 25 Finally, the demographic change in School District SRO, Daniel Alvarado, injure, maim, and kill. When those public schools makes it easier to shift witnessed the incident from his car and same police bring their guns into the from an education model in schools to demanded Lopez freeze. Lopez ran and classroom it is only a matter of time an incarceral model—and to accept the Alvarado chased after him in his squad before someone gets killed. violence that comes with it. Schools car falsely telling a dispatcher that he As a society, we have come to accept with SROs that encourage a zero toler- had seen “an assault in progress. He the presence of school resource officers ance disciplinary model increase the punched the guy several times.” in public schools with all that their level of interaction between students of After initially losing Lopez in a presence entails. It is seemingly ines- color and police. Sadly, this leads to nearby neighborhood, Alvarado was capable that this merging of schools predictably disastrous results. told by his supervisor to “stay with the with the criminal justice system is the Videos of the attacks in San Antonio victim.” The SRO immediately dis- part of the process of the re-segrega- and South Carolina went viral and led obeyed the order, setting off in his car tion of American schooling. As wealthy to appropriate outrage. Yet, most to continue searching for Lopez. This parents flee the public school system police attacks on students go relatively was nothing new for Alvarado, who they are all too happy to see the police unnoticed. How many people know had a long history of insubordination take in their wake. In short, the SRO about the video of a school resource that had led to four suspensions and program is simply an extension of what officer in Round Rock, Texas who warnings of impending termination. A Michelle Alexander calls The New Jim choked and then threw a 14-year-old homeowner called the police after see- Crow. In this light, the assault on boy to the ground? The officer was ing Lopez climb over her fence and go Janissa Valdez can only be seen as the cleared of any wrong doing despite the into her shed. Alvarado arrived shortly natural outcome of the new incarceral video evidence. Who remembers the after hearing the call go out on the school system. As such, communities Omaha school resource officer who radio. According to the homeowner, affected by this police violence need to was caught on tape repeatedly punch- he charged into her backyard with his eschew simple answers, like terminat- ing a student in the face after breaking pistol drawn. Forty-five seconds later a ing bad apples. We must dig deeper up a fight? Or the surveillance footage single gunshot rang out, and Derek into the root of the problem. We need from a Florida middle school that Lopez was dead. to demand the removal of all police shows a police officer shove and throw “The suspect bull-rushed his way officers from public schools. Instead of a 13-year-old student to the ground out of the shed and lunged right at police and metal detectors we must while fellow students and administra- me,” Alvarado would later explain, increase public investment in educa- tors watch passively—apparently just “The suspect was literally inches away tion that is, and has been, lacking for so another day at school? Or the Kentucky from me, and I feared for my safety,” many students. SRO that “allegedly” punched a An autopsy later revealed that Alvarado —Counter Punch, April 26, 2016 13-year-old student in the face for cut- was lying. He claimed that he immedi- http://www.counterpunch. ting the lunch line only to choke ately provided CPR, but the home- org/2016/04/26/more-than-a-few- another student until he lost con- owner reported that the SRO carried rogue-cops-the-disturbing-history-of- sciousness five days later? Lopez’s body from the shed and police-in-schools/ dumped it on the grass. She, and a Few recall that a little over five years ago, San Antonio was the home to paramedic who lived next door, were another tragedy involving a school the ones who tried to resuscitate the resource officer. As school let out on child while Alvarado watched “a little November 12, 2010, Derek Lopez, a dazed and distant.” 14-year-old student at the Bexar The death of Derek Lopez—or School Resource Officer County Juvenile Justice Academy—an another student like him—was inevi- alternative school for students that table. As inevitable as the city’s refusal programs socialize stu- have been expelled from their regular to charge Daniel Alvarado for murder- dents for an over-policed school, approached a 13-year-old class- ing Lopez. As inevitable as the $925,000 mate at the bus stop striking him once settlement that Lopez’s mother would world, normalizing it. in the face with the back of his hand. reach with Northside Independent The student would later state, “He just School District in exchange for drop- hit me once. It wasn’t a fight. It was ping her wrongful death lawsuit. nothing.” Northside Independent Armed police in the streets regularly

26 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 Guns in America And the U.S. military industrial complex By Steven Katsineris

“Politicians in Washington of all ammunition manufacturing industry dation in 1998. But still 80 percent of stripes, whatever the occasion, love (December 2015 figures) is $13.5 bil- those people who carry out mass shoot- to quote the Founding Fathers. But lion, with a $1.5 billion profit. The ings used legally obtained firearms. there’s one quote you’ll never hear. annual revenue of gun and ammuni- The military style AR-15 is a popu- It’s from James Madison. He said, tion stores is $3.1 billion with a $478.4 ‘Of all the enemies of public liberty, lar rifle among U.S. gun owners; they million profit. While the total number war is perhaps the most to be dread- possess five million of these assault ed, because it comprises and devel- of full-time equivalent jobs rose from rifles. And it’s become especially preva- ops the germ of every other. War is approximately 166,000 in 2008 to lent as the weapon of choice in the parent of armies. From these 263,000 in 2014 to almost 288,000 in American mass shootings. It was the proceed debts and taxes. And armies, 2015, according to a report by the weapon used by the Orlando gunman debts and taxes are the known instru- National Shooting Sports Foundation, in the worst mass shooting in modern ments for bringing the many under the industries trade association. U.S. history. The massacre in the the domination of the few. No nation Almost 11 million guns and rifles Orlando nightclub left 49 dead and could preserve its freedom in the dozens more wounded and has once midst of continual warfare.’” were made in the U.S. in 2013 (the lat- est available figures) more than twice again prompted calls for a ban on the —Gore Vidal, Perpetual War for as many as were made in 2010 (5.4 mil- AR-15. The AR-15 was developed from Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be lion). That’s about four million rifles; the U.S. military’s M-16 rifle and is So Hated, Causes of Conflict in the manufactured by dozens of U.S. com- Last Empire. over one million shotguns; more than four million pistols and a million panies, including major gun makers I don’t think many people realize revolvers and miscellaneous firearms. like Smith and Wesson, Sturm Ruger that U.S. society is not only addicted to Only four percent of these guns pro- and Remington Arms. Unlike the mili- guns socially and culturally, but also duced were exported. So, 96 percent of tary version, the AR-15 is not fully how much the country is economically those 11 million guns, stayed in automatic, meaning the shooter must dependent on military industries, America. There are now over 310 mil- pull the trigger each time to fire a shot. weapons manufacture, military budget lion guns owned by American citizens But like the military version, the guns expenditure and the export arms trade. in the U.S.; millions of them are mili- are capable of firing many rounds of The U.S. economy is a military arma- tary style automatic and semi-auto- ammunition quickly and can be ments and war-based economy and matic weapons. reloaded rapidly. needs to constantly produce military Close to 33,000 Americans were The Orlando massacre “is more hardware and to fight wars to keep its victims of gun-related deaths in 2011 horrific evidence of the unique lethali- economy going. and an average of 268 citizens are shot ty of the AR-15,” said Joshua Koskoff, The top three largest military produc- every day. In 2011, 10.3 in every a lawyer representing the families of tion companies in the world are all United 100,000 people in the U.S. were victims those killed and injured in Sandy States companies. With combined total of gun-related deaths. Buyers that pur- Hook. In December 2012, Adam Lanza revenue of over $100 billion and employ- chase firearms through private sales in used a Bushmaster XM15 to kill 28 ing more than 400,000 people, Lockheed the U.S. don’t have to pass a back- children and adults at the Sandy Hook Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing ground check before obtaining posses- Elementary School before taking his are the three powerhouses of American sion of the weapon. This means crimi- own life with a Glock pistol. corporate business. nals, people with a history of severe The U.S. also outpaces all other The total economic impact of the mental illness, and inexperienced users nations in military budget expendi- firearms and ammunition manufactur- can easily obtain guns. tures. World military spending totaled ing industry in the United States In the months of January to more than $1.6 trillion in 2015. The increased from $19.1 billion in 2008 to November of 2012, the federal govern- U.S. accounted for 37 percent of the $43 billion in 2014 to over $49.3 billion ment performed 16.8 million back- world total. U.S. military expenditures in 2015, a 15 percent percent increase. ground checks on legal gun purchases, are roughly the size of the next seven The annual revenue of the gun and which was a record high since its foun- biggest military budgets in the world

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 27 combined. In 2015, military spending cent, or nearly $10 billion, to $36.2 and to sell more weaponry overseas to accounted for 54 percent of all federal billion in 2014, according to the keep the U.S. industrial-military com- discretionary spending, a total of $598.5 Congressional Research Service report, plex going. This brings in billions in billion. Military spending includes: all which analyzed the global arms market huge profits to the big arms manufac- regular activities of the Department of between 2007 and 2014. And foreign turers and provides millions of jobs in Defense; war spending; nuclear weap- military sales rose to a record high of military industries. So the constant ons spending; international military $46.6 billion for the fiscal year 2015. fear, conflict and warfare are good for assistance; and other Pentagon-related And they will sell arms to both hostile the weapons businesses. The war spending. This military budget total sides in a dispute or war, such as the dependence is propped up by politi- does not include billions for various rivalry between India and Pakistan, cians dependent on the support of the secret military and security projects, Greece and Turkey among others. The military companies, and their military operations and military aid within the U.S. also has a sordid history of supply- contractors and suppliers. scope of the U.S. State Department and ing repressive, corrupt and dictatorial So the military-industrial complex the Defense Department that is not regimes throughout the world. continues to get the assistance it needs publicly disclosed. The U.S. is also a huge sponsor of from both Democrats and Republicans In contrast the U.S. Budget (2015) foreign military aid to “friendly” nations. so the corporate military alliance can to fund other sectors were much small- According to the U.S. State Government continue to make billions in weapons er, these included: Government, six Foreign Assistance report, the USA gave sales and to get the financing for wars percent; Education, six percent; $5.9 billion in foreign military aid in in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere Veterans Affairs, six percent; Medicare 2014. Some 75 percent of that went to while Congress cuts billions in health, and Health, five percent; Housing and two countries, Israel and Egypt. Most of welfare, education budgets and other Community, five percent; Social that funding, $3.1 billion went to Israel. social programs to obtain the money. Security, Unemployment and Labor, And $1.3 billion of military aid was sent Even some 60 years ago, U.S. two percent; Science, three percent; to Egypt. This does not take account of President Dwight D Eisenhower was Energy and Environment, three per- economic aid to these and other coun- concerned enough to warn the nation cent; International Affairs, three per- tries, which stipulate that this money in two speeches of what he viewed as cent; Transport, three percent; and must be used to buy U.S. military equip- one of its greatest threats: the military- Food and Agriculture, one percent. ment and supplies. And by U.S. law, industrial complex composed of mili- The U.S. is also the top global arms millions of dollars of other economic tary contractors and lobbyists perpetu- exporter, with more than 50 percent of and military aid to Israel does not have ating continual war and ever expand- the global weaponry market sales con- to be publically disclosed. ing military budgets. trolled by the United States as of 2014. The U.S. elites therefore want their The first, the Chance for Peace Arms sales by the U.S. jumped 35 per- own people to keep buying weapons speech was addressed to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, in Washington D.C., on April 16, 1953. Speaking only three months into his presidency, Eisenhower likened arms spending to stealing from the people. Eisenhower took an opportunity to highlight the cost of continued ten- sions and rivalry with the Soviet Union. He noted that not only were there military dangers, but an arms race would place a huge domestic burden on both nations: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending

28 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 the sweat of its laborers, the genius of U.S. and to limit the military budget word ‘decline’ and U.S. in the same its scientists, the hopes of its chil- expenditure or the overseas arms trade. sentence and points to problems ‘in dren. The cost of one modern heavy This makes initiating genuine change infrastructure, basic research and bomber is this: a modern brick on the issue of guns very difficult. Let’s education.’ Curious that he doesn’t school in more than 30 cities. It is hope the populace of the U.S. can soon mention the huge Pentagon budget, two electric power plants, each serv- become empowered enough to change hundreds of bases, and the perma- ing a town of 60,000 in population. It nent war economy as factors con- that reality, for the good of people in is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. tributing to the decline. The signs of It is some fifty miles of concrete the U.S. and elsewhere around the decay are everywhere but pavement. We pay for a single fighter world. These gun atrocities are utterly Washington politicians from both with a half-million bushels of wheat. heartbreaking in that many millions of parties largely avoid talking about it. We pay for a single destroyer with innocent lives are lost and shattered Imperial fantasies and mendacities new homes that could have housed and in the loss of boundless creative continue.” —Gore Vidal, The Fall of more than 8,000 people. . . . This is potential. But also the present wretch- the United States. not a way of life at all, in any true ed situation with gun violence and its —June 2016. sense. Under the cloud of threaten- massive carnage have an immensely ing war, it is humanity hanging from detrimental social and economic cost a cross of iron.”—President Dwight 1 The Chance for Peace speech was addressed 1 to humanity that is not only an appall- D. Eisenhower. ing waste of society’s resources, but to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Later, on January 17, 1961, President inexcusable and untenable. in Washington D.C., on April 16, 1953. Speak- ing only three months into his presidency, Eisenhower, a former soldier and “At the end of WWII, the U.S. Eisenhower likened arms spending to stealing retired Army General warned in his emerged as a global power with from the people. Eisenhower took an opportu- farewell address that “an immense mil- unprecedented wealth and advan- nity to highlight the cost of continued tensions itary establishment and a large arms tages. Most of that has been squan- and rivalry with the Soviet Union. He noted industry” had emerged as a hidden dered. We’ve gone from number that not only were there military dangers, but force in U.S. politics. President Dwight one creditor nation to number one an arms race would place a huge domestic bur- den on both nations. Eisenhower gave the USA a dire warn- debtor. As its vast military machine straddles the globe, at home, things 2 On January 17, 1961, President Dwight ing about what he described as a threat Eisenhower gave the USA a dire warning about fall apart. The mortgage giants, to democratic government. He called it what he described as a threat to democratic the military-industrial complex, a for- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, need government. He called it the military-industrial midable union of defense contractors a massive taxpayer bailout. Same too complex, a formidable union of defense con- for Wall Street banks. Even New and the armed forces. This last speech tractors and the armed forces. Eisenhower, a York Times columnist Thomas retired five-star Army general, the man who led may have been Eisenhower’s most Friedman, a champion of U.S. dom- the allies on D-Day, made the remarks in his forceful and far-sighted. Since then the inance and empire, mentions the farewell speech from the White House. U.S. arms industry and its influence has only grown stronger. “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military- industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” President Dwight D. Eisenhower.2 These military industry companies are a very wealthy and powerful lobby group that finances politicians and political campaigns. For instance the National Rifle Association (NRA) alone spent $17 million on publicity campaigns in the 2012 presidential and congressional elections. This is a large part of the reason that it is so hard to wind back domestic gun sales in the

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 29 “Disposable” Americans Income, savings and life expectancy are in decline for broad swathes of society. By Paul Buchheit

Poor Americans are becoming every $10 goes to them. The Social about the future. And there is good rea- increasingly disposable in our winner- Security Administration reports that son for more pessimism going forward. take-all society, as often noted in the over half of Americans make less than The growing disparities mean that passionate writings of Henry $30,000 per year. That’s less than an our children will likely see fewer oppor- Giroux. After 35 years of wealth redis- appropriate average living wage of tunities for their own futures. tribution to the super-rich, inequality $16.87 per hour, as calculated In a disgraceful display of high-level has forced much of the middle class by Alliance for a Just Society. disregard for vital health issues, House down to near-poverty levels, worsened Half of us have no savings Republicans are attempting to cut back by the fact that they are also blamed for on lunches for over three million kids. their own misfortunes. The evidence for Numerous sources report that half or this disposability keeps accumulating: more of American families have virtu- It may all be getting still worse income and wealth—and health—are ally no savings, and would have to bor- The staggering reality is that half of all declining for middle-class America. row money or sell possessions to cover America is in financial distress and is at Meanwhile, those at the top could not an emergency expense—if they could risk of falling deeper into debt. In fact, be less concerned. As wealth at the top cover it at all. Between half and two- it could be even more than half. grows, the super-rich feel they have lit- thirds of Americans have less than The Wall Street Journal recently report- tle need for the rest of society. $1,000. For every $100 a middle-class ed on a JP Morgan study’s conclusion household had in 2001, that household Here are some truly stark realities that “the bottom 80 percent of house- now has just $72. about how extreme inequality contin- holds by income lack sufficient savings ues to worsen to the point where vast Race plays a role in the diminishing to cover the type of volatility observed numbers of Americans are in dire of middle America. The typical Black in income and spending.” Fewer straits in terms of income, savings and family has only enough liquid savings than one in three 25- to 34-year-olds even health, and may have little reason to last five days, compared to 12 days live in their own homes, a 20 percent to hope things will get better. for the typical Hispanic household, drop in just the past 15 years. and 30 days for a white household, Renters are faring even worse. The Income among the middle class is according to Pew Research. number of families spending more plummeting than half their incomes on rent—the According to Pew Research, in Inequality is taking a toll on our health “severely” cost-burdened renters—has 1970 $3 of every $10 in income went to increased by a stunning 50 percent in just upper-income households. Now $5 of A new study finds nearly a 15-year ten years. Billionaire Steve Schwarzman, difference in life expectancy whose company Blackstone has been between 40-year-old men buying up tens-of-thousands of homes at among the richest one percent rock-bottom prices and then rent- and the poorest one percent. ing them out at exorbitant rates while The gap is ten years for waiting out the housing market, recently women. Much of the disparity said he finds the growing anger among has arisen in just the past 15 voters “astonishing.” years. The disregard many of the super- It’s not hard to understand rich have for struggling Americans is the dramatic decline in life astonishing. expectancy, as numerous stud- ies have documented the health —Alternet, May 23, 2016 problems resulting from the http://www.alternet.org/economy/once- inequality-driven levels of stress middle-class-millions-are-joining-ranks-dis- and worry and anger that make posable-americans?akid=14309.267218.Y_ Americans much less optimistic jEgR&rd=1&src=newsletter1057439&t=18

30 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 Catastrophe Unmasked Prescription for addiction By Nayvin Gordon, M.D.

The “Opium Wars” were fought by campaign to market opioids for long Dr. David A Kessler, the past com- the British Government to legalize term non-cancer pains such as back missioner of the F.D.A., from 1990- their control of the opium trade to and neck pain. During the 1990s the 1997, the very years the epidemic was China in the mid 17th Century. Reports incidence of opioid misuse rose mark- accelerating, stated in an article in the estimated that 25 percent of the edly, fueled by the number of opioid New York Times on May 7, 2016: “It Chinese people were addicted to opium prescriptions written by many physi- has proved to be one of the biggest by 1905. That same year in the U.S., cians and nurses. mistakes in modern medicine.” heroin addiction had risen to alarming Where were the Food and Drug Doctors, regulators and drug makers rates, and the U.S. Congress passed a Administration (F.D.A.) and the “missed one fundamental: The more ban on opium. Another American her- American Medical Association opioids prescribed, the more opioid oin epidemic began again in 1967 in (A.M.A.) when they were presented abuse there will be.” Chicago and New York, and then with blatant disregard for the truth I beg to differ. This was no mistake. spread widely through the early 1980s. about opioid addiction? What evidence The reality is that physicians in the The son of the U.S. Attorney General, did they demand before they aban- leadership of the F.D.A., A.M.A., and Robert Kennedy, died of a heroin over- doned 150 years of knowledge about The Federation of State Medical dose in New York City on April 24, the dangers of opioids? Where were the Boards, willfully abandoned their sci- 1984. Physicians in medical school evidence-based studies needed to entific integrity and over 150 years of were taught that opioids were danger- refute what was known around the wisdom regarding the dangers of opi- ously addicting substances that should world about the risks of opioids? oids. This was simply a catastrophic be used only for short-term severe pain violation of their duty to “do no harm.” and terminal cancer. As of February 2009, Dr. Zee, writing in the Journal of Public Health, revealed In their complicity with the Despite this teaching and the raging that “we lack any large...rigorous pro- Pharmaceutical Companies, many heroin epidemic in America, a letter spective study addressing the issue of… was published in the New England physicians and nurses abandoned their Journal of Medicine in 1980.1 The addiction, during long term opioid use responsibility to their patients by writ- author reported that of the patients in for chronic non-cancer pain.” ing prescriptions for addiction. The their hospital who were treated with The medical schools and physician consequences are now staring us in the narcotics, less than one percent became training programs did not publicly face. Well over a-hundred-thousand addicted. In 1986 the journal Pain,2 denounce this unscientific pharmaceu- people have overdosed and died, and reported on a study of only 38 patients tical propaganda. Why? The F.D.A., there are now three million addicts as who were treated with narcotics for the organization responsible for ensur- the epidemic continues to devastate several years. The authors concluded ing that prescription drug promotion families across the nation. that there was little risk of addiction. is truthful, continued to authorize Let’s set the record straight. There were no other significant addic- more and more forms of opioids over Dr. Nayvin Gordon, Board Certified tion studies reported. the years. Why? To this day, the F.D.A. for over 30 years in Family Medicine, has Shortly after the study in Pain, one and the A.M.A., have refused to written many articles on health-related of the co-authors went on to head the demand mandatory education for opi- issues. He lives in Oakland, California. oid prescribers. Why? Furthermore, American Pain Society. This organiza- [email protected] tion was one of several similar non- The Federation of State Medical Boards profit groups funded by the accepted money from pharmaceutical —May 11, 2016 Pharmaceutical Industry like Purdue firms to produce prescribing guide- lines.3 Pharma, the producers of the narcotic 1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ Oxycontin. These opioid producers Why did physicians not sound the pubmed/7350425 also funded medical education pro- alarm to expose the fact that the phar- 2 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ grams and advocacy groups. Within a maceutical industry was establishing pubmed/2873550 short time the pharmaceutical compa- treatment guidelines for the medical 3 http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/ nies began an aggressive nationwide profession? PainManagement/31256

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 31

International INTERNATIONAL Once More on the European Union By Tony McKenna

The European Union (EU) debate is out of the Steel and Coal Community army or any real military fortification perhaps one of the more difficult to (1952) by way of the Treaty of Rome by which its policies can be enforced; make sense of. For you are bombarded (1957), the EEU (Eurasian Economic choosing rather to rely on the most with a vast number of articles from Union, as it was then) was a project powerful of its client states—and also, every color on the political spectrum. which hoped to create a more federal notably, the United States itself. How does one go about making an Europe, specifically by fusing the eco- Rather than act as a counterweight informed decision? It’s said you can tell nomic interests of Germany and France, to American power, the EU seems to a lot about a person by who their and thus offsetting a tendency toward have instead complimented it, and this friends are. When translated into polit- the type of rival bloc building and geo- was most clearly evinced in the fracas ical thought the axiom has a simplistic political antagonisms which had led to which ensued in Ukraine recently, but not un-useful purpose: take the the Second World War. Indeed one of when Brussels helped pressure presi- time to look at the groups and social the arguments which those who are pro dent Victor Yanukovych into ratifying forces which are gathering around a the EU, and for Britain’s continued a rather one-sided agreement with the particular position. These might give membership in it often employ, is that EU relating to its Eastern Partnership you some hint as to which political the EU has secured a level of European policy, and Putin’s Russia reacted with interests the position truly serves and harmony and integration during the anger, making violent incursions into hint at its real essence. However, in the post war period relative to what had the territory, occupying Crimea. In the case of the EU referendum—the vote, come before. The assessment seems event, the president was forced to which is to be held later this year in the plausible, though it must be read in the reverse his decision. At the same time, UK on whether we should remain or context of the fact that the processes of the fault lines of public opinion in leave the European Union—there is a empire building in the latter part of the Ukraine itself, torn between East and remarkably odd admixture of people twentieth century had largely shifted West, increasingly fissured and frac- who have aligned themselves with both terrains; the bi-polar tensions which tured, setting the basis for civil tur- sides. So, for instance, the grinning, defined that epoch were shifted from moil. In the light of this type of inci- demagogic crackpot Nigel Farage has the European plain to the transatlantic dent, the EU seems to be acting accord- shared a platform with the left-wing build-up of arms which categorized the ing to a clearly imperial remit, favoring firebrand George Galloway, both advo- cold war between the USSR and the U.S. Western European and U.S. hegemony cating a British withdrawal from the over and against the power to the East, EU. At the same time David Cameron Subordination to U.S. power a distant echo of the cold war itself— and his excellent anti-austerity neme- Indeed, the impetus behind the with Putin himself reacting in kind sis, the leader of the Labor Party Jeremy Treaty of Rome was very much America albeit at the head of a much weaker Corbyn—find themselves in the driven, sponsored by American imperi- Russian power. unusual position of seeing eye-to-eye alism in order to create the kind of uni- One of the strongest points, from a on the issue and campaigning to keep fied market which, on the basis of an left perspective, against the EU stems Britain in. American federal style model, would from its subordination to the United David Cameron’s political position provide a stable economic region for an States and its perceived eagerness to is comprehensible. Along with the main influx of American goods and exports. sign up to the labyrinthine clauses of state institutions, a majority of the larg- The notion that, as some leftists would the Transatlantic Trade and Investment er capitalist corporations and their have it, the European Union can pro- Partnership, an agreement which is think tanks who are also lobbying to vide a powerful bulwark to American being conducted very much under the remain affiliated, Cameron understands power seems to be chimerical—not public radar and promises to create a that the European Union has, histori- only because the U.S. was so heavily single market uniting U.S. and the EU cally, been an effective means by which involved in its construction, but also on the basis of the power of large capi- capital reproduction has been managed because the Union itself is a somewhat tal; one where corporations would be on a European-wide scale. Emerging toothless entity, lacking a standing given the right to sue individual gov-

32 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 ernments for state policies which work scale—a decimation which saw govern- lines that Greek workers were less pro- against their profit margins. Given the ment subsidies slashed and the devolu- ductive—or to parse the same point in secretive, almost Byzantine like com- tion of economic policy onto local and more explicit moral terms—were lazi- plexity of the decision making process often private interests—alongside the er—than their Germanic counterparts, at the heart of the EU bureaucracy, the almost unfettered growth of the finan- for instance. The Greek worker’s right to image of a group of unelected pluto- cial sector and speculative endeavors. retire at 63—as it stood then—was seen crats who are operating very much in The EMS, then, and the Union more to be a corollary of the fact that the the interests of international finance, is broadly, provided an effective organi- German worker had to slog on until 67. one which is hard to repeal—especially zational force, which contributed to the The attempt to show that Greek workers given the experience of Greece in 2015, recalibration of Western European cap- are less productive than German work- when the democratic mandate a gov- italism in accordance with a more neo- ers, or any other group for that matter, ernment was handed by its population liberal paradigm. has been refuted—in terms of hours was overturned in favor of the preroga- worked—by OCED (Organization for tives of various EU bodies. Greece Economic Co-operation and But without a doubt, the Union’s Development) statistics which showed Neoliberalism most notorious act in its position in the how in 2008, for example, the Greek In actual fact however, the EU’s vanguard of European neoliberalism workforce notched up an extra 48 per- commitment to neoliberalism is signifi- was its noxious role in the Greek debacle cent of working hours than that of the cantly more seasoned. In the early 80s of 2015. The Syriza government of Germans.1 In actual fact, the descent of the French government, under Greece had swept to power on an anti- the Greek economy into the most des- Mitterrand, had endeavored to enact a austerity agenda, promising to repeal perate economic crisis, and the ability of Keynesian policy, which was quite at the bulk of the international debt. The the central, longstanding and major EU odds with the rapacious, free marke- combined pressure of the European powers to better weather the storm— teering, which categorized the econom- Central Bank, the IMF and the European was about the fact that many of the ic mood of the epoch more broadly. Commission—the threat of economic newer and peripheral countries in the Mitterrand introduced increased sanctions they brought to bear—was EU entered the Eurozone and were at nationalization and the devaluation of such that the “radical” left government once burdened with high exchange rates. the franc as a means to boost exports soon felt compelled to change its posi- In combination with this, the squeeze and reduce state debts. However the tion, signing up to an agreement in on workers’ wages in Germany, a slash- Union’s monetary wing—the European which it promised to “refrain from any ing of unemployment benefits, and the Monetary System (EMS)—was practic- rollback of measures and unilateral increased relocation of German indus- ing a far more stringent policy in terms changes to the policies and structural trial capital to Eastern Europe all set the of international currency, allowing the reforms” the “troika”—the European basis for the advantage of German rates between members to fluctuate Central Bank (ECB), the European exporters. In the same vein, argues the only within narrow and controlled lim- Commission (EC), and the International economist Michael Pettis, the severity of its. The policy of the EMS became the Monetary Fund (IMF)—had floated. the crisis in the peripheral countries has lever by which France was compelled to This, despite the fact that the vast major- been exacerbated in particular by reverse devaluation, and therefore ity of the Greek people had voted by way German and French finance capital, squander the impetus behind the export of a single issue referendum to reject the which “were offering nearly unlimited boom, which was to provide a palliative “bailout,” despite the fact that Syriza’s amounts of extremely cheap credit to all to the stagnation of real wages in the mandate only existed on the back of a takers in Spain.” domestic economy. In such a context, radical mass movement which was fer- Mitterrand was forced to perform a vently anti-austerity. This was a desper- Left justification for Brexit U-turn, which saw him gravitate toward ate blow to the prospects of a cohesive, It seems in light of the examples of the neoliberal solution, perhaps the anti-capitalist, anti-austerity wave of Spain and Greece, and indeed the only option left within the remit of par- resistance on a European wide level. periphery countries more broadly, that liamentary politics. Mitterrand’s capit- Why had Greece been allowed to achieve the left demand for a Brexit is well jus- ulation to free market economics was such an economic flashpoint in the first tified. But what perhaps this type of part and parcel of a broader retreat, of place? The common explanation, gener- demand overlooks is the specifics of course; one which saw the miners and ated by many of the organs and think the UK’s particular relationship to the the unions crushed in Britain at around tanks favorable to the EU and sympa- EU. The UK is not a periphery country the same period, but also the decima- thetic to the impositions it sought to in the way in which Greece is. In my tion of industry on a European-wide impose on Greece usually ran along the view it made perfect and complete

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 33 sense for Greece to exit the EU in 2015, all be subsumed under the single appel- recycled versions of Kipling’s old once the creditors refused to take part lation of “Muslim” and who are school white man’s burden line—no in anything resembling compromise— embroiled in a set of cultural practices longer is the suppression of the natives even if the Greek economy had to and values which is both uniform and to be guaranteed by the crude pseudo- revert to the drachma, and all the eco- opaque. The “Muslims,” therefore, are science of race craft; instead the empha- nomic privations, which would have articulated as a culturally distinct sis on an ideology of superior “race” is entailed as a consequence. But Britain group which is visibly separate from a shifted to that of a superior culture. is not in this kind of relationship to the “British” core—but at the same time, These kinds of themes tend to reso- EU. Austerity is being forced upon us they seek to live among “us,” so they nate in the UK because of its specific by a pro-austerity government—not, shield some of their more unsavory historical trajectory. When Kipling as in the Greek case, an anti-austerity practices from the limelight in much wrote his famous poem it was ostensi- government compelled to change the same way the veil obscures the bly addressed to American imperial- course as a result of EU pressure. emotions of the face. Over time, they ism, but it was very much a product of Britain has a significantly more power- smuggle into the host culture a set of British imperial aspirations and the ful and resilient economy, and it is dif- alien practices which eventually come philosophy of empire especially as ficult to see it being subsumed under to undermine it—and that is why we espoused in India. With the end of the type of exploitation which has get the constant drivel about cities like empire, the sense of dislocation and undergirded the Greek case—i.e., the Birmingham becoming “Muslim only disorientation which comes from liv- mode by which the periphery is exploit- zones,” little bastions of fanaticism ing through a period of inexorable ed by the center. If Britain is with- which have managed to worm their historical decline in some ways helped drawn from the EU, the very power way under the skin and surface of the strengthen imperial identity rather which is carrying through austerity— indigenous and healthier (and superi- than weaken it; many people clung i.e., the British Tory government—will or) culture. more desperately and more trenchant- be strengthened rather than weakened Imperial stratagems ly to the belief that Britain has some in such a scenario. So that, in my view, The Ipsos MORI polls suggest a special historical role even as its actual is the first chink, in the left case for the influence in world affairs was increas- Brexit, and it is not insignificant. strong link between anxieties, which surround “race relations” and anxiet- ingly marginalized. This couldn’t very The second, and far weightier, is the ies, which surround “immigration” well translate into a sense of military or question of immigration. According to and “immigrants”—and this supports economic superiority because in these the Research Agency Ipsos MORI, in a the way in which fear about the “other” fields Britain had been long since study enacted in 2013, immigration is is articulated in a period which has eclipsed but it did work its way into a unpopular with approximately two seen the rise of a vast displacement of belief in the possession of a unique, thirds of the UK population, with over refugees especially from countries with separate, timeless and almost hermeti- 50 percent of those polled favoring the large Muslim populations. But more cally sealed culture—usually a option of reducing it “a lot.” These profoundly, the link between “race” “Christian” one whatever that is taken concerns, relates the same institution, and “immigration” is in large part a to imply—one which was now under have become particularly prominent in by-product of the way in which the threat from the driving, penetrating the period following 2000. Indeed one stratagems of Western imperial power influx of foreigners who do not adhere might speculate that the post-Septem- have been reconfigured in the twenty- to “our” values. ber 11th climate—with its heightened first century—specifically the series of The people who espouse these types sense of Islamophobia and the fear and invasions and incursions which have of xenophobic views, generally speak- angst which surrounds certain cultural been manifested in the Middle East. ing, are not to be placated through rea- emblems like the Burka and certain One of the most potent ideological sonable and rational arguments. It is of cultural practices like the consumption cloaks for the naked pursuit of eco- little use, most of the time, to point out of Halal food—is very much linked to nomic and territorial interests has been that “British” culture has been fertilized the increased fears surrounding immi- the notion of “western values” in oppo- with ongoing and profound waves of gration. The burka is particularly sition to the primitive religious barba- immigration from the Beaker people in instructive with regard to this, because risms of the near East; the means by the late third millennium BC who it succeeds in covering the face, and which conquest and slaughter are justi- brought with them bronze age technol- this very easily dovetails with the inher- fied on the basis of a secular liberalism ogy, to the Germanic tribes who arrived ently racist sensibility that there is a and the so called expansion of “democ- in the aftermath of the Roman collapse mysterious swarm of people who can racy.” These are, to be sure, updated, and who added and enriched the lin-

34 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 guistic fabric of the epoch so that it to be from Africa. As Bobby Duffy, the ous elements who flit between a series could eventually be woven into old director for Public Affairs of the poll- of temporary jobs on zero-hours con- English. Neither is it of any great conse- ing agency Ipsos MORI, points out—it tracts, and are without the means to quence to them when you point out the has “long been recognized in studies of become unionized—these elements in studies that show (like this one in the attitudes to immigration that the areas particular find the UKIP narrative per- Financial Times) how immigrants to with the lowest immigrant numbers suading, especially in periods of eco- Britain—from those countries like are often those that express the greatest nomic downturn or decline. In such a Poland, Hungary and Lithuania which concern about immigration.”3 Or to context, their deprivations no longer joined the EU in 2004—actually paid say the same thing, it is those who in appear to them as individual miseries out “64 percent more in taxes to the UK actual fact have very little contact with but instead achieve a more universal than they received in benefits” in the immigrants and very little experience tenor; their own misfortune is part and subsequent period leading up to 2011.2 of the effects of immigration who are parcel of a broader and more tragic And there is relatively little gain in say- able to so effectively conjure up the trajectory—the decline and demise of a ing that the toxic, atavistic fears which fantastical deprivations, which have whole epoch. An empire where once surround immigration are nothing new been visited on their lives by the spec- the center held, an empire in which but were exhibited in much the same ter of the foreign infiltrator. That this hardworking, industrious white form after the Second World War and rather sinister archetype is the product Christian culture formed the core— the migrations of Black populations of fevered, overworked minds is appar- more and more subject to the processes which were so necessary to reinvigorate ent from the level of vulgar contradic- of entropy and decay until what is left British industry, or the mass migrations tion, which it manifests. In Britain, it is at the center is little more than a rump, of Asians particularly in the 1970s which the United Kingdom Independence a lingering silent minority, strangers in have provided such incentive to trade Party or UKIP who have most relent- their own heartlands; a precious, per- and tailoring, commerce and cuisine. lessly purveyed this kind of ideological ishing culture evaporated before the There is little point in raising these facts product, but when you stop to con- indifference of metropolitan elites and precisely because you are responding to sider what is actually being sold here, the never-ending influx of foreign ele- the type of fears and unconscious anxi- you are immediately confronted by the ments they facilitate. Holding to such a eties which have a cultural resonance fact that you are being offered a dud. view offers both comfort and cathar- which harkens back to the loss of empire On the one hand, UKIP tells us, these sis—it allows the deprivations and des- and the decline of an epoch, and are immigrant workers are prepared to peration of the individual economic therefore precisely calibrated respons- undercut British workers by stealing existence set adrift in modernity, atom- es—a culturally orientated amour-pro- their jobs at little pay, but at the same ized—to be reformulated in the con- pre which is designed to relieve worry in time we are assured that the same ele- text of a world historic fantasy by times of great flux and economic hard- ment is feckless and lazy, and quite which an imaginary past, usually con- ship, and to provide a fantasized bed- prepared to retreat into a life of para- structed along the lines of some sup- rock, an eternal and unchanging edifice, sitism courtesy of the British state. As posed pure, unchanging category which must be clung to at all costs, one commentator so acutely phrased (“white” “Christian” “culture”)—is much in the way a small child clings to it, UKIP’s fantasy immigrant is none then seen to be mortally threatened by their special blanket. other than “Schrodinger’s the postulation of some equally imagi- In reality there has only ever been immigrant”—i.e., a person one profound and long lasting cure for who is at the same time abso- racism and xenophobia on a broader lutely hard working and abso- scale. And that is heightened immigra- lutely lazy. tion. When one is working with people I have already hoped to from other countries, when one’s chil- illustrate that there is a strong dren goes to school with children of and cogent left position for many different ethnic identities, then exiting the EU. However, the the ossified forms of racial and xeno- UKIP constituent and their phobic ideology are shattered in prac- social basis in some sections of tice for they cannot sustain in face of large capital—but more the living realities, of seeing those chil- importantly small business dren play together, or having a laugh owners, fringe section of the with a mate at work who also happens working classes, those precari-

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 35 nary future and the shadow of the nomically vulnerable peoples who seek leadership. The pro-austerity and anti- swarthy, faceless immigrant which their salvation in other places. union policies of the party in its cur- steps out from it. rent form will be married with the iso- The referendum It was never immigration which cre- lationist, little Englander, vituperative This then returns us to the question ated loss of jobs and reduced pay, politics of a rabid fringe which is of the British referendum. If a “Brexit” though. It was an economic crisis which already seething with hatred, and is achieved the UKIP element at home saw the largest sum of money in history which, in quite lunatic fashion, sees will be immeasurably strengthened, transferred from the poorest to the itself as the means of national salvation and the sense of xenophobia, of nation- wealthy in terms of a series of interna- in and through the return to an addled, al chauvinism will become all the more tional bailouts which were designed to senile vision of some imaginary past of claustrophobic. More importantly, bolster the vulture companies and shires and crumpets and cricket games however, the solidarity among institutions of international finance. It unmarred by foreign faces. These oppressed groups in their struggle to was the policies of hack and slash which groups are with us all the time, of challenge the existing order and the governments across the world applied course, and they are rightly subject to austerity politique it promotes—such a to social services and labor rights in its satire and lampoon, but they are more aftermath. Immigrants might be willing struggle will be inevitably weakened at than just figures of farce. Talking to to work for less, but the real issue here the points of contact between all the people on working or student visas is about the lack of a decent minimum various social elements which are who live and work in this country, one wage, a wage which parties like UKIP immiserated by the thrust of neoliber- is struck by the tone of trepidation are adamantly against—while at the alism, and which have the potential to which has crept into their voices, the same time the same party advocates for grow into a powerful and cohesive foreboding which surrounds their own forced unpaid work for housing and movement against it. For the reaction- circumstances and the way the people council tax benefit claimants, and the ary elements in those groups will be around them see them, and the simple slashing of incapacity benefits. UKIP bolstered in the claim that it is the poor fear which comes from not knowing are compelled to raise a fantasized, outsider, rather than the rich banker, whether you are to be suddenly uproot- gushingly sentimental, inevitably who is truly responsible for economic ed in the imminent future. These are patronizing vision of a “white working deprivation Most importantly of all, the people who are attuned to the cul- class” in the very moments when they the streams of immigration which find tural mood precisely because they are are actively engaged in savaging the real their way into the UK; which provide newly arrived outsiders and can see thing—of whatever complexion—in the means by which the specter of the events from the outside as they devel- reality. And so immigration becomes sinister outsider is exercised at the level op; such people provide us with a use- more than a merely logistical question, of practical existence by the real aware- ful social barometer, which picks up on which can be answered by recourse to ness that the lives of the people who the changes in the air, and even though the actual facts, the empirical data arrive in this country to live and work it is clear that the EU is an organization which measures the real term economic hold a parity with our own; such an which channels and structures neolib- effects of immigration and show it to inflow will be massively curtailed, and eral policies—the removal of Britain be, by far and away, beneficial overall. the free movement of labor which from it, at this point, will indicate a Instead the immigration issue becomes helps forge working class solidarity on shift in the political climate which is a means—not only by which those ele- an international basis will be inevitably ominous indeed. ments, especially in the lower middle restricted. What will pertain in the classes—are able to weave the pressures aftermath will be the so-called demo- 1 Tony Mckenna, “The Greek Paradox,” The Huffington Post, February 16, 20120: http:// of economic disintegration into some cratically elected government of the Conservative Party, a government www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tony-mckenna/the- kind of spiteful morality-fable in which greek-paradox_b_1276360.html petty rancor is furnished by a sheen of which crawled to power on an exhaust- ed and apathetic mandate (around 24 2 Helen Warrell, “EU migrants pay £20bn historic tragedy—but it also becomes more in taxes than they receive,” The Financial the practical mechanism by which the percent of the vote) with a newly reju- Times, November 5, 2014: http://www.ft.com/ economic crisis and its causes in the venated and increased set of powers. cms/s/0/c49043a8-6447-11e4-b219-00144feab- activities of the ruling classes and the More specifically, it will be the dc0.html#axzz4A8Yxgaix unfettered expansion of finance capi- extreme right, rabidly anti-immigrant 3 Mehdi Hassan, “Five questions for anyone who says ‘it’s not racist to talk about immigra- tal—is displaced onto the victims of wing of the party which will be galva- tion,’” November 13, 2014: http://www.newstates- those processes, the workers across the nized and very much come to the man.com/politics/2014/11/five-questions-anyone- board, and those displaced and eco- fore—if not by making a bid for direct who-says-its-not-racist-talk-about-immigration

36 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 Britain: Heads They Win, Tails We Lose Kick out all the Tories! Editorial By Socialist Appeal, Britain

Two sides of the same capitalist Europe to follow suit and fight for a more worried by the situation opening coin; that is the choice, on offer, to socialist alternative. up. As the Financial Times (May 13, workers and youth in this Tory farce of On the other side, however, is Boris 2016) comments, “Mr. Cameron’s a referendum. On the one side is David Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage party risks becoming so consumed by Cameron and George Osborne, backed and other such unsavory characters. recriminations that putting it back up by the majority of the establish- Their program is the same as that of together again on June 24 could prove ment, big business, and the bankers. Cameron and company. The only dif- difficult, whatever the result.” Their vision for Europe is the complete ference is that they wish to leave in The problem facing the capitalists, antithesis of that advocated by the order to carry it out. A “Brexit” led by then, is that they do not have a reliable leaders of the Labor movement who these gangsters will not be a blow party to carry out the policies of auster- find themselves in the same camp as against the bosses’ EU, but a boost to ity that the profit system requires. The Cameron, campaigning to remain. the careers of the most reactionary ele- Tories are mired in splits and scandals. This wing of the ruling class is not ments in the Tory Party. Already they have been forced into a advocating a “social Europe” of stron- • We say: No to the bosses’ EU! series of embarrassing U-turns over ger workers’ rights, more freedom of welfare cuts and academies due to the • No to Tory Austerity Britain! movement, and greater environmental anger building up from below. • Fight for a Socialist United States protection, but the polar opposite: But the crisis of capitalism is far of Europe! attacks on trade union legislation, from over, and a barrage of new cuts scapegoating of migrants, and the All roads lead to ruin and attacks against workers, the youth, enshrinement of privatization and Regardless of the outcome of the EU and the poor will be required in the deregulation through free trade deals Referendum, under capitalism the coming period in order to try and such as TTIP. future for workers in Britain and across restore some semblance of equilibrium One only has to look at what is tak- Europe remains the same: austerity and in the economy. The death of Britain’s ing place in Greece currently to see attacks. The European project, on a steel industry and the closure of large what Cameron and other similar such capitalist basis, is doomed. The high street chains such as BHS (British Tories have in mind: endless austerity, Schengen Agreement and the “free Home Stores) are only a foretaste of a mass sell-off of public assets, and a movement of peoples” lie in tatters. what lies ahead under capitalism. generalized assault on workers’ terms There is no way out for Greece’s econ- and conditions—all being carried omy; eventually there will be a default Kick out the Tories! through by the “Left” government of and the single currency will be torn Kick out capitalism! Syriza under the explicit duress of the apart. And with a new world slump on The Labor Party, meanwhile, is no European Union and its unelected the horizon, in or out will make no dif- longer under the firm control of the bureaucracy. At the same time, the EU ference—the cuts and onslaught against capitalists and their Blairite agents. The has negotiated a scandalous deal to the working class will only deepen. Parliamentary Labor Party and the deport refugees in Greece to Turkey. At the same time, the wheels of crisis party’s bureaucracy are still very much The events in Greece are a mirror to have already been set in motion within in the hands of the right wing, and our own future; a reminder that a the Tory Party. Buckling under pres- these are consistently being used by the Corbyn-led Labor government, com- sure from UKIP (United Kingdom Blairites as a base from which to launch mitted to opposing austerity, defend- Independence Party) and his own back- attacks against Jeremy Corbyn and his ing the NHS, and re-nationalizing the benchers to call for a referendum on supporters. A number of Socialist railways, for example, would quickly Britain’s membership of the EU, David Appeal activists, for example, are come up against the capitalist club that Cameron has inadvertently opened up amongst those who have been recently is the EU. To carry out its program, a Pandora’s Box. As senior Conservative targeted for expulsion by the shadowy such a Corbyn government would have figures lob increasingly vicious insults and unaccountable Compliance Unit to break with the EU and make an at one another, the ruling class and in an attempted purge of the Left from internationalist call to the workers of their mouthpieces are growing ever the Labor Party.

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 37 Alongside the rich, or the junior doctors and the this, Corbyn rest of the Labor movement who are and the Labor fighting to defend jobs, pay, and public leaders should services. be arguing forc- United around a bold socialist pro- ibly for British gram, the Corbyn-led Labor Party workers and could mobilize a mass movement to get youth to be rid of Cameron and Osborne—and given a real ref- Boris, Gove, and IDS (Iain Duncan erendum: a ref- Smith, leader of the British Conservative erendum on the Party) too—and offer the working class Tories and their a genuine alternative to austerity. That austerity; a snap would be an option worth voting for. election to let voters decide —In Defense of Marxism, May 30, who they sup- 2016 port—this tax- http://www.marxist.com/heads-they- dodging Tory win-tails-we-lose-kick-out-all-the- government of tories.htm Corbyn supporters in Momentum (a British left-wing political organiza- tion) and the trade unions should mount a serious campaign against such expulsions, and go on the offensive to Brexit put an end to the Blairites’ shenanigans inside the Labor Party, which are By Mumia Abu-Jamal designed to undermine and eventually overthrow Corbyn himself. The national referendum determining demonstrates that older, working-class The deal struck between Jeremy Britain’s exit from the 28-nation body Brits yearn for British hegemony—the Hunt, the Tory Health Minister, and called the European Union (EU) (dubbed old days of empire—and not to be sub- the BMA negotiators in the junior doc- “Brexit” by the hip British press) has sent merged in a bland European stew. tors’ dispute also reflects the despera- shock waves around the world. Other nations now are considering tion of the Tory leadership to focus all That it has done so is a reflection of whether the grass really is greener on their forces on the upcoming referen- how narrow the national—and glob- the other side. dum. But even this agreement could al—media is—and how little they see The media used polls, and pundits rapidly unravel in the face of opposi- of the world they purport to cover. to predict the upcoming vote—and tion from rank-and-file junior doctors, It is also a window into the world of their projections strongly leaned toward who feel they are being sold a shoddy rising right-wing nationalism—and a walk British rejection of the Brexit option. deal by their leadership. Such an out- away from the very notion of globalism. Unheard were the voices of the elderly, come would lead to a renewal of the the rural, the poor, the working classes. struggle on a higher level, with the pos- The EU, which began as the EC sibility of escalated strike action, (European Community,) was a centu- Unheard and unseen, they became the including joint action between NHS ries-long trend to unify Europe as a voters for rejection of the globalist proj- staff and other sections of the public singular global force—a kind of United ect, and a return to a more hopeful time. sector that are fighting back against States of Europe. They provided an immense shock to Tory cuts, such as civil servants, teach- While that notion still has force, to have the system. ers, and lecturers. one of its biggest members vote to leave, The globalist notion, so long seen as What is clearly needed is a general- means that unifying force is weakening. the inevitable, has been given a big ization of these struggles—that is, mass That’s largely because the EU served punch in the nose. joint industrial action in the form of a its economic elites first—and best— Let’s see if other punches are coming! one-day general strike, with the explic- and left working class and poor people it aim of kicking out all the Tories. to fend for themselves. The Brexit vote —PrisonRadio.org, June 25, 2016

38 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 South Africa’s Gold Miners A glimpse of justice for South Africa’s gold miners: high court allows largest class action suit in history By Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

A South African High Court has inflammation of scarring in the form of compensation. Dwadube worked for paved the way for injured South nodular lesions in the upper lobes of Harmony Gold for 16 years before being African mine workers and families of the lungs thus causing shortness of retrenched [fired] in 1995. He has TB but those killed by illegal and brutal min- breath, a persistent cough, chest pains has never received compensation.” ing practices to file a class action suit and makes people highly susceptible to As of 2007, the South African min- against multinational mining concerns. tuberculosis. ing industry employs 493,000 workers. This will be the largest class action suit The class action suits, which have The industry represents 18 percent of in the history of South Africa. little precedent in South African law, South Africa’s $588 billion USD Gross The gold miners suffer from silicosis have their roots in a landmark 2011 Domestic Product. and tuberculosis. Up to a half-a-mil- ruling by the Constitutional Court that Gold was found in the Witwatersrand lion miners may be eligible to seek for the first time allowed lung-diseased in the late 1800s and sparked a gold damages for potentially fatal lung dis- miners to sue employers for damages. rush that transformed South Africa’s eases, a decision that could cost the The claims, which stretch back decades, largely agricultural economy into a mining industry millions. This repre- involve not just South Africans but also powerhouse that fueled the industrial sents a substantial victory for South thousands of former miners from revolution in the West. During the African mine workers who were the neighboring countries such as Lesotho, 20th century, the mining sector repre- economic engine of the apartheid and Malawi and Swaziland. sented over 20 percent of South Africa’s post-apartheid South African econo- The defendants in the case include GDP, including gold. The foundation my. It is hoped that other mine work- some of the world’s biggest extractive of South Africa’s wealth was built on ers, such as vanadium or platinum will producers, such as: Anglo American, the backs of Black miners and their be able to join the class action suit. Africa’s top bullion producer AngloGold families. South African apartheid was Judge Phineas Mojapelo’s coura- Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony Gold, undergirded by the suffering of Black geous decision has financial analysts Sibanye Gold and African Rainbow miners who worked in the mines as estimating that the lawsuit could cost Minerals (ARM), all of which have cheap labor. the gold industry hundreds of millions together formed the Occupational Lung Racial segregation in the mining of dollars. Disease (OLD) Working Group to deal industry was a crucial element in the Mojapelo’s ruling indicates that min- with such issues. racist policies that culminated in decades of apartheid rule. Despite the ers who died of diseases including silico- Shamefully but predictably, the risks, millions of Black migrant work- sis and tuberculosis could be included in OLD issued a statement that the gold ers from rural South Africa and neigh- the suits—with any damages paid to firms were studying the judgment and boring states flooded the mines as their family members—and that each would decide at a later date whether to cheap labor. mining company should be held liable appeal the verdict. separately for any damages. This repre- Until 1993, white miners were paid sents a small glimpse of justice for a For many of the miners who con- higher compensation for silicosis-relat- beleaguered community that literally tracted fatal silicosis and tuberculosis ed illnesses. According to Jock endured gruesome death to provide the in South Africa’s gold mines, this is a McCulloch, a researcher on silicosis- West with minerals that fueled its econ- bitter-sweet victory. related illness “silicosis rates were vastly omy. Judge Mojapelo wrote: “We hold Since 2012, 13 of the 68 minework- underestimated among Black miners for the view that in the context of this case, ers who brought this court case against decades.” Further, he offers “the rates class action is the only realistic option the mining industry have died. haven’t got any better since apartheid through which most mine workers can One case in point, “Matela Hlabathe ended more than twenty years ago.” assert their claims effectively against the and Vuyani Elliot Dwadube listen to the South African physician advocate mining companies.” judgment in court. Hlabathe got sick with Dr. Rhett Kahn says companies were Silicosis is an incurable occupational TB three times while working under- “motivated by greed” to underplay the lung disease caused by inhaling silica ground for 36 years. He received R39,000 impact of silicosis. “It’s as bad as it was dust from gold-bearing rocks. It causes which is equivalent to U.S. $2,942.62 during apartheid,” says Kahn.

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 39 Marcus Low, head of policy at Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), Fidel Castro and Cuba expressed the horror of the situation: Thorns in side of U.S. imperialism “Over the past five decades gold min- By Solomon Comissiong ing companies in South Africa sent hundreds-of-thousands of men into The United States has a long and has developed a knack for successfully mines without taking the required duplicitous history when it comes to not destroying lives, such as Patrice steps to protect those men from inhal- only attempting to assassinate the char- Lumumba. This is why Fidel Castro’s ing dangerous levels of silicosis-caus- acter of Fidel Castro, but also his life. ability to evade their murderous wet ing dust…This case is about whether The U.S. government’s unsuccessful dreams is all the more impressive. or not we accept a society in which attempts at both forms of assassination Castro has even outlived many of the such cruelties are perpetrated. It is can easily be deemed as an evil obsessive. people who plotted, directly oversaw or about whether we will continue to turn The United States (via the CIA) has tried approved (including U.S. presidents) a blind eye to this ugly scar that runs to assassinate/murder Fidel Castro over assassination attempts on his life. through our history. It is about wheth- 600 times. This number is startling due Why would the U.S. be so damn er there will be justice for the hun- to the fact that the CIA has been so obsessed with murdering Fidel Castro, dreds-of-thousands of men who died utterly unsuccessful in their nefarious one might ask? Easy: Fidel Castro has of silicosis or who got sick with silicosis attempts to eliminate Castro. However, long been a direct threat to the United because of the indifference of mining it should not be surprising that they States’ capitalist (and imperialist) companies.” tried to assassinate this leader, since they stranglehold on Cuba—as well as many —Black Agenda Report, May 17, have successfully (and extra-judiciously) other nations. Dating back to the cul- 2016 assassinated countless humans, includ- mination of the Cuban Revolution in ing government leaders throughout the http://www.Blackagendareport.com/ 1959, the U.S. has had malevolent globe. This diabolical track record goes south_african_gold_miners_suit intentions for the likes of Fidel Castro. back many decades. Cuba and Castro continue to serve One example that I am often as paragons of resilience, liberation, reminded of is that of Congo’s Patrice and humanitarianism, despite having Lumumba. The United States’ Central over 50 years of a malicious and ill- Intelligence Agency (CIA) directly conceived blockade placed on it. This orchestrated the assassination of United States-initiated blockade cost Congo’s democratically elected leader the Cuban people over 100 billion dol- in 1961. He was murdered simply lars. In 1953 Cuban revolutionaries because he wanted to utilize his coun- had the audacity to embark upon an try’s natural resources for the best arduous (yet necessary) journey to gain interests of his people. U.S. President their liberation from the repressive and Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the orders deadly grip of the U.S.-backed dictator, for his assassination. The West, includ- Fulgencio Batista. These revolutionar- ing the U.S., has long been accustomed ies, led by the likes of Fidel Castro and to plundering the natural resources Che Guevara, toppled the brutal U.S. from countries throughout the so- backed regime on January 1, 1959, thus called Global South. They are models ending the bloody reign of Batista. The of shiftlessness. Much of the West’s new revolutionary government would economy comes directly from the soon nationalize Cuban resources such plunder and theft of resources derived as their vast sugar cane plantations. from other nations. This dates back to This warranted move ensured that the days of chattel slavery when many Cuba’s resources would no longer ben- European countries, and the United efit the rapacious U.S. corporations States, stole Africans from their home- that had controlled them with Batista’s land simply to have them work on land stamp of approval. This was to mark a that they had also stolen. new beginning not only for the vast The United States’ government, like majority of Cubans, but for other a sharp (pun not intended) serial killer, nations as well.

40 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 The Cuban revolution stood, as it ernment and the corporate media out the globe. Viva la revolucion (Long does now, as an example of what can force-feed their closed minds. This is Live the Revolution)! happen when oppressed people unite the irony concerning Cuba and Fidel Solomon Comissiong (www.solo- against U.S. backed repression. Castro; they have been the liberators moncomissiong.com) is an educator, However since the defeat of the U.S. while the U.S. has been the orchestra- activist, author, and Founder of the backed dictator in Cuba, the king of tor of global oppression and carnage. Your World News Media Collective modern day imperialism (United Perhaps Castro’s (and Cuba’s) great- (www.yourworldnews.org). Solomon is States) has done everything it can to est contribution has been their ongoing the author of A Hip Hop Activist Speaks break the will of the Cuban people, legacy with internationalist oriented Out on Social Issues. Solomon is also their government, and their revolu- medical brigades. Under Fidel Castro’s the writer and producer of the documen- tion. Despite United States mythology, leadership, Cuba has sent tens-of-thou- tary, Hip Hop, White Supremacy and the U.S.’s preferred forms of diploma- sands of doctors and nurses throughout Capitalism: Why Corporations cy are murder via assassinations, dead- the globe, in an effort to help build up Infiltrated RAP Music. ly sanctions, or wars of aggression. those nations’ under-resourced medi- However, in the case of Cuba and Fidel —Black Agenda Report, May 24, cal infrastructure. This revolutionary 2016 Castro, their attempts to break the initiative has saved countless lives; island nation failed miserably, time meanwhile U.S. imperialism has taken http://blackagendareport.com/cas- and time again. innumerable lives. tro_cuba_us_imperialism Throughout Fidel Castro’s tenure as No matter what the U.S. tries in Cuba’s leader he helped liberate several order to assassinate the character of African nations from the destructive Fidel Castro, the history can never be grip of white supremacy and coloniza- erased. The history cannot be undone! tion. Angola, Namibia and Guinea Commandant Fidel Castro’s legacy can Bissau, are merely three of the numer- never be undone; his internationalist ous examples of African nations that and revolutionary history will serve as The United States benefited from Castro’s (and Cuba’s) an inspiration forever. This fact will internationalism. While Fidel Castro continue to remain a thorn in the side was playing an active role in breaking of U.S. imperialists and their misguid- is no more a the yoke of colonization, the United ed supporters. A great many Americans States was supporting brutal white would be better off if they studied the supremacist regimes throughout Africa, achievements of the Cuba Revolution, champion for including within Southern Africa. then demanded that the U.S. govern- The U.S. government has long ment implement things like universal served as the world’s consummate healthcare and education. Americans freedom and hypocrite. Corporate media and U.S. also need to demand that “their” gov- officials lie to the world (including ernment ends its violent reign as an their citizens), pretending they cham- imperialist force. For humanity to justice than a great pion freedom and democracy. However prosper, the United States’ war machine behind the scene they have methodi- must be dismantled. It is truly one of cally supported brutal dictatorships the world’s greatest threats to sustain- white shark is a and colonial regimes. Unfortunately, able peace. this practice has not ceased. The United Let us always appreciate the global vegetarian. States is no more a champion for free- contributions of Fidel Castro and let dom and justice than a great white his selflessness and internationalism shark is a vegetarian. serve as inspiration to always champi- Only to the systematically pro- on liberation, humanitarianism, jus- grammed American is the myth of the tice, and resistance to oppression. And United States being a beacon of free- we must teach these lessons of the dom and justice, one that persists. Cuban Revolution to the youth. This Americans have a nasty habit of believ- history can (and will) serve as inspira- ing anything and everything their gov- tion for future generations—through-

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 41 Belgium Spontaneous strikes shake the government By Erik Demeester

Belgium, the country where com- State organization in November in tion. One week later, some hundreds of promise and moderation seemed for a Paris, which were used as an excuse by antiracist and antifascist demonstrators long time to be part of the genetic most of the union leaders to stop pro- were arbitrarily arrested, together with make-up of society, is experiencing a testing. The attack also provided the the President of the Human Rights level of social confrontation rarely seen first testing ground in Belgium for an League, by the Brussels police. This before. undeclared state of emergency and for again fuelled a national debate and a The country is tired of austerity and massive military presence in the streets clash between the head of the police literally sick of increased pressure on of Brussels. But this only partially cut and the mayor of Brussels. the workplaces. The Belgian worker is through the class struggle. The railway It is against this background that the not by accident the biggest consumer of workers, for instance, went on strike government decided to upgrade its antidepressants in the European Union for two days in January this year. austerity package (cutting pensions of and is suffering from an epidemic of The next terrorist attack on March public service workers) and also of burnouts. Burnout has become for the 22 hit Brussels brutally and provoked introducing a Belgian version of the modern worker what silicosis was for an unseen commotion. But, contrary hated French Loi El Khomri (French the 19th century worker. to France, the Belgian government was Labor Market Reform.) In Belgium it is The accumulated tension and pain unable to create, in society and in its called Wet Peeters, and envisages to end which, in the case of many workers, own ranks, the kind of “National the 38-hour week and the eight-hour results in mental illnesses, is beginning Unity” it needed and which prevailed day, and introduce in its place the to be reflected outwards sometimes for a while in France after the attacks. 45-hour and 50-hour week and the ending up in violent confrontations The weeks after the attacks were rid- nine- and 11-hour working day. with the bosses or the police and dled with recriminations between dif- An editorialist of the Brussels center increasingly in radical and spontane- ferent wings of the security apparatus. paper Le Soir warned the government ous strike action. There were accusations between the against the rhythm, the timing and the The first homogenous right wing minister of Interior and some of its methods used in this new onslaught. In government in more than two genera- police chiefs. The Minister of Mobility, “normal life,” the Belgians have suf- tions, which came to power in 2014, who was in charge of airport security fered within the space of a few days, the does not hide its Thatcherite ambi- was dismissed after leaked documents Panama Papers, as well as the funda- tions. It is pushing for thorough coun- revealed her “negligence” of security mental reforms of the pensions and the ter reforms and for the breaking of the warnings from the EU. Belgium, “the organization of work. All these have unions. But this task is harder than it failed state,” has become a major subject been announced without social nego- seems. After a year-and-a-half of gen- of debate and worry. Discontent is also tiations, which serve as a cushion. This eralized union struggles (21 national growing in the airports where luggage is much. Indeed it is too much for the days of action, including the biggest 24 handlers have been on strike (spontane- workers to swallow. This new attack hour general strike since the Second ously again) along with the customs has forced the unions to establish a World War and two national demon- police and the general police staff. new plan of action, which started with strations with the participation of The national demonstration in soli- a national demonstration on May 24 in 120,000 and 100,000 workers) a short darity with the victims of the terrorist which 80,000 workers participated. lull followed in November last year. attacks; a ritual seen in all the countries The official next step is a 24-hour gen- A significant layer of the working hit by the attacks was cancelled under eral strike called for June 24, by the class had already been on strike for the pressure of the Mayor of Brussels socialist union with the support of the four or five days since the autumn of and the Minister of Interior for security some Christian unions. In September 2014. This was interpreted by the gov- reasons. Instead of the demonstration, and October when the Wet Peeters will ernment and the bosses as a serious the police de facto authorized a group of be voted, a new national demonstra- defeat, which they had inflicted on the racist and extreme right wing hooligans tion has been called for September 24 workers movement. Then came the to march in the center of Brussels, and a general strike, called by all the new terrorist attacks of the Islamic clashing with the local migrant popula- unions, on October 7.

42 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 But since March and April the mood Opinion polls show, that if there ment of spontaneous mass strikes. It amongst the population has radically were elections today, parties in govern- even pretends that the workers were changed. After the terrorist attacks a ment would lose their parliamentary infected “by the French revolutionary poll revealed that the dominant feeling majority by a big margin. Importantly, virus.” The ongoing struggle of the was not fear or sorrow but one of the left wing PVDA/PTB (Workers’ French workers against the Loi El Khomri anger. Anger at the terrorists, of course, Party of Belgium, former Maoist orga- is inspiring Belgian workers especially in but also an undetermined and unfo- nization, now left reformist party) is the French south. But the movement in cused general anger. Some sectors of gaining strongly. They stand to increase Belgium has its own dynamic. the working class were trying to find an their number of MPs from two to ten. The most striking feature has been expression for their rage. The first mas- It would become the third party in the the spontaneous and explosive character sive expression of this was the one-day south of Belgium overtaking the of the strikes, the spreading of the idea of strike of the prison guards on April 26 Christian Democrats and the Green an all-out general strike and the uncom- protesting against the announced ten party. It is the first time ever that a promising attitude of the rank and file percent cut in the budget. The next day party to the left of the Socialist Party workers. This is having an impact on the the prison guards of the most under- achieves this position. In itself it is a union leaders, some of whom are choos- staffed and overpopulated prisons in sign of the sharp shift to the left of a ing to ride the waves of strikes while oth- Brussels and the south refused to go layer of the working class. ers choose to oppose them. back to work. Spontaneously they In the North the PVDA also stands decided to go “until the end,” i.e., an It is not clear yet what the next days to increase its vote and would reach unlimited general strike which is still and weeks will bring. But the idea of a about five percent of the vote. Here going on. The uncompromising atti- “spontaneous all-out strike” is present however, the biggest shift is towards tude of most of the shop stewards and everywhere. A lot depends on the the extreme right wing Vlaams Belang the rank and file workers in this strike events in France. But cracks are appear- at the expense of the ruling Flemish is remarkable. Proposals, sometimes ing in the Belgian government. nationalist N-VA (New Flemish partial, concessions by the govern- Yesterday, the minister of the railways Alliance) party. Other interesting data ment, which would have been accepted announced that he was ready to with- show that in Flanders 45 percent of the in the past were radically rejected. In draw the measures, which provoked population supports the new plan of some prisons the police officers who the strike wave. He was immediately action of the unions. One third of the replaced the prison guards also went attacked by other parties and by the ruling Christian Democratic party’s on spontaneous strike. This forced the right wing press. They correctly point- electorate in the north supports the government to have the military to ed to the fact that if the measures were plan of action. The same is the case for replace the police. withdrawn, even temporarily, this 25 percent of the ruling liberal party would be seen as an encouragement of Then after the national protest on and even 16 percent of the right wing strikes in other sectors. Whatever hap- May 24, the railway workers started a nationalist N-VA. The ground under pens we can say that the genie of explo- spontaneous strike, which is ongoing. It their feet is becoming increasingly sive class struggle is out of the bottle, in has hit the workplaces as well in the shaky. On Tuesday, May 31, the public Belgium too. Flemish north as in the French south. services protested all over the country. But in the north the union leaders are —In Defense of Marxism, June 3, 2016 actively sabotaging the strike, which is Now the bus drivers in the south have http://www.marxist.com/belgium-spon- not the case in the south or in Brussels. decided to come out in an all-out strike. taneous-strikes-shake-the-government.htm Thus, the whole railway system in the This week the magistrates will be on south is completely paralyzed while it is strike for the first time since 1917. The disrupted in the north. The uneven idea of an all-out general strike is being character of the strike movement is used debated by many activists and workers. a new national by the government to claim that only The strikers have also radicalized their demonstration has been demands. Where in the past, they would the lazy and strike prone Walloons called for September 24 (French speaking people) are protesting demand this or that concession of the against the government. But the public government; the demand for the fall of and a general strike, opinion, although quite volatile, is turn- the government is gaining popularity. called by all the unions, ing largely against the government and It is no accident that an editorial of a its policies in both the Flemish and the bourgeois daily points it’s finger to on October 7. French parts of the country. France in trying to explain the develop-

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 43 Imperialism’s Junior Partners The response to the Brazilian coup shows that the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) powers are not a real alternative to U.S. imperialism. By Patrick Bond

On May 12, Brazil’s democratic Kodwa’s cry of imperialism, in light of global economy—that they are fully government, led by the Workers’ Party the Brazilian coup, has struck a nerve. complicit in reproducing inequality (PT), was the victim of a coup. What Indeed, the argument that Rousseff’s both within their own countries and will the other BRICS countries (Russia, ouster demonstrates that the purport- between others in the Global South. India, China, and South Africa) do? edly anti-imperialist BRICS are under In a challenge posted on Facebook Will they stand by as the reactionar- sustained attack by U.S. empire is being he called for observers to recognize ies who took power in Brasilia pivot repeated in a number of corners. that “imperialism has, in the modern closer to Western powers, glad to warm Commentators like Eric Draitser, Pepe age, taken on racism, crude capitalism Dilma Rousseff’s seat at the BRICS sum- Escobar, Paul Craig Roberts and Hugo and patriarchy as its forms.” mit in Goa, India in five months’ time? Turner, along with officials from No to the coup, no to imperialism Here in South Africa, few expect Venezuela and Cuba, all make this claim. Rousseff is of course the victim of a Jacob Zuma’s African National A founder of Brazil’s heroic coup. I hope the Brazilian people will Congress (ANC) government to react Movement of Landless Workers (MST), rise up against the illegitimate interim constructively on the international João Pedro Stedile, was asked by Il government. But whether the coup was stage. Making waves isn’t likely at a Manifesto about why “a group of depu- a product of imperialism, as Zondi and time when Standard and Poors and ties from right-wing organizations went many others argue, requires a bit more Fitch are on a South Africa visit, decid- to Washington before the last elec- circumspection. ing whether to downgrade the coun- tions.” He replied, “Temer will arrange try’s credit rating to “junk” status, as his government in order to allow the As WikiLeaks cables revealed, Temer happened in Brazil late last year. U.S. to control our economy through was a mole for the U.S. State Department a decade ago, playing what This is a shame because the last two their companies . . .Brazil is part of the Washington considered to be an weeks have offered excellent opportu- BRICS, and another goal is that it can incompetent, ideology-free role as a nities for diplomatic rebellion: revela- reject the South-South alliance.” political “opportunist.” tions have emerged implicating the Another version of this anti-imperi- Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in alist framing was heard at the South Indeed, we witnessed a similar assisting the apartheid state’s 1962 African Black Consciousness move- problem here in South Africa, with the arrest and twenty-seven-year impris- ment’s Black First Land First launch country’s then-lead spy, Moe Shaik, onment of Nelson Mandela. This isn’t conference on May 13: offering the same sort of tell-all func- exactly surprising; the State Department “Brazil and South Africa are seen tion—before becoming a key liaison to did keep Mandela on its terrorist watch by the Western imperialist forces as the BRICS New Development Bank. list until 2008. the weak link in the BRICS chain. But as concrete evidence of a U.S.- Following these revelations ANC The strategy of imperialism is to get led coup in Brazil this fact seems insuf- spokesperson Zizi Kodwa charged that rid of presidents who support the ficient. Moreover, Rousseff herself BRICS process. Imperialism works the CIA “never stopped operating here. denied the role of imperialism a week with internal opposition parties to after the impeachment, during a Russia It is still happening now—the CIA is effect regime change.” still collaborating with those who want Today interview: “I don’t believe exter- regime change.” The eloquent South African com- nal interference is a primary or a sec- mentator Siphamandla Zondi, who ondary reason for what’s happening BRICS and empire directs the Institute for Global Dialogue now in Brazil. It’s not. The grave situa- South Africa’s chief foreign policy (one of South Africa’s main foreign tion we see now has developed without spokesperson Clayson Monyela policy institutes), also shares this view. any such interference.” responded to Kodwa’s accusation with Zondi defends the BRICS project She repeated this when pressed by assurances that South Africa’s relations and disputes the argument put forth by the interviewer, so it was crystal clear with the United States “are strong, myself and others that the BRICS actu- that she blames the old oligarchs for they’re warm, and cordial.” But ally serve a “sub-imperialist” role in the her downfall. This point was rein-

44 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 forced by subsequent revelations about have been largely replaced by Obama’s “We will also take advantage of the the coup plotters’ local motivations. neoliberal multilateralism—a style of opportunities offered by inter-region- al fora with other developing coun- Moreover, the interweaving of racism, governance that the BRICS have bought into, not opposed. tries, such as the BRICS, to accelerate patriarchy, and global capitalism is also commercial exchanges, investments not as straightforward as it once was. This isn’t something to celebrate. and sharing of experiences.” When Obama’s allies hit the Honduran Multilateral neoliberalism leaves the government in 2009, for example, it was BRICS countries far less able to pursue Sub-imperialism a Black man and a woman in Washington any positive South-South interventions. Many who see Brazil as the victim of who gave international credence to the Indeed, Rousseff’s ouster demon- imperialism also hold the correspond- local capitalist elite’s coup against a pro- strates this clearly and the incoming ing view that Brazil, along with the gressive democrat. Temer regime is likely to pursue a des- other BRICS countries, plays a pro- Similar concerns about Obama’s perate course to re-establish its global gressive role on the global stage. Zondi role on the African continent have also position. The westward drift announced articulated this viewpoint concisely in been expressed—appropriate consid- last week by Temer’s foreign minister, a recent piece for the Cape Times: ering the Africa Command’s agenda. José Serra, plus Brasilia’s renewed neo- “The [BRICS] platform has But the role of the BRICS countries liberal agenda on the home front, sug- become the most powerful platform shouldn’t be downplayed in these geo- gest this will be the case. for the pursuit of global reform . . . Brazil has been a crucial voice in political power plays. But while it’s obvious that Serra is global debates about the reform of The United States is made more going to become much more active as global governance, including the dangerous by the sub-imperialist geo- a sub-imperial ally of the United States IMF and World Bank, and about fair political functions that Deputy Sheriff than was Rousseff, Rousseff also did and just outcomes for the developing Zuma regularly accepts, such as endors- little of substance on the foreign policy world in world trade negotiations . . . ing NATO’s bombing of Libya which front aside from occasional anti-Yan- “Brazil has spoken out on the led to regime change in 2011, support- kee rhetoric (such as when she learned agenda of decent work, food sover- ing Israel even during its periodic mass from Edward Snowden that Obama eignty, a greater Western contribu- murder of Gaza civilians, happily host- had bugged her phone and email). tion to the global response on cli- ing U.S.-South African military exer- As the thoughtful (and generally mate change, ecological justice and cises, and even bragging openly that pro-BRICS) commentator Oliver the end to ecological imperialism. the South Africa army will serve as Stuenkel recently lamented: Brazil has also been an advocate of Obama’s “boots on the ground.” the responsibility to protect. “Rousseff failed to articulate any- “We may miss this now. Brazil is This isn’t to say that crude imperial- thing resembling a foreign policy an important part of the effort today ism has faded away. Looking just at the doctrine, and Brazil’s foreign policy to shift global power from the for- 2009–2012 years when Hillary Clinton since 2011 was shaped, above all, by mer colonial powers and their dias- was secretary of state, Washington’s Blog the President’s mind-boggling indif- pora in North America to all regions ference to all things international writer Eric Zuesse summarizes repeated of the world. It is a key partner in and foreign policy makers’ incapac- U.S. incursions in Honduras, Haiti, South-South co-operation.” Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine ity to convince Rousseff that foreign Many South Africans are impressed (and one might add Paraguay too). policy could be used to promote the government’s domestic goals—as with the BRICS, but the reality of Yet, despite this impressive list of both [former Brazilian presidents] Brazil’s global maneuvering is much less imperialist interventions, U.S. “regime Lula and Fernando Henrique rosy. In the most important multilateral change maneuvers in the rest of the Cardoso so skillfully showed.” settings, BRICS elites have worked Black world,” as Zondi phrases it, are not Serra, on the other hand, has prom- against the interests of the world’s that common. They are not needed at ised that: majority and against the environment. the moment, especially in Africa, where “Priority will be given to the rela- Consider Brazil’s actions in the the local leadership is already supine tionship with new partners in Asia, International Monetary Fund (IMF). when it comes to Washington’s agenda. particularly China, this great economic Since 2010 it has been working to Neoliberal multilateralism phenomenon of the twenty-first cen- reconfigure voting power (“voice”) in tury, and India. We will be equally Simply put, “racism, crude capital- the institution. It has successfully committed to modernizing the bilater- increased its vote by 23 percent (with ism and patriarchy” associated with al exchange with Africa, the big neigh- China also up 37 percent, India up 11 twentieth-century U.S. imperialism bor on the other side of the Atlantic . . .

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 45 percent and Russia up eight percent). binding emissions-cut premise, con- Despite Brazil’s UN-designated This isn’t a bad thing. But the tained utterly unambitious emissions “right to protect” responsibilities it has restructuring deal that made this pos- targets, and also wrecked the UN pro- done nothing to expose or oppose sible was detrimental to African coun- cess that year. these crimes of occupation, which tries: Nigeria just lost 41 percent of its Moreover, Rousseff was a booster of include the rape and sexual abuse of voting power, along with Libya (39 the pro-corporate “Green Economy” Haitian children by UN soldiers. percent), Morocco (27 percent), Gabon gambit at the Rio Earth Summit in Meanwhile back in Johannesburg, (26 percent), Algeria (26 percent), 2012 that was (semi-successfully) lefty-sounding rhetoric from the ANC’s Namibia (26 percent) and even South rejected by most of the Global South. Luthuli House is nothing more than Africa (21 percent). She is also a proud signatory to the politicians blowing dust into the air. From this perspective “BRICs ver- 2015 Paris UN climate deal, a deal When ANC leaders call the coura- sus Africa” seems a more apt way to which assures catastrophic global geous South African public protector describe Brazil’s role in “reform of warming and also now legally prevents Thuli Madonsela a “CIA agent,” or global governance” at the IMF. climate victims in the Global South declare that the Mandela Washington from suing the Global North for its Fellowship program of the U.S. Brazil’s maneuvers at other global climate debt. governance institutions—including Embassy is training kids for “regime the World Trade Organization (WTO), Brazil has also combined forces with change,” they show off anti-imperialist which is currently headed up by the EU—against Bolivia—to “open the feathers. But in reality, Washington has Brazilian Roberto Azevêdo—are equal- same carbon trading loopholes that no beef with Pretoria. The ANC has ly damaging. undermined the last global climate always excelled at talking left while deal,” according to Oscar Reyes of the walking right. According to the ordinarily pro- Institute for Policy Studies. BRICS NGO Third World Network U.S. empire is real and oppressive, (TWN), Brazil conspired with the He notes that “the Paris Agreement but it shouldn’t prevent a clear and United States and the European Union explicitly allows countries to count critical appraisal of the BRICS coun- at the WTO to “[ensure] that India did emissions reductions made in other tries’ true role in the world. not get the language it proposed” to countries as part of their own domestic Patrick Bond is professor of political maintain vital food subsidies, which in targets, referring to these by the euphe- economy at the University of the coming years will lead tens-of-millions mism ‘internationally transferred miti- Witwatersrand and co-editor of the 2015 of Indian peasants to suffer. gation outcomes.’” book BRICS: An Anti-Capitalist Critique. As TWN’s Chakravarthi Raghavan Finally, the claim that “Brazil has —Jacobin, May 25, 2016 also been an advocate of the responsi- put it, “on the eve of Nairobi, Brazil https://www.jacobinmag. unilaterally abandoned the G20 alli- bility to protect” simply doesn’t hold water. Consider Haiti and the “right to com/2016/05/brazil-south-africa-rous- ance to join the U.S. and EU, in trying seff-zuma-imperialism-cia-coup/ to act against China and India,” not to protect” role countries like Brazil are mention against the world’s poor. tasked with carrying out. As Mark Weisbrot (a PT sympathizer) explains, Of course, Brazil’s behavior is not unique. China and Russia persistently ‘The UN occupation of Haiti is really a U.S. occupation—it is no block efforts by Brazil, India, and South more a multilateral force than Africa to permanently join the Security George W. Bush’s “coalition of the Council. The point is simply that intra- willing” that invaded Iraq. BRICS solidarity, let alone broader “And it is hardly more legitimate, South-South solidarity, is hard to find either: it was sent there in 2004 after in reality. a U.S.-led effort toppled Haiti’s The issue of Brazil’s role in battling democratically elected government. the global environmental crisis also Far from providing security for deserves greater scrutiny. In 2009 Lula Haitians in the aftermath of the coup, supported—alongside the United [the UN mission in Haiti] stood by States, India, China, and South while thousands of Haitians who had Africa—the Copenhagen Accord, supported the elected government were killed, and officials of the con- which voided the Kyoto Protocol’s stitutional government jailed.”

46 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 Brazil “Soft coup” finds soft target in Brazil By Glen Ford If the Brazilian politicians that are Disintegrating alliances of rough, and shared cabinet positions clamoring to impeach President Dilma convenience and campaign funds with its erstwhile Rousseff were opposed to corruption, The Brazilian Left says it will take rightwing friends. This relationship they would impeach themselves, since the battle “to the streets” and mobilize was apparently reflected in the realm of 60 percent of them are facing some internationally to defeat the “soft” leg- corruption, as well, with a host of par- kind of corruption charges. Rousseff is islative coup. But, sympathizers outside ties sharing in the feast. All the while, personally squeaky clean. Her nominal of Brazil must wonder, how did it the deeply reactionary and vicious offense was manipulating budget num- come to this? How did a party that, Brazilian ruling class, which controls bers so that her government could since 2002, has won majorities of the the monopoly media, awaited its continue programs to help the poor national vote even after the economy chance to destroy the Workers Party, after the bottom fell out of the econo- turned sour find itself being hounded even at the risk of economic and social my because of the global economic out of executive power by yelping chaos. This “soft coup” could turn very, slowdown. But, the actual charge packs of thoroughly corrupt political very hard, very quickly. against Rousseff almost never came up hyenas? The Left hangs by a thread in when the lower house of the Brazilian Brazil, has been ousted in Argentina, legislature voted to impeach her, which The Workers Party had a huge national following, but it makes up and is halfway out the door in is why the Speaker of the lower house Venezuela, because the power of the briefly ruled the impeachment null and only about 15 percent of the country’s legislature. Early on, its charismatic capitalists in those countries remained void—and then reversed himself less intact. Capitalism is the ultimate cor- than a day later, clearing the way for leader, “Lula” da Silva, made alliances with parties to his right, at the state and ruption that never quits until it is the Senate to put Rousseff on trial and stamped out. remove her from office. national level. The more the Workers Party became enmeshed with its capi- —Black Agenda Report, May 10, Dilma Rousseff’s Workers Party and talist partners-of-convenience, the fur- 2016 its allies on the left like MST, the ther it moved from its grassroots sup- Landless Workers Movement, call the port. The Workers Party embraced http://www.blackagendareport.com/ impeachment drive a “soft coup,” and neoliberal austerity when times got soft_coup_brazil see the long arm of the United States at work. In 2013 Rousseff stood at the United Nations General Assembly, in New York, to denounce the Obama administration for spying on her. The U.S. spymasters didn’t get anything on Rousseff, who is clean, but they dug up plenty on the giant Brazilian state oil company, Petrobas, which is at the center of a web of corruption involving billions-of-dollars in bribery and pay- offs to politicians and businessmen affiliated with a whole range of Brazilian political parties, including, of course, Rousseff’s Workers Party. The scandal exposed the entire system as perva- sively corrupt—but only Rousseff and her party are in the crosshairs.

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 47 Peña Nieto’s Murderous Regime Six killed in brutal repression of teacher’s movement in Mexico By Jorge Martin

On June 19, 2016, Mexican police rural regions it controls, the teachers Those killed are: Oscar Aguilar intervened to clear a road blockade in are also the backbone of the many of Ramírez, 25; Yalit Jiménez Santiago, the town of Nochixtlan. The brutal the social movements. 29, from Santa María Apazco, in repression left six people dead and The education “reform” is a key part Nochixtlán. He had responded to a call dozens of others injured as well as at of the strategy of Peña Nieto’s govern- to reinforce the barricades when the least 21 arrested. The blockade had ment for two reasons: one, its imple- Federal Police shot his van. Oscar been organized by teachers with the mentation would effectively destroy Nicolás Santiago, from Las Flores support of the local communities in education as a right to be guaranteed by Tilantongo, 21, peasant, was wounded order to prevent Federal Police from the state, opening up the door to priva- by gunshot from the Federal Police. He reaching the capital of Oaxaca where tization; two, because the reform is also was taken to the hospital but refused striking teachers have organized an aimed at destroying the power of the care as they were treating only police encampment. militant CNTE union. In this respect it officers. He bled to death. Andrés This is the latest instance of brutal fits in the government strategy of Aguilar Sanabria. 23, was an indige- nous teacher. Anselmo Cruz Aquino, repression by the Mexican government “opening up” the country’s oil industry from Santiago Amatlán, killed from a of Peña Nieto against the months-long to foreign and private investment, the bullet wound. Antonio Pérez García, movement of teachers against an educa- attacks against the IPN Polytechnic high school student. Jesús Cadena tion counter-reform, which they reject. University, and the smashing of the Sánchez Meza, 19, student and Omar On Friday, June 17, thousands of police militant electricians union SME. González Santiago, 22. officers formed a human wall, which The reason why the government has prevented a teachers’ demonstration singled out Oaxaca CNTE section 22 is On the same day, the police attacked from reaching the center of Mexico the role it played in the 2006 uprising another road blockade in Salina Cruz, City, where their camp had already been in Oaxaca, which solidified its links Oaxaca where teachers and their sup- brutally evicted days earlier. with the local communities, many of porters had established a barricade closing down the Chiapas—Oaxaca Thousands of teachers have been them indigenous. The memory of the highway. sacked from their jobs for refusing the months-long Oaxaca commune ten 1 pass tests, which are part of the educa- years ago has not been erased. Initially the police denied that their tion “reform.” Hundreds have been What we witnessed on June 19 at officers had been carrying firearms, but arrested including many of the leaders Nochixtlan were scenes of civil war. On later changed their version, alleging of the democratic teachers’ union the one side the local community, armed that “unknown” people started firing CNTE. Amongst those detained are 15 with sticks and stones, set up barricades “at both demonstrators and police” leaders of the union, including the gen- blockading the main Puebla-Oaxaca and this is what prompted the “arrival eral secretaries of section 22 represent- highway to prevent the arrival of the of armed police officers” to the scene. ing Oaxaca and section 18 in forces of repression to the capital of the The movement of the teachers has Michoacán, who are being held in high state. They had blockaded the road for a widespread support, not only in the security jails. week. On the other hand Federal Police regions where they are stronger but The democratic wing of the teach- used all means at their disposal to across the whole country. The rural ers’ union has the majority of the remove them: tear gas, rubber bullets, laborers in the San Quintin Valley, in union in the states of Chiapas, helicopters and, according to local eye- Baja California, on struggle for decent Guerrero, Michoacán and Oaxaca, as witnesses, also live ammunition. wages and against harassment by the well as in Mexico City. The CNTE, The clashes went on for more than bosses, have also come out in support of which was set up in 1979 to struggle seven hours. Meanwhile, the police the Oaxaca teachers. In fact, many of against the bureaucratic pro-govern- prevented ambulances from reaching these super-exploited laborers are ment corrupt leaders of the SNTE the site and when the local community migrant workers originally from Oaxaca. (National Union of Education managed to get some of their wounded A national march in support of the Workers,) has the support of teacher- to the local hospital, the police pre- movement of the teachers has been activists across the country. In these vented them from being treated. called in Mexico City on Sunday, with

48 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 the support of Morena leader Andrés Leap Manifesto Manuel Lopez Obrador. What we see in Mexico is a govern- A call for Canada based on caring for the Earth and one another. ment, which decided to carry out a We start from the premise that Canada is facing the deepest crisis in program of cuts and counter-reforms recent memory. using any amount of violence and repression necessary to push it through. The Truth and Reconciliation ster this role, and reset our relation- The government however, is extremely Commission has acknowledged shock- ship, by fully implementing the United discredited and has had to face a series ing details about the violence of Nations Declaration on the Rights of of mass movements, including the Canada’s near past. Deepening poverty Indigenous Peoples. movement for justice for the 43 and inequality are a scar on the coun- Moved by the treaties that form the Ayotzinapa students forcibly disap- try’s present. And Canada’s record on legal basis of this country and bind us peared nearly two years ago. climate change is a crime against to share the land “for as long as the sun The main problem with the differ- humanity’s future. shines, the grass grows and the rivers ent movements, which have taken These facts are all the more jarring flow,” we want energy sources that will place, has been their isolation and frag- because they depart so dramatically last for time immemorial and never mented character. There is an urgent from our stated values: respect for run out or poison the land. need to unify all the different struggles Indigenous rights, internationalism, Technological breakthroughs have into one single powerful movement to human rights, diversity, and environ- brought this dream within reach. The roll back all the attacks as well as bring mental stewardship. latest research shows it is feasible for down the government. Canada to get 100 percent of its elec- Canada is not this place today— tricity from renewable resources within We call on the broadest interna- but it could be. tional solidarity and support for the two decades;1 by 2050 we could have a struggle of the Mexican teachers. Down We could live in a country powered 100 percent clean economy.2 with repression! For the immediate entirely by renewable energy, woven We demand that this shift begin now. release of all detained union leaders! together by accessible public transit, in Unity in struggle! Down with the mur- which the jobs and opportunities of There is no longer an excuse for derous Peña Nieto regime! this transition are designed to system- building new infrastructure projects atically eliminate racial and gender that lock us into increased extraction —In Defense of Marxism, June 20, 2016 inequality. Caring for one another and decades into the future. The new iron http://www.marxist.com/mexico- caring for the planet could be the law of energy development must be: if brutal-repression-of-teachers-move- economy’s fastest growing sectors. you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, ment-kills-6.htm Many more people could have higher then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s wage jobs with fewer work hours, leav- backyard. That applies equally to oil ing us ample time to enjoy our loved 1 http://www.marxist.com/revolutionary- and gas pipelines; fracking in New reawakening-mexico080906.htm= ones and flourish in our communities. Brunswick, Quebec and British We know that the time for this great Columbia; increased tanker traffic off transition is short. Climate scientists our coasts; and to Canadian-owned have told us that this is the decade to mining projects the world over. take decisive action to prevent cata- The time for energy democracy has strophic global warming. That means come: we believe not just in changes to small steps will no longer get us where our energy sources, but that wherever we need to go. possible communities should collec- So we need to leap. tively control these new energy systems. This leap must begin by respecting As an alternative to the profit-goug- the inherent rights and title of the ing of private companies and the original caretakers of this land. remote bureaucracy of some central- Indigenous communities have been at ized state ones, we can create innova- the forefront of protecting rivers, tive ownership structures: democrati- coasts, forests and lands from out-of- cally run, paying living wages and control industrial activity. We can bol- keeping much-needed revenue in com-

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 49 munities. And Indigenous Peoples Recognizing Canada’s contributions to One thing is clear: public scarcity in should be first to receive public sup- military conflicts and climate change— times of unprecedented private wealth port for their own clean energy proj- primary drivers of the global refugee is a manufactured crisis, designed to ects. So should communities currently crisis—we must welcome refugees and extinguish our dreams before they have dealing with heavy health impacts of migrants seeking safety and a better life. a chance to be born. polluting industrial activity. Shifting to an economy in balance Those dreams go well beyond this Power generated this way will not with the earth’s limits also means document. merely light our homes but redistrib- expanding the sectors of our economy We call for town hall meetings ute wealth, deepen our democracy, that are already low carbon: caregiving, across the country where residents can strengthen our economy and start to teaching, social work, the arts and gather to democratically define what a heal the wounds that date back to this public-interest media. Following on genuine leap to the next economy country’s founding. Quebec’s lead, a national childcare means in their communities. program is long past due. All this work, A leap to a non-polluting economy Inevitably, this bottom-up revival much of it performed by women, is the creates countless openings for similar will lead to a renewal of democracy at glue that builds humane, resilient com- multiple “wins.” We want a universal every level of government; working munities—and we will need our com- program to build energy efficient swiftly towards a system in which every munities to be as strong as possible in homes, and retrofit existing housing, vote counts and corporate money is the face of the rocky future we have ensuring that the lowest income com- removed from political campaigns. already locked in. munities and neighborhoods will ben- This is a great deal to take on all at once, Since so much of the labor of care- efit first and receive job training and but such are the times in which we live. opportunities that reduce poverty over taking—whether of people or the plan- the long term. We want training and et—is currently unpaid, we call for a The drop in oil prices has temporar- other resources for workers in carbon- vigorous debate about the introduc- ily relieved the pressure to dig up fossil intensive jobs, ensuring they are fully tion of a universal basic annual income. fuels as rapidly as high-risk technolo- able to take part in the clean energy Pioneered in Manitoba in the 1970’s, gies will allow. This pause in frenetic economy. This transition should this sturdy safety net could help ensure expansion should not be viewed as a involve the democratic participation of that no one is forced to take work that crisis, but as a gift. workers themselves. High-speed rail threatens their children’s tomorrow, It has given us a rare moment to powered by renewables and affordable just to feed those children today. look at what we have become—and public transit can unite every commu- We declare that “austerity”—which decide to change. nity in this country—in place of more has systematically attacked low-carbon And so we call on all those seeking cars, pipelines and exploding trains sectors like education and healthcare, political office to seize this opportunity that endanger and divide us. while starving public transit and forc- and embrace the urgent need for trans- And since we know this leap is ing reckless energy privatizations—is a formation. This is our sacred duty to beginning late, we need to invest in our fossilized form of thinking that has those this country harmed in the past, decaying public infrastructure so that become a threat to life on earth. to those suffering needlessly in the it can withstand increasingly frequent present, and to all who have a right to extreme weather events. How we can pay for all of this? a bright and safe future. Moving to a far more localized and Read “How Can We Afford The Now is the time for boldness. ecologically-based agricultural system Leap” by Bruce Campbell, Seth 3 Now is the time to leap. would reduce reliance on fossil fuels, Klein, and Marc Lee https://leapmanifesto.org/en/the-leap- capture carbon in the soil, and absorb The money we need to pay for this manifesto/ sudden shocks in the global supply—as great transformation is available—we well as produce healthier and more just need the right policies to release it. affordable food for everyone. Like an end to fossil fuel subsidies; 1 Sustainable Canada Dialogues. (2015). Act- We call for an end to all trade deals Financial transaction taxes; Increased ing on climate change: Solutions from Canadi- an scholars. Montreal, QC: McGill University that interfere with our attempts to resource royalties; Higher income taxes on corporations and wealthy people; A 2 Jacobson, M., et al. Providing all global energy rebuild local economies, regulate cor- with wind, water, and solar power, Part I: Technolo- porations and stop damaging extractive progressive carbon tax; Cuts to mili- gies, energy resources, quantities and areas of infra- projects. Rebalancing the scales of jus- tary spending. All of these are based on structure, and materials. Energy Policy 39:3 (2011) tice, we should ensure immigration sta- a simple “polluter pays” principle and 3 https://leapmanifesto.org/en/how-can-we- tus and full protection for all workers. hold enormous promise. afford-the-leap/

50 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 French Stand Up By Richard Greeman

June 13, 2016—“We’ve had enough” ernment, which had earlier made a few working people have not changed all is the phrase on everyone’s lips as— compromises, became afraid to give in that much. Indeed, in 1995, there was against all expectations—the wave of to the majority and lose face, so it also a weeklong runaway national strike strikes, blockades, disruptions and mass evoked paragraph 49-3 of de Gaulle’s among the workers in the public sector, demonstrations begun on May 17th tailor-made Constitution giving the sparked by an earlier government continues to develop throughout President the power in emergencies to attempt at liberal “reform,” but accord- France. Indeed, in the past couple of impose laws by edict, without a parlia- ing to the accepted wisdom in media days, two new strategic groups of work- mentary majority. This high-handed- and governmental circles, the French ers have joined the protest. Technicians ness was the last straw for the demo- people had by 2016 supposedly evolved, at France’s nuclear power plants are cratic French, who had come to detest become “normal,” and now accepted now cutting back on production of the anti-labor “reform” bill and the liberalization as necessary and inevita- electricity, and the railroad workers already-unpopular neoliberal ble like every other nation. Guess not. have massively joined the street protests “Socialist” government that was shov- I am happy (if somewhat ashamed) while cutting back on trains. Meanwhile, ing it down their throats. That’s when to report that I was overly pessimistic there are long lines at the gas pumps as all Hell broke loose. and somewhat hysterical in my last petroleum workers continue to block- reports from France,2 evoking the Brussels-imposed legislation ade France’s major oil refineries. specter of a coup d’état and possible Surprisingly, most French people Don’t ask me to explain the bill, “civil war” in reaction to Hollande’s take these inconveniences in good except that it is part of a Brussels- imposition of the State of Emergency humor, and the polls show broad pub- imposed, Europe-wide economic liber- and indiscriminate police raids after lic support for the movement’s goals alization plan and that it makes it easi- the terrorist attacks. So far, the and even its disruptive tactics. This er for managers to fire workers, close Hollande government has refrained popular sympathy is all the more sur- plants, flex work schedules, and cut from evoking the State Emergency in prising given weeks of blanket negative back on overtime pay and severance today’s bras de fer (arm-wrestling con- media coverage, hysterical official pay. Most French people don’t under- test) between a weak government try- statements and police tactics designed stand the technicalities either, but with ing to look tough on one side and on to discredit the movement. First the shrewd class awareness, they under- the other the combined forces of a issue was the violence of the “casseurs” stand that the “reforms” are an attack young generation that sees itself being (wreckers) on the fringes of the big, by the One Percent on the protections sacrificed on the alter of neoliberalism, peaceful, well-organized mass demon- and regulations they have fought for an organized labor movement respond- strations, and the image of one flaming over generations. They instinctively see ing to militant pressure from below police-car in Paris kept popping up on them as another attempt to dismantle take a stand, and an independent- every channel for days.1 Then came the the Social Republic, officially so named minded public that has “had enough” threat of the unions (government-sub- in the Constitution of 1945, written at of being manipulated. sidized and generally cooperative) tak- the time of the Liberation when the Whatever the outcome of May ing over the country and destroying collaborationist French industrialists Madness, one thing is clear. There is a the economy. Next, the talking heads and their political tools were in dis- new radical awareness on the rise in topic of the day, the police, what a grace while the slogan “from the France and with it a new revolutionary great job they do and how we should Resistance to the Revolution” was still generation that correctly sees that it support them! hanging in the air. has no future to look forward to under Despite this propaganda campaign, Today’s struggle is, of course, a capitalism. Student agitation, especial- the popular movement continued to defensive battle, and so far there have ly in the high schools has been boiling grow and public sympathy with it, to been only a few barricades (blockading up across the country for months as the point that the governing Socialist the oil refineries)—barely recalling the have the nightly popular assemblies in Party split—making it impossible for revolutions 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 and the squares of Paris and a half-dozen the François Hollande administration the general strikes of 1936 and 1968. other cities, known as Nuits debout to push its unpopular Labor Reform But apparently the rebellious instincts (Stay up all night). These assemblies Bill through the parliament. The gov- and radical temperament of the French correspond to a rejection of the pseu-

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 51 do-democracy of the professional poli- Interviews in Montpellier social media. The manipulations ticians and a desire for real participa- Anaïs, age 22, works in a school: around pseudo-concessions on the tory democracy and human commu- proposed law and then the forced pas- “This is the first time I’ve come out nity. They also function as hothouses sage via the 49-3 edict have strength- to a demonstration. Unfortunately I for radical ideas, like “Occupy” and the ened my motivation. Blocking, that’s only have a little time for this… I’m not Indignados of 2011. our 49-3, Citizens. Perhaps we will pay an activist, I consider myself apolitical, the price, but striking the economy, This intellectual revolution has only even if I participate in Nuit debout when that’s the only thing they understand. just begun, and it is likely to have a my schedule allows it. I don’t think And if my help is needed in the block- long-term effect on consciousness, just demonstrations are enough to get us ing, I’ll go. The polls show that three as “Occupy Wall Street” (minuscule in anything concrete; marching from point quarters of the population is against comparison) seems to have had on A to point B doesn’t bother anyone. If this law, isn’t that enough?” U.S. consciousness. Meanwhile, the we want to be heard, we must totally French are not only debout (standing block the country’s economy. And to “Elf,” age 16, resident high school up) talking all night, they are also succeed, we must get coordinated, even student at the lycée Agropolis: standing up for themselves and for all just for one day. I am totally conscious “I only got political three months of us in the streets and on the picket of the annoyances and privations that ago, since the first blockades, which be lines—standing up against the One we might suffer as individuals, but now the way I help set up. Since then it’s gone Percent’s relentless attacks on our liv- everybody has the duty to put aside very quickly: I’ve been to every demon- ing standards, on our rights, and on their little personal comforts and to stration. It was thanks to the high school our lives. Maybe there is an alternative. fight for the community.” that I became conscious of the impor- So allow me to conclude this report Nicolas, age 39, looking for work: tance of demanding our rights. Today, I by translating a few excerpts from “My unemployed situation has an have an impression the movement is interviews recorded3 during the big advantage: it leaves time to go into the losing speed, but if we don’t stand up it’s demonstration here in Montpellier street to defend our rights. I’m neither certain we won’t get anything! We must (May 26) and then close with a transla- an activist nor a union member, I come continue on to the end. But marches tion of the 2016 Platform of one of the as a citizen and I have only missed two won’t be enough, we need to continue Commissions of the Paris Nuit debout demonstrations since March 9th. I am and reinforce the blockades, even if we at the Place de la Bastille. mobilized both on the street and on have to suffer for a while: the economy is the only thing that interests them, so better to strike where it hurts!” Andrée, age 65, osteopath: “I’ve been going out in the streets for two months and at the same time actively participating in the Nuit debout. The two are linked; it touches me to see these young people who refuse to be a new consumer-genera- tion, who would rather come together, think and discuss the future. I am reliv- ing my 18th year and May 68. It’s important to be out here; it shows that we are present and that our disagree- ment with the government is visceral. But that isn’t enough, as our leaders are deaf. They want to make us believe we are a minority, but I see the workers from my office marching. And what- ever the profession, the salary, the same malaise and the same unease are found everywhere! I’m sorry I have to say this, but obviously under these

52 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 conditions I can only approve of the Update: orders from the Socialist government. blockade, it’s the only way we can Not much change in situation here Alas, this is a repeat of the way the change the power relationship and be in France. A long drawn out “arm- unions sabotaged the previous move- heard. I’m even ready to go in myself wrestling” struggle. Typical of the ments against “reforms” (including the and to tighten my belt for that. bureaucratic unions, especially the 2011 demonstrations against cutting most “militant,” the historically com- Nuit debout, Paris retirement and raising the age of eligi- munist Confédération générale du tra- bility, against giving young workers a New Amendments to Plateforme vail (CGT), who’s goal is not to win a lower status, etc.). Instead of striking 20164 victory for the working people but to and demonstrating all together keeping • Hiring the six million unem- re-affirm their power as the “legiti- up the pressure, the leaders claimed ployed by adding one new job for mate” intermediary between the work- that “time is on our side,” space out the each existing job. ers and the government. So instead of demonstrations over months and then uniting the different branches in a sin- suddenly it’s June and everyone in • A 25-hour week and an adjust- gle, open-ended general strike, they France goes on vacation and the able work schedule. “reforms” are passed in an empty Paris. • Raise the minimum monthly sal- Richard Greeman has been active ary to €1,500 ($1,700); a mini- If we want to be since 1957 in civil rights, antiwar, anti- mum of €1,200 ($1,350 for retire- nuke, environmental and labor struggles ment, student scholarships and heard, we must in the U.S., Latin America, France unemployment benefits. totally block the (where he has been a longtime resident) • Public transparency of all salaries; country’s economy. and Russia (where he helped found the male/female equality of salaries, And to succeed, Praxis Research and Education Center open the books of all business in 1997.) enterprises. we must get —The Bullet, June 13, 2016 • Maximum income ceiling set at coordinated, even http://socialistproject.ca/bullet/1267. four times the minimum. just for one day. php • Free health, schooling and trans- portation. 1 The police have been reported filtering • Requisition of empty housing, space out partial confrontations to these black-cowled angry young men through abolition of rents and guaranteed demonstrate their control and force their lines, where they have clashed with GTU right to housing. the government to include them. The (Graduate Theological Union) union monitors; and somehow they never get arrested. Some • Expropriation of the great for- students are into finals right now, so there is not that much activity on the have been revealed as actual undercover cops. tunes, abolition of private prop- 2 “France at ‘War’,” by Richard Greeman erty in the means of production youth front, but Nuit debout continues. And the pressure from below contin- 3 “A Montpellier: ‘Les blocages, c’est notre and exchange, direct collective 49-3 à nous,’” by Timothée Aldebert. self-management of enterprises. ues. The demonstrations are less con- trolled by the unions and at 4 Plateforme 2016.” • All power to the Assemblies of the end some people may workers/inhabitants for planning hold a General Assembly production on the basis of social or march off in a sponta- needs and ecological imperatives. neous demonstration. • Election of delegates with limited Meanwhile, thanks to mandates and the permanent videos and cellphones, right of revocation of Assemblies. the evidence of blatant • Free Federation of industrial unions police brutality and espe- and residential communities. cially of police provoca- tion (undercover cops • Regularization of undocumented trashing shops, etc.) is people and international cooper- really public knowledge. ation of workers’ powers against And everyone knows underdevelopment, imperialism they are acting under and war.

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 53

Incarceration Nation INCARCERATION NATION Times May Have Changed, But The Truth Hasn’t By Kevin Cooper

In 1976 the Reverend Dr. Martin must forever remain behind or run we are told repeatedly that times have Luther King, Jr., stated the following faster than the man in front. What a changed. dilemma”! Truth: Maybe we should stop dealing with “After 348 years, racial injustice “It is a call to do the ‘Impossible,’ the times, and start dealing with the is still the Negro’s burden and and it’s enough to cause the Negro truth! America’s shame! to give up in despair!” Kevin Cooper is an innocent man on San “Yet for his own inner health and We African Americans no longer Quentin’s Death Row in California. He continues outer functioning, the Negro is consider ourselves as “Negroes” but we to struggle for exoneration and to abolish the called upon to be resourceful, as still have this same “Dilemma!” This death penalty in the whole U.S. productive and as responsible as “Truth” effects us in every part of our Write to Kevin Cooper at: those who have not known such lives—from housing to schools, from Kevin Cooper C-65304, 4 EB 82 oppression and exploitation! jobs to healthcare and all else in San Quentin State Prison “This is the Negro’s dilemma. between, including “Justice” with this San Quentin, CA 94974 He who starts out behind in a race country’s criminal justice system. Yet, www.freekevincooper.org

Censorship in U.S. Prisons By Jaan Laaman

The United States is often called the calls and some restricted email services dangerous reality going on now, in country of prisons because we are five that some prison systems allow, are all prisons all across this country. My own percent of the world’s population, but opened and monitored. This is autho- voice, which has previously been heard the U.S. holds 25 percent of all the pris- rized by regulations and law. Further on radio and in print over many years, oners in the world. Recently we have censorship and outright blocking of has been almost totally cut off since heard talk from the White House and communications and publications, February. No official explanation has Congress about the need to reduce this also routinely occurs in prisons been given, other than, that prison huge prison population, which is cost- throughout this country. authorities do not like my commentar- ing the taxpayers billions. Letters, magazines and books critical ies and essays. Freedom of speech— Occasionally you might hear a pris- of government policies and wars are Freedom of expression, for America’s oner’s voice on some media platform, often not delivered, even if official poli- prisoners is a constant struggle! usually a Human Rights or community cy states that prisoners are allowed these These words are from Jaan Laaman outlet. These present words are written materials. Sometimes a prisoner has all and I hope I can, once again, speak more by Jaan Laaman. I am a long held his or her phone or email communica- directly to you in the future. political prisoner presently locked up in the U.S. Penitentiary in Tucson, tions arbitrarily shut off for months. —Black Agenda Report, May 24, 2016 Arizona. Let me be very clear, prisoners While an official appeal channel is usu- have a hard time getting our words and ally available, these are biased at best http://blackagendareport.com/pris- thoughts out from behind America’s and could easily be labeled a kangaroo oners_voices_silenced_blocked many, many prison walls. While pris- court process. Communications would oners do have a legal right to express be shut down for months, even if the Jaan Laaman was sentenced to 53 years in prisoner ultimately wins appeal and has prison while a member of the United Freedom their thoughts and report on issues and Front. He can be contacted—if the authorities abuses, actually getting your words out his or her communications restored. allow—at: is often very hard or impossible. Censoring, restricting and flat out Jaan Laaman 10372-016 All incoming and outgoing prisoner blocking communications, especially P.O. Box 24550 communication, postal mail, phone of political prisoners, is a harsh and Tucson, AZ 85734

54 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Fourth of July By Chris Hedges

Frackville, Pennsylvia—Tens- or even woman. He has a fake tan and orange sentence was later commuted to life hundreds-of-thousands of Americans, hair. His rhetoric is cruder. But his ideas without parole. He spent 30 years on like those in the visiting room of the are the same. The two major political death row. State Correctional Institution at parties are the abject servants of Wall The prison’s visiting room, with a Mahanoy, drove often for hours on the Street and American empire über alles. wall lined by vending machines that Fourth of July weekend to visit relatives They each support militarism, at home only the visitors were allowed to use, or friends who are locked in cages. and abroad. They each support the was crowded with families. Children Millions suffered the painful absence this indiscriminant murder of civilians from played in groups or ran across the floor, weekend of a father, a mother, a brother, drones. They each support the world- darting in and out of rows of chairs. a sister, a son, a daughter or a friend. wide archipelago of secret prisons. They A guard, seated on a raised plat- These people, mostly poor people of each support mass incarceration of poor form, periodically bellowed through a color, understand a dark truth about the people, the suspension of habeas corpus loudspeaker. He recited every admon- cruelty and ultimate intentions of the and torture. It is only their talk that is ishment twice. “Children must be corporate state. They know that “free- different. What is the difference between being beaten up by a Black cop or a supervised by an adult. Children must dom,” “justice” and “liberty,” especially be supervised by an adult.” if you are poor, are empty slogans. white cop? The only solution is to rise up to stop the cops from beatin’ our “… Like every prisoner must be “We live in one of the most un-free asses and shootin’ us in the streets, our supervised by a prison guard who is a systems on earth,” said the Black revolu- homes and our cars. I can assure you racist and an idiot,” Abu-Jamal mut- tionary and author Mumia Abu-Jamal, voting for Hillary Clinton won’t make a tered when one announcement ended. whom I visited Saturday, July 2, 2016. damn bit of difference. The Ku Klux “Mass incarceration is a reality endured Abu-Jamal understands that radical Klan, after all, once served as the unof- change exacts a high price. It takes by millions of people in prison and in ficial armed wing of the Democratic the systems of repression that exist out- years, sometimes decades, to achieve. It Party. You can’t invest hope in an orga- requires dedication, self-sacrifice, side of prison. What does freedom mean nization with a history like that. unwavering belief in a new vision of to poor people who cannot walk freely society, a trenchant understanding of down a street? What does freedom mean “The Black political elites, including the mechanisms of power, a willing- when they cannot find work? What does Barack Obama, are powerless,” he went ness to suffer persecution, go to jail freedom mean when there is no justice on. “They are emblems. They are not the voice of Black America. They are and even, when the elites truly feel in the courts? What does freedom mean like a ventriloquist’s dummy. They threatened, face the daily possibility of when Black people cannot attend a Bible mouth the same words the white corpo- being murdered. No political revolu- study in a church without the fear of rate masters mouth. They do not make tion was ever achieved without these being murdered? Where is this American white America uncomfortable. They do qualities and this acceptance of risks freedom they keep telling us about? I not name unpleasant truths. They never and steadfastness. don’t see it. Black folks are more in dan- lifted their voices to denounce Bill ger, and being killed in even greater “Black people will probably vote for Clinton’s decision to massively expand numbers, than during the reign of terror Clinton,” he said with resignation, “but our system of mass incarceration. And that was lynching and Jim Crow.” this symbolizes the emptiness of hope. they do not lift their voices now. They They fear Trump. They should look Abu-Jamal, who is fighting off hep- go right along with the repression. And closely at the pictures from Trump’s atitis C that the Pennsylvania they are well paid for it.” third wedding. Hillary Clinton is in the Department of Corrections and the Abu-Jamal, a journalist and author front pew of the church. Hillary, Bill, privatized prison medical service refuse of books such as Live From Death Row Trump and Melania are shown embrac- to treat, scoffed when I asked him and a former member of the Black ing at Trump’s estate afterwards dur- about the differences between Hillary Panther Party, is serving a life sentence ing the reception. These people are Clinton and Donald Trump. in the killing of a Philadelphia police part of the same elite circle. They rep- “Donald Trump is the real face of the officer. Despite flagrant irregularities resent the same financial interests. ugly American empire,” he said. “Yes, in his trial and evidence tampering, he They work for the same empire. They he ain’t pretty. He ain’t Black. He ain’t a was sentenced to death in 1982. His have grown rich from the system. The

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 55 words they shout back and forth dur- Abu-Jamal looked toward the Philadelphia, where he was raised, dur- ing political campaigns are meaning- guards, all of whom were white. ing the Democratic convention. less. Trump or Clinton will deliver the “Bill Clinton developed a rural “This is our hour of protest,” he same political result. They will serve, employment program called prisons,” said. “We have to physically resist. We like Obama, corporate and military he said. “Prisons are the economic life- will reclaim our power when we say no, power. And if they were not willing to blood of these poor white communi- when we refuse to cooperate. We must, serve these centers of power they would ties. The only time these people have in everything we do, defy the architects not be allowed to run. Their job is to any contact with Black people is when of imperialism, neoliberalism and mass manufacture hope during election they put them in cells or escort them in incarceration. We cannot enable, in any campaigns that ultimately end in shackles. Prisons are the gift William way, this system to perpetuate itself. betrayal. This is why they spend bil- Jefferson Clinton gave to poor, rural lions on elections. They need to feed “It is time to raise holy hell,” he whites that keeps on giving.” the illusion that our voices matter, that went on. “We need to demonstrate in we are participants in their closed sys- “The system is broken,” Abu-Jamal the streets. We need to use mega- tems of power. said. “It has to be torn up, root and phones. We need to hold teach-ins. We branch. And this has to be done from need to sell radical books. We need to “The liberals and the Democrats are make the streets our commons.” in many ways more dangerous than the the bottom up. If we keep electing and right wing,” he said. “Repression and re-electing these puppets we will keep Again the loudspeaker boomed: neoliberalism are more effectively getting played. We have to form politi- “Children must put away the toys they instituted by Democrats such as Bill cal parties that reflect our political took out of the children’s room. and Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. ideas. We have to stop surrendering to Children must put away the toys they They sound reasonable. But because false parties and politicians that do not took out of the children’s room.” what they do is hidden it is more insid- represent us.” Prisons, like the rest of the society, ious and often more deadly.” He said he places his hopes in groups have been privatized. Prisoners are “Do not leave your trash in the cup such as Black Lives Matter that have billed for an array of services and items holders. Do not leave your trash in the taken to the streets. He said that if he that once were the responsibility of the cup holders,” the loudspeaker blared. could he would be in the streets of state. Corporations, which make bil- lions off the prison system, run phone services, food services, medical services and commissaries. They have estab- lished for-profit prisons and detention centers. Prices for basic services and necessities such as shoes have soared. “Services that were once the respon- sibility of the state have been out- sourced to corporations, as in the rest of society,” said Abu-Jamal, who works as a trash collector. “We are worth what we are able to pay. If we pay nothing, in their eyes, we are worth nothing.” “When [prisoners] fill out a sick call slip, a request for medical attention, we have to also sign a cash slip,” he said. “The medical visit costs five or ten dol- lars. This may not sound like a lot. But a prison job only pays $30 a month. Prices are constantly going up. Wages in prisons have remained the same since the 1980s. Most prisoners can only go to buy items from the commis- sary after begging their mothers, grand- mothers or girlfriends for money.”

56 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 “In February, Global Tel Link began Wrongful Convictions selling electronic tablets in the prison for $150,” he said. “They charge 25 By Lorenzo Johnson cents for an email and $1.80 to down- load a song. And you have to pay them For decades, we have been witness- rity units” (CIUs) operating within in advance. The state pays Wexford ing the evolution of exonerations for prosecutors’ offices tasked with pre- Health Services $298 million a year to wrongful convictions. There was a time venting, identifying and correcting run the medical services. The more when an innocent prisoner being exon- false convictions. This is double the medical services are cut, the greater the erated was world news—now it’s a number of CIUs in 2013 and quadru- profit. You go to medical and most of common occurrence. According to the ple the number in 2011. But half of the time they tell you to go to the com- National Registry of Exonerations, last these units have yet to be involved in a missary to buy Tylenol or throat loz- year saw a new record, with an average single exoneration, and as the National enges. If you fall in the yard and need a of three innocent prisoners being exon- Registry of Exonerations points out, wheelchair they charge you $25. If you erated every week. Exonerations are so several “have no contact information can’t sit up they charge you $75 for a common now that some don’t even that’s publicly available on the web or motorized cart. They will not treat my make the local news. Although the rise by telephone, including some that have hepatitis C, saying it is not advanced in exonerations is good news, we been in operation for years.” enough, but of course it is because the haven’t “fixed” the problem yet, by any Our criminal justice system contin- medicine is expensive. It costs between stretch of the imagination. We’ve only ues to fail innocent prisoners because $87,000 and $95,000. A price like this scratched the surface of the thousands of the structures and statutes that legis- exists solely to enrich pharmaceutical of innocent men and women who have lators refuse to change. There are no companies. I could get the same drug been falsely convicted. from India for a few thousand dollars. safeguards in place to protect the inno- The main reasons behind wrongful There is a guy in my block, Joseph Kish cent. Habeas corpus protection has convictions are ineffective assistance of Sr., with stage-four hepatitis C and cir- been literally gutted, putting more and counsel, false testimony, police and rhosis. They have denied him treat- more limits on defendants’ access the prosecutorial misconduct, misidentifi- ment because, they said, he will get out courts. Who does this affect the most? cation, junk science, false confessions, soon. There is always a reason not to The innocent. and evidence suppression (including treat us. Prisons have replaced state DNA evidence.) The average time an Meanwhile, what laws have been psychiatric hospitals. MHM innocent person spends in prison is enacted concerning penalties when Correctional Services is paid $89 mil- between 13-and-a-half and 15 years. officers of the court are found liable for lion a year to handle the mentally ill. It And that’s only if the courts accept a wrongful conviction? None! If a per- does little more than medicate them. their evidence of innocence. Where’s son is found guilty of murder, they are And remember most guards, especially the humanity in making an innocent sentenced to a mandatory sentence. A with overtime, make more money, person wait all these years for their due false conviction takes an innocent life about $100,00 a year, than a full pro- process rights? as well by sentencing that person to life fessor at a university.” in prison, but where is the punishment In 2015, there was a record 27 exon- “They are doing to us on the inside for the officers of the court who are erations that involved false confessions. what they are doing to us on the out- responsible? 80 percent of these false confessions side,” he said. “They are letting poor were in homicide cases, mostly by The public defender’s office in Iowa people die or killing them for profit. defendants who were under the age of was the first in the country to start a Things will get worse and worse until 18, mentally handicapped, or both. wrongful conviction review unit. I people can’t take it anymore. These commend them. Public defenders Official misconduct was identified corporations won’t stop. No one in the nationwide are underfunded, but many as the cause in 65 exonerations in 2015, political class will make them stop. It is other attorneys and advocacy groups another record. up to us.” have followed suit. But where are our —Information Clearing House, July I know about these issues personal- political leaders? Why has our govern- 4, 2016 ly—I’ve been in prison for almost twen- ment yet to intervene when there have ty years for a crime I did not commit.1 http://www.informationclearing- been record numbers of exonerations house.info/article45030.htm Some limited steps are being taken for the past two years? Why is this not to address wrongful convictions. In part of the conversation when prison 2015, there were 24 “conviction integ- reform is discussed?

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 57 What also needs to stop is the fact Political Prisoner Reverend Pinkney that innocent prisoners are targeted when we speak out about our injustice. In fear of his life We are not “whistleblowers,” we are By Glen Ford human beings whose lives have been taken for crimes we never committed. Reverend Edward Pinkney, the Crushing voting rights activism The judicial system shouldn’t be out- imprisoned community activist from with SWAT and prison raged that we are speaking out; they the mostly Black town of Benton Reverend Pinkney’s lawyers believe should be outraged that these heinous Harbor, Michigan, believes his life is in his current conviction on similar bogus acts by court officials ever took place. danger. Pinkney is serving a sentence charges will ultimately also be Police and prosecutors need to take of two-and-a-half to ten years follow- reversed—but that could take years, more active roles in the review and ing his conviction by an all-white jury and anything can happen to a political reversal of factually erroneous convic- on the flimsiest of charges of tamper- activist in the American prison gulag. tions. Efforts need to be stepped up at ing with an election recall petition. He Mary Neal, who calls Reverend the front end, because once a convic- told Kenneth Rhoades, a supporter on Pinkney her “online minister,” believes tion becomes final, the path to exonera- the outside, that he’s not afraid of the the people of Flint, Michigan, would tion is fraught with so many obstacles. inmates, but fears the government is out to do him harm—and that they have responded to the poisoning of How long will our suffering last? might get away with it because, in his their water sooner if Pinkney hadn’t —Huffington Post, May 27, 2016 words, “they cover everything up” at been incarcerated at the time. The Reverend has had more experience http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ Marquette Branch Prison, located on than most other activists in dealing lorenzo-johnson/is-there-a-cure-for- the thinly populated and very, very with state appointed emergency finan- wrong_b_10162246.html white Upper Peninsula of Michigan, almost 500 miles from Benton Harbor. cial managers like the one that switched Write to: the water supply in Flint. Benton Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 Pinkney, who is 67 years old, has Harbor was put under state dictator- SCI Mahanoy witnessed numerous assaults on ship in 2010. Governor Rick Snyder 301 Morea Road inmates by prison guards, and has then quickly expanded the emergency Frackville, PA 17932 spent long stretches in isolation. For financial manager regime to all of the [email protected] six months he was deprived of phone state’s heavily Black cities, effectively www.FreeLorenzoJohnson.org and visitation privileges because the disenfranchising more than half of Sign his petition and learn more at: authorities believed he was behind a Michigan’s Black citizens. But, http://www.freelorenzojohnson.org/sign-the- mass inmate food protest—another Reverend Pinkney and his Black petition.html bogus charge, since inmates at prisons Autonomy Network Community www.twitter.com/FreeRenz on the Upper Peninsula have been pro- Organization, or BANCO, pressed on, Contribute to Lorenzo Johnson’s campaign testing the food since before Pinkney refusing to accept the loss of their local for freedom through JPAY.com code: Lorenzo arrived. Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC voting rights, either to the State of This is the second time that Pinkney Michigan, or at the hands of the giant 1 You can read about my story, “I Was has been railroaded to prison for trying Whirlpool Corporation, which has Found Innocent After 16 Years, Then Sent Back to bring change to deeply impover- ruled Benton Harbor like a plantation to Prison” By Lorenzo Johnson at: ished Benton Harbor through the vote. for generations. Finally, they sent a Back in 2007, after two trials, an all- SWAT team to arrest Reverend Pinkney http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ lorenzo-johnson/i-was-found-innocent- white jury from the surrounding coun- at his home in April 2014, and now he afte_b_6670426.html ty convicted him of tampering with a sits in cell in the American equivalent ballot petition. He was sentenced to of Siberia, a 67-year-old soldier in the house arrest, but was then thrown in African liberation struggle. prison for a year when he quoted Bible —Black Agenda Report, June 7, 2016 verses to the judge—something of a first in American legal history. Ultimately, the conviction was over- http://www.blackagendareport.com/ turned on appeal. rev._pinkney_fears_for_his_life

58 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 Child Lifers Pennsylvania parole board refuses to reform how it reviews child lifers By Shakaboona

Pennsylvania’s Court’s rulings in the Roper, Graham, approximately 4,000 Miller, and Montgomery cases, the Child Offenders and Parole Board has yet to create new 560 Child Lifers cer- policy and practices regarding parole tified as adults and review of child offenders; has yet to imprisoned within establish a criterion of a “lesser than the Pennsylvania adult” standard of review to child State Prison System. offenders at parole release hearings; Despite the U.S. has yet to train its parole review offi- Supreme Court’s rul- cers in the scientific studies of adoles- ing that kids are to be cent brain development and behavior treated differently or the mitigating factors cited in Miller; than adult criminal and has not required “presumptive offenders, the parole” for child offenders at parole Pennsylvania Parole reviews. In the face of societal change, some Board continues to Although bureaucracies are reluc- aspects of government are slow to conduct parole review hearings of child tant to change for the better, nothing change with the times; and some being offenders under the same criteria as will get the Pennsylvania Parole Board content with the way things are, refuse that of adult offenders. As far as the to reform the way it reviews parole to change at all. Pennsylvania’s Board Pennsylvania Parole Board is con- release for Child Offenders other than of Probation and Parole (PBPP) is one cerned, it’s business as usual, and a good kick in the behind. of those government agencies that reform of its parole review of child Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall is Co-Founder refuse to change with the times at all. offenders is just not on the business and Editor of The Movement magazine, Prison Such is the nature of bureaucracies. agenda. Radio Correspondent, founding member of the In this great sea of societal change, Human Rights Coalition (HRC) and a Child Currently, the Pennsylvania Parole Life-sentenced prisoner. the people of America—followed by Board is incapable of providing ade- Write to: the U.S. Supreme Court—have quate parole release hearings to child Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall #BE7826 changed its view of adolescent brain offenders serving time in adult State SCI Rockview, Box-A development and behavior and how its prisons because despite the Supreme Bellefonte, PA 16823 Court systems shall treat children who commit criminal offenses. In a string of U.S. Supreme Court cases involving Child Offenders serv- ing sentences of the Death Penalty and LWOP (Life Without Parole) for mur- der, the Justices have consistently held that “kids are different” and are “less culpable than adult offenders.” However, the Pennsylvania Parole Board aren’t accustomed to thinking about that at all. And it shows. It appears that the Pennsylvania Parole Board didn’t get the memo in this matter, because they have shown no signs of reforming how they review parole release for

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 59 September 9th Strike By Margaret Kimberley

On September 9, 1971, prisoners from India it is probably coming from control and confinement where incarcerated at the Attica state peniten- a prison right here in America. repression is built into every stone tiary in New York rose up in rebellion. wall and chain link, every gesture The corporate media ignore the and routine. When we stand up to After a four-day-long insurrection 33 prison protests, which have occurred prisoners and ten prison employees lay these authorities, they come down with increasing frequency in recent on us, and the only protection we dead. The name Attica still resonates as years. Work stoppages began in have is solidarity from the outside.” a symbol of the inhumane treatment Georgia in 2010, and continued in One of the founders of the Free that America metes out to two million Alabama in 2014 and in Texas and Alabama Movement is Robert Council. of its people. Ohio this year. Not only are prisoners He has steadfastly maintained his inno- Americans love to think of them- used to fatten the bottom line for cor- cence despite serving more than 20 selves as “democratic,” “developed,” porations by making uniforms for years for murder. Still in solitary con- “advanced,” or “civilized” when com- McDonald’s employees or car parts for finement after leading the 2014 work paring themselves and their nation to Honda, they and their families must stoppage, he explains the importance the rest of the world. The self-serving pay exorbitant rates to make phone of the tactic. “We were begging [offi- deception is typical but preposterous calls. They are charged for substandard cials] to please follow the rules. Please in the country with the largest percent- medical care. Incarcerated women are have mercy on me. We’re asking some age of its population and the largest limited in the amount of feminine people to have mercy that just don’t number of people overall locked away hygiene products they can use and are have any mercy. That revelation in prisons. shackled while giving birth. brought us to the fact that you can’t The response to the liberation The list of oppression is a long one appeal to the moral [part] of a system movement of the 1960s and early 1970s and that is why incarcerated people that doesn’t have morals.” was the creation of a gulag stretching themselves have issued a “Call to The mass incarceration system is from sea to shining sea. Despite the Action Against Slavery in America”1 to inherently merciless and immoral and Attica rebellion, New York State was take place on September 9, 2016. They it must be exposed. There should never no exception. Democratic governor hope to damage the profit making again be a call to lock more people and liberal icon Mario Cuomo created apparatus of the prison system by away or to further criminalize any vio- 30 additional prisons by using funds refusing to work. lent or non-violent offenses in this meant to build low-income housing. It is up to truly advanced and civi- country. Racist hysteria about dead- Not only has the number of prisoners lized people to help make the struggle beat dads, drug kingpins and super expanded around the country but so known. A cursory glance at any predators has been used to ruin thou- has the number of ways in which they American city or town shows people of sands of lives and make money for can be exploited. all races walking about freely, working governments and big business. The call The image of prisoners breaking or spending leisure time. But the insid- to action must be heeded and the peo- rocks or making license plates is a relic ious nature of the prison system hides ple fighting against the worst cruelty in of old movies. Now they are exploited the worst and most persistent inhu- the country must be supported. in for-profit prisons and forced to manity in this country. Half of the —Black Agenda Report, June 14, 2016 work for corporations or the prison people locked away are Black and they system itself for little or no pay. The are out of sight and thus out of mind. http://blackagendareport.com/fr_ 13th Amendment, which ended slav- But they have courageously called for sept_9_prison_strike ery, deliberately excluded imprison- the work stoppage and remind us why ment from the ban on involuntary our efforts are so important. servitude. The exploitation of prison- “…we need support from people 1 https://iwoc.noblogs.org/post/2016/04/01/ ers is enshrined in the Constitution. If on the outside. A prison is an easy- announcement-of-nationally-coordinated-pris- the call center voice on the phone isn’t lockdown environment, a place of oner-workstoppage-for-sept-9-2016/

60 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 Security Threat Group “Kickouts” By Jose Villarreal

Introduction Here in Pelican Bay’s mainline, for Elements of repression Having been one of the many who example, for years when prisoners So far in discussing this with others, have been let out of the control units would exit their cell blocks to go to we have identified four points of con- (Secure Housing Unit), I can say that yard, everyone was lined up en masse cern that reveal the different elements there is some victory in this develop- and strip-searched and even told to of the offensive being unleashed on ment, but there is much work to be turn around, squat, cough and spread STG kickouts. These points are as fol- done outside the SHU and still a ways their cheeks right there on the yard in lows: broad daylight. to go before victory is complete. This • Cell raids accomplishment of opening the gates Because we have all endured these • Repressive visiting of SHU for many simply means we face “visual inspections” at some point new forms of oppression; it changes in while imprisoned, it becomes “nor- • Excessive petty 115s form but not in essence. mal” to some. There is nothing normal • Mail stoppage If we relax our vigilance on it all we about this and this foulness no longer These four points need our undi- will be awash in a repressive environ- occurs here. vided attention, as they are compo- ment, which leads us back to the SHU Many of the methods of dehuman- nents to the offensive against all STG torture chambers. The state has taken ization or repression have been stopped kickouts. But this means all prisoners this defeat very hard, and as a result it as more and more people who know need to identify how the components has coordinated an offensive, which is better are let out of SHU, but new are playing out in their facility, because subtle but very pro-active in its harass- repressive shoots are constantly sprout- we suspect what is occurring here on ment, retaliation and repression that is ing up that need to be combatted. Pelican Bay mainline is occurring in all being unleashed on the Security Threat Some are not as detectable, but when facilities statewide as part of the state’s Group (STG) kickouts (prisoners that looked at as a whole, we see them as larger offensive. have won release from the SHU,) so an part and parcel of a new state offensive. Cell raids assessment of this repression is neces- STG kickouts and their kind seem to be A “raid” is when guards run in, sary at this time. the targets of these repressive actions. either to an entire pod or to individual Prisons pre-STG kickout The state, after licking its wounds cells, screaming “Get down!” while Looking at prisons going back from the shellacking that produced our armed with cans of mace and night decades, as more and more of the release from SHU, has regrouped and sticks. created new tactics to harass those older, wiser, educated or conscious You are cuffed and taken out to a kicked out of SHU. But they will not people were being gaffled up and cage while your cell is trashed as they announce their offensive with bold stuffed in the control units and put on dismantle your cell and rifle through signs, nor will they list it on a 115 as a shelf, the state was simultaneously everything. I have been out of SHU harassment for being kicked out of tightening their grip on prisons and eight months and have seen four raids SHU. restricting the environments within in my pod. In the first, a couple of cells prisons so that the mainlines became But they don’t have to say what were raided on my tier. The second was super repressive. their actions communicate loud and when my whole pod was raided, includ- When someone drove up who was a clear. At the same time it’s our job to ing my cell. And on May 3, 2016, my legal beagle or was able to organize identify the many forms of repression cell and two other cells were raided forms of resistance to state repression, and see how they tie into new methods again. they would be snatched up and stuffed of repression relabeled, repackaged In this latest cell raid at 6:00 A.M. in the SHU. This creates a chilling and delivered outside the SHU. on the dot, approximately ten IGI effect on jailhouse lawyers and prison These new methods are designed for (Institutional Gang Investigators) activism in general. our new environment because what came through the front door, running As a result, the state has been able to was employed in the control unit the- upstairs, yelling as my cell and two initiate all kinds of dehumanizing ater won’t work on the mainline. New other cell doors opened and they ran methods on the mainlines for years. terrain requires new tactics, right? screaming, “Get down!” as they wield-

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 61 ed mace cans and night sticks. As ever, for a paper trail to be created were in SHU of attempting to destroy always, their operation turned out to which addresses these highly provoca- the family unit or any support system be fruitless. But my cell looked like El tive, violence-prone actions. one may have via one-hour visits Niño visited. Those experiencing them should behind glass has transformed to walk- So there has been an average just in appeal them just like one should appeal ing into the visiting room stating, my pod of one raid every two months. any other injustice. Some have errone- “Visit’s over!” Who would want to Taking into account that IGI and ISU ously become accustomed to these keep coming up, driving ten-20 hours, (Investigative Services Unit) may have raids as if it’s “just the way it is.” But for that? quotas for cell searches or that they this is not normal and should not be Most STG kickouts have been away may need to conduct live training for tolerated. If there is confidential infor- from their friends and family for years new squads, they may be simply mation that weapons are involved, they and decades, so of course they want to employing “raid style” operations may be able to conduct a cell raid; but hug their loved ones. But many folks I when a basic cell search is all that is for simple cell searches or harassment, have been able to speak to in investi- required. this is unacceptable. gating for this article state that these The problem with this is that it is Because I have experienced this allegations are just not true and they not the proper procedure for a cell foulness, I am 602ing this i.e., going never even touched their visitors in the search. They could have simply walked through the prisoner grievance or way that is alleged. It’s for this reason up to my cell and told me to step out, administrative appeal process, and I that we identified REPRESSIVE but employing this paramilitary style plan to also file legal action on it VISITING as another element in the tactical method creates an environ- because it violates normal cell search state’s offensive. ment which has a potential for vio- procedures as well as my constitutional It’s important that the issue of lence. The method in which they run right to equal treatment under the law repressive visiting also be combatted up in our cells invites violence, as it’s as guaranteed under the 14th via appeal and legal action. It will not highly provoking. Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I get any better if it is not challenged. recommend others do the same. It is clearly meant to provoke some- Excessive petty 115s one into reacting in a way that justifies Repressive visiting Another tactic of harassment being further oppression and violence. The This prison has also begun to hyper- unleashed on STG kickouts is issuing fact that these paramilitary tactics are police the visiting room, where visits excessive petty 115s. This facility has being used on STG kickouts is a clear here are being abruptly cancelled sim- begun to write people up for things like sign that we are being harassed and ply for prisoners being accused of “out of bounds” or walking in areas retaliated against for simply being touching a visitor’s hand or kneecap. that earn you a 115. released from the SHU torture cham- As if this wasn’t bad enough, when a ber. The state was compelled to release What these petty 115s do is not only visit is cancelled, several guards enter us, but they will not allow us to forget prevent one from dropping points and the visiting room and march through their distaste in doing so. security level, but they also prevent in military tactical formation, sur- people from transferring and they get Under new STG procedures, if there rounding the prisoner and his family— people placed on “C-status,” where was a 1030 (confidential information) including small children—once more they are confined to quarters and not on us, we should have received a 115 (a provoking and creating an environ- allowed on the yard. STG kickouts are rules violation report—CDC Form ment that has a high potential for vio- also being written up for these petty 115); this further highlights the harass- lence as they run up on one’s children 115s, and we are told that the adminis- ment. It is one more sign of proof that like this. tration has given the word to “write they are not living up to their “settle- There is no quicker way to ignite everything up.” ment.” We never really believed that violence in a prisoner than to threaten the state would live up to its part of the This is another element of the our children in front of us, and the bargain. Most simply waited for the repression that STG kickouts are expe- state knows this. proof to come out so that we can riencing. I myself was written up for explore our next move. What’s more, almost all of those “disobeying an order” because a guard who are having this experience are STG alleged that upon release for education It does not take a genius to realize kickouts. One’s family is simply told to class, I was seen “stopping and talking that sooner or later someone will end go home after they have driven ten-20 to another prisoner.” This was totally up getting hurt from such cell raids. hours. The tactics employed when we fabricated and, as I pointed out the This highlights the need, more than

62 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 many inaccuracies to the write-up, it Coordinated defense ings? How many STG kickouts was soon dropped. If it turns out the state is employing have been written up? These petty 115s are also part of the a coordinated attack of harassment on • What nationalities are being harassment that we are facing. And STG kickouts, then it will take a coor- written up and at what rate? although many people who are writ- dinated defense to counter this. But • What sub-groups are being writ- ten up do not challenge them via like any defense, we need to fully ten up the most? appeal, this needs to change. Every understand what is occurring so we element of the repression needs to be need to do our homework. • Why is ISU holding mail longer combatted; otherwise, we will quickly than the prescribed limit for pro- The first step is for prisoners to cessing mail? be encircled in harassment and stifled focus on these four points and see if in this offensive. they exist in their facilities. We do not Discovering the answers to these know if this is a statewide offensive on questions will allow us to properly com- Mail stoppage STG kickouts, but if it is, prisoners bat this offensive and to scale back the When we were in the SHU, our mail would be wise to use the appeal process repression that we are facing. Appealing experienced many attacks. We often in order to begin a paper trail so that some of this in different facilities would got our mail a month late if at all. our legal team can not only raise these also reveal that it is a statewide offensive Censorship is very much a part of our issues during their quarterly meetings and that the prisons are violating the lives, as mail is one of the ways the but they can have concrete evidence to settlement agreement—and, as a result, State gets to push our buttons. look for as they investigate this further. perhaps we will all get a better deal in the aftermath of it. Most have experienced mail thrown Our legal team should look closely at away, returned to sender or held hos- these four points because when prov- It is also very likely that there are tage for a period of time. Many also en, they will also further reveal how the even more elements of repression right understand that messing with people’s prisons are violating the so-called set- under our noses that we haven’t yet mail is a form of psycho-warfare, a way tlement agreement.1 discovered. This is the importance of to irritate and harass a prisoner. It is Some of the questions that our legal prisoners studying their environment then no surprise that STG kickouts are team should ask are: and writers expressing it for others to experiencing this harassment. learn from. • What nationalities are being tar- Many STG kickouts are experienc- geted for cell raids? I am personally 602ing three of ing mail stoppage here in this facility. I these four points. But it will take pris- • What specific sub-groups are am currently receiving my mail about a oners en masse to combat these forms being targeted the most? month late. When it comes, it has a of repression and to communicate highlighter mark going over either the • In the last year how many cell raids them to our legal team, whose address 2 stamp or my name. This by no means have occurred and how many dis- I’ve shown at the end of this writing. is meant to deliver a great blow to covered material, which moved the Allowing these elements of repression those experiencing it, but when we occupants of said cell to the hole? to exist means allowing a super-policed look at the cumulative effect and take • Are cell raids conducted in place environment to concentrate. into account all of the elements of of regular cell searches? It may also be the case that what is repression, we quickly see that mail • How many cell raids were con- occurring here in Pelican Bay is simply stoppage coupled with everything else ducted without staff receiving a test run for what will be employed in works to put the squeeze on those confidential information? And other prisons, as California Department experiencing all of this. how many were STG kickouts? of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) likes to use this place as a test For many, mail is the only lifeline to • How many visits have been can- the outside world. The state under- kitchen and model for what they celled mid-visit? Was there video employ in other prisons. In any event, stands this and responds by targeting evidence of any wrongdoing? mail for this sole purpose. They are now that we have a legal team who has basically attacking all areas that allow • Can visitors whose visits are can- the ear of the judge, it would be wise to us to have a bearable existence. Just as celled be notified that they can file raise any of the elements of repression, they worked hard to attempt to make a citizen’s complaint against the which may show a disregard of the our lives miserable inside the SHU, officer who cancelled their visit? settlement. they now attempt to make our lives • Have staff been told to write 115s Being out on the mainline is a huge miserable outside the SHU. for issues that should be warn- step away from control unit condi-

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 63 tions, but this is still a highly repressive Out of Order environment. Being in such an envi- ronment does not mean we must By Wilbert Saunders, Jazz the Poet accept such conditions. If we understand power, we’ll know First and foremost I must confess Mass incarceration is an evil conspiracy that power means having the ability to Lately I’ve been slightly stressed Viciously attacking Blacks and minorities transform our environment. STG kick- Doubtful, confused and unsure Prison officials are cruel and rude outs should understand power, because most are powerful people who endured, Of how much more pain I can endure Arrogant, disrespectful with nasty attitudes withstood and overcame the control Due to an odd capacity of empathy Those with life sentences have no chance unit, which is the state’s weapon of Confinement is slowly killing me To improve or reverse their circumstance choice to destroy us. So we should ride out this powerful momentum that now Pardon me for sounding like a slave Others dealing with mental issues is transforming our new environments. Preparing for an early grave Are often manipulated and abused —San Francisco Bay View, May 25, But without liberty there’s no stability Thrown into units of isolation 2016 Clear consciousness and low morality Torture chambers hidden from population http://sfbayview.com/2016/05/coor- When a man’s mobility is consistently Society thinks prisoners live well dinated-offensive-on-stg-kickouts/ denied But two people share an 8 x 5 cell Write to: Serious damage is done deep inside Jose H. Villarreal #H84098 No space and poor ventilation PBSP – B4 - 210 Everyday I’m crushed by grief Easily causing a health situation P.O. Box 7500 Despair and frustration beyond belief That’s only a few of the problems Cresent City, CA 95532-7500 Consumed by anguish of sisters and Jhvillarreal.com I’m sure it’ll take time to solve them brothers But let us look at the devastation Detached from families and broken 1 http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/stg/docs/Exhibit- hearted mothers Of mass incarceration in this racist nation 1-settlement-agreement.pdf?pdf=STG-Info Write to Jazz the Poet: Extremely displeased I am to see 2 Our legal team for the settlement: Attorney Wilbert Saunders #67277066 at Law Anne Cappella, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, My people victimized by captivity Federal Correctional Institution McKean 201 Redwood Shores Parkway, fourth floor, Redwood City, CA 94065 This man made hell is traumatizing P.O. Box 8000 Bradford, PA 16701 Hostile, degrading and dehumanizing

The fact that these paramilitary tactics are being used on STG kickouts is a clear sign that we are being harassed and retaliated against for simply being released from the SHU torture chamber.

64 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4

Book Reviews BOOK REVIEWS Criminal Injustice Lock up the men, evict the women and children By Chris Hedges

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the harassment and anxiety and long bouts trial, forcing them to accept plea bar- American City of depression. Rent strips you of half gains, is one of the many tools of cor- By Matthew Desmond your income—one in four families porate oppression. spend 70 percent of their income on Matthew Desmond’s book, Evicted: The working poor, now half of the rent—until you and your children are country, have fallen to levels of misery Poverty and Profit in the American City, evicted, often into homeless shelters or like Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and unseen since the Great Depression. One abandoned buildings, when you fall in eight renting families in the United Dimed, is a heartbreaking snapshot of behind on payments. A financial cri- the rapacious exploitation and misery States was unable to meet rent pay- sis—a medical emergency, a reduction ments in 2013, Desmond writes. Lamar, we inflict on the most vulnerable, espe- in hours at work or the loss of a job, cially children. It is a picture of a world a double amputee profiled in Desmond’s funeral expenses or car repairs—can book (whose name, like all he wrote where industries have been created to lead inexorably to an eviction. fleece the poor, and destroy neighbor- about, is a pseudonym), lived on $2.19 Creditors, payday lenders and collec- a day once he paid his $550 in rent. He hoods and ultimately lives. It portrays tion agencies hound you. You are often a judicial system that has broken down, was a single father and recovering forced to declare bankruptcy. You cope addict responsible for two teenage boys. a dysfunctional social service system with endemic violence, gangs, drugs and the license in neoliberal America He desperately attempted to stay in his and a judicial system that permits bru- home by doing odd jobs for his land- to carry out unchecked greed, no mat- tal police abuse and ships you to jail, or ter what the cost. lord, propelling himself with his hands slaps you with huge fines, for minor across the floor, but even this did not “Her face had that look,” Desmond offenses. You live for weeks or months save him and his sons from eviction. wrote. “The movers and the deputies with no heat, water or electricity knew it well. It was the look of some- because you cannot pay the utility bills, “These days, there are sheriff’s one realizing that her family would be especially since fuel and utility rates squads whose full-time job is to carry homeless in a matter of hours. It was have risen by more than 50 percent out eviction and foreclosure orders,” something like denial giving way to the since 2000. Single mothers and their Desmond wrote. “There are moving surrealism of the scene: the speed and children usually endure this hell alone, companies specializing in evictions, the violence of it all; sheriffs leaning because the men in these communities their crews working all day, every against your wall, hands resting on hol- are locked up. Millions of families are weekday. There are hundreds of data- sters; all these strangers, these sweating tossed into the street every year. mining companies that sell landlords tenant screening reports listing past men, piling your things outside, drink- We have five percent of the world’s ing water from your sink poured into evictions and court filings. These days population and 25 percent of its prison housing courts swell, forcing commis- your cups, using your bathroom. It was population. More than 60 percent of the look of being undone by a wave of sioners to settle cases in hallways or the 2.2 million incarcerated are people makeshift offices crammed with old questions. What do I need for tonight, of color. If these poor people were not for this week? Who should I call? desks and broken file cabinets—and locked in cages for decades, if they were most tenants don’t even show up. Low- Where is the medication? Where will not given probationary status once we go? It was the face of a mother who income families have grown used to they were freed, if they had stable com- the rumble of moving trucks, the early- climbs out of the cellar to find the tor- munities, there would be massive nado has leveled the house.” morning knocks at the door, the unrest in the streets. Mass incarcera- belongings lining the curb.” Poverty is one long emergency tion, along with debt peonage, evic- tions, police violence and a judicial We get the New Deal. A few decades Being poor in America is one long system that holds up property rights, later we get neoliberalism. Up and down emergency. You teeter on the edge of rather than justice, as the highest good we go on the capitalist seesaw. It is a bankruptcy, homelessness and hunger. and that denies nearly all of the poor a long and honored tactic of the capitalist You endure cataclysmic levels of stress, class—concessions in times of unrest

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 65 and then reversals—one amply illus- hoods in Milwaukee, registered the city- They never close an unpaid file, waiting trated by the labor history of the United wide devastation of constant evictions. patiently for someone to become finan- States and illuminated by revolutionary “A single eviction could destabilize cially solvent to strike. Those few who theorists such as Rosa Luxemburg. multiple city blocks, not only the block begin to recover financially are forced Everyone suffers. But poor people of from which a family was evicted but to pay ancient debts, swelled by high color, trapped in the internal colonies also the block to which it begrudgingly interest rates, and pushed swiftly back Desmond wrote about, suffer more. relocated,” he wrote. “In this way, dis- into economic distress. “Between 2007 and 2010, the aver- placement contributed directly to what Desmond profiled Tobin Charney, age white family experienced an 11 Jacobs called ‘perpetual slums,’ churn- who made close to half-a-million-a- percent reduction in wealth, but the ing environments with high rates of year running College Mobile Home average black family lost 31 percent of turnover and even higher rates of Park, with its dilapidated 131 trailers its wealth,” Desmond noted. “The aver- resentment and disinvestment.” and leaking raw sewage. Charney seized age Hispanic family lost 44 percent.” “The key link in a perpetual slum is the trailers of those he evicted as “aban- that too many people move out of it doned property” and rented or sold Mass incarceration and evictions them to someone else. Larraine Jenkins, destroy the cohesion of poor commu- too fast—and in the meantime dream of getting out,” Jacobs observed. one of his tenants Desmond followed, nities. The oppressed are never permit- was paying Charney 77 percent of her ted to congregate long enough in one The law on the side of predators income until she was evicted. place to organize. It is, I believe, one of There is a lot of money to be made the reasons families that visit incarcer- “She knew the ghetto’s value and off the poor. They are defenseless. And ated loved ones in prison are treated so how money could be made from a the law is on the side of the predators. brutally by prison guards. While they property that looked worthless to peo- As Desmond noted in his book, in wait for hours—sometimes in the ple who didn’t know any better,” “many housing courts around the rain—outside the prison gate, they Desmond wrote of a slumlord named country 90 percent of landlords are often have no access to a bathroom. Sherrena Tarver, who made about represented by attorneys, and 90 per- Once in the visitor’s area, they and $10,000 a month from her dozens of cent of tenants are not.” Slumlords, their children are shouted at, searched rental properties. She earned more in a who usually own numerous properties, and traumatized to the point of tears, month than most of her tenants earned use the courts and sheriffs as their as if they were prisoners. The idea is to in a year. And like many slumlords, enforcers. “Most tenants taken to evic- make it so unpleasant they do not “her worst properties yielded her big- tion court were sued twice—once for come back. And many do not. Once gest returns.” the property and a second time for the the oppressed gather together often A life of dead ends led many in debt—and so had two court dates,” enough to realize that their story is Desmond’s book to make decisions Desmond wrote. And as long as the shared by millions of others, there will that, on the outside, could be seen as debt goes unpaid, the slumlord can be hell to pay. In the 1930s, commu- irresponsible or foolish: withholding slap on a 12 percent interest rate. nity groups blocked sheriffs from car- rent payments, or as Larraine Jenkins rying out evictions, moved belongings “For the chronically and desperately did, blowing her monthly allocation of from the street back into the house or poor whose credit was already wrecked, food stamps on a dinner of lobster tails, organized rent strikes. But this takes a docketed judgment was just another shrimp, crab, lemon meringue pie and solidarity. shove deeper into the pit,” Desmond Pepsi. But the present is unbearable, wrote. “But for the tenant who went on “The public peace—the sidewalks and the future, they know, is grim. So to land a decent job or marry and then and street peace—of cities not is not they block the future out and seek, for a take another tentative step forward, kept primarily by the police, necessary moment, to make the present endur- applying for student loans or purchas- as the police are,” wrote Jane Jacobs in able. It is why so many of the poor turn ing a first home—for that tenant, it was The Death and Life of Great American to drugs or alcohol. Jenkins, as a real barrier on the already difficult Cities. “It is kept primarily by an intri- Desmond wrote, was not “poor because road to self-reliance and security.” cate, almost unconscious, network of she threw money away.” She “threw voluntary controls and standards Corporations such as Rent Recovery money away because she was poor.” among the people themselves, and Service are hired by landlords to hound “People like Larraine [Jenkins] lived enforced by the people themselves.” evicted tenants for their debts. These with so many compounded limitations corporations monitor tenants’ financial Desmond, who follows the plight of that it was difficult to imagine the lives for years without their knowledge. eight families in impoverished neighbor- amount of good behavior or self-con-

66 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 trol that would allow them to lift them- from partners. Nearly all of the fathers “Yes, I do! I know exactly what that’s selves out of poverty,” Desmond wrote. were in prison or had disappeared. like ’cause my stepfather molested me “The distance between grinding pov- Poverty robs children of their child- when I was just a little girl, and that’s erty and even stable poverty could be hood. Jori, at 14, attempted to be his why they sent me to foster care.” so vast that those on the bottom had mother’s protector. “If Arleen needed The world is too much for Jori, as it little hope of climbing out even if they to smile, Jori would steal for her,” is for his mother and little brother, as it pinched every penny. So they choose Desmond wrote. “If she was disre- is for most of the poor who are hemmed not to. Instead, they tried to survive in spected, he would fight for her. Some in by the unforgiving walls of poverty. color, to season the suffering with plea- kids born into poverty set their sights After their eviction, Jori leaves his black sure. They would get a little high or on doing whatever it takes to get out. and white cat, Little, with a neighbor. have a drink or do a bit of gambling or Jori wasn’t going anywhere, sensing he When he comes back to collect Little, acquire a television. They might buy was put on this Earth to look after one of his few sources of joy, Jori finds lobster on food stamps.” Arleen and Jafaris. He was, all fourteen “a car had ground him into the pave- Powerlessness years of him, the man of the house.” ment.” He fights back tears. He takes a He tells his mother he wants to become foam mannequin’s head, turns it face The powerlessness of poverty evokes a carpenter so he can build her a house. up and begins to repeatedly hit the face a protective emotional callousness that with his fist until his mother screams at diminishes or blunts the capacity for Belle’s family ends up living with him to stop. By the end of the book, empathy and feelings of self-worth. Crystal Mayberry, who was 18 and had Belle loses her two children to Child Arleen Belle, who battles depression an IQ of about 70, and who had been Protective Services. and lives on welfare, struggles to raise a “born prematurely on a spring day in teenage boy, Jori, and his five-year-old 1990 shortly after her pregnant mother Desmond captures the stress and brother, Jafaris, who has severe asth- was stabbed eleven times in the back shame that makes it difficult to have ma. The book opens with Jori and his during a robbery.” The stabbing empathy and that creates disconnected cousin throwing snowballs at cars on induced labor. Crystal, the daughter of and alienated individuals. He wrote: Milwaukee’s South Side. An angry parents addicted to crack, grew up in “Arleen’s children did not always driver stops his vehicle, chases the boys 25 foster homes. When she aged out of have a home. They did not always to their apartment and kicks down the the system, she became homeless. have food. Arleen was not always front door. The family is evicted Belle and Mayberry engaged, able to offer them stability; stability because of the incident and moves to a Desmond wrote, in “a popular strategy cost too much. She was not always able to protect them from danger- homeless shelter. They had lived in the poor people used to pay the bills and ous streets; those streets were her apartment for eight months. Jori was feed their children. Especially in the streets. Arleen sacrificed for her forced to change schools five times in inner city, strangers brushed up against boys, fed them as best she could, the seventh and eighth grades because one another constantly—on the street, clothed them with what she had. But of repeated moves. Later in the book, at job centers, in the welfare build- when they wanted more than she after Jori kicks a teacher in the shin, the ing—and found ways to ask for and could give them, she had ways, some police show up at the door and the offer help. Before she met Arleen, subtle, others not, of telling them family, which had just moved into the Crystal stayed a month with a woman they didn’t deserve it. When Jori apartment after a lengthy and exhaust- she had met on a bus.” wanted something most teenagers want, new shoes or a hair product, ing search, is given a week to leave. The But the relationship soured, in part string of evictions and length of the she would tell him he was selfish, or because of tensions between Jori and just bad. When Jafaris cried, Arleen waiting list—3,500 names—means Mayberry. Jori threatened Mayberry Belle and her boys will never receive sometimes yelled, ‘Damn, you hard- and called her a “bitch” when she headed. Dry ’yo face up!’ or ‘Stop it, housing assistance. Three-quarters of attempted to put his little brother out- Jafaris before I beat ’yo ass! I’m tired families that qualify for housing assis- side of the house with no shoes or coat. of your bitch ass.’ Sometimes, when tance nationally never obtain it. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he was hungry, Arleen would say, ‘Don’t be getting in the kitchen Several of those in the book, includ- Belle shouted at Mayberry as the rela- ing Scott, a gay nurse who loses his because I know you not hungry;’ or tionship unraveled. “You don’t know would tell him to stay out of the bar- license after he becomes addicted to opi- what I been through. You don’t know ates, were sexually abused. Most of those ren cupboards because he was get- what it’s like to have your father molest ting too fat. Desmond interviewed grew up in violent you and your mother not care about it!” households or suffered domestic abuse “You could only say ‘I’m sorry, I “Oh, yes I do,” Mayberry, answered.

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 67 can’t’ so many times before you began to feel worthless, edging clos- Lies Military Recruiters Tell er to a breaking point. So you pro- By Ron Jacobs tected yourself, in a reflexive way, by finding ways to say ‘No, I won’t.’ I cannot help you. So, I will find you Counter-Recruitment and the clear, there has been an ongoing move- unworthy of help.” Campaign to Demilitarize Public School ment against military recruitment in By Scott Harding and Seth Kershner the United States for decades. This There are generations being sacri- campaign is composed of parents, stu- ficed to emotional and cognitive dys- Growing up as a military dependent dents, military veterans and others, all function because of poverty. They lack in the 1960s and early 1970s, I devel- of whom find the predatory practices a basic education. They are rendered oped an especially cynical opinion of military recruiters reprehensible numb by trauma. They are crushed as about the institution and its hype. I enough to actively oppose them. human beings. The rage Jori exhibited knew that the life of a GI stunk. Hell, Harding and Kershner’s text utilizes when his cat was killed grows and blos- my dad was an officer and I knew the a social sciences approach to explore the soms into a terrifying violence. I see it men and women of that ranking were contemporary movement against mili- among my students in the prison. As not much better off when it came to tary recruitment in U.S. middle schools adults, those raised like Jori explode their personal autonomy. By the time and high schools. They explore different with an inchoate fury at the slightest my father left for Vietnam in 1968, I approaches counter-recruiters take in provocation, often something banal or knew I would never join the military of their work and discuss the rationales for trivial. If a gun is available—and in my own free will. Furthermore, I fig- America, guns are almost always avail- each approach and their effectiveness. ured that if they tried to draft me, I Numerous examples of individuals and able—they shoot. If they are caught, would leave the country or go under- they spend the decades locked in a groups involved in counter-recruitment ground. There was no way I was going are provided, with explanations of their cage, where there are no more oppor- to be in Uncle Sam’s military even if all tunities for education, vocational train- motivations, histories and the activities I had to do was type forms in triplicate. they have undertaken in their various ing, counseling or redemption than in Besides opposing the war in Vietnam, their blighted slums. There are numer- campaigns. A broader history of the my friendship with half-a-dozen GIs movement underlies these individual ous corporations and individuals that during high school convinced me that make money off this human sacrifice stories, providing a political and philo- military life had nothing to offer me. inside and outside prison walls. They sophical context. Even then, though, my opinion was in have a vested interest in keeping the As I hinted at before, the U.S. mili- the minority. A few of my friends system intact. These moneyed interests tary is one of the few governmental enlisted or went into ROTC in college. use their power and their lobbyists to institutions that have overwhelming Some even stayed in for twenty and prevent rational and humane reform. respect from almost all residents of the thirty years. Many others who did not Desmond captures the true face of cor- United States. This phenomenon is get drafted or join up are now proud to porate America. It is ugly and cruel. largely due to a very concerted cam- paste bumper stickers on their cars tell- —truthdig, May 29, 2016 paign by the ruling elites of this nation ing the world about their children who to place the Pentagon and its troops http://www.truthdig.com/report/ enlisted. As for me, I continue to orga- above reproach. This can be seen in the item/lock_up_the_men_evict_the_ nize against the military and its wars. ever-constant presence of the military women_and_children_20160529 Like those wars, my organizing and its advertising at sporting events, comes and goes. When wars are “hot” civic festivals, and even some music and taking bodies at a vicious rate, that concerts and festivals (especially coun- organizing takes priority over every try music.) As the authors point out, “...one in four families other aspect of my life (except for my this barrage of advertising, or (let’s be children when they were at home.) honest) propaganda began almost spend 70 percent of their Even in today’s climate of drone wars immediately after the military draft and Special Forces death squads, I try was ended in 1973. As of 2012, direct income on rent.” to maintain some level of antiwar activ- recruitment advertising by all branches ity. However, as Scott Harding and of the military stood at around 667 Seth Kershner’s newly-published book million dollars. This figure does not Counter-Recruitment and the Campaign include the cost of buildings and staff- to Demilitarize Public Schools makes ing of actual military recruitment offic-

68 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 es around the country, nor does it states, they are not allowed to work ment in high schools that are legally include the money spent on recruit- after dark. Yet, the Pentagon wants us bound to allow recruiters in. Means to ment efforts in schools and other plac- to believe they can make a decision overcome the undeserved high regard es youths congregate. about committing several years of their the military has in U.S. schools and the When my son was in high school lives to a profession whose fundamen- broader community are also presented. (late 1990s-early 2000s), he received a tal raison d’etre is killing other humans The text concludes with some lesson number of calls on the home landline or being killed. plans composed by counter-recruit- from an Army recruiter. He had not To get their quotas of troops, mili- ment educators and a list of resources. knowingly provided his name to any tary recruiters have invaded high In 1966, Special Forces Master Sergeant military representative and, as far as I schools. When combined with cut- Donald Duncan wrote an article for the know, the school he was attending did backs affecting schools systems around New Left magazine Ramparts. Duncan not provide students’ names to the the country, the omnipresence of mili- had recently given up a military career Pentagon for any purpose. I suppose tary recruiters in school lunchrooms, after what he was asked to do and what he one of his friends had given the recruit- as teachers in JROTC programs, and saw others doing in Vietnam. The article er his name. Anyhow, at first my son even as de facto career counselors in was part of a book. Ramparts titled the liked the attention he received from the schools where the cuts have eliminated article with this quote from Duncan: “The recruiter. The guy talked to him like an traditional counseling staffs, has given whole damn thing was a lie.” As Harding adult. However, after a couple of such them a profile much greater than civil- and Kershner’s text makes clear, much of calls, he told me about them and, to put ian schools should have. This is where what military recruiters tell the young is it plainly, I got pissed off. Not at my the bulk of the counter-recruitment no different than the conclusion reached son, but at the recruiter. After verifying efforts take place today. by Mr. Duncan. Unfortunately, the lies that my son was not interested in the Counter-Recruitment and the they tell can have deadly consequences. military, I asked him if he had told the Campaign to Demilitarize Public Schools The reasons for the counter-recruitment recruiter not to call. He told me he had is more than a social science study. It is efforts examined here remain as impor- not. I happened to answer the phone also a guidebook for current and tant as ever. the next time the recruiter called. I potential counter-recruiters around —Counterpunch, May 13, 2016 made it very clear to him (without the United States. The combination of swearing or otherwise being abusive) activist narratives and discussions of http://www.counterpunch. that he should not call my number lessons learned provides useful strate- org/2016/05/13/opposing-military- again. As far as I know, he never did. gies for opposing the military recruit- recruiters-lies/ Other recruiters are less ethical. Counter-Recruitment and the Campaign to Demilitarize Public Schools includes a few examples of such behavior. Beyond these individual acts of questionable ethics, though, lies the entire question of the ethics involved in targeting boys and girls for recruitment into the mili- tary. The ages targeted are 15-18 year old youths. In most of U.S. society, young people in this age group are not allowed to drive after dark, if at all. They are not considered old enough to know whether or not they should use tobacco or drink alcohol. In some

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 69

Letter to the Editors JUST IN FROM FACEBOOK

Something More is Required By Michelle Alexander

I have struggled to find words to been killed by the police, would rather walk miles in protest, day after day, for express what I thought and felt as I not be attending funerals. And I’m sure a whole year. But they knew they had watched the videos of Alton Sterling to walk. If change was ever going to and Philando Castile being killed by come, they were going to have to walk. the police. Last night, I wanted to say I no longer believe And so do we. something that hasn’t been said a hun- that we can “fix” the What it means to walk today will be dred times before. It finally dawned on different for different people and dif- me that there is nothing to say that police, as though the ferent groups and in different places. I hasn’t been said before. As I was pre- police are anything am asking myself tonight what I need paring to write about the oldness of all other than a mirror to do in the months and years to come of this, and share some wisdom passed to walk my walk with greater courage. down from struggles of earlier eras, I reflecting back to us It’s a question that requires some time heard on the news that 11 officers had the true nature of and reflection. I hope it’s a question we been shot in Dallas, several killed from are all asking ourselves. sniper fire. My fingers froze on the our democracy. We In recent years, I have come to keys. I could not bring myself to recy- cannot “fix” the cle old truths. Something more is believe that truly transformative change required. But what? police without a depends more on thoughtful creation revolution of values of new ways of being than reflexive I think we all know, deep down, that reactions to the old. What is happening something more is required of us now. and radical change now is very, very old. We have some This truth is difficult to face because to the basic struc- habits of responding to this familiar it’s inconvenient and deeply unsettling. pain and trauma that are not serving us And yet silence isn’t an option. On any ture of our society. well. In many respects it’s amazing that given day, there’s always something I’d we endure at all. I am inspired again rather be doing than facing the ugly, and again by so much of the beautiful, racist underbelly of America. I know that many who refused to ride segre- brilliant and daring activism that is that I am not alone. But I also know gated buses in Montgomery after Rosa unfolding all over the country. Yet I that the families of the slain officers, Parks stood her ground wished they also know that more is required than and the families of all those who have could’ve taken the bus, rather than purely reactive protest and politics. A profound shift in our collective con- sciousness must occur, a shift that makes possible a new America. I know many people believe that our criminal justice system can be “fixed” by smart people and smart policies. President Obama seems to think this way. He suggested yesterday that police-community relations can be improved meaningfully by a task force he created last year. Yes, a task force. I used to think like that. I don’t anymore. I no longer believe that we can “fix” the police, as though the police are anything other than a mirror

70 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 companies, oil Fifty years ago, our country was forced companies, to look at itself in the mirror when tele- tobacco com- vision stations broadcast Bloody panies, the Sunday, the day state troopers and a NRA and Wall sheriff’s posse brutally attacked civil Street banks rights activists marching for voting and doing their rights in Selma. Those horrifying imag- bidding for es, among others, helped to turn public them—killing opinion in support of the Civil Rights us softly? Oh, Movement. Perhaps the images we’ve that’s right, seen in recent days will make some dif- taking millions ference. It’s worth remembering, from those though, that none of the horrifying folks isn’t even images from the Jim Crow era would’ve a crime. changed anything if a highly strategic, Democrats and courageous movement had not existed Republicans do that was determined to challenge a reflecting back to us the true nature of it every day. Our entire political system deeply entrenched system of racial and our democracy. We cannot “fix” the is financed by wealthy private interests social control. police without a revolution of values buying politicians and making sure the This nation was founded on the idea and radical change to the basic struc- rules are written in their favor. But sell- that some lives don’t matter. Freedom ture of our society. Of course impor- ing CDs or loose cigarettes? In America, and justice for some, not all. That’s the tant policy changes can and should be that’s treated as a serious crime, espe- foundation. Yes, progress has been made to improve police practices. But cially if you’re Black. For that act of made in some respects, but it hasn’t if we’re serious about having peace survival, you can be wrestled to the come easy. There’s an unfinished revo- officers—rather than a domestic mili- ground and choked to death or shot at lution waiting to be won. tary at war with its own people—we’re point blank range. Our entire system of going to have to get honest with our- government is designed to protect and —Facebook, July 9, 2016 selves about who our democracy actu- serve the interests of the most powerful, https://www.facebook.com/perma- ally serves and protects. while punishing, controlling and link.php?story_fbid=1040181682736455 Consider this: Philando Castile had exploiting the least advantaged. &id=168304409924191 been stopped 31 times and charged This is not hyperbole. And this is with more than 60 minor violations— not new. What is new is that we’re now 1 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti- resulting in thousands of dollars in watching all of this on YouTube and cle-3679678/Man-shooting-death-hand-cop- fines—before his last, fatal encounter Facebook, streaming live, as imagined streamed-live-pulled-31-times-charged-63- with the police.1 super-predators are brought to heel. times-officers-near-home.html Alton Sterling was arrested because he was hustling, selling CDs to get by. He was unable to work in the legal economy due to his felony record. His act of survival was treated by the police as a major crime, apparently punish- able by death. How many people on Wall Street have been arrested for their crimes large and small—crimes of greed and fraud that nearly bankrupted the global econ- omy and destroyed the futures of mil- lions of families? How many politicians have been prosecuted for taking mil- lions of dollars from private prisons, prison guard unions, pharmaceutical

Vol. 16, No. 4 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT 71 S o c i a l i s t V i e w p o i n t Where to find us: www.socialistviewpoint.org [email protected] (415) 824-8730

EDITORS Carole Seligman, Bonnie Weinstein

GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGN BUSINESS MANAGER Mykael Carole Seligman

The Socialist Viewpoint Publishing Association publish- Note to Readers: es Socialist Viewpoint in the interests of the working class. Socialist Viewpoint magazine has been edited and distrib- The editors take positions consistent with revolutionary uted by a group of revolutionaries who share a common Marxism. Within this context the editors will consider for publication articles, reviews or comments. The editors may political outlook stemming from the old Socialist Workers publish comments to accompany these articles. Photographs Party of James P. Cannon, and Socialist Action from 1984 and cartoons will be appreciated. through 1999. Socialist Viewpoint reprints articles circulated on the After being expelled from Socialist Action in 1999, we Internet when we deem them of interest to our readers. Such formed Socialist Workers Organization in an attempt to articles are reprinted exactly as they appeared in the original carry on the project of building a nucleus of a revolutionary source, without any editorial or stylistic changes by us. party true to the historic teachings and program of Marx, No limitation will be placed on the author(s) use of their Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. material in their subsequent work provided acknowledg- ment is made of its publication in Socialist Viewpoint. The What we have found is that our numbers are insufficient Socialist Viewpoint Publishing Association retains for itself for this crucial project of party building. This problem is rights to reprint articles as collections, educational bulletins, not ours alone; it is a problem flowing from the division and and similar uses. With the inclusion of an acknowledgment fragmentation that has plagued the revolutionary move- and a notice of the copyright ownership, permission is ment in capitalist America and the world since the 1980s. hereby given educators to duplicate essays for distribution gratis or for use in the classroom at cost. The author(s) What we intend to do is to continue to promote the idea retain all other rights. of building a revolutionary Marxist working class political Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of party through the pages of Socialist Viewpoint magazine. We Socialist Viewpoint. These views are expressed in editorials. continue to have an optimistic outlook about the revolu- tionary potential of the world working class to rule society Socialist Viewpoint is printed by members of Local 583, Allied Printing Trades Council, San Francisco, California. in its own name—socialism. We are optimistic that the working class, united across borders, and acting in its own class interests can solve the devastating crises of war, pov- Special Introductory Subscription Offer! erty, oppression, and environmental destruction that capi- One year of Socialist Viewpoint for $20.00, talism is responsible for. Bargain rate: $35.00 for two years; We expect that revolutionaries from many different (Regular rate: $30.00/International Rate: $50.00) organizations, traditions, and backgrounds will respond to Make your check payable to: Socialist Viewpoint, & mail to: the opportunities that will arise, as workers resist the attacks S o c i a l i s t V i e w p o i n t of the capitalist system and government, to build a new 60 29th Street, #429 revolutionary political party. Just as we join with others to San Francisco, CA 94110 build every response to war and oppression, we look for- Please include your name, address, city and zip code. ward to joining with others in the most important work of To help us know who our subscribers are, please tell us your occupation, union, school, building a new mass revolutionary socialist workers’ party or organization. as it becomes possible to do so.

72 SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4 Louisiana Incarceration Louisiana’s rate of incarceration is number one in the world By Bill Quigley

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice Louisiana rose to third highest in the percent of people serving time at Angola confirmed Louisiana number one, among nation, putting 18,599 behind bars, a will die there under current laws. the 50 states, with 38,030 in prison, a rate rate of 427 per 100,000. In 2000, It costs taxpayers an average of of 816 per 100,000, over 100 points ahead Louisiana moved to second highest in $23,000 a year for each inmate at of next highest state, Oklahoma. Because the nation, imprisoning 35,047 behind Angola. Over 400 people, about nine the U.S. leads the world in incarcerating bars, a rate of 801 per 100,000. percent of those serving life in Louisiana, its people, this means Louisiana is num- The number of prisoners expanded were convicted of non-violent offenses. ber one in the world. Compare Louisiana’s nation-wide as a result of the “war on There are an additional 69,000 people rate of 816 people per 100,000 with drugs” which was conducted in a racist in Louisiana on probation and parole. Russia’s 492, China with 119, France with way to target Blacks. But in Louisiana, the 100, and Germany with 78. prisons also backed up when the practice Louisiana has a long history of run- ning abusive prisons. In 1835, Louisiana Louisiana first became number one in of releasing prisoners for good behavior was described as having “the worst the nation in 2005 when it was imprison- after ten years and six months of their life sentences was ended in the 1970s. prison in the United States.” In 1952, ing 36,083 people. Louisiana remained after dozens of Angola inmates slashed number one, in 2010 with 35,207 in Louisiana has been much more their heel tendons in protest of bar- prison, an incarceration rate of 867 per severe in sending Black people to pris- baric conditions, Colliers magazine 100,000 people, over 200 points ahead of on than whites, at least after Black called Angola “America’s worst pris- the next highest state, Mississippi. people were no longer slaves. In 1860, on.” In 1970, the American Bar It was not always so. In 1965, when the Civil War started, the popu- Association said conditions at Angola Louisiana ranked 13th nationally in put- lation of the Louisiana penitentiary were “medieval, squalid and horrify- ting its citizens in jail with a rate of 109 was two-thirds white. But by 1868, the ing.” By 1975, conditions were so ter- prisoners per 100,000 people. In 1978, population of Louisiana’s penitentiary rible, a Federal judge declared Angola a Louisiana only held 7,291 people behind was two-thirds Black. “state of emergency.” bars. By 1986, Louisiana was fifth high- Angola Penitentiary remains the larg- —Common Dreams, May 10, 2016 est in the nation in putting its own citi- est maximum-security prison in the zens in prison, with 14,580 behind bars, United States. There are over 5000 prison- http://www.commondreams.org/ a rate of 322 per 100,000, according to ers at Angola alone. The average sentence views/2016/05/10/louisiana-number- the U.S. Department of Justice. In 1990, for prisoners there is 93 years. About 95 one-incarceration

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WhenWhen JanisJanis JoplinJoplin sang,sang, “Freedom’s“Freedom’s justjust anotheranother wordword forfor nothingnothing leftleft toto lose,”lose,” sheshe spokespoke perhapsperhaps unconsciouslyunconsciously forfor millionsmillions ofof America’sAmerica’s victimsvictims inin farawayfaraway places.places. ReadRead Get Get ReadyReady forfor AnotherAnother WorldWorld WarWar onon pagepage 17.17.

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FC SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Vol. 16, No. 4